Posts by Brian:
Jan
18
What is the People?
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The two articles assigned for this week were intended to answer the somewhat vague question of “what is the people?” After reading both articles, I have some ideas about what “the people” can be described as and how they find their legitimacy in society.
In Eva Peron’s My Message, she continually refers to “the people”, “her people” and “Peron’s people”. I believe she meant to distinguish between them, seeing them in her mind as different types of people, who may have come from various backgrounds, but all believe in a similar future for Argentina. I think she saw “the people” as those people in society oppressed by the powers of imperialism: workers, women, children, the poor, and the sick. However, I believe that the people is more than just those who are suffering due to their place in society and as a result of the powers of imperialism. When I think of the people of a nation, I think of not only those who are marginalized from society, but also those who are included.
While I loved Eva Peron’s ideals, views and the strength of her beliefs in an “ideal Argentine nation”, I found them to be slightly over-optimistic. To bring justice, equality and liberty to all people would be a great accomplishment for the world. However, at times I felt that Evita was overly optimistic in the power of her people, that is, those of the working class. Not that I am undermining the power of the people. However, I find it hard to ignore the power that those in higher positions of government and society in general hold, and can exercise over the rest of society. We have seen it happen in many countries, all over the world.
Eva Peron gave power to the people, by uniting them and igniting them with her passion in the fight for freedom, justice and equality. Her people, united, became a force to be wreckoned with, for the military and those opposed to “Peronism”. However, I believe the second article, A Celebration of the Monster, to be a depiction of how the union and empowerment of people for a cause can quickly take a wrong turn. Peronism became a so-called Monster as those people for whom Peronism resonated with so strongly exercised their own methods of bringing about social change.
I found it difficult to distinguish who the narrator of the story was, and who he was fighting for. At first, I believed he was part of the military. However, I found many clues that caused me to think he was part of the working class, and therefore a follower of Peronism. For example, the man describes himself putting on his “trusty overalls”, a uniform normally associated with the working class. He also mentions that the man who owned the bus “wasn’t no oligarch you had to worry about no more”, and oligarchy was something Eva Peron was strongly opposed to. In any case, the men described in the story show a great display of pride, togetherness and brotherhood, characteristics that Eva Peron and Peronism wanted to spread to the people. However, the men’s feeling of togetherness with one another was taken out on one young man who was not a part of their group, and was not seen as part of “the people”. The men, in beating up the Jewish man, aimed to solidify and claim legitimacy to their “rightful” place in society. They took from him what they did not have, and probably would never have access to: his jeweled Bulova, Fabricant watch and Plumex fountain pen. While these men were fighting for equality and justice, they applied the platforms of Peronism in a way that Eva Peron surely had not intended.
Jan
18
The People, what is?
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Who are the people? What do they represent? How are they incorporated into the creation of the Nation?
In Eva Peron’s “My Message”, the People, above anything else, is the focus. The ultimate epicenter of her piece. Eva, taking on a somewhat mother-like persona, repeats that she holds a strong love for People of the Nation. Eva reaches out to the “descamisados, the women, the workers… the world’s exploited people”, all of whom represent the People, and at the same time she condemns the “imperialists”, “clergy” and “ambitious men”. As a result Eva Peron creates a People versus “them” divide which on one side allows her to side with the People, yet goes against “togetherness” and “solidarity” that she talks about.
The People to whom she refers to are juxtaposed to and often paralleled to Peron, the former President of Argentina. Over and over again Eva Peron describes how Peron, her husband, understood the People, drawing the connection between the two so that they became a single body. Eva furthers her argument that they both not only share her love, “love for the People”, “love for Peron”, but also the love for freedom and justice.
Placed at the opposing front is the military, the clergy, and oligarchy, to which Eva denounced as misunderstanding, steeling and exploiting the People and thus Peron. One a literary level I felt it was particularly fascinating to read “My message” and truly feel the energy and the adrenaline that Eva brought about through her description and persuasion of “fanaticism”. It played so beautifully well to the emotions, that indifference, an effortless manifestation of empathy, created a stark and unacceptable contrast in the mind and body.
It was believable that Eva Peron and the Peronist movement was the ultimate People’s rights and freedom movement (through Eva’s words in “My message” and Jimenez’s description of Eva, as having been “ a blessing for Argentina,”) until reading the “A celebration of the Monster” by Luis Borges. In a uniquely intimate way of writing, Borges was able to shed light on another perception, one that is unexpected, if only having read “My message” to the brutal side of Peronist movement. In this short story, the young man in the military (the narrator) who seems to be proud of the beating and killing of the “read Jew”, unravels the brutal truth of the military and Peronist relationship. How the military acts as a perpetuator for the Peronist doctrine through their spread of propaganda on walls in support of Peron while masking themselves as the People, is shocking if one has only read the “My message” side of the story.
