The Democratic Character

The concept of the democratic character is new to me. Rather than the ideal or most legitimate person to participate in democracy, the term democratic character refers to the type of person or groups that democracy produces. Surprisingly, the philosophers assigned for readings (Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Mill) gave a rather negative account off the democratic character. Plato and Nietzsche seem to suggest that democracy produces a People without any values; a striving for banality for the former and an indulgent, directionless apathy for the latter. Mill lays out a framework for societal intervention into an individual's autonomous life precisely because democracy tends towards might equalling right and the imposition of a universal morality upon the varied individual.

Regarding fat acceptance, i don't have much to say this time (or rather, too much to say and not enough space or coherence or directness to say it). I would like to share an interesting take on the person that democracy produces. Basing his argument on the writing of Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America ('the tyranny of the majority' from week 3) Eric Sutter suggests that democracy lends itself to a mindset that produces obesity. "Democracy, Tocqueville argued, conditions men to love equality more than freedom" which Sutter equates to loving the equality of the instant positive effects of food over the immediately negative effects of freedom as health habits (ie gyms, restricting food intake). It was an interesting take on the democratic character, although Sutter thinks that democracy and obesity is a uniquely American problem: "parallels between Tocqueville’s discussion of equality and freedom and the typical American mindset toward food. These parallels offered a partial explanation as to why there is an obesity problem in America and not, for example, in England".

Sutter, E 2013 "Is Democracy the Cause of Obesity", in Res Publicas, Ashbrook Centre viewed April 20 2014 < http://ashbrook.org/publications/respub-2013-sutter2/>

("The Ashbrook Center, an independent center at Ashland University, restores and strengthens the capacities of the American people for constitutional self-government. The Center teaches students and teachers across our country what America is and what America represents in the long history of the world.  Ashbrook creates informed patriots." http://ashbrook.org/about/ )

Readings this week:

J. S. Mill “On Liberty’ in D. Ravitch and A. Thernstrom (eds) The Democracy Reader: Classic and Modern Speeches, Essay, Poems, Declarations and Documents on Freedom and Human Rigths Worldwide, New York, Harper Perennial, 1992, pp. 65-70.

Plato, excerpt from The Republic in D. Ravitch and A. Thernstrom (eds) The Democracy Reader: Classic and Modern Speeches, Essay, Poems, Declarations and Documents on Freedom and Human Rights Worldwide, New York, Harper Perennial, 1992,pp. 5-8.

Aristotle, excerpt from The Politics in D. Ravitch and A. Thernstrom (eds) The Democracy Reader: Classic and Modern Speeches, Essay, Poems, Declarations and Documents on Freedom and Human Rigths Worldwide, New York, Harper Perennial, 1992, pp. 9-12.

F. Nietzsche, from Beyond Good and Evil, in D. Ravitch and A. Thernstrom (eds) The Democracy Reader: Classic and Modern Speeches, Essay, Poems, Declarations and Documents on Freedom and Human Rights Worldwide, New York, Harper Perennial, 1992, pp. 77-79.

W. Brown, “Wounded Attachments” in States of Injury, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1995, pp. 52-76.

Bodily Constructs

Embodiment is, hands down, my favourite talking point in GSDS, because it fucks with so many of the "common sense" assumptions and knowledges that float around in the socio-cultural ether and find their way into our thoughts, minds and understandings. Your understanding of the body, your body, and others bodies is constructed. Dominant understandings of the body are rooted in naturalistic, essentialist theories that presuppose the body as innate, known and unchangeable. This is one of the problems of the sex/gender distinction; even people who understand that gender is a social construct struggle to entertain the idea that "sex" is not biologically grounded and immutable, but also constructed. I came across this disagreement in the comments section of an Autostraddle article at the start of semester that illuminates my point wonderfully despite my disagreements with the article itself and provides an excellent example of discourses around bodies (yes, Autostraddle. I know, shut up, it's not that bad). Here's another one discussing how notions of gender embodiment plays out on queer fat bodies.

Micheal Foucalt and Judith Butler are the obvious writers when it comes to bodily constructs, but this last week's topic was centred around surgical interventions and the discourses surrounding the bodies/people that have them (in fact, I think the essay question I'm doing [funnily enough, the essay on bodily constructs] is straight out of Foucalt's ideas on disciplinary- and bio-power) and I chose to read Nicki Sullivan's (who is my current academic crush, along with Sam Murray) article on Genital modification and the somatechnologies of cultural (in)difference (soma = cell/body). 

I'm currently reading Somatechnics, which is edited by Sullivan and Murray, so I may be biased, but thought the article was brilliant (some people didn't, and expressed this with blinkered impassioned vitriol in the tute). Illustrating their point, Sullivan used Australian legislation on what is deemed "female genital mutilation" (again, a term that is constructed) to reveal the way in which the specific (yet generalised) bodies that access genital modification technologies are racialised, stigmatised, valorised, gendered, empowered, disempowered, victimised and sexualised through the discourse that surrounds them. Specifically, the dualism of surgical  modification of female genitalia (labia, hymen, vagina, clitoris) as a barbaric folk custom that must be stamped out (hello colonialism!) and a cosmetic surgery that is empowering and/or health driven (but also much derided and morally panicked about). 

I think people get too caught up on children, age, gender and consent when it comes to FGM to think academically on the topic. 

Guess what? Along with gender, our notions of childhood, proper bodies, life cycle and consent are also socially constructed and incredibly Western and White! Everything is socially constructed, but before you fall into an existential fuck funk: nothing matters, so relax, have a culturally relevant beverage of your choice, and discursively analyse it/party like it's 1999/enjoy the K-hole.

Sincerely,
SJ