The labeling of other people determines how people think about them. Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s idea of linguistic determinism illustrates that people tend to alienate others from themselves, and not relate to those that they do not want to simply by their descriptions of the other. As seen in the film, Maria, Full of Grace, the words used to describe the drug smugglers were sub-human, and therefore no one would think about the reason they needed to play into that role. Likewise, in the short poem, “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School,” the principal’s paranoia to what he cannot understand shows that he is fixated on the differences in language across culture, rather than the similarity. Theoretically this is put …show more content…
He hears his name mentioned in a conversation, and immediately becomes paranoid about what they are saying about him. Because he sees them as different, he assumes them to be wrong, and that they shouldn’t be speaking Spanish in the bathroom to each other. Thus, he decides to ban speaking Spanish in the bathroom. His extreme action is explained by his xenophobia, or the fear of what he sees as foreign. Simply because he frames Spanish as a different language and culture, he cannot focus on the similarities of the people, but sees it as different, and ultimately wrong. Just because he couldn’t understand it, he felt that removing it, those thoughts would also be removed. Not only was his policy impractical, but it also accomplished nothing. Those thoughts would still be thought, and of course the rule is so outrageous that it will be very hard to enforce. Yet, if he tried to empathize with the students, rather than seeing them as very different, he may have been able to reach a much more effective solution. The principal’s abuse of power was justified as him as seeing the children as the other, and as Wittgenstein thinks, …show more content…
By only highlighting the differences and ignoring the similarities, once again, a person will think that the other is morally wrong. His his theoretical prison plan, he would put all the prisoners in a ring, where all prisoners would be visible to all others at any time. By them feeling watched, the prisoners would ultimately want to fit in, and not rebel. However, if framed differently, the prisoners could easily join together, and the system would no longer work. Even thought there would be a guard watching them behind a tinted wall that they couldn’t see through, the real ones holding the power in that prison would be the other prisoners, whose mindsets were changed to see the other prisoners as different and wrong. The guards would simply be able to threaten what would happen, and everyone would fit right into place, trying to be as normal and similar to the norm as possible. By making them all feel paranoid about themselves, Foucault knew the prisoners would try to fit in. Likewise, the prisoners all know through experience that those seen as different are also seen as wrong, and quite apparently would try to avoid that accusation and effect of the
Even though all the prisoners are doing the grueling physical labor but none of them are trying to against the role. They are adhering to group norms and standards in prison. Conformity to social norms may also be a utility-seeking activity, less in term or directly avoiding punishment or currying favor but rather as a means to stabilize relationships and enhance the predictability of behavior in the group. (DeLamater et al., 2014). All the prisoner is conformity even Luke are but after Luke heard his mother’s death things
“If you want to be American, speak ‘American.’ If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong” (280). The individuality of Anzaldua has almost been erased because others tell her that she needs to fit the ideals of an American. When people say speak American, they are stating that the person needs to conform to their culture. To do this, a person must forget or ignore previous values to fit into a new place. People may want to desperately remove others from what they believed before because they view the outsiders as a danger to their own culture. Therefore, the sense of danger comes from the idea that the uniformity they have in their country might shift to follow the needs of others. The fact that punishments and reformations were used to change Anzaldua show how people assume the cultures of others are harmful to their own and need to be corrected. Moreover, people are also told to go back to their country, which further proves society cannot accept the individuality of others that are not like them. Another example can be seen when the Latinos from Anzalduas original county go against her. She states that, “Even our own people, other Spanish speakers nos quieren poner candados en la boca…Chicano Spanish is considered by the purist and by most latinos deficient, a mutilation of Spanish” (281). The negative connotation of mutilation gives people the
Grayson Taylor argues that prison creates Prison Psychosis. This is ‘a state of mental confusion, transitory or permanent.' (Taylor, 2000, p. 51). Psychological torture imposed upon prisoners particularly black prisoners reinforces prison psychosis and this results in permanently damaged prisoners who ultimately become immune to pain and punishment. Black inmates are susceptible to Psychological torture in prison because the prison population is predominantly black and prison officers are mostly white.
Like North Carolina, many other states are looking to adopt segregated bathroom laws. These states include Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Louisiana. These bathroom bills violate numerous federal laws. These include a section of the Education Amendment Title IX, Civil Rights Act Title VII, and the Violence against Women Act (Kotch). Some of these bathroom bills state that transgender individuals have to utilize bathroom facilities that correspond with the gender on their birth certificate thus violating Title IX, an amendment that protects discrimination on the basis of sex. This amendment states that schools are required to provide transgender students
Recently, the issue of allowing transgender people access to public facilities according to the gender they identify with has caused much debate throughout the United States. The bathroom bill seeks to control access to public facilities of transgender individuals, based on the gender they were assigned at birth. In 2015, bills were passed stating entering a bathroom not assigned to a person at birth was a crime. Surrounded by misconception, the bill does “not legalize harassment, stalking, violence, or sexual assault.” Since the bill arose, there have not been a rise in violence or other incidents in the states protecting the transgender rights (Transgender Equality). The bill simply states if one is living as a woman, to use the women’s restroom,
Prison is an important place, because it takes away the power from individuals. This means that the criminal is no longer acting upon his will, but that of the officers, judge, guards, etc. “They are the foundation of society, and an element in its equilibrium.” (215) All the techniques, when created, they “attained a level at which formation of knowledge and the increase of power regularly reinforce the other.” (216)
Prisons hide prisoners from society. “If an inmate population is shut in, the free community is shut out, and the vision of men held in custody is, in part, prevented from arising to prick the conscience of those who abide by the social rules” (Sykes, 1958, 8). The prison is an instrument of the state. However, the prison reacts and acts based on other groups in the free community. Some believe imprisonment
I also enjoyed your thought that the metaphor, in which the prisoners represent the people from the society, may not be completely right because people can choose what to see and believe.