Now to come back to the question what is the People, the People in Eva’s story seem to represent whatever she wants them to represent, so long as it promotes her ideals and values. The People, in the case of Borges short story, present a truer depiction of people. Through Borges style of narration, the voice of the young military man reveals a realistic side of Argentina. A realistic side of Argentina that encompasses the brutal murder, the random and unexplainable anger that drew the men to their first killing on the way to the march, the constant bullying of the young man by other members of the military and all the barbarous, corrupt and pitiless side of humankind.
Jan
18
The People and Power
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The concept of ‘the people’ is complex and may have very different meanings to different people. Like the concept of ‘culture’ it is something that may seem straightforward at first, but is multi layered and loaded with many different interpretations. In Eva Peron’s ‘My Message,’ she speaks to the people in a reflective manner looking back on her high profile time in the political world. She also looks to the future and explains her hopes and aspirations for her beloved people of Argentina. Peron paints a portrait of collective identity that is often defined by suffering, struggle, and the corruption of power. In this sense of collevtive identity, she aims to identify herself as one of ‘the people’ who understands their struggles, as opposed to an elite merely looking down upon them from a high position in society. She seems to be speaking most strongly to the people who are disenfranchised and pushed to the margins of society; a group that may be powerless individually but incredibly strong in numbers. Much of what Peron speaks about is a sort of power struggle, between the elite who have concentrated power and use it for furthering personal self interest, and the rest of society which falls victim to this power when it is flexed self serving ways. Her ideal of ‘the people’ is a mass of people who work collectively to further the good of society and together, and can become stronger than the individualistic and oppurtunist elite in control. She speaks idealistically about how power corrupts and how this power often comes at the expense of the better good of the collective ‘we’. Peron’s message is positive as it aims to empower the masses in a society that has been marked by extreme concentration and exploitation of power, however it is interesting that she is in fact writing this from the perspective of a person in a high-class position of great prestige. I do not know much about her, but from I what I do understand is that ironically, she was labelled by many as an oppurtunist or social climber, though this may also have to do with the fact that people were uncomfortable with a woman in a position of social power. It is also interesting, that as a women, she aims to empower other women and advocates for them, however constantly referes to herlsef in a subserviant role to her husband. Peron’s style of writing was very extreme, but I think that despire the controversy around her, her message was overall, very empowering. It is rare to find a politician or person in a position of social power who legitimatley advocates for ‘the people’ over serving themselves first. It is also rare that a person in this position would be so willing to discuss the dimensions and inequality of power and oppression that exist within society.
The second article was also interesting and offered a differing view of the people. I feel that I would take more away from this article if I had more knowledge about the political situation in Argentina during this time. I know that the Peron’s were populice leaders who were controversial and both loved and hated by the country, but without knowing much more beyond this, it was a little difficult for me to understand exactly the perspective of the person writing. I am also interesting in discussing further the symbolism of the Monster.
Jan
18
Two different descriptions of the people
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The “exploited people”:
As we saw with Williams, culture is ordinary which it means that culture is made by people, but which kind of people? A nation is an heterogeneous group of people, a nation is made of different social classes. In My Message, Eva Peron keeps speaking about “her” people which means the Argentineans but especially her sustainers, the Peronist ones. She keeps claiming universal messages such as solidarity, togetherness or social cohesion but we do not really know to who she is speaking to: which people does she describe? “Her” vision of the people is a very including one but by reading her message, she creates divisions and categories: the workers, the women but also the people’s enemies like the oligarchies, the clergy and the ambitious. Her discourse is not balanced: there are the people’s enemies and the people’s defenders but her conception of the people’s defenders is very restricted to the Peronist. She seems very close to the people: she speaks about sleeping, living with the people. On the one hand, she’s totally devoted to the people but on the other hand she seems also very populist. Obviously she does not have the same living conditions that the majority of the Argentineans and she wants to describe herself as non ambitious but she has been animated by a certain ambition before reaching the power even. To be ambitious could be a very good quality and does not mean necessarily to think only about its own interests. I do not really like her way to create special categories and to extract herself from others. She seems wanting to be so close to the people that her discourse becomes not credible so that we could wander which people does she target?
The ”people-target”:
The people could also be a target. She wants to win over the people by erasing the frontier between the people and the politicians but this frontier is normal. The politicians are the representatives of the people but they are not the people. It is not a mirror representation but a representation by delegation of power.
An imperfect people:
The text written by Borges is the opposite. He describes some people who do not like Peron and its regime. They do not manage to identity, recognize themselves in Peron’s speech. They are very skeptical and ironical with the notion of “togetherness”. At the end of the text, they kill a Jew, this murder is the symbol of the total disunity of the people which is totally opposed to Eva Peron’s speech about unity and solidarity. Borges’s text describes an Argentinean people which seems more real. Contrary to Eva Peron’s speech he emphasizes the people’s flaws that’s why for me his description of the people seems more realistic and convincing.
Jan
18
People
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What is the people?
