This week's reading theme seems to address power and its roots. Words are words, end of story; however, what gives words their power is based on the context in which the words are spoken/written. Connotation is what gives words their power, their meaning.
Foucault talks about subjugated knowledges and types of these knowledges: historical knowleges and social knowledges (130). From what I gather, the historical knowldeges are hidden, changed, and denied while the social knowledges are those that have mutated the historical so that common discourses can understand what is happening. We determine what is popular, right, and just based on who says it is popular, right, and just. Power itself is only a word, and as Foucault says power is "...neither given, nor exchanged, nor recovered, but rather exercised, and that it only exists in action" (133). So if we tie power to words, then when the words are exercised at the right time in the right context, the speaker has all the power in the world? Possibly...
Jameson talks about the social and historical resonance of texts; but again, words are words until they are given power in the appropriate setting by the appropriate person. One can totalize thought if the audience is captive, allowing power to be exercised.
Interpretations, illusions, criticisms can probably share similar definitions; however, each is very different when we interpret, illustrate or criticise what each means to us. If my definition is better than yours, does that mean I have the power? Can I captivate and totalize thought in the audience? Could I run the world? I think only if I decide to exercise the power of the language. I was reminded of Carlos Mencia after reading Foucault and Jameson. He believes how we interpret words ourselves is what gives the words the power. A word is just a bunch of letters put together to make a sound - the meaning is given when we decide to interpret the sound. Mencia is right on; we become offended by language and words because we empower the speaker to offend us. Words are only words.
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But what of the history of a word? That's the "subtext" Jameson was talking about in "On Interpretation...." On 185, he's essentially saying that reality is a subtext to reality as reality must be interpreted through language. If words can be defined as meaningless, then the reality implied by that word is meaningless as well. Jameson concedes to that truth on the same page, pointing out that there is always the "ultimate paradoxes and false problems of linguistics, and most notably of semantics."
ReplyDeleteI just recognized Foucault's analysis of power is extremely similar to that of the first law of thermodynamics: It cannot be created or destroyed -- "...only exercised in action" or transfered from one source to another. Interesting...
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