Private and Public in a Capitalist Society

My first thought was to write an entry about fashion. However, thoughts seem to be in a continuous flow, and I somehow ended up pondering over toilets as the "backstage" of the social world, the place that is governed by informal behavior and a space where the private body is released from all the pressure of performing for an audience. So I'll start from here and see if maybe I can shift the whole thing to fashion, capitalism, and my favorite - the social structure that infuses everyday life.

Bathrooms I believe are coded spaces and through interpretation we can see them as reflecting ways of life and different cultural patterns (Slavoj Zizek is quite good at explaining the differences between the french toilet and the german one). The bathroom may as well be the best place for studying the everyday life and fathoming its inner meanings. Here is where our private body is separated by the public one and there is no way the two can interact. We even have the whole hand washing ritual so that we make sure the moment of transition from private to public is made clear. Also, we must flush after using the toilet thus eliminating any possibility of our private body being betrayed by the public one. I know I'm in the realm of symbolic interactionism here but I'll definitely get to structuralism soon.

The interesting thing about toilets is that their design and even size is closely related to the image the female body has in different societies. For example, the Talmud writings mention that the bathroom is a place that should be hidden, a dark and mysterious spot in the household. In the same Talmud we find that a "woman's glory is on the inside". Let's take a look at our capitalist society: the female body is most certainly not hidden, it actually plays an important part in marketing campaigns, it is a symbol of consumption. The bathroom, as a backstage of the social world, is the place where women construct their bodies and their image. The way women build self-perception is through images promoted by marketers. The bathroom has become bigger, full of light, maybe a few plants were added, candles, big mirrors, it now has all the elements to assure women can adjust their bodies to images our society promotes.

The argument I'm trying to make here is that discipline is no longer something attached to the public sphere, but rather something internalized, since society has come to control even the way we build self-perception.

We think of women from Islamic societies as having a cruel faith. Well that may be true, but to them, public and private are something completely different, and while the public sphere is a place dominated by rules of conduct, strict morals, and a seemingly absurd dress-code, the private sphere is by contrast a place where they let their imagination run loose by wearing colorful dresses and beautiful jewelry. It is said that ladies here never wear the same dress twice. In a capitalist society, are we ever truly alone? Our perception of what's right and wrong has been altered in such matter, that wearing eccentric outfits seems an outrage, even if such behavior is limited to the private sphere.

The administration of the city I live in right now, seems to be obsessed with open spaces. Architects plan to open up all interior gardens (and there's hundreds of them), claiming it would make getting from one place to another much easier. The first thing that came to my mind when I heard this, was the name Le Corbusier. Large boulevards, open spaces, and streets that intersect in right angles, all these were not designed by Le Corbusier to make Paris prettier, the idea was to make its population easier to control. I participated in a debate with some architects and few representatives of the city council, and when I brought up this problem, their answer was: "Miss, this is not a communist country, we don't fear public places here". Let's be serious, large boulevards, opening up all closed yards, straightening curved streets, it's all about marketing, making stores more visible and making profit, so it's in the end another form of control. Eventually, some city council representatives admitted that few of the gardens that will be opened to the public, will host coffee shops and small stores.

I'm not trying to say that capitalism is wrong, or that making profit is in essence a bad thing, because I really don't believe that. What I'm trying to do is question the world I live in, and not simply assume everything is right just because somebody tells me so. I believe that if we all start asking ourselves questions and stop doing things because of pressure or perceived demands from others, we could make this world a better one.

Wed, Dec 2, 2009  Permanent link

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Something about structure

There's a lot going on lately, and I've been meaning to write something about the structural direction in anthropology, but I couldn't find the time.

Also, I'm working with some architects on a project, it's called "experimental pavilion". We're trying to build some sort of housing, for a summer school, and since it's suppose to accommodate people of both genders (I know they're more than 2, but I don't want to get into that right now), they need the sociological perspective. I'm not sure how this will turn out, as I think I am biased towards the marxist paradigm. This means that to me, the social world is characterized by conflicts. This conflict may not be explicit (although in this case, the gender conflict is often explicit), but it is however present, and sometimes the ones holding the power use symbols to subdue the others, making them submissive without actually realizing that they're being controlled. I am right now writing a paper on women underwear, and what sort of meaning do we attach to this symbol, because we all agree that it is a symbol, and a very powerful one. In my theory, it's making women submissive.

The idea of structure in social sciences began I believe in the study of language. Can you feel something that you can't express in words? Can you think something that you can't find words for? How limited are we? Foucault pushed this forward, and he wrote what is in my opinion, one of the greatest books in history, "Surveiller et Punir". He showed how the increasing need for discipline and order, led to a certain type of urban architecture, one resembling a lot the panopticon. The panopticon is a circular building, holding an observation tower in the middle and Jeremy Bentham suggested this would make the perfect prison. The idea that you're being watched at every moment, but without being able to see the person watching you, was meant to discipline prisoners, and develop self-control. By the end of the book, Foucault shows how the same principle was used in urban landscaping, and how power has penetrated every aspect of our existence, inducing order, discipline, self-control and most of all, creating an invisible prison holding us all under its watchful eye.

Thu, Oct 15, 2009  Permanent link

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Freedom to Perform

Although it focuses on individual action (so it kinda opposes to my structuralist views of the social world), I find Goffman's interpretation of the human action quite interesting. Those of you who have read Erving Goffman know exactly how "catchy" his sociology is, and those of you who haven't...well I can tell you this: you don't have to be passionate about sociology to enjoy reading his books. Basically what he says is this: the social world is one big stage and we're all actors, we play a role, we fake it. Yes...we fake it, I know those are not his exact words but that's what he is trying to say. He makes a very clear separation between the person we truly are inside, the intimate self, and the person who puts on a show once entering the social "stage".