After Reading the two articles for this week I started thinking how difficult is to define the meaning of “people” that formed a society, in this case the people of the Argentinean Nation. I do not think that is fair to attribute ideas and actions of the people of this society just to one factor. I believe that the combination of external and internal factors is what shapes the behaviour and actions of the people. In “My message” of Eva Peron one could see that even though she had experiences with the upper classes and we could say that she benefited for being part of that elite she went against the flow of the river and she fought for the working people and women. On page 50 Eva writes that “Because no one who left the people take my path ever went back, They were dazzled by the marvellous fantasy of power, and they remained there to enjoy the lie” and I agree with this thought because most of the people once they have power they do not anything to change things to benefit others. I think that Eva´s passion made her strong and that is why she was able to speak out.
In the second reading there is the testimony of the guy that is part of the Argentinean army. This article made me think of the people that also joined Hitler’s army. I am not saying is right but I think that under certain pressure at that time and nowadays people have two options to be part of the governments “movement” or to be against it, and in order to be against it people needed to be very courageous because it is very hard to go against the flow of the river. The guy even describes the Argentinean army as the monster so I think he was not in it because he really wanted, but at the same time he did not do anything not to be part of it.
It is interesting to see that both were aware of the issues that were affecting their country at that time. Eva fought for what she thought was right even though she knew many people would not like her. It is even more interesting that she was a women and she did not assume the “role” that women had and still have( I would say even thought things have changed still there are some role expectations for women). In one class last semester we saw how Rigoberta Menchu also went against of her gender expectations and showed that she was a very brave woman. To be that brave is psychological only expected for men. Women tend to be “fragile” in the mental constructions of societies, when in fact that is not true and those two women proved it. On the other hand, the guy just acted the way he was “expected” within the social context of that time.
Jan
17
span404-What is Culture? Williams
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Williams- “A culture is common meanings, the product of a whole people, and offered individual meanings, the product of a man’s whole committed personal and social experience” (Williams, Pg. 15). Williams argues that culture is indeed very ordinary due to the way in which it is taken for granted by people. He discusses how Marxism argues culture is dying and the masses are ignorant, influenced by the development of the industrial state and how it “deliberately cheapens our human responses, making art and literature into desperate survivors…” (Williams, Pg. 16). Despite being a member of the communist party for a year and a half, Williams rejects how Marxism views society and insists that the essence of culture lies within its people. He also notes how culture is constantly changing and evolving as people change and evolve. In Williams’ rural homeland he sees a powerful sense of culture with a strong democratic ideology, one that has not yet been encapsulated by the capitalist doctrine. Personally I do agree with most of Williams’ arguments although I found the article a little disjointed at times. Maybe that i just me not understanding the writing completely but after finishing the essay I do definitely get a sense of exactly the direction Williams is heading in. He feels the industrial revolution is thought of as a culture-vulture but in fact culture lies within the people, and those people are still strongly connected to the arts and other characteristics of a vibrant culture.
Jan
16
The People
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After reading both articles I thought to myself to which one I prescribed to more. I thought at times I truly feel part of a greater thing, being part of a people but at other times, I love the quiet and can’t imagine living in a loud, populated environment.
I love Evita Perons view as she is someone with a certain amount of power and yet she truly thinks of herself as a lower class. She findsher strength within the people, all people of Argentina, even those who are poor and have little to offer but faith to something greater. I love the thought of a belief in something greater than oneself. I enjoy the idea of finding strength in numbers with people who all have the same common beliefs and values. I really got a picture of strength from Evita’s message. She truly portrays someone who deeply cares about the people she is serving, or helping. She denounces all the people who are against the poor people and any person who falls for wealth and power. She defines wealth in the form of the people of Argentia, the people who believe that they can make a change and control their destiny.
Any ordinary person can find strength and understand what she is saying, as we are also ordinary. We the people create our own reaities and the environment around us, which in turn creates the world we live in. I find Evita’s message very empowering as she speaks to the lower levels of society, the people with all the heart and soul of the Nation. She is sincere which helps bring her closer to the people in every aspect of society as they start to believe and find strength in her words.
The second reading was not as much so cut and dry. His essay was busy and seemed filled with anger and resentment for the people around him. It seems as though all he wants to do is flee from his current situation but he is kept to still tell his story. It seems he is constantly making fun and putting down the people around him as lesser beings in the grand scheme of things. He calls them by nicknames always punting out their faults as people. This reading shows another side to the people. It shows the horrible side of togetherness, the confining aspect of it.
Both readings speak about freedom in different ways. Evita is searching for the freedom for her people and the second reading seems to be constanly trying to get freedom, to escape the constancy of the people. Both shows freedom in a different light, the achievemtn of freedom with or without the help of the people. It kinda shows us how freedom can be achieved no matter what you believe in. I found the second article interesting in the way he was writing, busy, all over the place at times confusing, which seems to me how a busy metropolis of people would be.
