The Hegemony of Society
“SCUM! That is what you are. That is all you can become and all I will ALLOW you to become!” I can proclaim this to anyone I feel deemed fit for me to control, at least that’s what today society is becoming. The irony in living in society today is that more than ever we are able to express ourselves in any manner we deem fit. This, however, does not mean that we cannot be controlled by propaganda, division of classes, or the charming works of a person’s ideology. Our society is overwhelming with the advances of technology and has become a market for free research for anyone to look up but ironically in all of these advances and being linked by the touch of a button society is falling into a world of ill informed people. The argument that a utopia is not possible can be made by anyone at any given time today but the dystopian world has already been written and actually already created through the works of many charismatic men such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and many more with probably more to come. Totalitarianism in the United States is sure not to come… well so we hope. Literature such has Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and George Orwell’s 1984 show society that has succumbed to the hegemony influence of the ruling class. Films such as Minority Report and V for Vendetta demonstrate how society gives up certain freedoms for the betterment of society as a whole. Through advancements in technology, literary works, critical theories, and films society is being given the opportunity to be educated and warned not to be allowed to be scared into the hegemony form of politics.
Technology has brought forth resources to society that in the past have not been easily accessible. Internet, cell phones, mp3 players, portable television, and many other forms of communication has carried into this generation a life lined of knowledge for and given member of society in particularly the world wide web. Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon is an efficient architectural building that can properly control and regulate a group of people through this architecture. An example of one is this prison in Ireland which has been closed since 1927:
In Michael Foucault’s Discipline & Punishment Foucault examines this architecture and applies it to society’s social classes. With taking his idea that “power is exercised without division, according to a continuous hierarchical figure, in which each individual is constantly located, examined and distributed among the living beings, the sick and the dead - all this constitutes a compact model of the disciplinary mechanism” he shows that the hierarchy of the classes has a form of control over the lower classes (Foucault). But it is extended to the fact that the hierarchy of the ruling class begins to use the panopticon and transform it into panopticism in which they don’t just use a room but use a form of control by using observers in and around all of society. Today we have excelled technology to make communication with each other as easy and convenient as possible. IN the process of excelling technology we have also made it easier for us as a community of people to be observed by the ruling class, the government or anyone else through such devices as web cams, cell phones with video, televisions, and much more. In George Orwell’s 1984 the telescreen is used to watch the people at all times. Society knows this but are taught by Big Brother, the so called leader of the ruling party of Oceania, that it is for the safety of the people. 1984 shows a society in which it was lead to fear and gave up many freedoms to live a safer life in war time. The hegemonic stance by the ruling class took a peaceful route and persuaded the population to give up certain freedoms for the safety of the nation. With that being argued the film The Island shows a society of clones being imprisoned without the clone’s knowledge by making a lie of a situation to keep them in the building. When watching the clip, notice that where the clones are held gives a shape of a panopticon like the image above. This film imagines a great vision of what society’s technology can become and how it can control us entirely:
Following technology is the idea of propaganda, which is very similar to panopticism, however, it is more than just the ruling classes form of leading the people to believe in things. It is a way to convenience the people that their country is the almighty one and can become anything. In the Nazi Germany of the 1940’s we have a poster in which they have their national bird withstanding on top of Europe:
We can see the power Germany at the time is trying to convey to its people. The almighty power of Germany is able to dominate Europe through this image. Louis Althusser extends the power of propaganda even further with his theory of Ideological State Apparatus, or the ISA. Althusser claims that it is the institutions of the ISA, such as the family, the media, education, etc., are what determine society’s personality is and will become. It the influences of the ISA which can determine society as a whole but they can change from area to area since each ISA has different teachings. In this clip from the film Land of the Blind we can see the media has a very pronounced voice with the people in changing the street light colors. More importantly we see a society that is being ruled by a dictator and is allowing these things to be changed for the pride of the nation:
