One of the main points I think Lelyveld was trying to address was the absurdity of the white vs. black power struggle of South Africa in the 1960's, particularily that of the whites in charge treating the blacks in a ridiculously unfair manner. Trying to inhibit the spread of families and the growth of their populations to try and get the black communities to eventually and very intentionally die out. He also deals with how black stereotypes today are unfair seeing as how they stem from this type of environment where blacks get punished for crimes that aren't really crimes at all, and then placed in jail, or worse, for it. Also he talks about how the minorities in power sometimes are very good at having all kinds of reasons and laws and explanations for their various forms of oppression that can make it very hard to stop or prevent them from carrying out their power on the people in unfair ways for often trivial reasons.
"In actual practice the whole system is outraged by any evidence of talent or ambition or sensitivity beneath black skin. There is no black writer in South Africa today who has won any kind of public recognition. Invariably, recognition leads to exile, and just as invariably, the government places a ban on publication of anything that has ever been written by exiled writers." (p. 13)
"Officially the government considers Soweto a temporarily unavoidable social aberration in what has now been declared a 'white area'. Eventually - or so the theory of apertheid at it's most preposterous, holds - the entire black urban population will melt back into tribal reserves, thus when community leaders in Soweto meekly requested the right to own their own homes, a cabinet minister replied, : "If we allow freehold rights in Soweto that would be the anchor for Africans to settle permanently in our midst. That is against government policy." (p. 8)
This source builds on Sekula's essay because it's an example of how governments, even if what they are doing is completely wrong and unfair, are able to carry out the terrible things they're doing because they can and they are in power. It is also an example of how the government uses forms of media to change people. They use very at times subtle techniques to manipulate the media so they can remain in power over us. Like how the white South African government banned certain books from their people because they didn't want them getting certain ideas in their heads, and they didn't want to have the people be allowed to read anything that made them look bad because they are afraid of losing their position of power. We still today ban books in many of our schools and libraries in America as well.
I plan to use this source to further my investigations on societies, communities, and their systems of power and governance and how that relates to globalization and our expanding communities. I could tie this in as a way to relate modern practices and advances in the media's stereotyping and manipulating, to where they came from and to help further predict where this might lead us in the future as far as our communities go.
This source seems to be related to my other sources in that it deals with various societies and their struggle in dealing with a minority in power and their unfairness in governing them, and the shaping of their media to try and trick them into naivety about it all. This source also deals with these minorities in power unfairly stereotyping certain groups of people and using certain groups of people to their advantage whether the groups want to be used in this way or not, which is a theme I've loosely been able to connect within these sources.
2. Giorgio Agamben "Security and Terror" Theory and Event Vol. 5, no. 3, [online] available at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/v005/5.4agamben.html
The first main point I think Agamben makes is that governing bodies should be more concerned with installing preventative measures when it comes to national and major emergencies rather than 'security plans' which merely guide and control them after they have already occurred. By doing this we could prevent governments from using these catastrophes to achieve their own secret agendas we. the public, are left out of the loop on.
"In a word, discipline wants to produce order, while security wants to guide disorder." (p.1 paragraph 3.)
"Maybe the time has come to work towards the prevention of disorder and catastrophe and not merely towards their control...On the contrary, we can say that politics secretly works towards the production of emergencies."
This source build on Feldman's essay in that it looks at ways in which the government uses subtly different policies to their advantage in controlling the masses. By focusing on security, which in itself doesn't sound like a bad thing, and not on enforcing stronger preventative measures in society, they can use huge emergencies like war to try and get people to do what they want them to do to try and achieve their own purposes and goals that may not be the same as that of the masses they are attempting to rally together in the face of these emergencies. The state of human fear that is associated with these emergencies makes people pliable and moldable and very very vulnerable to any strong leadership shown at the time of crisis. This is source is something I'll be able to use in discussing globalization, as the measures of security cause a more globalized view. And this could be a dangerous thing if governments are going to use these plans of security to manipulate us in times of crisis, rather than work to prevent them altogether. A globalized world also places power more and more in the hands of a select minority of people, politicians, and the use of security in conjunction with terrorism seems to be a growing threat with these new advancements in more globalized communities.
This source is connected to my other sources in that it deals, again, with community issues and societal issues and their exposure to manipulative government actions in the media and other forms, and how as we move forward it becomes harder to recognize these manipulations for what they are, but still they are perhaps more than ever a colossal issue to be dealt with in modern society. It also discusses terrorism, Michal Foucalt who was a source in other places in Feldman's and Sekula's essays and his theories on society and government, and also he uses of danger and the states of catastrophe in the world that changes the state of mind of the people to that of fear and helplessness and how that helps governing bodies achieve a stronger hold on their rule of the masses.