As both these article talk about people in different ways, I am more inclined to feel warmth and comfort and strength in Evita’s message to the people. I am a huge fan of bringing the poor up to a place of power, and I truly believe that power and strength do lie within the people, which brings a smile to my face.
Jan
15
Culture
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I think that Mackenzie’s description of culture as ordinary makes sense in the context of why people come together and pay attention to each other. Human beings need each other, for survival as well as self-awareness and expression. Mackenzie believes that societies are made by finding common meanings and directions. I interpret common meanings as common feelings. Hope, fear, happiness, and loneliness are things which we all experience. I especially like his analysis of education as ordinary and the emphasis of removing restrictions like money. It’s an interesting idea that societies can move beyond the limitation of a maximum fraction of people cable of profiting by a higher education. It accompanies Mackenzies interpretation of an expanding culture which makes room for what he calls “bad” culture. Lower forms of art like television are a given as it is easier to distribute it and there is more leisure time to receive it. It does not necessarily destroy older less commercialized mediums of expression. I don’t believe it necessarily separates classes either. What it does is causes the audience to be interpreted as an unknown mass, the unknown. Higher culture has an intended audience which fits the niche of a socioeconomic class like museums or theaters. I believe that if education were less restricted the barriers which seperate different mediums of expression would be seen by a greater audience of individuals as opposed to an unknown mass.
Jan
15
What is culture?
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I’d like to start off my saying that this is a couple days late because I accidentally made two separate blogs and posted my first response there, anyway here it is in the right place.
I began the first reading by Williams with much enthusiasm and enjoyed his comparisons of lifes journey to that of a buses. However as I got further and further into the text I found it quite difficult to follow his thought processes or understand the point he was trying to make. Holistically I think I grasp it even if point by point I thought it to be unclear. Even so one of his very first points related to us stuck with me throughout the rest of the article, “To grow up in that country was to see the shape of a culture, and its modes of change” (pg.11). This caught my attention because it bodes true for every person, no matter which country they are from. While he was talking about his personal history and culture, I couldn’t help but think of mine. Although in the grand scheme things I’m not even a blip on the timeline of the Earth, I’ve still been around long enough to have been one the neighborhood kids and then outgrow that same title. A new generation is trick or treating while I’m now the one doling out the sweets. Moreover I think we all constantly hear stories from our parents or grandparents of the golden ages, when things were safer, gas was cheaper and kids played outside instead of rotting their brains on the couch. I know I used to roll my eyes at such stories which felt more like neverending lectures than accounts of the past. Now I can feel similar tales welling in my mouth waiting for to be released on younger ear. Anyway what I’m trying to say is I agree with Williams in the respect that there is this wave of elitist culture more about keeping others out then including everyone in. Why not let everyone enjoy the opera whether or not they can afford box seats? On the other hand I believe those striving to become a “culture vulture” are missing out on the most accessible and fulfilling form of culture possible, family. During the article Williams makes multiple references to his ability to stay grounded by thinking about the ones he loved and pitying them because they were part of the working class. There is nothing shameful about creating and in today’s internet run world, something you can hold on to, touch , and feel, well, that sounds pretty darn goods
Jan
15
Introduction
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Hi fellow classmates! My name is Mercy and this is my blog. I’m a first year arts student and very excited about this course.
Jan
14
What is culture?
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I think the term culture is multidimensional. As Roger M. Keesing explains, the first meaning of a culture is a human construction based on the emphasis of a radical alterity. Thus, culture is regarded as an entity which acts behalf on the community it represents. This raises an important issue : Is a culture a unified entity? Does it personify a group? Does it have a self consciousness? Even if, culture seems to represent a set of values shared by a society it could also represent a collectivity. Williams explains that the term culture has two aspects. On one hand, it represents the common values of a society ; on the other hand, it is based on new experiences and observations. It is both a symbol of our traditions and in the same time, it could be renew everyday. That’s why, culture is ordinary, because it is a product of traditional elements known by all and of new elements which come from everyday life. Thus, culture is a dynamic concept. Moreover, Williams underlines that popular culture is as interesting as culture of elite. Traditional dances or dishes are a part of culture as museums and books. However, as the culture of elite is imposed as a reference, popular culture is diminished. In both article, the authors raise the issue of the imposition of the culture of elite. Elite has power, and financial resources. They use it in order to manipulate the masses. Bourdieu, in his book, The Distinction, explains that lower classes and elite do not have the same access to culture and the same capital of culture. For example, student who belong to the upper class have better successes than the others because the values they have learned are similar to the values of school. Thus, culture is a social issue. The last part of Williams’s argumentation about preservation of freedom of expression is really interesting too. Indeed, he raises current issues about preservation of their cultures and the freedom of expression.
Jan
14
What is culture?