It should also be said that change is a very strong factor in allowing for something to be. A lot of people cannot deal with change while some will embrace it. When those who are very strong willed are able to be persuaded you know that the hegemony state of politics won over them. But looking back on history it is the fight that sometimes sells us to that change. In the film Pleasantville two teenagers of the real world are sent into a TV show that is black and white. Once they beginning to corrupt the black and white world color starts too show. The mayor of the Pleasantville begins to stand up to them in this scene. Note that the director took a very strong position with the choice of where his camera was. When the major makes his speech to the guys in the bowling alley there is irony in the way the camera is fixated on the major and with the background of the image:
Emotions are another phase to be considered when analyzing society and its stance on authority. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 the world is being deprived literature and any form of reading. Though there is some reading with in that society Bradbury showed a world that lacked literature and insight on the world. By depraving society of literature the world started to become emotionless. It could be argued that transforming a society into one that does not think or have emotion would be the only way to create a utopia today. That might very well be the case but not the argument here. When Montage, the main character begins to read books his emotions start to stir up in him. Literature would not be the only thing needed to be robbed of to create an emotionless society. Music has a profound influence on many people in the past and of today. Thomas Adorno, along with Max Horkheimer, discussed in paper The Culture Industry: Enlightment as Mass Deception that he had a love for music and did believe it had an influence on society. He continued to believe that music was a form of an artist utopia being released in the form of music and it was meant leave hope for a better world. By robbing the artist, or society, the chance to express themselves emotions are being lost. Without opinions, emotions, thoughts, etc. people would not feel suppressed by the ruling authority. In the film Equilibrium there are two scenes in which art is express deeply with thought and emotion. In the first clip you will find a member of the authority police reading a book which is banded in that world. He is willing to die for it. In the second clip we have a very similar scene to Fahrenheit 451 where artifacts of the past which had emotions are found. The main character puts on a record and once it starts to play he is overwhelmed with… well you can make that guess of which emotion:
Clip 1:
Clip: 2
Giving up certain freedoms is the question of the millennium. Before continuing on watch this clip from V for Vendetta:
You can see here how V strongly shows that by giving up freedoms to give up fear was not a right choice. V fights back with the government by calling on society to fight back in one year but he was not afraid to call the publics lack of strength out either. V is a great example of what mankind can do to fight back to the ruling social class order. If the ruling class is not doing the right things we can stand up and fight. However, V does point out that it was mankind who allowed them to take control and change things over them. So where does that leave us in the state of totalitarianism? Simple; in a state of free choice. Though the majority of us live in a society where we have free choice there are many who still don’t. V for Vendetta calls upon those societies’s to come to the plate and hit a home run out of oppression. But how far are we willing to go to give up certain inalienable rights for a better world? Minority Report brings that question to society. In Minority Report there is a society which has allowed for a department of pre-crime to exist for the well-being of society. This department has three precogs which can predict the future of crimes to happen. Here is a scene which an outsider is looking in on the department trying to figure out the precogs. You will be able to tell immediately that he does not like the idea of pre-crime:
The defense for precogs was that they see what is going to happen and not what might happen. If this were so would you be willing to allow the government to see within our life and determine you were going to commit a crime and be punished for it? It brings into question the saying of “innocent till proven guilty.”
How society has a warning is up to each individual to decide. When the fall of the Roman Republic came Caesar Augustus was able to become a monarchy in a democracy by playing to the fears of all of society to gain that control (Cleve 306). Today we are filled with a world that stands up to intolerance, racism, poverty, disease, and much more but we are also a society that is easily sold on things. Our world is filled with “facebook’s” and advertisements everyone that fulfill our inner desires. We might already be controlled by hegemonic state right within the marketing world but the political world could be a different story. With novels such as 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, The Time Machine, The Iron Hell and so many more authors everywhere are trying to warn society to pay attention to the mistakes of the past. With films like Minority Report, Blade Runner, Brazil, The Running Man, Artificial Intelligence: AI and many more to come directors and screenwriters alike are telling us to stop and think of what is too come if we are not watching the leaders of our society. Everyone is a critic. Some, like Althusser and Foucault, just make a career out of it. Don’t wait for the career critics to point out what is happening in your society. Maybe stopping change is good for society and the world. It might be the other way around but do not allow yourself to sit back and relax to cost of freedom lose. It’s your freedom, so understand it and fight for it. I leave you with a long clip from Pleasantville and the feeling of change. Maybe you are the red in the love of a rose.
