Hello, who is speaking? Myself or the other me?

What an amazing class we had yesterday! We not only discussed extensively on psychoanalysis, moral dilemma, and dissociation, which appear to be the central themes of this article, we also incorporated the issue of moral ambiguity, racial and class distinctions, as well as other sociopolitical perspectives into our classroom discourse.

I will start my post by highlighting some interesting viewpoints presented in class. As a psychotherapist, Straker was forced to confront the moral split within herself when she learned about the horrifying lynching perpetrated by a client she had been working closely with, Stanley. Professor Stein pointed out that when dealing with issues that are not simply black and white, people tend to experience difficulties in accepting their blurring moral standards and often desperately wanting to find moral clarity. In Straker’s case, she was torn between two contrary yet complex feelings about Stanley’s story. No matter what and how she chooses, she was confronted by moral dilemma. On the one hand, she was aware of her mentality as a caring psychotherapist who did not want to be judgmental towards her patient, and she clearly understood that she was in no position to denounce Stanley’s action because, unlike Stanley, white privileges have protected her from being harmed by violent political struggles. On the other hand, Straker was also alerted by the fact that her moral instinct was barring her from relieving herself from the traumatic impacts of Stanley’s crime. I want to pause at here for a brief moment, and insert my first question.  Professor Waterston stated that she was not convince that Straker was being as self reflected as she intended to be; in other words, she devoted too much attention to speak about her instinct reaction to Stanley’s behavior rather than closely examine the source of her moral ambiguity.  (Please correct me if I have misinterpreted your argument, Prof. Waterston.)  So my first question is what is your opinion on Professor Waterston’s interpretation regarding Straker’s attempt to examine her inner self. 

Stanley was a leader in the anti-apartheid movement. As an individual who played a significant role in this collective struggle against state injustice, Stanley was entrusted with the responsibility of fighting for the sake of his people. When Maki Skosana allegedly provided intelligence to the enemy and caused the death of Stanley’s fellow comrades, Stanley’s social self took over the control of his mind and body and compelled him to fulfill his political obligations and suppress his inner self. In the process of the lynching ofMaki Skosana, Stanley experienced a petite moral dilemma. However, as Andre puts it, this brief experience was like a bump on the road, which had almost no impact on Stanley’s determination to carry out the execution. On the surface, it appears that Stanley has showed little concern for his momentary moral ambiguity; still, it is essential to take the context of Stanley and Straker’s communication into consideration before making the final judgment. For instance, Stanley chose to speak about this traumatic episode in his life during a therapy session, which suggests that it was an issue that he saw as appropriate to be discussed for therapeutic purpose. Professor Stein, Professor Reitz, as well as few other students have commented on this issue during the class, and I would like to give us another opportunity to further explore this question. Here comes my second question.  Was Straker the only person experiencing moral dilemma during that particular therapy session? If not, is it safe to assume that Stanley’s combative social identity has expired after the collapse of apartheid, and he is now compelled to search for the private self that he has lost during the period of political struggles, namely the innocent Stanley who loves his family and had never kill anyone before the death of Maki Skosana? When Straker no longer has an evil system, the apartheid, to justify his murderous behavior as a necessary evil, is he having difficulties with accepting his past or he is still confident in his choice of action?

Due to various limitations, I am unable to discuss every single extraordinary comment made during the last class. But please feel free to talk about any interested topic that I might have omitted by chance, and I am looking forward to see the continuation of our class discussion on the blog. 

Our Freedom is On the Backs of Others.

BY SALLY ABDELGHAFAR

First and foremost, thank you to Ruby, Lenny, and Joseph for taking time to come back and share some of your experiences during your internships and some of your ideas dealing with social justice. As always, the discussion was very stimulating and it generated a number of questions to continue exploring.

Lenny’s discussion dealing with the capitalist idea of social entrepreneurship forced me to confront an approach that I am generally hesitant to promote. Without a doubt, there are some benefits to social entrepreneurship. As Lenny outlined, business principles are applied to an organizations or institutions that are pursuing social change. Adopting these principles tends to increase an organization’s chances of remaining stable and self-sustaining. Moreover, the economic discipline associated with business principles forces organizations to use money towards programs that have the greatest chance of succeeding or fostering changes based on certain criteria. In addition, there are successful examples where social entrepreneurship have successful replicated certain approaches. For instance, as Nicholas Kristoff highlights, small loans, which are to be used to make products for sale, are given to groups of women in different Arab countries. These women are able to create unique items that enable them to make small profits, in turn creating economic independence from societies that are heavily patriarchal. Still, despite the implementation of business principles and success stories, there seems to be a number long-term draw backs associated with embracing a form of capitalism that outweigh—if you will—any short-term successes. With this in mind, I am wondering what everyone’s thoughts are on prioritizing end goals. For those of you who share the view that capitalism favors certain groups and leads to high economic disparities, should we focus on our attention on transforming a system that we think is contributing to many of the social justice issues—poverty, inadequate housing, limited access to healthcare, to name a few—or should we “bite the nail” and play within the system acquire as much funding as we can? If you think there is a balance between the two, how do you reconcile working within a system that you disagree with without getting too reactionary or violating your own principles?

