Cultural Mediation I

Discourse were used to the old way.

3. The notion of parrhesia

Parrhesia Path dependencies is the

resilience of a way of doing

things, implies a continuity

Public sphere

J. Habermas

The institutional machine of the production of

public opinion, inside the society there are

engines that a re producing the public

opinions.

This source is needed to legitimate authority

in any functioning state/democracy.

A public sphere began to emerge in the 18th century

through the growth of coffee houses, literary and other

societies, voluntary associations, and the growth of the

press (it’s important to have free press to have multiple

voices, so the public sphere is not controlled, fascisms had

one newspaper).

In their effort to discipline the state, parliament

and other agencies of representative government

sought to manage this public sphere Berlusconi controlled one

The success of the public sphere depends upon: television and many

1. The extent of access (as close to universal newspaper, this is powerful

as possible)

2. The degree of autonomy (the citizens must How many people can talk

be free of coercion)

3. The rejection of hierarchy (so that each

might participate on an equal footing) How are you regulating

4. The rule of law (particularly the the cultural realm

subordination of the state)

5. The quality of participation (the common

commitment to the ways of logic) How do I aggregate opinions?

Opinions are the common

commitment to the way of logic, how

do I aggregate them? On evidences

and rationalities or on fate

The forms acquired by cultural exchange are central to

the constitution of the modern public sphere:

Where

1. : The exchange alley, the Palais Royal (the

cousin fo the king lived there, he was jealous, the

king could not send police in that palace and the

cousin organised and hosted revolutionary meeting Social centers, do we keep

inside the palace), Academies and universities, The them in the center or we

Factory, Cities, District, Scenes, Urban forms: free isolate them

space vs controlled spaces. The where is about

logistic.

When

2. : free time vs working time (the role of

creative workers)

What

3. : the agenda setting, somebody tells you what

is important,who says what is it more important than

other

How

4. : how we talk about things? Through which

rethorics and technologies? It exists also censorship

(direct and indirect, the spiral of silence=things we

dont talk about)

Cultural production system

The Cultural production systems, as to say all the

collective processes aimed at delivering and sharing

symbolic activities (including the way in which we

shape our collective spaces), directly influence the

functions and the capacities of the public sphere, and

therefore the degree of democratisation fo societies

Riddles

Mass culture or elite culture

Industries and institutions

Underground (and indie) vs popular and classic

Michel Foucault

Foucault was a political philosopher

Studied philosophy with Maurice Merleau Ponty, then

psychology and psycopathology. Deeply influenced by

Nietzsche.

The core of the political philosophy of Foucault

is centered of the idea of the interconnection /

simultaneity/ structural relation between

symoblic activies and power relationships: the

notion of DISCOURSE is one of the dominante

features of his position. When you talk we are

reproducing power system

Example:

The professor in a class

When you say men to say humanity, is a

production of power system

He was gay in a moment in which being

homosexual was prohibited by the law

The ways of expressing ourselves and the political

power creation are two mutual political actions, not

everybody can have a voice and not everything can be

said

In marginalities your have the capacity to produce social

and political changes through culture

Discourse

The notion of «discourse» is relevant as it openly

connects representations, symbolic practices,

cultures, to power relationships.

The connection proposed by this notion do not

reduce the symbolic dimension to a mere derivative

of objective conditions of power (like in the structure

– superstructure perspective). The symbolic actions

and the power relations connect in a mutual

constructive action characterized by processes of

institutionalization and reproduction (path dependent).

Not everybody can have a voice, not everything can

be said. And this is not mainly because of the action Maybe you want to

of explicit rules or censorships, but as a consequence express a feeling but

of the intimate structures of languages and there isn’t a word for it

meanings.

Structures that are actors of and acted by a process

of collective legitimation. Censorships is therefore

anticipated and embedded into the discoursive

structures and strategies (subjectivity, social

practices,

This is why «cultural changes» more

often produced in the fringe, in the

places in which social, institutional

and political control are less effective,

have the capacity to produce social

and political changes: innovations and

new imaginaries.

