• Number2018
    559
    Arendt’s vision of political action is based primarily on Athens of 5th century BC. She begins from the Aristotelian definition of the ancient polis as the opposition between bare life (zēn) and politically qualified life (eu zēn):

    “The human capacity for a political organization is not only different but in direct opposition to that natural association whose centre is home and family…No activity that served only the purpose of making a living, of sustaining only the life process was permitted to enter the political realm.” (Hanna Arendt The Human Condition).

    Male citizens make the passage from the private darkness to the illuminated public scene.They speak and show off who they are; their speech articulates and interrogates the inspiring principles of justice and democracy. The space of appearance is not only an architectural given; it is also constituted by the performative power of the action itself.

    “Action and speech create a space between the participants which can find its proper location almost anywhere and anytime.” The action-in-concert emerges simultaneously with the manifestation of freedom, so that “to be free and to act are the same.”

    For Butler, rethinking Arendt’s account on action within today’s politics, it is crucial to overcome the gender, social, and civic divisions and demarcations as the primary premises of the political: “The sphere of appearance is not simple since it seems to arise only on the condition of a certain intersubjective facing off…Who we are, bodily, is already a way of being “for” other, appearing in ways that we can neither see nor hear, nor fully participate or control. I am, as a body, not primarily for myself, but I am constituted and dispossessed by the perspective of others. So, for political action, I must appear to others in ways I cannot know so that my body is established by perspectives that I cannot inhabit, but that, inevitably, inhabit me.” (Judith Butler Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly.)

    While taking part in an action, we do not necessarily expose our authentic identities. We may not be able to articulate verbally expressed clear principles. The non-discursive concerted bodily performances could be more effective than the speech act enactments. “The political meanings, the plural forms of performativity, enacted by embodied actions of various kinds, signify in ways that are neither discursive nor pre-discursive.” The gap between bare life of “a private body” and politically qualified life of “ a public body” has ultimately bridged. We can create an acting group while being dispossessed of an appropriate legal status. “The powerful unknown other,” which is not just the re-emergence of the intersubjective crowd effect, has inhabited the space of appearance: “the people (the collective subject of action) are not just produced by their vocalized claims, but also by the conditions of possibility of their appearance. Technological, digital, virtual, etc. means and platforms facilitate the various ways of a gathering, a coming together. If the people are constituted through a complex interplay of performance, image, acoustics, and the various technologies engaged in those productions, then “media” is not just reporting who the people claim to be, but media has entered to the very definition of the people.

    ”Despite tremendous differences, Butler shares with Arendt the central assertion that "a group of people, unpredictably and transitory taking up space and obdurately living" is a primary subject of political action, able to reconfigure public space and the field of politics. Nowadays, George Floyd's death sparked national outrage against aggressive police practices. The open digital space and various media platforms have created the sphere of appearance for the protest movement. Since "the media has entered the very definition of the people," it brings advantages of the swift mobilization and the spread of the experience of solidarity. Yet, the ongoing civil unrest is hampered by the lack of an organized structure, the elaborated political program, and recognizable leaders. The current political agenda could probably not be stable and durable. Can the aleatory media environment become the engine for the constitution of explicit political subjectivity?
  • Number2018
    559
    It could be productive to compare the ongoing protests with the 1968 civil unrest events in France. The events reached such a point that
    the national government ceased to function after President Charles de Gaulle
    fled France to Germany. Jean Baudrillard personally witnessed the events of 1968. Generally, his view of action-in-concert was close to Arendt's one. The revolutionary rupture, the 'break with causality' occurs when a process erupts secreting new systems of reference. The action of revolt cannot be derived from the order of causes. People, acting together, can create and sustain the new subjectivity and its forms of expression. In Baudrillard's perspective, the mass media played a decisive role in the defeat of the May 68 protest movement. "Mass media diffusion and contagion had nothing to do with the symbolic quality of the action. At the extreme, the subversive act is no longer produced except as a function of its reproducibility. It is no longer created; it is produced directly as a model. The symbolic has slipped from the order of the very production of meaning to that of its reproduction, which is always the order of power. "(Jean Baudrillard, Requiem for the Media). When the nationwide public had become in-formed by the mass media, the authentic solidarity and enthusiasm were lost. The media coverage has distorted and transformed the mode of action, reducing it to reproducing the various simulacra prototypes. Baudrillard’s view has entirely diverged from Butler’s conception as well as from the role of the media in the current civil unrest.
  • Number2018
    559
    If the people are constituted through a complex interplay of performance, image, acoustics, and the various technologies engaged in those productions, then “media” is not just reporting who the people claim to be, but media has entered to the very definition of the people.Number2018

    Baudrillard's perspective supports the thesis that the media is the function of power, and its primary purpose is to maintain the status quo. Dayan and Katz in the
    book "Media Events" continued this line of argumentation.
    Large-scale' media events' are formatted to make sure that they meet our
    preconceived expectations of our roles and the roles of the media.
    Spectacular and high-exposure media events serve a ritualistic role in helping to define mediated cultures. For example, the Olympics, political assassinations, terrorist events, and royal weddings are identified as significant enough to make the watching
    and reading of the event a significant cultural artifact in itself. Such events can
    be understood as cultural rituals whose representation in the media carries a message about how we should understand ourselves. Each ritual requires a particular mode
    of representation and interpretation, which in turn creates a shared identity for our community. For instance, the glorification of national athletes at the Olympic games
    is exactly what reminding us of our national identity and re-creates our nationalism.
    According to Dayan and Katz, in a mass-mediated world, the very ritual of
    consuming the media becomes a form of social integration. Dayan and Katz published their book in 1994. Then, there were tremendous changes due to the advent of the open digital space and social media networks. The media has intensively reported the critical events of the ongoing civil unrest, starting from George Floyd's death up to his funeral. It does not look like the media coverage has promoted the maintenance of dominant societal identities, while rendering any alternatives as deviant, or even seditious. It is possible to assume that the media's primary controlling function has shifted from the support of a set of identities or particular narratives to the consuming of media-products. Therefore, it becomes understandable how the media can transcend and transform any possible struggle, any potential or actual conflict, how it covers the entire field of all unfolding events, and why the particular content of any event becomes less important.
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.