When I was younger, I went to a Catholic
High School, and one of the big things of
this Catholic High School was that
everyone had to wear a uniform. Uniforms were
how we basically fit into the culture of
that particular school. What was fascinating
about the uniforms at the school was
that these were imposed by the school
itself. It was a form of sovereign power
imposed by the institution on all the
students going there, and as you can
imagine the students weren't particularly
happy about this. So we would stretch the
rules as far as was humanly possible on
anything that the school told us we had
to wear. if the uniform was
required to be a certain number of
inches long, we went exactly to that limit
and then just a little bit past it just to
see how far we could push it, and of
course if the school did not come down
and squash any expression of
individuality, then students would push
further and further further. This is an
example of sovereign power. Some outside
entity is telling you what you must do
and is enforcing that behavior. There are a
lot of problems with this according to
Michel Foucault. One of the major
problems is the fact that it's
essentially a bluff on the part of the
person who's imposing it because if they
don't keep an eye on you at all times,
then the weakness of this
power is immediately demonstrated, so
it's incredibly important that any kind
of dissent is immediately squashed by
those who have this kind of power.
Foucault said something rather amazing
happened in the 19th century, and it's
indicated by what you're basically doing when you go to
school and you wear the clothes you want
to wear. As I've pointed out numerous
times in class, we're all dressed
differently but we're all following the
same basic rule, and we have to ask
ourselves why is it that we're following
that basic rule and Foucault's observation
of this was that this was an expression
of what he called normalized power. What
essentially happened was instead of
having a central authority telling you
what you had to do,
all the people individually enforce the
rules against each other, and we've
discussed this process in class, the idea
of discourse, the gaze of the individuals
within the group, to make sure that
everyone else follows the rules of the
group. Again these are rules that we
impose on ourselves and then we're not
necessarily even conscious of when you
dress for school you don't sit there and
actively think what rules am i following
what rules are my breaking you just do
what will get you the least amount of
attention or just enough of the right
attention okay so this is normalized
power this is an absolutely crucial
point to understand because if you think
about what the ramifications of this are
it means that we are imposing order upon
ourselves there's no outside force
telling you what to do you do it
yourself and the process of doing this
to yourself how can you control that how
can you be aware of what is the power
that's affecting you and the answer is
you can't really be aware of it so for
example you may be driving on the
freeway and of course the posted speed
limit is 65 miles an hour or 55 miles an
hour
maybe even 70 miles an hour but you
rarely if ever pay attention to it
because although there is a form of
sovereign power Highway Patrol that will
enforce the rules the real forces
imposing the rules here are the P havior
of all the people around you if you're
driving wildly out of sync with the
other people they're driving 45 in the
fast lane
you're going to get a social
repercussion by the same token if you're
driving it very very quickly through a
school zone you're going to get a social
repercussion but the fun part about this
is you don't have to actually know the
rules protects you you know miles an
hour on the in the fascinator of the
freeway you also know that you don't
drive like a madman or a mad person
through the school zone how do you know
this why do you follow this rule and
that's when you start to realize that in
fact this is a built-in rule
no one's imposed it on you no one's told
you what to do you're following the rule
because you yourself have created this
rule
and that is a very crucial point to
understand we spent last week's class
looking at the role of mythology in our
culture these mythologies shape how we
view things and there are many many of
them so they kind of overlap and we have
to negotiate their process between them
this causes tremendous contradictions in
our society and we spent quite a bit of
time discussing those let's take that a
step further now and Michelle fucose
conception of it he doesn't call them
mythology she calls them his themes some
other people call them paradigms and
these things are much much more involved
and not only are they much more involved
but they control much more of what we
think of as basic behavior look the way
we dress we can see that as being part
of a style and we can see the social
groups that we belong to but what about
things like math basic science biology
mental health for example prisons we
don't think of those as cliques or clubs
or organizations we think of those as
basic science and we don't understand
that they are in fact somewhat
controlled by the same kind of rules
that apply to almost every other
behavior that we have that's where
Foucault takes it a step further and he
comes up with this idea of mythology
mythology is again he calls it something
else but we're gonna call it mythology
and this is a huge huge change for us
because again we don't understand that
in fact it is it is a system and that
these are not sort of natural rules I'll
give you a perfect illustration of this
okay you want to have a traditional
marriage for example okay and the rules
for traditional marriage tell you things
like the bride is going to wear white
and you know what that white is supposed
to signify right there's all kinds of
rules about how the wedding will take