Minerva brought up a very interesting point dealing with taxes and government priority. She posed the question as to why New York City focuses on cleaning up Central park rather relocating those funds to healthcare, education, and unemployment. Reflection on this question prompted me to ask myself a few more questions. Should people pick and choose how their money is spent and where it goes? Should people compromise and relinquish some control over how their tax dollars are spent in hopes on contributing to the greater goal through the public sphere? Although these questions would lead to a fruitful discussion, another question stuck out to me dealing with global social justice and funding. Professor Reitz has mentioned on numerous occasions that waiting for clean is when you fail. Staff from Safe Horizon’s Anti-Trafficking Program refuse to book hotels that provide pornography because they believe the pornography industry, along with other factors, increases the demand and likelihood for human trafficking. Similarly, many organizations will boycott clothes or donations from a company or country that uses child labor. However, certain organizations and countries do not have the luxury to be in a position to both boycott certain industry while remaining self-sufficient. Moreover, certain countries do not have the ability to pick and choose which government will provide them with monetary funding. In this line of belief, is it wrong for an organization working towards social justice or a country to comprise certain principles and accept potential dirty money? In 1985, if you were running an organization that had in place a plan that would guarantee achieving a goal, such as raising the age of criminal responsibility or increasing adequate housing for 50,000 individuals, would you have accepted money from the Apartheid regime in South Africa if there was no other available options? Obviously this example illustrates one extreme potential situation; however, many developing countries that have faced colonization, racial subjugation and exploitation find themselves in situation in which they are seeking assistance from the same countries that had colonized them. Moreover, is it wrong to seek money from a fund or country that you know has gained its wealth at the end of ripping off other people if fund will be redirected for good?       

Joseph’s stories dealing with the relationship between inmates and guards at Riker’s Island stood out to me as well. He suggested that the biggest problem within the jail was the enemy dichotomy of them versus us. Inmates adapt to the environment of jail, which in turn leads to a survival of the fittest environment. Most of the population justifies the stigmatization and treatment of inmates as a product of one’s actions. Others wash their hands and refuse to acknowledge violations against prisoners because the taxes that support some of the jails are sufficient enough to show that they care. Unfortunately, this situation mirrors the global situation in many global situations. People around the world have created us versus them dictions on pretty much any topic, ranging from ethnicity to religion to even favorite sports team. These dichotomies have and will continue to lead to tension and conflict. However, many countries refuse to acknowledge any historical wrongdoings. For example, the United States will not own up to the overthrow of many elected leaders in Latin America and Middle Eastern countries that produced unstable environments. So, are the “us versus them” dichotomies psychological adaptions that we create to justify certain actions? Or to put differently, to people wipe their hands clean from certain actions because a hierarchy division enables them to justify the action as necessary?   

In closing, I want to leave you with two questions for food for thought. The major theme throughout this post was continuing to explore social justice from a global perspective. With this in mind, I am curious whether or not you are more inclined to playing within the current international systems to achieve social justice or working outside the system and why? Second, referring back to Minerva’s question, part of the problem dealing with why money is spent to keep the City attractive deals with people’s lure to being the best. Creating the illusion that New York City is the greatest city in the world requires maintaining the main attractions to produce more investment and neglecting the quality-of-life in certain parts. So, with this in mind, would a way to contribute to social justice be abstaining from referring to New York City or the United States being the best, realizing that such statements contribute to the justification to view Time Square as a sole indicator of the City’s greatness or the United States’ GDP? 

Power, Control and the Unknown - A Further Exploration of the Panopticon

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to start off by saying thank you for an amazing class. The discussions were great and class even ended with a crucial discussion point brought up by Professor Stein.

