Foucault, Governmentality, and Feminism - Assignment Example

Rhetorics al Affiliation The trope of the angry feminist is a discussion about the feminist scholars who are seen tobe driven by anger, they do not reason, man hating, perverse and peculiar. The trope ensures that It deals with feminist argument at the first stages before it starts to undermine their politics. Characteristically, the trope is a continuous repetition which forms part of cultural training program which has made the antifeminism daily routine in every day conversation (Davilman & Dubelman, 2009). The trope comes in to address and to shift the burden of proof to feminine by delegitimizing their arguments before its reach a stage where it would undermine their political issues by making feminine more repulsive to young women through foreclosing, their feminism and making it cost personal (King-Shaver & Hunter, 2003). Framing political and academic discussion through use of common sense may treat the rhetoric of feminism as neutral technology to be used in isolation from its production conditions, situation of the speakers or general society that makes utterance friendlier to prevailing power relations. Besides, transforming the terms of reading can help shift and refrain the problem, of feminine through the tool kit called feminist socio forensic discursive analysis, the argument provocative way of transforming the terms of reading to help reframe interpretation of affect in both feminist and antifeminist (Tomlinson, 2010). In the arguments, it has been theorized that there have been failure as one of the characteristics to carry out the role of feminist in academic and political discourse. The trope of angry feminists is seen to be both on those that are feminists and those that are non-feminists. The main similar concert in this aspect is deployed to delegitimize social critic. This is critic that draws on deep well of related clichés, effective rhetorical strategies and other familiar tropes. Another characteristic is that the trope of the angry feminists presents itself as being fresh each time it is uttered. Banality is framed as just reflection of the repetitious banality of the feminist’s argument. Conventional reading practices rein scribe ways of thinking that are seen to be logical or fair since they are always familiar (Lemke, 2011). Practices that have been in use are the ones that enable response to the tropes. This is also encouraged through power relations. In attempt to stop the feminists, there should be consideration of politics as a tool that is used to shape the social relationships involving authority and power. In an example, the University of California in September 2008 announced that that it had proved a program that would offer masters and doctoral degrees in Feminist study. This is intended to make people learn on the factor that will enable the learning on how to keep feminists on the right track. An example of culture is that which was carried out in England where the main aim was to warn women against their tendency of acting freely or declaring their own ideas instead of knuckling under the impulses of their husbands. Analysis on the trope The trope of angry feminists is drawn from a deep well of related clichés after there exists rhetorical strategies and tropes that are familiar in the society. The firs characteristic as brought out is that the reasoning argues that it is characterized to elimination of the notion that the qualities of an individual can in for the qualities of an argument. Another characteristic is that the distinction puts one in eschew claims about what is not able to be perceived, fails to understand and that they believe. Argument is a tool that is a social tool that enables one to think precisely because it is able to articulate claims that n=may be clearer and do not much contradicts. The trope has not functioned effectively to silence the feminists. The feminists have not argued as brought out in the scope as there are still arguments that they make without thinking. 2. Foucaults notions of power Foucaults notions of power are based on the argument that weight loss dieting has for a long time been associated to tyranny of slenderness and the enforcement by patriarchal disciplinary practices. The approach that he uses in this article is different as it focuses on weight loss dieting not only as a quest for a desirable body but also as a process of working on the self. He brings out recognition of power in the discourse. Foucaults notions of power are brought out following the account of historical changes in the form and function of power. He brings out dieting in a way that makes it one of the factors of disciplinary practices played out in the body through the process of at once becoming subjected and other times becoming a subject. Through this view, it is not only false belief but it is brought out that dieting is not only about weight loss as a projected outcome but it is an activity that is aimed in constructing the whole body. There has been argument by David Owen that a picture holds us captive. Being held captive by a linguistic picture represents, posits Owen, an important form of nonphysical constraint on our capacity for self-government—our ability to make and act on judgments that are meaningfully our own—just as ideological captivity does. This “aspectual captivity, “unlike ideological captivity (which is necessarily linked to the falsity of the agent’s beliefs), is independent of the truth-value of such beliefs. The technique is oriented around freeing ourselves from the belief that power is a substance possessed by a sovereign. In its place, Foucault suggested, that we should understand power as a universal relation in which multiple local forms of power, discipline, or rejection of self-government can happen. “Docility is a major objective of most successful normalized disciplinary practices,” writes McWhorter (1999, 180), and at the level of the individual weight-watcher it is diligently refined. Any shown cynicism about Weight Watchers’ approaches, or unchartered admission of deviation from the plan, must be actively suppressed lest the house of cards come tumbling down. Most