Jan
18
The People and Power
Posted by: Brian | January 18, 2009 | Comments Off on The People and Power
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. …
Jan
18
Two different descriptions of the people
Posted by: Brian | January 18, 2009 | Comments Off on Two different descriptions of the people
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
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…
Jan
16
The People
Posted by: Brian | January 16, 2009 | Comments Off on The People
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
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 …
Jan
13
First blog
Posted by: Brian | January 13, 2009 | Comments Off on First blog
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…
