As an opening note, I really hope I don't excommunicated for this title. I like being Catholic.
In the post, I hope to connect the issues of oppression, social movements, social groups, and community. In particular, I want to adapt Foucault's idea of the Panopticon and connect it to these three previously mentioned ideas. And then, where does difference fit into this discussion?
This post is not going to talk about the Papacy, but it is going to talk about the Panopticon as a metaphor for the function of social function. The basic idea of the Panopticon (traditionally a design for a prison) is that there is some central entity (usually ambiguous in his power despite some general and global descriptors) that keeps all individuals in order as defined by that central entity. In a sense, this is a form of oppression. Lets' take the Pope and the Catholic Church as an example. The pope, while not ambiguous in identity, is very ambiguous in terms of power. He is the representative for Christ on Earth. There are some holes there. But, that association carries too much semantic weight to be questioned. So individuals follow rules that determine appropriate social action as laid out by this central figure.
The repetition of these action reinforces the Panoptic structure. Young pulls an idea from Foucault to illustrate this point: "Foucault (1977) suggests taht to understand meaning and operation of power in modern society, we must look beyond the model of power as 'sovereignty,' a dyadic relation of ruler and subject, and instead analyze the exercise of power as the effect of often liberal and 'humane' practices of education, bureaucratic administration, production and distribution of consumer goods [look to Fraser for this one] medicine, and so on" (Young, 41).
As long as the Panoptic structure is in place, the group is maintained organically by repetition of social actions and reuse semantic relationships: Christ is linked to the pope. The pope is trustworthy authority on the divine.
Loosely, this is an example of structural oppression. Young states "[Structural Oppression] causes are embedded in unquestioned norms, habits, and symbols, in the assumptions underlying institutional rules and the collective consequences of following those rules"(41).
The interesting part of Young's point is not in the defintion of oppression, but in her view of how groups form as a result of oppression. They are formed almost organically by those who choose not to follow the rules or those who are unable to follow or disallowed from following the rules. Young defines social groups as "a collective of persons differentiated from at least one other group by cultural forms, practices, or a way of life" (43).
So if oppression can help to create social groups, does oppression a community make? Looking at social movements, this question becomes more complicated. Social movements require collective action, which is usually triggered by a shared matter of concern. A forum is then chosen for the discourse over this matter of concern. By this, the black community during Civil Rights Movement was a community in these aspects. They were also a social group, who was oppressed.
But I still remained unconvinced pending further inquiry.
There are differences between groups and communities I think. With respect to your last paragraph, I think Young would agree with respect to groups but perhaps not communities. yes? no?
ReplyDeleteI would say Oppression helps to start a community, by planting the seed of connectedness. But as always, this depends on how we are going to define community, which we have found can be defined in multiple ways. :)
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