people who attend Weight Watchers fail to lose weight at all, or quickly reach a plateau and then start to regain. The suppression in this aspect is linked to resistance power that is brought out with relating it to weight loss. The power of governance is also brought out in different aspects. To dwell too lovingly on these pleasures may sound like a paean to dieting, and this is certainly not my intention. However, intent on characterizing dieting as a cruel disciplinary government, feminists may have omitted the details of the capabilities it can develop. Those with radical politics may also be too invested in looking down on women who freely admit to dieting; a holier-than-thou attitude can make the false consciousness model attractive not for its philosophical virtues but because it makes us feel morally superior (Lemke, 2011). There may be a class politics underneath this elision: not only does being thinner often increase class mobility and economic rewards, but if you are stuck in a pink-collar job that has little space for personal accomplishment, then setting your own goal and taking action to achieve it can also feel especially empowering. In ethics, the main notion is self-care. Dieting may permit a kind of embodied self-care that provides a detailed and absorbing shared narrative in place of a (sometimes feigned) ignorance or denial of one’s habits or status that is often deeply internal and privatized. The process may entail new ways of relating to others that permit the unspoken to be voiced, or change to be mooted. In this context, the self to be known is not a static, essential one, but rather ever transforming (Mertins, 2009). 3 The Hidden Role of Pathos in Toulmin’s Layout of Argument Stephen Toulmin brings the main aspect of using arguments. He thinks that arguments are theories that are logic to change the model of reasoning in which there is basing on argumentative theory. Using judicial argumentation as a model helps Toulmin clarify points about field dependency and the layout of arguments, as well as demonstrate the complexity of practical arguments in non-theoretical situations. Toulmin is more concerned with the structure of substantial arguments and showing why they cannot be reduced to analytical terms than with exploring the characteristic concerns of practical argumentation. However, while he does not straight address the likely role of pathos in practical argumentation, Toulmin indirectly leaves room for it in his account of the field-dependence of permits and their support. Toulmin’s disassociation of idealized logic from working logic is expanded into a distinction between rationality and reasonableness. Rationality is held up by modernist philosophers and scientists as the model or ideal for reasoning: it is timeless, universal, impersonal, and highly theoretical. Toulmin argues that the closer rationality—in the form of a ‘science’ of logic—gets to universal, timeless certainty, the further away it is from being able to meaningfully describe practical reasoning in everyday like. Hence, he distinguishes a different intellectual ideal, reasonableness, which he associates with humanist philosophers such as Michel de Montaigne. Toulmin grounds reasonableness in an almost Ciceronian union of rhetoric and philosophy: ‘The future belongs not so much to the pure thinkers who are happy at best with hopeful or negative sayings; it is an area, rather, for reflective physicians who are ready to act on their principles. Warm moods allied with cool heads seek a central way between the extremes of abstract theory and personal impulse (Tomlinson, 2005). Real-world models, however, have a way of bringing unintentional as well as intentional features into the discussion. Aristotle claims that judicial cases are more open to irrelevant emotional appeals than legislative deliberations (Tomlinson, 2007), and while he may be overstating the disinterestedness of legislators, actual court cases often show a tension between the emotional investments of participants and the legal limitations on permissible considerations Aristotle analyzes how to use the emotions in argumentation according to three characteristics: the state of mind of the person experiencing the emotion, the object of the emotion (against or toward whom or what it is experienced), and the reasons people feel emotions (Poole, 2007). Entitlement that the firm distinction between rational argumentation meant at reason and influence aimed at the emotions is untrue, a matter of grade rather than type. So one input that rhetoricians make in debating the role of the feelings in argumentation is to accept a more nuanced relation of emotions to reason, rather than seeing them in necessary opposition to one another (Poole, 2007). Intelligibility has to do with the ‘relationship between an emotion and the beliefs involved’ we find it intelligible if someone is afraid of something they believe to be dangerous. For example, if someone is ‘irrationally’ afraid of dogs, that fear might be unintelligible to a dog lover until it is explained that she was attacked by a dog at a young age. Reference Davilman, B., & Dubelman, L. (2009). What was I thinking?. New York: St. Martins Press. Foucault, M., & Lagrange, J. (2006). Psychiatric power. Basingstoke, Hampshire [England]: Palgrave Macmillan. Gilbert, M. (2013). Coalescent Argumentation. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. King-Shaver, B., & Hunter, A. (2003). Differentiated instruction in the English classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Lemke, T. (2011). Foucault, governmentality, and critique. Boulder, Colo.: Paradigm Publishers. Mertins, D. (2009). Framework. New York: Monacelli Press. Poole, J. (2007). Behind the rhetoric of hope: A critical analysis of recovery discourses in Ontario. Tomlinson, B. (2005). Authors on writing. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Tomlinson, B. (2007). A qualitative case study of teachers inclusion beliefs, skills, and practices in the context of Pennsylvanias general and special education collaborative. Tomlinson, B. (2010). Feminism and affect at the scene of argument. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Read More