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The concept of "power
Perspectives of cultural appropriation
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Recommended: The concept of "power
If there was ever an element in our society that has been so intensely studied, so manipulated, so extremely perverse and awe inspiring it would have to be the ideological phenomena of power. Power has the ability to take on infinite manifestations across both the conception of time and space; it’s built vast sprawling empires and has destroyed them, it has turned great men terrible and the most heinous men true, it can be as ginormous as an exploding star and has miniscule as the collision of two atoms. There is no definitive definition of the word “Power” because it is so contextual and subjective in our minds and life. Power permeates every letter of any story, poem, play, musical, etc; just think about it, even the letters you are reading right now have the power to form a word, which can invoke any number of feelings within yourself! Therefore, it can be said that writers and authors have much more power than we can even fathom! One author that challenged me to think critically about the use of power within our lives is Pervical Everett and his narrative, “The Appropriation of Cultures”.
What is power to a human? As time has gone by, there have been many forms of control and influence in the world. Many strive to achieve total rule over a society or group of individuals. Yet the question still presents itself to the average man. Why does man desire power so greatly even though there is visible trouble that follows? Shelley’s Frankenstein, Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, whether through the situation or the character themselves, depict the evils and hardships due to an imbalance and poor management of power.
The article, “Trade between Cultures,” by Tyler Cowen sets out to illustrate how globalization simultaneously results in cultural homogenization and heterogenization. Cowen is a professor at George Mason University and has written a vast number of books centered around the subject of economics. In his article, Cowen describes everyday examples of how trade has contributed to diversity within cultures, while also challenging several anti-trade ideas by arguing that trade can lead to more widespread diversity and innovation within societies.
The article written by Alexis Celeste Bunten called “Sharing culture or selling out?” talks about the theory of “commodified persona” or the “self commodification” of a tourism worker in Sitka and how capitalism has influenced the way a tour guide is presented. Chapter eleven in Charles C. Mann’s book called “1491, New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus” is a slight summary of the second half of the book which talks about how similar Indians were more advanced than the colonists and that we should accept the fact that indigenous people and their societies have influenced American culture.
From the displays of power that have been shown through out this essay, we see that this story is a story about power. Power is the story is primarily about peoples need for some small amount of power to survive in life and to feel that hey have a purpose within their society which every society it may be whether its is Gilead or Nazi Germany or modern day Britain.
Percival Everett’s “The Appropriation of Cultures” (2004), demonstrates the power of a symbol and the meanings that it can carry. In the story, Daniel Barkley is a highly accomplished African American man who graduated from Brown and frequently plays guitar near the campus of The University of South Carolina. From the beginning of the story, Barkley exposes a distinct independent personality that isn’t afraid to break stereotypes or labels. The first scene describes an instance in a bar where white fraternity boys were challenging Barkley to play ‘Dixie’ for them. Instead of refusing, like most would have done, he instead begins to play and take ownership of the song. Later in the story, Barkley decides to purchase a truck with a giant confederate flag decal in the back. Despite the strange stares and confusion
Power has been defined as the psychological relations over another to get them to do what you want them to do. We are exposed to forms of power from the time of birth. Our parents exercise power over us to behave in a way they deem appropriate. In school, teachers use their power to help us learn. When we enter the work world the power of our boss motivates us to perform and desire to move up the corporate ladder so that we too can intimidate someone with power one day. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Kurtz had a power over the jungle and its people that was inexplicable.
The Oxford University Dictionary defines the word power as ‘authority or control’ over an individual and knowledge as ‘the sum of what is known’. In Angela Carter’s story The Bloody Chamber (1979) knowledge and power correlate with each other. The more information a character possesses the greater authority they have. In The Bloody Chamber Carter utilises a variety of literary techniques to express the importance of knowledge and power in the plot. This essay will analyse the way Carter applies these literary techniques to the story to express the importance of knowledge and power.
Often, too much power can go to that particular person’s head, and he/she can become corrupt. As readers have seen in literature, abuses of power are often harmful to the abuser and their subjects. Corrupted authority and abuses of power eventually lead to the collapse of society. This concept is shown many times throughout the novel Lord Of the Flies and the short story “I Only Came to Use the Phone”. Displayed through characters and actions, abusive power has dominated what should be morally correct in literature.
In Clyde Kluckhohn's passage, adapted from his book, Mirror for Man, we are given an illumination of anthropology on the concept of culture. He explains that culture is not only derived by "the way we are brought up," but also personal past experiences and the biological properties of the people concerned. As humans we have learned to adapt to our own personal surroundings and have conditioned ourselves and our life styles to revolve around such surroundings by the most comfortable means possible.
It works to find new ways that power can express and present itself. These two forms of critique have one main thing in common with each other, they are both an analysis on power discourse. There are two subdivisions within the analysis of discourse on power. First, it maintains the privilege of the elite. And second, it maintains social relations across a broad spectrum of human
much power, if not more than any male writer. This ironic revisions of ideas is
Throughout this paper I will be discuss and describe these three articles about Stuart Hall cultural studies theory the Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms from Media, Culture and Society, then the Cultural Studies in the Future tense and Sexing the Self: Gendered Positions in Cultural Studies theory.
In the introduction to Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter, Daniel Miller describes the book as part of the second stage of the development of material culture studies. The first stage was the recognition by writers such as Appadurai and Bourdieu as well as Miller that material culture is important and worthy of study. The second stage is the argument made in this book: that it is crucial to focus on "the diversity of material worlds" without reducing these material worlds to symbols for "real" social processes nor cloistering them in sub-studies of like objects. That things matter has already been ascertained; this books intends to investigate "why some things matter" more than others and in particular contexts.
What is power? And why do people really want to have control over it, like really. Power is not tangible, one cannot hold it in their hands and weld it like a sword. People have fought over it like if it was gold or the solution to immortality. Yet, this “power” has caused so much damage for such an intangible thing. People in history have been oppressed, killed, slaved, and more. Whether it was in the beginning of history there has always been the people who had wanted to have this power. Foucault’s “The Subject and Power” assumes that power is not wielded through oppression, but rather through the individuals who have control over it. There was Hitler, Napoleon Buonaparte, the Italians, the English, the Irish, and today in history it is the Anglo-Saxons. Hitler oppressed and killed the Jewish. Now, the Anglo-Saxons have been oppressing the Mexican Americans in the United States. The question remains though, why? Or what makes those who say they are in power, have power? What qualifies to be in control of power? Are there qualifications that
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” - John Dalberg-Acton (“Lord Acton Quote Archive”). Throughout history, people who have power have utilized their influence to harm those below them. Without high positions, many acts of oppression would not have been possible, like the government permitting Jim Crow. Power facilitating prejudice is demonstrated in Richard LaGravenese’s film Freedom Writers and Eugene O’Neill’s play Emperor Jones using allusion, irony, and contrast. One of the greatest demonstrations of people in power harming others is the Holocaust.