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Well as I started to read both articles, I was quite into them, wondering what each author was trying to get at. Of course I had set aside a couple hours to do the lengthy readings and was excited about writing my first blog. About halfway through the first article my cell phone rang and it was my mom on the call display. I thought it was a little strange as it was in the middle of the afternoon and she should have been at work.
Her tone seemed fine but I knew something was wrong. She preceeded to tell me there had been a death in the family, a close family friend and all of a sudden the details of the freak accident were all my mind could contain. As I hung up the phone with her, I tried to continue reading and realized that there was no way I could even begin to read about culture or to even write about it when someone\s life close to me was literally falling apart. I decided to put the readings down and focus on my family and the loss it has had.
That is the reason I have no culture blog up here and why I won’t be commenting on any of my classmates blogs for this week. I will continue with the readings next week and know that everyone will understand my situation.
Just a quick note that we should all cherish every moment we have with the people we love as noone knows when our time will be up. Sorry for that somewhat depressing last comment….but it’s so true.
Jan
13
Week 1 Readings
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Week 1 Readings
The reading “Culture is Ordinary” centralizes around the idea that culture originates from ordinary people. Often culture is associated with the elite of a population, as they are the main producers and consumers of arts and knowledge. However, it is obvious that that there is a kind of “working class” culture that has emerged, that is quite different from the typical idea of refined, luxurious, high-class culture. Williams brings up an interesting point that often the makers of art have a hostile view towards the elite, making their consumption of the art somewhat ironic. The article goes into great detail about the Marist take on culture, stressing that “culture is interpreted in relation to its underlying system of production”, that his English society was a “class dominated culture”, just as Marxist thought states. I find these two things very interesting, because you at first thought I would not think that a system of production would have very much to do with culture. But when looking at a modern culture, such as the United States, one can see that the constant production and flow of goods, and their wide availability and marketing, are all directly tied to the consumerist aspect of American culture. Also, I found interesting the statement that only the “deserving poor get much educational opportunity” in relation to his earlier Marxist statement about the bourgeoisie being the dominant class in a class dominated culture. I had not really thought about this, but after reading this I find it especially true. The rich can buy their education, with not much regard to whether they are actually “deserving” of it or not. There are requirements to be able to attend educational institutions, but in many cases it is money that is the determining factor in one’s acceptance. For a poor individual to receive an education such as the one that members of the elite receive, he must do extra work in order to excel academically, athletically, etc.
I am not sure I really agree with Williams talk about “bad culture”. When talks of the “cheap feelings and moronic arguments” shown in popular culture are a “deeply degrading version of the actual lives of our contemporaries”. I understand where he is coming from, as anyone can see that much of our modern culture is, as he says, vulgar. But on the other hand I don’t really agree with his immediate branding of this culture as “bad”, just because it is new and not produced by the upper class. Perhaps I am not fully grasping his argument, but his label of modern culture as “vulgar” seems to be a little pretentious.
Keesing’s article talks about the way we stress the differences between cultures while analyzing them. I found it interesting how Keesing explained how the focus on cultural difference is a search for the exotic. One can see this everywhere: when tourists travel to tropical places, when people dress in the style of a different country, when people take dance lessons, etc. These are pretty trivial searches for alternative expressions and experiences, but it they are everyday examples of the “search for the exotic” that Keesing speaks of.
I also really liked how the article brings up the irony of the fact that it is fashionable to be different in a globalized world, where boundaries between cultures are vanishing. Not so long ago, distinct cultures where shrouded in mystery due to lack of contact between them. Now that much of this mystery has disappeared, and a kind of global culture is emerging, people have decided they want to stand out from the crowd, either individually or by uniting their people to show they have a strong, vibrant culture.
Both these articles were quite interesting, but a little hard to grasp the main concepts. They both taught me a lot about the production, reproduction and consumption of culture that I had not thought about before.
Jan
13
What is culture?
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Today I like write in spanish, In the class are some people who would like practice it, so I think it´s a good idea…
Definir qué es cultura es algo que pareciera muy complicado ya que el término ha ido variando con el paso de los años, tal es el caso de los autores de las lecturas de esta semana: Keessing y William, donde podemos ver que cada uno hace evidente la influencia de la época. Por un lado William describe algo en lo que estoy un tanto de acuerdo: “la cultura es ordinaria” y es que todo lo que nos rodea y a lo que vamos dando forma es o será parte de nuestra cultura, es decir, la cultura es producida por cualquier persona o individuo; es por ello que William critica a corrientes como el Marxismo, el cual postula que la cultura es solo para las personas de clase alta y que a ésta no tienen acceso las personas ignorantes o de un nivel inferior. De forma que William apoya la idea de que la cultura es simplemente común. Algo que menciona y que me parece interesante es el hecho de que la educación es vital en la sociedad para evitar que se “polarización” de la cultura, por decirlo de algún modo. Si bien es cierto que a través de la historia la influencia del gobierno ha ido cambiando el rumbo de la historia cultural de un país, también se debe añadir la comercialización de la cultura, tal como lo cita William en el texto. La cultura debe ser simplemente, creo yo, la identidad de un país, cultura, raza, ciudad, etc., aquello que lo caracteriza… Por su parte Keesing hace referencia a la lo que la antropología describe como cultura, la cual es “universo limitado de ideas y costumbres”, y es aquí donde creo que la controversia inicia, por que cómo se puede definir qué está dentro de ese universo limitado. En ambas lecturas se menciona en cierta parte la idea de poder y cómo quienes gozan de éste interfieren en la cultura, por ejemplo el caso del gobierno. Un ejemplo de esto puede citarse en lso libros de texto que el gobierno daba en las escuelas públicas en México, donde la historia esta escrita de acuerdo a los intereses del gobierno y en cierta forma para crear esa identidad nacional o patriotismo en los estudiantes desde pequeños.
