Assignment for Thursday, Sept., 7
First, a few more words about "false consciousness."
It is sometimes used interchangeably with "brainwashed," but that's not a perfect synonym. Brainwashing usually means something like: heavily influenced in one's thoughts, in a way that does not come from, or respond to, critical reflection, alternative views, stated reasons, etc.
False consciousness is, instead, a diagnosis which asserts that the affected persons (or class of people) have views--even of themselves and their own ideas and desires and hopes, etc., that are not "true" to their authentic selves. They're not impervious to reason. Their reasons are just not the ones that their authentic selves would have.
What's an "authentic self"?
Who gets to say who has "false" consciousness?
How would someone go from false to "true" consciousness?
All very difficult--the subject of many thousands of pages.
And morally tricky--asserting that someone is thoroughly in error, even about what they sincerely want.
[Story: I have a cousin who obtained breast augmentation surgery. Years ago. I somehow suggested that there was something troubling about going under the knife for the sake of other peoples' desires. She said: This is for me, and how I feel about myself, not about how men see me.
My thought was: She means that, but doesn't see that "for her" and "how men see her" are inseparable. In a different world this strong, amazing person would never have come to join those two things together without realizing it, and she would have no sense that her body was not the right dimensions. She would never have a self image based on drummed in hyper-sexualized images of female desirability.
I was in a way thinking that she was manifesting false consciousness.]
We will talk more about the idea and its contours.
Read 160-200 in Feminism in our Time. Carefully. With excellent notes. You'll want them later.
It is sometimes used interchangeably with "brainwashed," but that's not a perfect synonym. Brainwashing usually means something like: heavily influenced in one's thoughts, in a way that does not come from, or respond to, critical reflection, alternative views, stated reasons, etc.
False consciousness is, instead, a diagnosis which asserts that the affected persons (or class of people) have views--even of themselves and their own ideas and desires and hopes, etc., that are not "true" to their authentic selves. They're not impervious to reason. Their reasons are just not the ones that their authentic selves would have.
What's an "authentic self"?
Who gets to say who has "false" consciousness?
How would someone go from false to "true" consciousness?
All very difficult--the subject of many thousands of pages.
And morally tricky--asserting that someone is thoroughly in error, even about what they sincerely want.
[Story: I have a cousin who obtained breast augmentation surgery. Years ago. I somehow suggested that there was something troubling about going under the knife for the sake of other peoples' desires. She said: This is for me, and how I feel about myself, not about how men see me.
My thought was: She means that, but doesn't see that "for her" and "how men see her" are inseparable. In a different world this strong, amazing person would never have come to join those two things together without realizing it, and she would have no sense that her body was not the right dimensions. She would never have a self image based on drummed in hyper-sexualized images of female desirability.
I was in a way thinking that she was manifesting false consciousness.]
We will talk more about the idea and its contours.
Read 160-200 in Feminism in our Time. Carefully. With excellent notes. You'll want them later.
I'm thinking back to some things that we read and discussed in Philosophy of Mark Twain. The stuff about conditioning and what makes a person who they are. People who are considered selfish have the same motivation as the people who are considered kind. The selfish people take satisfaction in selfish actions whereas the kind people take satisfaction in benevolence. Both types of people are acting in self-interest but they vary in the way they go about attaining this self-satisfaction. I think this relates to the idea of "false" and "true" consciousness. Is someone who takes true satisfaction in something considered by others to be demeaning experiencing a false consciousness? Maybe this is a false consciousness because in order for someone to find satisfaction in being demeaned they must be impressed upon by the things in their environment. It would help if we had some kind of default human consciousness to compare with. Is it legal to experiment on the human consciousness from the moment of birth?
ReplyDeleteI like this. I too am struck by the concept of a "false" consciousness. It does not seem there is a valid way to outline concepts of true and false. No matter which way we turn, the mess of social and environmental factors seems to confuse any idea of true and false that we could possibly hold. Unfortunately, I think even the experiment idea with one person (from the moment of birth) is going to lack the validity necessary to outline a default consciousness. Two reasons: One, isn't it impossible to isolate a human consciousness? Two, would any results be generalizable to the human population, given biological dispositions?
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DeleteI don't know if there's a way to prove or show that someone else has false consciousness. I think that we can point to certain ways of being socialized that create a certain self-image that is not "authentic," not, that is, inline with one's real interests. When women feel insecure without cosmetics, I suppose that they are socialized to feel inadequate unless they disguise themselves in ways that make them more appealing to a sexualized gaze. I have a hard time, personally, believing that that is what they'd want if they were raised apart from such social forces. High heels, for example, and revealing clothing (compare men's formal wear and women's formal wear) make women "beautiful" by making them vulnerable. Men's adornment covers them, comfortably, and preserves their freedom of movement.
DeleteAt the same time, I don't want to make it sound like _I'm_ in a position to render such judgments from a "free" or "authentic" perspective.
My issue with claiming that a false consciousness dictates behavior and attitudes is with the definition of consciousness itself. For someone to be conscious, he or she has thoughts and reactions to some sort of stimuli. To claim an authentic or false consciousness is to morally/ethically/politically/economically judge one reaction as being more valuable than another. In an example of a woman wearing heels to feel beautiful, the judgements that we make about her choice depend a lot on the judger's opinion of what she should do. A podiatrist would say that heels are bad for ankle strength, but a fashion designer would have the opinion that high heels provide the necessary ratio for an outfit to look aesthetically pleasing (http://www.alreadypretty.com/a-crash-course-in-the-golden-ratio/). Who can judge intentions and desires without taking into account the social pressures that may not even be evident to observers?
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