So, life is nothing but one big show, and we perform a double role: we're actors but at the same time we are other actors' audience and we choose (see...here comes the freedom part I don't agree with) which character we want to play. When we're surrounded by people, we start to perform, we either play the role of a student, or a lover, a friend, a daughter...we are always concerned about what others see, and in the role we play we try to manipulate their perception of what's really going on (mostly through language) as we anticipate their actions - symbolic interactionism. I think what he is trying to say is that by playing a certain role, we try to impose to other actors our own definition of how the social interaction should take place, that is why we "invent" our roles as we move along in the play.

Well...what can I say, it's certainly an interesting way of looking at the world around you and I partly agree with him, even if the metaphor is not new (Shakespeare said that life is a stage or something like that). I do agree that we indeed play roles, and some of them are really predictable, but I don't think we choose what role to play, rather the role chooses us. Anyway, one thing I really like in " The presentation of self in everyday life" is when Goffman is trying to identify a few techniques actors use to make their role seem more authentic. One of those techniques is mystification, that is when an actor keeps the distance from his audience, and avoids social contacts on purpose. This way, the audience (that's to say, other actors) see him as unreachable and surround him in a certain aura of mystery...and sometimes the one secret behind all the mystery is that there is no secret.

Sat, May 30, 2009  Permanent link

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Structure/Rational Choice

What does the Rational Choice Theory tell us? Well, basically its assumptions are that human action lies at the heart of society, and that individuals, as social actors, are the ones who can choose to act. This immediately raises the question of social level outcomes, one that could only be explained by a theory on how human actions interact in such manner that they produce consequences at a higher scale - such theory does not yet exist.

Structuralists see individuals as being shaped by the collectivity they live in, they internalize norms (standards and rules that are exterior, they exist prior to a person's birth) in such a way that they turn into values which then constitute motivation for a certain behavior.

So far the two are not incompatible, individuals as "programmed ones" are still the ones capable of human action which "drives things along". However another one of rational choice theorists' assumptions is that of optimality, which says that choices are made aiming to reach the highest amount of benefits while lowering the costs (basic economy concept). What does that imply? Obviously it implies that humans are able to take into consideration all possible actions given a certain situation, they can predict the outcomes of those actions and then choose the action with the most suitable outcome according to their interests. Well for start, humans do not posses enough information for them to imagine all options in a given context, nor they can predict the consequences of their own actions (yes, I do think that is possible but only in theory). The argument that we are free to choose in the limits of the information we have access to does not stand from my point of view, because it so happens that the information that is accessible to us implies one outcome, and one only, it is structured in such a way that we cannot go beyond the limits of that one single possible choice. As one of my friends told me a few years ago, can you imagine a person who would have indeed access to all information about the past, which would then make that person able to predict the future, for such a person time would have no relevance, future past and present would collide and that person would be truly free.

On a more general level of analysis, I am quite fond of Marx's way of seeing things. He believes there is possible to discover a law of human evolution by just looking at our history. Although I don't necessarily agree with his predictions, I do believe such law exists and I base my belief on simplicity: the simple fact that one thing leads to another.

Wed, May 20, 2009  Permanent link

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My first post

So I guess this would be it. I've had this account for over 3 months now, but I just haven't posted anything so far. I did however enjoy browsing other people's entries, like the Michel Foucault/Noam Chomsky debate, reading comments, and somehow they made me feel like everything interesting has already been said. Anyway, since today I have to finish a huge project for school, I've decided it would be the perfect time to start creating some legacy here.
I would just like to start by saying a few words about myself, although I realize I can't give you full access to my cultural background just in several lines I'm writing now. I can however try. I study Sociology (actually I'm majoring in Human Resources Management but that was another one of the choices I later came to regret). I'm currently fascinated by Karl Marx, well not necessarily what he writes, but how he writes, his research method, and his opinion on how scientific truth can be reached. I am extremely deterministic, I entirely support using statistics in social sciences as I'm convinced that in theory we could be able to determine someone's behavior if only we had access to information regarding his previous actions, and to past events in his life which I think entirely shape who he is right now. I've often been criticized for my beliefs, but to me free will is just something invented, a concept that does not have any correspondent in reality (at least in the manner it has been defined by philosophers), and it was created simply because society needed it. How else would we be able to punish certain actions or take credit for any accomplishments, if there would be no responsibility? Marx says that material conditions are the ones shaping one's beliefs and I tend to agree. I believe in freedom, but not as something idealistic, I believe we have to be free to let the world create us and that means act accordingly to what we believe in, because those beliefs are a reflection of our past and of the social context we live in. I've discovered the same holistic perception of the world in Emile Durkheim, and to me that was great, I suddenly felt less alone.
I think I'll end my brief introduction here, I just needed to make a few things clear and let you know ( well, if anyone's reading ) where I stand, as I think probably all my posts will evolve around the idea of free will, and explaining human behavior in a certain way that's compatible with determinism, but also I'll be trying to argument that we need "free will" and "freedom" but maybe work a little bit on what exactly those concepts stand for. Also, my English is not so bright, I think I'm better at French but c'est la vie.
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Tue, May 19, 2009  Permanent link

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