Garfinkel, Harold. 1956. "Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies." The American Journal of Sociology 5: 420-424
This essay names and analyzes a ritual event--the degradation ceremony. Not only does the reader learn what a degradation ceremony is, but Garfinkel instructs us how to best conduct one. This is a ritual which can be found in all moralized societies--in other words, pretty much every society!
The social control "suburb" degradation ceremonies are part of is that of moral indignation. Moral indignation is instigated by public denunciations, which serve to reinforce group identity and solidarity, unity. Garfinkel compares it to a secular kind of communion--everyone partakes in it, the body of the subject of degradation is consumed to reinstate the wholeness of the group identity.
Essentially, the successful degradation ceremony results in a transformation of the total identity of a former group member. The event or offense and the subject of the degradation are made to be one and the same, totally negating the degradation subject as capable of being a member of the group.
One of the most important aspects of the successful degradation ceremony is that the denouncer must not use authority as an individual, but must speak as a member of the group--thus appealing to the collective values. That the group values (not just individual) have been violation by the degradation subject places him/her securely outside of the group.
The outcomes of the degradation ceremony will vary depending on prestige dynamics and participants, but the article lays out some pretty fool-proof guidelines. These guidelines (Garfinkel tells us in what is a little bit of a surprise ending) can also be used to dismantle and do away with the degradation ceremony.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Easter and Passover: On Calendars and Group Identity--Annotations!
Zerubavel, Eviatar. 1982. "Easter and Passover: On Calendars and Group Identity." American Sociological Review 2: 284-289.
Zerubavel's article posits that the dates of Easter and Passover specifically have less to do with the significance of the actual dates and everything to do with the segregation of the two holy days from each other. Calendrical differences serve to solidify group identity, as similarity among group members alone cannot accomplish this.
The paper traces historically the controversy surrounding the establishment of Easter and Passover dates to the present, a set-up which ensures that the two holidays will never coincide any closer than a full day apart. This ensured distinction preserves the separate identities of the two social groups--the dates are not arbitrary, they contrast each other purposefully.
The most central idea in the text is that this calendrical difference is symbolic. Calendars regulate the collective memory of social groups, and that different social groups have different calendars is important and essential to maintaining separate group identities.
Zerubavel's article posits that the dates of Easter and Passover specifically have less to do with the significance of the actual dates and everything to do with the segregation of the two holy days from each other. Calendrical differences serve to solidify group identity, as similarity among group members alone cannot accomplish this.
The paper traces historically the controversy surrounding the establishment of Easter and Passover dates to the present, a set-up which ensures that the two holidays will never coincide any closer than a full day apart. This ensured distinction preserves the separate identities of the two social groups--the dates are not arbitrary, they contrast each other purposefully.
The most central idea in the text is that this calendrical difference is symbolic. Calendars regulate the collective memory of social groups, and that different social groups have different calendars is important and essential to maintaining separate group identities.
Artist Activism in Response to Guantanamo
Back in September 2006, an artist group called the Wooster collective set up a life-sized Guantanamo inmate outside of the Rocky Mountain Railroad ride in Disneyland. The doll was only left up for one hour before security removed it.
So what does this art do? How did it disrupt the reigning discourses about torture? I really like the idea of exhibiting this image right in the middle of an amusement park. It certainly creates a spectacle--it really deflates the magic of Disney! I think that this art definitely suggests asking the kind of questions Mark Danner's article renders necessary. The viewer/Disneyland-goer is face-to-face with what torture looks like. The dehumanization of the torture subject is pretty evident--is such dehumanization necessary to gain "intelligence"? The Guantanamo doll shows what national security policies look like when played out on human bodies, something no longer made as public as punishment has moved away from public spectacle.
http://www.woostercollective.com/2006/09/breaking_the_story_disneyland_doesnt_wan.html
The Red Cross Torture Report--Annotations!
Danner, Mark. 2009. "The Red Cross Torture Report: What it Means." The New York Review of Books 7: 1-19
This article responds to and analyzes the International Committee of the Red Cross's report on the treatment of the fourteen "high value detainees." It uses the report to talk about the discourses around torture in the United States in general and looks at torture as something not just particular to events with the last few years, but a policy and practice with a long history.