Good Day!!!
Jan
13
First blog
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Hello internet, how’s it going? My name is Andrew Matasovsky and this is my first blog. I’ll give you a quick synopsis of my life story so you know where I’m coming from. I was born in 1988 to a construction worker and a freelance writer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I grew up in Minnesota and I traveled to some places. I’ve been to seven other countries and I lived on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for a while. Now I live in Vancouver and go to the University of British Columbia. Music is my favorite passion, but I also enjoy art and any kind of comedy. The year 2009 has just begun and it feels like a good year, possibly the best time around the sun.
Jan
13
Cultural Eccentricities
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Jan
13
Making sense of ‘culture’
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I found both articles that we read this week both challenging and insightful. The first was confusing for me to follow, but nonetheless, offered an interesting outlook of culture that seemed very relevant to our discussion in class last week. I did find it slightly ironic that his main point was that culture is ordinary and accessible, and that education too should be accessible, however his style of writing was so complex that it seems like it could only be truly digested by a very specific, and well educated sector of society. The second article also made interesting points, but was so infused with jargon and theory that it too was hard to follow at times. It is interesting that while culture is something that is experienced by everyone and infused in both the identity of the individual and of a larger society, it remains a concept that is very difficult to define. These articles attempted to broaden our notions of what culture is. I think that both articles aimed to suggest that culture is not something that exists in a far away, out of reach, elite, or ‘tribal’ sector of society, but rather, as something experienced by everyone all the time. Culture is defined in everyday encounters. This brought me back to the discussion we had in class about the differences between ‘high culture’ and ‘popular culture.’ It made me reflect upon my own culture, American culture, and question: what is more telling of American culture? Fast-food, hip-hop and Hollywood, or fine literature, fine arts, and free jazz? Is it possible that both categories are definitive of culture only in different ways? I think that this relates to the Keesing article in the sense that when we look at different societies in an attempt to better understand their cultures, we have a tendency to ‘other’ them and create binaries and contained categories of what elements of culture we perceive as ‘valid,’ and what elements we overlook altogether. “…this pursuit of the exotic Other is still a persistent theme, and “culture” is a powerful device for its perpetuation” (6). We have a tendency to reduce cultures to a set of artifacts that we consider to be ‘authentic,’ often leaving out the more everyday and ‘ordinary’ elements that also define culture.
Jan
13
Introduction
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Hello all!!
My name is Laura Lopez, I´m an exchange student from Mexico. My major in Mexico is Industrial Engineer but here I´m studying in Arts.
Good luck!!!
Jan
13
What is Culture?
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Trying to define culture can be a very hard task because I guess nobody really knows what it is. Everybody has a different definition for culture and so to come up with a precise definition of culture would be someting very difficult. From the first reading by Williams I liked how he said that culture is “ordinary” and that it is everywhere and not only in museums or teashops or elite schools or as being part only of high education. Culture is ordinary. Everybody has a different definition to what culture is.
I liked more the second reading as it was more about anthropology. Last semester I took a class about anthropology in Latin America and we were taught how anthropologists would go there and do their research, some of them already with preconceived notions which were mostly negative, some labelling these cultures as “primitve” ones. Also I got to see how this anthropologists had a role in shaping outsiders views about these cultures and how they can help these cultures in their different struggles. Anyway, what I liked most about this reading was Keesing’s radical alterity notion. I would agree with Jean Sebastien when he said that most people ditinguishes themselves from others in order to find the uniqueness of their own culture. When I go on trips and later come back I can’t help but to compare and think of the differences that I or my culture has with others. I guess it’s just natural for us to do this.
Jan
13
What is culture?
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Keesing’s statements of culture for me had more impact than that of Williams. Williams take on culture as “ordinary” was very interesting and I do agree with the notion that culture is everywhere, however it didn’t have as much as Keesing’s article. I guess mostly because he tackles the notions of the culture through the anthropologist lenses, which is something I’ve been familiarizing for the past year or so. There are two of Keesing’s arguments which I particularly liked; one was on radical alterity and the other one was the notion of culture as composed of small things which are not necessarily “theirs” or “ours”.