place and most people tend to stick to
the traditions even if they change them
a little bit but they're still reacting
to the underlying traditions what most
people don't realize is that the rules
they're following have nothing to do
with reality and have nothing to do with
the institution of marriage as was
practiced in the past the idea of
marriage for most people in the modern
world is something that they copied from
generations back from the observation of
people who were of a higher social rank
and because they didn't understand why
these people did it they started to
assign meanings to things that really
had nothing to do with any kind of
underlying import so for example the
bride wears white well why does she wear
white I'm guessing the answer you're
gonna come up with is to represent her
purity of virginity correct that's not
what it actually represented in the
original wedding ceremony weddings were
a contract agreement arrangement between
two couples or between two people from
two families and it was about property
transfer it was in the days before we
had DNA testing blood tests and all
these other ways of explaining or
understanding parentage and so we used
essentially the only method we had for
guaranteeing that the property was
transferred to the rightful heir and
that was to ensure that the person who
was getting married was handed off from
one family to the other in an intact
stake and I know that doesn't sound very
romantic or anything like that it wasn't
meant to be the entire institution was
designed so that money could transfer
from one group of people to their heirs
and you didn't want to transfer that
property to the unrightfully r--'s
so it was a straightforward system now
why did the wetware bride wear white
well again think about those days
you're talking about a muddy dirty
civilization there are no modern rows
there's no modern sidewalks there's none
of this stuff and a white dress did
something very specific it signified
what yeah purity is what we think it
signified no what it really signified
was that the person who owned it was
rich enough to wear a dress a single
time because after that single wearing
of it it could never be exactly white
again something would get spilled dirt
would get on it and again this is prior
to the age of modern washing machines so
it wasn't that easy to keep clean so
this was not about money I'm sorry it
wasn't about virginity or purity it was
about property rights and money okay
when poor people saw this they assumed
that there was some significance to this
and he started to form their own ideas
about what this all meant what's funny
is that the marriage ceremony itself
still has holdovers from those days that
seemed very strange again on real
reflection so for example halfway
through a wedding ceremony the efficient
turns to the audience and says hey does
anybody here have an objection that's a
horrible question to ask in the middle
of someone's life altering moment really
are you going to point out hey by the
way no I I objected its wedding of
course not
so why is that silly question in the
middle of the ceremony simple because
you're taking two traditions and
combining them into one poor people
didn't bother getting married by walking
down the aisle
hey they couldn't afford it the church
wasn't going to offer them that
opportunity anyway so what happened was
at the end of the church service the
efficient of the priest basically would
turn to you to the congregation and say
hey is anybody here getting married
couples would raise their hands and the
priest would ask does anyone object the
simple reason for asking if anyone
objected was if the person was already
married okay you did it on four
consecutive weekends and that was the
official marriage all right so it had
nothing it was essentially the poor
person's version of a ceremony since the
people knew this when they got married
later on and they had some money and
they could afford the whole
ceremony part of it they included this
portion of it in there okay
just been imagining though in the middle
of the king marrying you know some
foreign princess
that's some commoner in the audience if
he was even allowed in there raised his
hand and said yeah I object it would be
death on the spot so obviously that had
nothing to do with the rich and what I
will to do with their weddings okay so
we had this entire ceremony that's
essentially built around property rights
the wedding in fact is a complete
contractual process the father presents
his daughter to the groom as a complete
whole product he accepts this product
and proceeds to marry her the wedding
ceremony itself is officially over at
the moment of combination for the couple
that is when they first had sex in the
old days it wasn't actually uncommon for
the parents to be present for the act
you can imagine that what pressure that
put on people okay
so again these this is what this
ceremony was designed to do it was
designed to make sure that property
rights were officially properly
transferred from one generation to the
next
and it was a very practical reason for
this if the population honestly started
to question the parentage of those who
were in charge then guess what the
entire political system would come
collapsing in if I don't think this is
the official rightful heir of the
government then I don't have to obey him
or her and so this was a crucial
political distinction this political
distinction disappears for those who are
poor and it becomes irrelevant by the
way when did poor people get married
again we have this idea that you have to
say pure until marriage but in the old
days marriage was a way of creating
creating a family to put together
resources to raise children so what's
the point of getting married if you're
not going to have children do you only
guaranteed that both people in the
marriage were fertile was to be pregnant
so most people got married once they had
gotten pregnant and that was