Danner locates torture policies implemented during the Bush administration within a politics of fear--a way of thinking which values what could have happened. This way of thinking centralizes national security as something which must be protected at any cost. Such a mentality is contrasted with President Obama's measurements of the effects of torture--that the torture of these detainees and all others in the wake of 9/11 has deeply shamed the US political image and caused hatred of the US--in essence, has produced more danger.
The article makes explicit that torture is not something unique to the US or Bush administration. That the US government has carried out torture policies, Danner asserts, should not be something new to Americans--the basic storyline has been disclosed for for years. Despite these disclosures and the obvious and proven evidence that the treatment of these detainees was illegal and in violation of Geneva Convention laws, many news sources and government figures maintain that torture was used for protection of national security and needed to be done.
These conflicting ideologies and ways of measuring facts will perpetually make circles around each other and lead to repeating the same process of torture, exposure, scandal, etc. Something different must be done if torture policy is ever going to be changed. For a real policy change, Danner concludes, there must be a genuine bipartisan effort to answer two main questions about the torture of these detainees: 1) Was it necessary? and 2) Did it work?
Only after this information is collected and judged can society disrupt the myths which facilitate an acceptance of torture (i.e., the "ticking bomb" myth) and can the secrecy which surrounds torture and authorizes its use be made transparent.
This article responds to and analyzes the International Committee of the Red Cross's report on the treatment of the fourteen "high value detainees." It uses the report to talk about the discourses around torture in the United States in general and looks at torture as something not just particular to events with the last few years, but a policy and practice with a long history.
Danner locates torture policies implemented during the Bush administration within a politics of fear--a way of thinking which values what could have happened. This way of thinking centralizes national security as something which must be protected at any cost. Such a mentality is contrasted with President Obama's measurements of the effects of torture--that the torture of these detainees and all others in the wake of 9/11 has deeply shamed the US political image and caused hatred of the US--in essence, has produced more danger.
The article makes explicit that torture is not something unique to the US or Bush administration. That the US government has carried out torture policies, Danner asserts, should not be something new to Americans--the basic storyline has been disclosed for for years. Despite these disclosures and the obvious and proven evidence that the treatment of these detainees was illegal and in violation of Geneva Convention laws, many news sources and government figures maintain that torture was used for protection of national security and needed to be done.
These conflicting ideologies and ways of measuring facts will perpetually make circles around each other and lead to repeating the same process of torture, exposure, scandal, etc. Something different must be done if torture policy is ever going to be changed. For a real policy change, Danner concludes, there must be a genuine bipartisan effort to answer two main questions about the torture of these detainees: 1) Was it necessary? and 2) Did it work?
Only after this information is collected and judged can society disrupt the myths which facilitate an acceptance of torture (i.e., the "ticking bomb" myth) and can the secrecy which surrounds torture and authorizes its use be made transparent.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Coming Soon!
Annotations:
Focault, Discipline and Punish, Part One
Discipline and Punish, Part Two
General Prevention--Illusion or Reality?
Erikson, Chapter 5 of Wayward Puritans
Foucault, Discipline and Punish, Part Three
SARS in Singapore article
The New Public Health Hegemony
Discipline and Punish, Part Four (finish)
Plato's Charioteer
Hobbes Leviathon
The Social Contract
The Wealth of Nations
Problem of Order from Hobbes to Present
Weber, protestant ethic. . .
Durkheim
On Gemeinshaft and Gesellschaft
Lewis Coser
Mancur Olson, Ronald Coase
John Rawls Theory of Justice
Erikson, chs 1-2
Dan Ariely lectures.
Focault, Discipline and Punish, Part One
Discipline and Punish, Part Two
General Prevention--Illusion or Reality?
Erikson, Chapter 5 of Wayward Puritans
Foucault, Discipline and Punish, Part Three
SARS in Singapore article
The New Public Health Hegemony
Discipline and Punish, Part Four (finish)
Plato's Charioteer
Hobbes Leviathon
The Social Contract
The Wealth of Nations
Problem of Order from Hobbes to Present
Weber, protestant ethic. . .
Durkheim
On Gemeinshaft and Gesellschaft
Lewis Coser
Mancur Olson, Ronald Coase
John Rawls Theory of Justice
Erikson, chs 1-2
Dan Ariely lectures.
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