What I liked about this radical alterity notion is that I believe we do this a lot. I think that we distinguish ourselves from other cultures, in an attempt to find the uniqueness of our own culture. (Whether these distinctions are “radical” or not, depends on the cultures we are distinguishing). These distinctions of the “otherness” of different cultures can work like a process of elimination which in its final outcome will leave you with characteristics of your own. When in class we tried to highlight aspects of Canadian culture, I particularly named objects which to me were representative of Canadian cultures. My group did not agree with some of the things I named, but as a foreigner these things were characteristic of Canadian culture. Essentially, what Mounties, moose and maple syrup had in common, in my perspective, is that these objects are absent from where I come from and here there are more common. Hence, I related them as part of the Canadian culture.
I believe that it is definitively the small things that make one’s culture so characteristic, even though some of these distinctions were “taken” from a different culture and incorporated into one’s. If you really think about it, the things that identify a particular culture (for example, that of your own country) are small things like places, language and/or music. Whereas the States has McDonald’s, Canada has Tim Horton’s, Panama has Pio Pio. These places have been incorporated as elements that now represent a particular culture. Similarly, Panamanian culture also highlights an example of elements “taken” from a different culture and incorporated into one’s own. Reggae and its genres are characteristic of the Caribbean and during the construction of the canal many Caribbeans were hired and brought with them their culture, including their music. Over time Panamanians started to sing reggae (in Spanish) and essentially, we ended up borrowing this aspect of the Caribbean culture and incorporated it into our own. Today, Spanish reggae is very characteristic of Panama, especially that of the Atlantic provinces.
Jan
13
What is culture?
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This allows us to make a link with Keesing’s article through a point that appeared to me as the critical issue of these two articles. Williams ends his article saying that they are no masses to control and that culture is ordinary and driven by the whole society. However, speaking of ‘masses’, ‘bourgeois culture’, or capitalism, he does point out the ambivalent relation between power and culture. I agree with him in the sense that one should consider culture as a production of the whole society, however I do think there is also a question of power which might influences a society’s culture at certain points of its history, as well as the interpretation of the concept of culture.
Indeed, he thinks that ‘cultural studies’ stressing on ‘the articulation of symbolic systems with class and power’ (such as Marxist or feminist theories) could help anthropology to challenge the reified and essentialist trend it has taken in regard to the concept of culture. Thus it is worth asking if there could be an important role played by dominant groups and powerful social circles in the production of culture and its transmission. William talked about the role of advertising in mass culture which could be seen as pursuing the interests of a capitalist system. Keesing alludes to the construction of European nation-states in the nineteenth century which precisely consisted in the creation of an ‘authentic culture’ by the elite in order to justify the concept of nation. Education was a crucial mean of cultural reproduction and national strengthening. We could also exemplify this peculiar relation between culture and power with the ‘cultural nationalist rhetoric’ of ‘third world elites’ used to trigger decolonisation and independence for these new states. I do think power and hegemony are important variables concerning culture and especially its essentialization. The relation to the other is crucial for the definition of a distinct culture and there is always a process of differentiation from the outsider. Keesing emphasizes on the concept of difference and ‘radical alterity’ and explains that anthropology has been focusing on seeing culture as ‘a bounded universe of shared ideas and customs’. Who defines who is in or out? Who has an interest in doing so? Most of the time political leaders or intellectual elites: the power. Labelling the other as radically different has always been a political tool at the international scale for instance. Advocating for a shared culture allows to hide potential conflicts and contradictions within a society.
That is why I think there is an ambivalent relation between culture and power. Our trend to essentialize cultures plays an important political role and fuels the misleading idea that the world is composed of inherently different cultures or civilizations (see The clash of civilizations – S. Huntington). Even though I do believe there are different cultural traditions and customs, I think it is dangerous to forget that culture is partly (at least) a social construction.
Jan
12
Origins
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With my enthusiasm to pave an identity, I opted to or was forced to learn other languages besides Turkish in order to determine what identity is in other cultures to somehow develop an understanding of my own. English was learned by watching 60s and 70s T.V. shows (I Dream of Jeanie, Happy Days) with my grandmother (obviously, it was her that was the queen of the remote) while we lived in Atlanta. French was forced upon me by my parents during the early times of being a freshly landed eager immigrant, where they try and embrace every single aspect of ‘culture’ (or non-culture), before realizing that there wasn’t anything special about it in the first place. Finally (and still currently in progress) learning Portuguese and Spanish were more decisive choices influenced and originating from my closest friend whose views on latinidad as a lifestyle, raison d’être or whichever clichéd phrase you want to call it fascinated me because of its certainty. This version of latinidad, being the antithesis of “Turkish”, East meets West, Secular meets Religious, European vs. Middle Eastern (i.e. Identity Crisis), is particularly alluring because of its unwavering confidence.