«Suppose a society called everything slightly red

"red" and grouped purple along with red in the

process. And compare this to a society that called

everything slightly orange "orange," included red

(but not purple) under the category, but also

yellow. How would these two societies be able to

talk about the color of things? They would be

using different language maps to organize colors

and a simple translation from one to the other

appears simply impossible».

«The problem is that within our own language

we fail to notice the way in which

community

we are constituting what we talk about by

such arbitrary language practices that have

become second nature to us».

«To study these discourse formations (or

discursive formations) is “archaeology”.We will try

implicit rules we use that work

to grasp the

together to form this map of the world

around us ».

Discourse and power

power

“What makes hold good, what makes it accepted is simply

the fact that it doesn’t only weight on us as a force that says no.

induces pleasures,

It also traverses and produces things, it

forms knowledges, product discourses .

It need to be considered as a productive network that runs

through the whole social body. If one describes all these

phenomena of power as dependent on the state apparatus, this

means grasping them as essentially repressive...but the relation of

state can only

power extend beyond the limits of the state. ...the

operate on the basis of other, already existing , power

relations.

state is superstructural in relation to a whole series of

The

power network that invest the body, sexuality, the family,

kinship, knowledge, technology.... True, these network stand in a

conditioning-conditioned relationship with a kind of metapower

structured around a certain number of great prohibition functions”

The regime of truth

«Truth isn’t outside power or lacking in power. Truth isn’t the

reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude, Truth

is produced by virtue of a multiple forms of constraint and

it induce regular effects on power.

Each society has its regime of truth, its general politics of

thruth – that is the type of discourse it accepts and makes

function as true – the mecanism and instances that enable

one to distinguish true and false statements, the mean by

which each is sanctioned, the thecniques and procedures

accorded value in the acquisition of truth, the status of those

who are charged with saying what counts as true».

«Truth is to be understood as a system of ordered

procedures for the production, regulation, distribution,

circulation and operation of statements».

«Truth is linked in circular relation with system of power that

produce and sustain it and to effect of power which it

induces and which extend it – a regime of truth».

normally think that truth is

We

what it is in front of us, it’s

undeniable

This regime is not merely ideological or superstructural; it

was a condition for the formation and development of

capitalism.

The problem is not changing people’s consciousness but the

political, economic, institutional regime of the production of

truth.

The political question is not error, alienated consciousness, or

ideology: is the truth itself, hence the importance of Niezsche

Parrhesia

Parrhesia imply truthfulness,

speaking the truth

Discourse tell you that it is impossible to

be free, parreshia is a specific way of

telling the truth

Complete and exact account of what you

have in mind, you are the truth, your body

is the truth, that imply danger, to tell the

truth

The way to escape the trap of discourse is

to develop parrhesia, being activists

means to be parrhesiastic

It’s an inquisition in the context

A look to parrhesia is an horizon toward

we have to look to in order to innovate

need to say what I completely

The

believe in with all the energy and

capacity I have, the power of negating

the possibility to say

Harold Pinter

I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching,

unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the

real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation

which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory. If such a

determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no

hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us―the dignity of man.

Parrhesia, literally means “all telling” or “to say

everything”

It derives from “pan” (everything) and “rhema” (that

which is said).

It’s an ancient Greek notion put back into the

circulation of thought by Michel Foucault, by way of

his 1983 lectures as part of the seminar entitled

“Discourse and Truth”.

In its use, parrhesia connotes a meaning close to

truthfulness (Sharpe, 2007), a frankness in speaking

the truth

Parrhesia and the Parrhesia is a fundamental characteristic of

Athenian democracy Athenian democracy, and a requirement for

public speech. Among isegoria (the equal right of

speech) and isonomia (the right to equal

participation in the exercise of power), parrhesia is

a right bestowed to Athenian citizens and takes

place in the agora (Foucault, 1983).

Foucault reads parrhesia at the junction of five

elements, five concepts that compose it:

frankness, truth, danger, criticism and duty

(Evren, 2006).