Monday, August 19, 2019
Literature - Power and the Subject Essay -- Literature Essays Literary
Power and the Subject  Power is a misnomer. An attempt to adequately define power will ultimately reveal more about the invisible but all too real limits of language. Such a result may seem horrifying, a direct assault on our sense of reason, and, perhaps, it is. Power resists the reasonable request to adhere to the boundaries of its own definition. Power can and upon occasion does exhibit a quality or intensity observed and captured in the written word; yet there is something slippery which allows power to defy a totalizing description. Power is active. Write as we may, power will not be objectified. Any discourse on power thus begins with this disadvantage. There is much to be learned, however, from a study of power, knowledge more valuable than a simplistic definition. By focusing on where power exists and has existed we can also discuss how power relates to or has impact upon knowledge, ethics, and the individual.                          " 'I mean that in human relations...power is always                        present...These relations are changeable,                        reversible, and understandable' " (McCarthy 139).   Like Foucault, my inquiry into power may be founded not in a desire to discover the true nature of power but to gain a new method of approaching and understanding human relations.  A fundamental question that presents itself in the face of power and demands to be reckoned with is the question of the subject. A concept of the individual, whether seen as a historically bound effect of power like Foucault or an autonomous unique creative force like Habermas, seems to underlie and shape any description, definition, or discussion of power. For the mom... ...niversity of New York Press,            1992.  McCarthy, Thomas. "The Critique of Impure Reason: Foucault            and the Frankfurt School" In Rethinking Power. Thomas            E. Wartenberg Ed. New York: State University of New            York Press, 1992.  Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. "More on Power/Knowledge". In            Rethinking Power. Thomas E. Wartenberg Ed. New York:            State University of New York Press, 1992.  Wartenberg, Thomas E. "Situated Social Power" In Rethinking            Power. Thomas E. Wartenberg Ed. New York: State            University of New York Press, 1992.  Young, Iris Marion. "The Five Faces of Oppression". In            Rethinking Power. Thomas E. Wartenberg Ed. New York:            State University of New York Press, 1992. Â
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