Technicalities
Second year, faculty of science. Currently undecided on a science major (all the options are so attractive). Once decided, I’ll pursue either a double major or dual degree on some topic in science with latin american studies (since “B.A and B.Sc in______” is more aurally impressive).
Jan
12
we can talk & write about culture ~ but essentially it is in and around us
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Keesing suggests in his article that culture and cultural ought to be re-conceptualized, as to incorporate the essentials of a more holistic representation of society (beyond the specificities that might become solely exotic in the approach from an ethnographer’s voyage to a distant village for example) so to enable the social theorists to analyze the production of knowledge, ideological forces, peculiarities of community structure and tradition, and the interconnectedness to other global tendencies. A critique to the radical alterity quest in anthropological studies is acceptable in cases in which subjects and peoples are undermined or culturally stereotyped but this is actually not the feeling I get from recent ethnographies I have read such as Tsing 2004 about forest conservation in Indonesia. Also, there is a value in ethnographic approach to cultural studies that holds uniqueness in methodology that differentiates, in my opinion, anthropology from other social sciences. Hence, ethnographic research proposes this approach from the everyday lives characteristics and description of experiences of cultural immersion based on extensive use of interviews and so forth.
The tendency for the social sciences to assimilate from each other is evident in the use of notions of place and space in cultural anthropology. However, the discourse on what is that culture means might blur the very notion that culture is alive and basically inseparable from human nature. I find specifically interesting the reference to the tendency for anthropology to draw from cognitive science and languages, merging concepts that explain the intrinsic relationship between the body and mind in creating what we experience and think as culture.
The approach Williams take to the discussion of culture differs from the representations in social sciences presented by Keesing. Williams is more preoccupied not so much to how we define and think of culture but the way in which culture corresponds to our realities and our imagined conceptions of ideals to our society. I find interesting the discussion on how the educated elite tries to create an exclusionary result by ascribing high culture to the concept of culture. The nature of the post-industrial British society obscured the common qualities and moral values still existent in the countryside, creating the urban exclusions that distinct the social common from the cultural. The paradigm lays in how the capitalist society controls the means that produce culture and assesses an identity of mass representations. The interest and financial investment that is concentrated in advertisement and consumption outcomes the common education.
It is something to let expand in our minds: how the society we live in creates individualistic values that make humans, who are fully capable of understanding the basic notion of democracy, to be passive in face of so much contradiction in even the most ordinary things.
Jan
12
Culture What?
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As a couple of individuals said before I found it hard to understand Williams journal entry, he word choice in describing the struggles he had with self identity in Cambridge are a little too much. I did however understand the overall message which the title clearly stated. The typical views on culture are somewhat wrong, especially those which ethnocentrism is based upon. I connected well with Raymond Williams when he makes points about how culture is whatever you make of it, because every little community, in every city or town, in every country has its own unique culture. At times Williams lost me when he had to go into intense detail about describing how Marxists view people and culture. Which he then goes on to argue are wrong and somewhat ignorant to what Industrialism has created for the majority of the world in terms of revolutionizing Culture.
Roger M. Keesing journal essay was much more complex, which I found much more interesting. He give some excellent metaphors for how to look at culture and the way culture has been shaped. The comparison of culture to a coral reef was especially well written, because it explained how cultures are a accumulation of past events and acts that have created a larger picture of identity. Keesing also writes about how the improper use of culture has been attributed to its colonial history. He states that when the first colonial powers conquered new lands they saw the peoples customs as a way to over generalize them and create a culture that was not unique to individuals. I also enjoyed his little discussion about his friend from the Kwaio, because it was a great example to show how diverse cultures still are in the world. It also showed how like Keesing states later on that some cultures will always have a ability to go against traditional views and still manage to make an individual fulfilled in his life despite how insignificant it may be.
Both these papers gave me a better understanding of culture, and showed me how culture is very dependent on what you make of it. It can be any type of small ritual/custom that is performed by an individual or a group of people. Which in turn made me think of what my own culture was?
Jan
12
Born and raised in an urban crowd
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hi all, I was born and raised in São Paulo (Brazil). I studied at a small swiss school that felt like my backyard, where I developed as a really outgoing and talkative child, which gave me a hard time to adjust to some of the swiss strict rules of discipline. I grew up around friends that identify themselves as hybrids of culture, often times making evident their passion to the brazilian way in some of the bittersweet goodbyes throughout school. I have long been interested in human geography and environmental issues -even though I definitely don’t have a science directed mind. I moved to Vancouver for my university studies because I searched for more peaceful surroundings that would help me concentrated on my studies. São Paulo, is a lively city with a population of 19million people, a hand-full for someone interested in geography… For some reason I felt this drive to head north and I learned much of how brazilian I am after coming here. My academic interests are in human geography, latin american studies and anthropology. I find Latin American culture and history fascinating, vibrant and diverse. I feel eager to study other LA countries in more depth and plan more travels to come…
marina