I feel that the gender-neutral bathrooms in schools are not a very good idea because as a woman I feel that not a very common or safe idea. I would not feel safe because I do not want to share a bathroom with men. One thing that could happen in the gender-neutral bathrooms is sexual assault. Women and girls are the number one victims in these cases of sexual assault. I also feel that I do not have my personal or private place to use anymore. By adding the males in the females and females to males, gives us both the feeling of los-ing our privacy of a girl and a guy to do what we need to in the bathrooms. I feel that having separate bathrooms will help with the safety issues of the males walking into a fe-male bathroom and vice versa. Overall,
Michel Foucault is a very famous French intellectual who practiced the knowledge of sociology. Foucault analyzed how knowledge related to social structures, in particular the concept of punishment within the penal system. His theory through, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, is a detailed outline of the disciplinary society; in which organizes populations, their relations to power formations, and the corresponding conceptions of the subjects themselves. Previously, this type of punishment focused on torture and dismemberment, in which was applied directly to bodies. Foucault mentions through his literary piece, “the soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy: the soul is the prison of the body (p.30). However, today, the notion of punishment involves public appearances in a court and much more humane sentences. However, it is important to note and to understand the idea of power and knowledge; it is fundamental to understand the social system as a whole.
The changing norms of the generation has brought upon commotion between various states because of the presidents judgement. The transgender bathroom policy allows transgender students to use the bathroom they identify as and not by the sex on their birth certificate (Fox News, 2016). The transgender bathroom policy has both successes and failure to ensure safety for transgender students resulting to its change being for not only trans-gender. Gender neutral bathrooms allows safety for those who are not only transgender, but also a part of the LGBTQ community, etc. but it causes a conflict with gender segregation. Adding additional bathrooms to suite other gender preferences costs more money and not everyone is going to accept what they walk into the bathroom and see. The gender neutral bathroom policy should be taken off of hold and be put into action because everything is constantly changing and those who do not identify as the sex they were assigned at birth are at risk for harm.
A sign protesting a recent North Carolina law restricting transgender bathroom access is seen in the bathroom stalls at the 21C Museum Hotel in Durham, North Carolina May 3, 2016. (REUTERS/Jonathan Drake/File Phot by Colleen Jenkins
This interest as I call it was the need of privacy to be respected by individuals and governments. Foucault’s idea of “Panopticisim” might be too much to be conducted in a free environment but in the prison setting as he described is ideal. This helps keep the peace and establishes a reason for the inmates to behave. The thought that just individuals who are accomplishing something incorrectly have things to cover up and subsequently motivations to think about protection, is that it settles in two extremely dangerous messages, two ruinous lessons, the first is that the main individuals who think about security, the main individuals who will search out security, are by definition terrible individuals. This is a conclusion that we ought to have a wide range of explanations behind maintaining a strategic distance from, the most essential of which is that when you say, "some individual who is committing awful things," you presumably mean things like plotting a terrorist assault or taking part in savage guiltiness, a much smaller origination of what individuals who wield power mean when they say, "committing awful things." For them, "committing awful things" regularly implies accomplishing something that is purposely hidden in order to protect their public
In past generations, it has been clear to society that males and females use segregated bathrooms. It is also known that the rate of transgender people has been growing over the past years. Transgender people constantly face troubles when using a bathroom in public. Nevertheless, as society has become more aware of the transgender population and the issues that they face, many schools have had to decide how they will respond about the issue of school bathrooms when students identify themselves as transgender. A school should be able to provide separate facilities based on sex, but must allow transgender students access to the facility which matches their gender identity.
For Foucault you cannot understand imprisonment without looking at torture first and how they both correlate to one another. Throughout this essay I will assess Foucault’s theories about torture and his views of how it has come about. I will look at how torture is a technique and the forms of disciplinary techniques that accompany torture. I will assess the power structures and how it manifests into other institutions in today’s society. Lastly how torture is needed to understand imprisonment. Torture was used as a scare tactic in the past to keep individuals under control. Society was aware of what may occur to them if they disobeyed the law. This initiated power and discipline over citizens which helps us to understand power relations today in terms of imprisonment.