Lets get started…

Our seminar began with discussion on Foucault’s piece about the Panopticon and determining the purpose of such architectural design within an institution (primarily prisons), as well as assessing the effectiveness. Moving away from visible forms of torture imposed upon during the medieval ages, to more isolated forms of torture behind society’s eyes (inside a prison), this makes me wonder what the thought process of the government was when they created penitentiaries. David stated that it was a more humanitarian form of punishment. Niko and Aaron stated that it was a matter of control and taking them out of society, so they do not reoffend. However, Joe explained his idea that it was a form of rehabilitation and reform. In relation to Joe’s argument about reform, Professor Stein introduced the idea of religion and how reformists who built the penitentiary observed that solitary confinement actually gave prisoners an opportunity to reflect on their actions to their God and how better to serve him. I agree with the reformists in that religion plays a role in the individual’s actions and behaviors while incarcerated. In prison, he/she is given a copy of the Bible, on top of ample time to ponder and reflect on the offense committed, as well as all their mistakes in life. As a result, many find God in prisons and turn to him for forgiveness and an opportunity to start over. First there may come feelings of regret, anger with self, and etc. What is he/she to do when so much remorse builds up? One can turn that into more negativity, build up further rage and lash out. However, others may see this as an opportunity to start over, find God, and reform oneself working on becoming a better person. With that said, the first question I pose is: 1) To what extent do you believe that religion is a driving force and plays a role in prisons? How is religion used, if used at all?

Regarding the effectiveness of the panopticon, we were able to collectively agree that visibility and control within the panopticon is a form of power, in that it has a way of controlling the individual’s actions, implementing mind games and constant psychological and mental abuse that every move he/she makes is being monitored. In the discussion about institutions similar to the panopticon, Niko referred to public schools and the instant fear that is created for a student when that voice comes over the loud speaker and calls the student down to the principal’s office. This is also in correlation to the hierarchy of power. Though the authority figure is invisible (and behind that mic), from common practice and the traditions of school procedure, one knows that whoever is on the other side of the loud speaker is a person of authority and power. It is easy to assume that because of the fear of always being watched, the guards are the ones in control and the ones that hold the primary source of power. However, in the excerpt provided by Professor Stein towards the end of the seminar, Foucault states a different type of power dynamic. He states that “the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power… that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers.” I believe that in a way, this does make sense. When the prisoner controls his/her actions, this plays a role in effecting the behavior of the guard and how often he/she may be monitored. This can be supported with the example of the prisoner picking his skin and trying to separate it from the bone. Not only is he attempting to validate his existence, he may be trying to get the attention of the guards. Once he had the guards’ attention, for future instances, the guards may monitor him more to make sure he is not doing anything else bad. In other cases, someone may be so fearful of the guards watching and being punished, that he/she will behave extra good. When the guards see the good behavior, the focus and supervision from that individual may be shifted (though chances may be slim). In both instances, the individual may be in control of how much supervision is placed upon him/her based on their actions. However, essentially I believe that the government has the ultimate control and power. Though the prisoner may have control of his/her behavior, there are always guards that are more lenient or strict than others. With that said, the guards are also being watched, so his/her behavior and amount of supervision imposed may be shifted when his/her authority figure creates further rules and regulations demanding more supervision. With Foucault’s statement, I pose two additional questions: 2) What do you believe Foucault means when he states that the inmates are the holder of power?... Is the purpose of the panopticon really to give the individual power? If so, why is there so much psychological and mental abuse that the individual feels being created? 3) Who do you believe is really in control of the power and why?

A large portion of the seminar was also dedicated to discussing the purpose of uniformity and control within the system. Andre mentioned that it is ultimately about control. If everyone was the same, there is less room for objectivity. There is a loss of opinion, individuality and identity. Sally extended that statement and referred to her experience of having to wear uniforms in her private school. It is a mental thing and the system is collectively telling you, “These are the rules, they cannot be changed. No, you have no say and you cannot change this.” In response to these two points, David mentioned that everyone involved is ultimately oppressed. The oppressors (guards) are also oppressed because they too are being watched. Everyone is always being watched up until the highest legislator. There is always that hierarchy of power that plays a role and everyone is always being controlled. We also touched upon the idea that uniformity is ultimately a form of categorizing and “othering” the individual. Why is it easier to abuse the individuals who are in uniform and branded? When the system has categorize the individual, that allows more room for control and power. My next question to you is, in relation to David’s point: 4) What do you believe is the purpose of uniformity if all the individuals involved themselves know that they are being watched also? Is this really about the power and control anymore?

In conclusion, as Foucault showed, capitalism controls everything. All institutions and all individuals involved in institutions are always being controlled. There is much discrepancy about the purpose of the panopticon. This design of punishment was no longer used in the mid 19^th century. My last question to you is: 5) Why do you think that the panopticon form of punishment is no longer used and why is there a shift in the kinds of incarceration practices for an individual?