Technology has brought forth resources to society that in the past have not been easily accessible. Internet, cell phones, mp3 players, portable television, and many other forms of communication has carried into this generation a life lined of knowledge for and given member of society in particularly the world wide web. Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon is an efficient architectural building that can properly control and regulate a group of people through this architecture. An example of one is this prison in Ireland which has been closed since 1927:
In Michael Foucault’s Discipline & Punishment Foucault examines this architecture and applies it to society’s social classes. With taking his idea that “power is exercised without division, according to a continuous hierarchical figure, in which each individual is constantly located, examined and distributed among the living beings, the sick and the dead - all this constitutes a compact model of the disciplinary mechanism” he shows that the hierarchy of the classes has a form of control over the lower classes (Foucault). But it is extended to the fact that the hierarchy of the ruling class begins to use the panopticon and transform it into panopticism in which they don’t just use a room but use a form of control by using observers in and around all of society. Today we have excelled technology to make communication with each other as easy and convenient as possible. IN the process of excelling technology we have also made it easier for us as a community of people to be observed by the ruling class, the government or anyone else through such devices as web cams, cell phones with video, televisions, and much more. In George Orwell’s 1984 the telescreen is used to watch the people at all times. Society knows this but are taught by Big Brother, the so called leader of the ruling party of Oceania, that it is for the safety of the people. 1984 shows a society in which it was lead to fear and gave up many freedoms to live a safer life in war time. The hegemonic stance by the ruling class took a peaceful route and persuaded the population to give up certain freedoms for the safety of the nation. With that being argued the film The Island shows a society of clones being imprisoned without the clone’s knowledge by making a lie of a situation to keep them in the building. When watching the clip, notice that where the clones are held gives a shape of a panopticon like the image above. This film imagines a great vision of what society’s technology can become and how it can control us entirely:
Following technology is the idea of propaganda, which is very similar to panopticism, however, it is more than just the ruling classes form of leading the people to believe in things. It is a way to convenience the people that their country is the almighty one and can become anything. In the Nazi Germany of the 1940’s we have a poster in which they have their national bird withstanding on top of Europe:
We can see the power Germany at the time is trying to convey to its people. The almighty power of Germany is able to dominate Europe through this image. Louis Althusser extends the power of propaganda even further with his theory of Ideological State Apparatus, or the ISA. Althusser claims that it is the institutions of the ISA, such as the family, the media, education, etc., are what determine society’s personality is and will become. It the influences of the ISA which can determine society as a whole but they can change from area to area since each ISA has different teachings. In this clip from the film Land of the Blind we can see the media has a very pronounced voice with the people in changing the street light colors. More importantly we see a society that is being ruled by a dictator and is allowing these things to be changed for the pride of the nation:
It should also be said that change is a very strong factor in allowing for something to be. A lot of people cannot deal with change while some will embrace it. When those who are very strong willed are able to be persuaded you know that the hegemony state of politics won over them. But looking back on history it is the fight that sometimes sells us to that change. In the film Pleasantville two teenagers of the real world are sent into a TV show that is black and white. Once they beginning to corrupt the black and white world color starts too show. The mayor of the Pleasantville begins to stand up to them in this scene. Note that the director took a very strong position with the choice of where his camera was. When the major makes his speech to the guys in the bowling alley there is irony in the way the camera is fixated on the major and with the background of the image:
Emotions are another phase to be considered when analyzing society and its stance on authority. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 the world is being deprived literature and any form of reading. Though there is some reading with in that society Bradbury showed a world that lacked literature and insight on the world. By depraving society of literature the world started to become emotionless. It could be argued that transforming a society into one that does not think or have emotion would be the only way to create a utopia today. That might very well be the case but not the argument here. When Montage, the main character begins to read books his emotions start to stir up in him. Literature would not be the only thing needed to be robbed of to create an emotionless society. Music has a profound influence on many people in the past and of today. Thomas Adorno, along with Max Horkheimer, discussed in paper The Culture Industry: Enlightment as Mass Deception that he had a love for music and did believe it had an influence on society. He continued to believe that music was a form of an artist utopia being released in the form of music and it was meant leave hope for a better world. By robbing the artist, or society, the chance to express themselves emotions are being lost. Without opinions, emotions, thoughts, etc. people would not feel suppressed by the ruling authority. In the film Equilibrium there are two scenes in which art is express deeply with thought and emotion. In the first clip you will find a member of the authority police reading a book which is banded in that world. He is willing to die for it. In the second clip we have a very similar scene to Fahrenheit 451 where artifacts of the past which had emotions are found. The main character puts on a record and once it starts to play he is overwhelmed with… well you can make that guess of which emotion:
Clip 1:
Clip: 2
Giving up certain freedoms is the question of the millennium. Before continuing on watch this clip from V for Vendetta:
You can see here how V strongly shows that by giving up freedoms to give up fear was not a right choice. V fights back with the government by calling on society to fight back in one year but he was not afraid to call the publics lack of strength out either. V is a great example of what mankind can do to fight back to the ruling social class order. If the ruling class is not doing the right things we can stand up and fight. However, V does point out that it was mankind who allowed them to take control and change things over them. So where does that leave us in the state of totalitarianism? Simple; in a state of free choice. Though the majority of us live in a society where we have free choice there are many who still don’t. V for Vendetta calls upon those societies’s to come to the plate and hit a home run out of oppression. But how far are we willing to go to give up certain inalienable rights for a better world? Minority Report brings that question to society. In Minority Report there is a society which has allowed for a department of pre-crime to exist for the well-being of society. This department has three precogs which can predict the future of crimes to happen. Here is a scene which an outsider is looking in on the department trying to figure out the precogs. You will be able to tell immediately that he does not like the idea of pre-crime:
The defense for precogs was that they see what is going to happen and not what might happen. If this were so would you be willing to allow the government to see within our life and determine you were going to commit a crime and be punished for it? It brings into question the saying of “innocent till proven guilty.”
How society has a warning is up to each individual to decide. When the fall of the Roman Republic came Caesar Augustus was able to become a monarchy in a democracy by playing to the fears of all of society to gain that control (Cleve 306). Today we are filled with a world that stands up to intolerance, racism, poverty, disease, and much more but we are also a society that is easily sold on things. Our world is filled with “facebook’s” and advertisements everyone that fulfill our inner desires. We might already be controlled by hegemonic state right within the marketing world but the political world could be a different story. With novels such as 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, The Time Machine, The Iron Hell and so many more authors everywhere are trying to warn society to pay attention to the mistakes of the past. With films like Minority Report, Blade Runner, Brazil, The Running Man, Artificial Intelligence: AI and many more to come directors and screenwriters alike are telling us to stop and think of what is too come if we are not watching the leaders of our society. Everyone is a critic. Some, like Althusser and Foucault, just make a career out of it. Don’t wait for the career critics to point out what is happening in your society. Maybe stopping change is good for society and the world. It might be the other way around but do not allow yourself to sit back and relax to cost of freedom lose. It’s your freedom, so understand it and fight for it. I leave you with a long clip from Pleasantville and the feeling of change. Maybe you are the red in the love of a rose.
Works Citied
Robert Cleve, History of the West to 1500, (Dubuque, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 2004), Print.
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine Books, 1953. Print.
Orwell, George. 1984. New York: Signet Classics, 1950. Print.
Foucault, Michael. "Discipline & Punish (1975), Panopticism." Foucault.info. foucault.info, Web. 14 Dec 2009. < http://foucault.info/documents/disciplineAndPunish/foucault.disciplineAndPunish.panOpticism.html >.
Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." Web. 14 Dec 2009. < http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm >.
Adorno, Theodor, and Max Horkheimer . "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception." Web. 14 Dec 2009. < http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm >.
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