3. E. Junger "On Danger" New German Critique, 59 p.27-32
The first main point I think Junger tries to make is that comprehensively within ourselves and throughout the world there is an increased intrusion of danger on our daily lives. This is nothing new as in the past the bourgeois valued security greatly. Also those who didn't were scarce or criminal. And around danger, artists, writers warriors, criminals and more, though they are few, thrive. People want everything to be safe and secure because they are afraid of the unknown. But if things are always secure and if there is no uncertainties in our lives we would become bored and may even "depart for the distances symbolized by strange lands, intoxication, or death." (Junger p.29) However Junger seems to associate the love of danger to the stronger people in society. He also discusses how besides nature and certain catastrophic events outside of our control, our own inventions are what can be most dangerous to us. And that humanity itself is arguably the most dangerous of all. Finally Junger talks about how we are not always conscious of the fact that things are rapidly changing in our opinion and experience of media, danger, security, and modern technological tools.
"In this sense it may be said that we have already plunged deeply into new more dangerous realms without our being conscious of them." (Junger p.32)
"Already today there is hardly and event of human significance towards which the artificial eye, the camera lens, is not directed." (Junger p.31)
"The history of inventions also raises ever more clearly the question of whether a space of absolute comfort or a space of absolute danger is the final aim concealed in technology. Completely apart from the circumstance that scarcely a machine . scarcely a science has ever existed which did not fulfill directly or indirectly dangerous functions in the war, inventions like the automobile engine have already resulted in greater losses than any war be it ever so bloody. " (Junger p.30)
"From this moment on, the words peace and order become a slogan to which the weaker morale resorted." (Junger p.30)
Feldman uses this source in his essay, especially the end section about the camera and the artificial eye seeing everything to show how and elaborate on the ways society is changing and in lots of ways becoming more and more dangerous as people themselves and the things they create become more dangerous. Also he talks about, as Feldman does, the fact that we go on doing what we always do and don't stop to think or ask why and we are unaware then of the vast changes occurring in society and the way people are running it.
I can use this source help me show how easy it will be for governments as the world becomes more and more globalized, to manipulate the people through media. As he says in his quote, Junger explains how people go on spending the 'usual coins' without realizing the rate of exchange has changed.
Again this source relates to my other sources in that it deals with societies and people and their behaviors in relation to issues of security and the government. It differs in that it's more about humanity's struggles with danger and conflict in general and less with that of specifically governmental or ruling bodies but I definitely think it ties in.
4. Arjun Appadurai "Dead Certainty: Ethnic violence in the Era of Globalization" Public Culture (1998) Vol. 10, pp.225-247
One of the main points I think Appadurai makes in his essay is first to reveal to what extent ethnic violence really goes to and why. In relation to globalization he seems to be saying that these mixing ethnic cultures become so huge and confusing, acts of violence are conducted partially out of fear and partially out of a personal anger because of the lack of this ability to understand. Then also the violence is able to help them see a person inside of something described as merely a 'body' that fits in with the ethnic whole. However sick and twisted these acts of violence are, they are a way in which some of these people try to discover real persons within bodies. Appadurai also discusses how globalization can lead up to these acts of violence.
"These horrible counter performances retain one deep element in common with their life enhancing counterparts: They are instruments in making persons out of bodies." (Appadurai p.241)
"But it is precisely in situations where endemic doubts and pressure become intolerable that ordinary people begin to see masks instead of faces." (Appadurai p.241)
"The problem of fake identities seems to demand the brutal creation of real persons through violence." (Appadurai p.242)
"Yet globalization does not produce just one road to uncertainty, terror or violence." (Appadurai p.243)
"There are surely other ethnocidal imaginaries in which forces of global capital, the relative power of the states, varying histories of race and class and differences in the states of mass mediation, produce different kinds of uncertainty and different scenarios for ethnocide." (Appadurai p.243)
This build on Feldman's essay because it deals with similar occurrances to that of the Abu Ghraib prison stories. It backs it up with how and why those events might have transpired based on the confusion certain ethnic peoples feel in the globalizing world.
I can use this essay to further my research on globalization and the effects new technologies in this global setting have on us and the media. This is a good example of some of the negative aspects of globalization and how it could be used against people. The loss of certain histories of races and their identities may cause further uncertainties and confusion, which can then produce ethnic violence in various forms.
This source ties into my other sources because it deals with globalization and some aspects of people and their social behaviors, in this case specifically in relation to ethnic violence caused by the changing identities of groups of people which is stemming at least partially if not solely from globalization. It differs in that it deals with more exact examples of ethnic violence in several countries and the reasons why this happens and could begin to happen more in the era of globalization.
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