entire process again go back to this
mixing of two mixing of two elements the
formal wedding ceremony of those who are
well-to-do the informal wedding ceremony
of those who weren't well-to-do and then
the modern mishmash of these two but
that has all of this cultural baggage
associated with it
every element of it now has this
backstory that tells you why you're
doing it and people believe in this
backstory so the act as if this is part
of it they don't see the structure they
only see tradition and this is an
example of a paradigm in episteme or a
myth the myth of the traditional
marriage okay and all that that implied
hopefully that explains that idea of
Mythology a little bit in the next video
we're going to go into much more detail
about what all of this means when it's
all put together enjoy
okay now we get to the real heart of
matter you're taking something that is
essentially a tool to control people
again the idea of discourse the idea of
disciplining people and of normalizing
their behavior and then you're adding
this other element of mythology the
story the background that people used to
again justify their behavior and you
combine them and you get a sense of what
we're talking about when you go back to
the wedding ceremony that we just
discussed okay take that wedding
ceremony now make it as part of a much
much broader social movement our entire
society for the last hundred and some
years has been based on this foundation
of what marriage and family look like
right there's an entire political
discourse that goes with the Republican
idea family the Democratic idea family
the nuclear family the extended family
all of these concepts have flowed around
each other to form this idea of family
it's fundamentally based on that idea of
marriage that we just talked about one
tiny little piece becomes the basis for
a very large piece an entire cultural
mythology and the funny part about it is
that those people who are part of that
cultural mythology don't even understand
that they're reacting to those rules
everyone assumes that they're reacting
to something that's been set in stone
for thousands of years when in fact it's
a cultural artifact from less than 200
years ago and that's a crucial crucial
point to understand because now all
these other things happen so for example
you're a rule breaker you're not
following social tradition you are in
fact reacting against the idea of the
traditional family you're not gonna have
kids you're gonna marry someone of your
own gender you're going to do all kinds
of things that again break with the
tradition but are you really breaking
with the tradition after all you are
having to be aware of the tradition in
order to break with it
you have to bring in the same rules in
order to break those rules there has to
be perfect awareness of the system in
order to make this happen I realize that
sounds a bit controversial at first but
again if you start to think about it
what do people who want to have
alternative lifestyles for example do
well guess what they follow essentially
the same model I am going to have
multiple partners I'm going to be
polyamorous well guess what that's just
a variation of the traditional structure
and with it come all of the elements of
the traditional structure you're going
to have multiple relationships but
you're going to structure them along the
same lines of what you grew up with what
the tradition follows you're not really
breaking the rules because you're not
even aware of the rules that you're
following again you're looking looking
at this as if you're part of a structure
that dates back thousands of years and
it's not quite that way this is one of
the reasons why Foucault specifically
stays away from the term history history
assumes that there is this unbroken
tradition that goes back and that
there's been progress from that
tradition you invent the wheel next
thing you've got a Tesla and it's not
that way at all
what we have instead is episodes
throughout history and Foucault actually
refers to these as genealogies he
essentially says look you have to look
at the life of every individual along
the way as opposed to looking at it as a
line there's no direct line from your
great-great-great great-great
great-great-great-great
great-great-great grandparents that led
directly to you okay there's a bunch of
individuals in between who had no idea
that you were going to be the end result
just as you have no idea of what the end
result of your life will be you lead
your life in this isolated little bubble
maybe you pay attention to the family's
traditions but again you're interpreting
those traditions and you will continue
to do so for the rest of your life and
pass something along those lines
to others as they go on when you look at
your own parents for example you
with them on everything no because they
reacted to a different set of cultural
assumptions than you did they're not
part of a historic line they're part of
a historic occasion an accident the
events of their lives okay I mentioned
in class that September 11th 2001 for
example was a life altering event for
people of my generation it was a
fundamental break we hadn't planned for
it we had no way of predicting that it
was going to happen again we're not
talking at the politics of this we're
talking about individual lives and we
had no way of understanding what those
impact would be on our lives but yet our
lives have been inexorable inextricably
altered by that event but that's not
just the only event is it there's much
much more mundane things that to
something similar the music we listen to
the culture we grew up in at this exact
moment for example there is kind of an
interesting debate going on with the
Cavanaugh confirmation I don't want to
get into the politics here but what's
fascinating is to see what the cultural
assumptions were in 1982 versus what
they are today in 1982 74% of high
school seniors had had alcohol today
that number is around 35% it's a huge
difference the attitudes towards alcohol
and towards sex and towards gender were
different back then the idea of consent
was very different back then so can you
really say hey there's just a line that
goes from that era to this era and that
all of these things are tied together
not really what we have instead is a
cultural change that has massive
ramifications that has massive import
and again we don't know because we are
part of it it's like asking a lab rat to
study itself how can it and that's
exactly what we've done okay so imagine
that this cultural mythology exists that
you are a participant in this cultural
mythology and that you are on one level
of where are the rules that govern that
mythology but you're not conscious of
those rules you think you're exercising
your free will you
decided to wear whatever you chose to
wear to school on that particular day
but you were actually reacting to the
rules of the culture and of what was
expected of it go back to my driving
example most of you will not violate the
laws that the society has imposed not
because you are great law-abiding
citizens but because you've internalized
those rules they've become normal to you
you don't have to debate them inside
yourself anymore they're just part of
who you are so if you're following this
normalized set of rules but you are
thinking are in fact reflections of your
own will how can you be aware that
they're in fact
cultural creations and that they control
our behavior this is and this is why
Foucault studied the outliers in our
system he has studied the ways we did
things that again stood outside of the
realm of the daily lives he looked at
things like how mental institutions work
he looked at things like how prisons
worked the mental institution example is
an interesting one we assume that
there's been something called psychiatry
for the entire history of humanity that
there were always quote/unquote crazy
people and that society had to take care
of those crazy crazy people but we have
whole belief system based on the idea
that someone heard a voice from above
talking to them well that sounds very
close to the modern description of
schizophrenia doesn't it and no I'm not
trying to say that religious leaders
were schizophrenic what I'm saying is
the culture understood it in a
completely different way than we do
today
four or five hundred years ago if
someone heard voices
they could be possessed by a demon in
which case an exorcism would be
conducted and you know what it worked
surprisingly large number of people
recovered from it maybe maybe they were
talking to God and so they would
actually be put into a position of
veneration in a society who's crazy if
they're being held as an example for
everyone else in the community other
people would be killed you know if their
behavior didn't fit in
but there wasn't sort of this rule of oh
this behavior is the result of something
happening to the human brain no it was
just a fundamental idea that hey people
are different they sometimes have tuning
into a part of society that we don't in
fact you will see for example in Greek
mythology or in Greek literature you'll
actually see a lot of cases where
someone who is mad is actually the only
one who's telling the truth that's
completely outside of the modern
interpretation of it so again our
natural inclination is system that there
has always been this field that checks
up on whether we are quote unquote
normal or not well who determines what
is normal and guess what that normal is
defined by the culture by the society as
we discussed in class because according
to earlier editions of the Diagnostic
and statistics manual people who are gay
were considered insane so did they
suddenly become sane no the rules of the
society changed they were altered this
is true of so much of what we do and
again we are not necessarily aware of it
so as you start to think about this as
you start to apply it especially as
you're starting to do your discussion
boards tonight and yes they are due
tonight but as we're doing this
discussion for tonight think about this
part which is I am going to a club why
am I going there what are their rules
what are the expectations how did I know
this was the case I'm going I'm a male
and I'm going to the men's room which
journal do I use why do I use it who
told me the rules I'm going out for
dinner I go to eat sushi why do I use
chopsticks why don't I just pick it up
with my hands what are the rules where
do they come from how am I supposed to
raise my children how am I supposed to
treat my elders how is school supposed
to work how is voting supposed to work
all of these are governed by very
similar sets of rules and they are
essentially mythology's why do we say
there's paradoxes in them because
eventually there's always some someplace
where it rubs against itself or against
another reality and it runs into
problems we talked about this example in
class the idea that hey I mean this
capitalist society that is founded on
materialism so obviously if I have money
and I had success I should demonstrate
it but we also have a religious edict
that comes from way way in the past that
says it's easier for a camel to go
through the eye of the needle then it is
easier for a camel to go through the eye
of a needle than it is for a rich man to
go to heaven how do I make those two
systems work together and the answer is
that we negotiate that difference we do
this all of the time every day in our
society and we're not even aware of how
much of this we're doing fun thing about
this is to think about how much of our
energy is used to keep up with social
norms social rules again this idea of
normalized behavior is only about 150
years old and yet it takes up almost all
of our time every single day think about
that as you continue this process and
think about that as you start doing your
discussion course tonight have a great
evening
