Cultural Reflection Paper
Everyone belongs to a particular culture. Various groups and individuals identify with different values, beliefs, attitudes, materials, meanings, and concepts of the world. A culture is a group or individual way of life communicated and shared across generations. Come to think of it, culture is more than the sum of all individual definitions and can mean various things to different individuals. But to bring the understanding of culture into perspective, I had to think about my own life and what culture meant to me about cultural studies texts. This paper presents a detailed reflection based on power relations in the various levels of social life, postcolonial and postmodern processes, and responsible decision making.
Power Relations
Michel Foucault argues that power relations exist and operate in every area of social existence in both the public and private spheres of life. The individual components of power relations include sexuality and family, while the public components include law, economy, and politics. Foucault differs from Marxist ideas about power relations, which focus on class relations in politics, economics, and ideologies. Instead, Foucault believes that powers are not something that particular institutions can possess and use it to oppress individuals or groups of people. That power relation does not only mean the powerful oppressing the powerless. He examines the existence of power relations in every aspect of social life, as found in the daily interactions between individuals and institutions. According to Foucault’s analysis, power relations operate and act in specific ways and involve more strategies than processional. That power is extensive with some level of resistance, which makes it a factor of production because of the positive effects it has on individuals (Foucault, 2019). Just like every relationship, power relations exist everywhere in all types of relationships between society members.
Postcolonial and Postmodern
Another scholar, Homi Bhabha, explores the intersection of postcolonial conditions and the postmodern cultures and postulates the need for people to rethink the understanding of postmodernity from a postcolonial perspective. Postmodern terms have a broader significance in the awareness of the limits of ethnocentric ideas, including limitations on dissenting voices and histories of the colonized and minority groups. The rationalization of modernity often results in cultural conflicts and ideological contradictions between the proponents of modernity. Bhabha believes that translational and transnational understanding contemporary cultures can help address the contradictions and conflicts that result from the rationalization of modernity. Only through this understanding that individuals and societies can arrive at radical literary and cultural practices. Knowledge of contemporary cultures helps address the binary oppositions between developed and developing communities (Mondal, 2018). It is a risk to neglect the postcolonial urgency because it will privilege the cultural models based on the ideologies of both the patriarchal and humanist bourgeois. Scrutinizing the processes of imperialists and colonial governance creates the space for the minority groups, including women, immigrants, and the colonized that have been homogenized or conveniently expelled in cultural power production.
Bhabha believes that postmodern conditions have intricate links with postcolonial history, including the migrations experienced through displacements, exiles, and dislocation. Rationalizing modernity covers up the conflicts of the postmodern conditions, including the adverse experiences that people had to go through during the colonial period. Bhabha suggests that the most effective way of avoiding contradictions is to redefine the traditional homogeneity of the notions as cultures, nations, citizenship, human community, and national identities. The context introduces the third space concept that disrupts the tension between ideologies. Bhabha’s argument presents that the third space connects with the postcolonial concept that insists on the construction of political and cultural identities through the alteration process. In this view, the postcolonial intellectuals can make attempts at elaborating on the literary and historical project. According to Bhabha, an understanding of postmodernism requires the rethinking of the language of cultural communities from a postcolonial perspective.
Responsible Decision Making
Knowledge plays a significant role in influencing individual decision making and often leads to making responsible decisions. This perspective of responsible decision making presents a debate on both the possible and impossible conditions of the responsibilities. Jacques Derrida presents an impasse that seems to paralyze individuals concerning responsibility. The dilemma is that responsible individuals must make informed decisions based on the knowledge that the decisions can follow and expand on. He also presents that if a decision commits to knowledge, it ceases to be a responsible decision because it becomes technical and follows a mechanical process based on the developed knowledge (Ahlstrom, 2017). Derrida presents that knowledge, as a condition, gives the possibility for acting responsibly and can also give the situation for the impossibility of acting responsibly. It suggests that an individual cannot make responsible decisions without relying on the conscience of what they intend to do, the reasons why and the underlying conditions which determine the possibility of responsible decisions. Alternatively, the contentment of developing a responsible decision by following a particular knowledge will mean that the decision follows a technical, cognitive apparatus that presents the conditions of the impossibility of making responsible decisions.
Analysis
The literature presented from the cultural texts by the three scholars, including Michel Foucault, Homi Bhabha, and Jacques Derrida, clearly shows different ideologies and views that can lead to proper cultural understanding. After reflecting on the three texts, it became clear to me that power relations exist in every level of societal life in various families and sexes in private spheres and political, law, and economic aspects of public life. Marxist approaches to power relations present weak illustrations of power in society. The Marxist argues that the state and institutions can possess ability which they can use to oppress less dominant members of the community. It also focuses on why the oppressed always seem to accept the domination by more powerful institutions and members of the society. The Marxist ideologies do not present a compelling meaning and definition of power relations in the various cultures, as Foucault does. Foucault’s argument clearly explains the power relations in society today, as found in all the levels of social existence. It is right to acknowledge the fact that some institutions and individuals still hold more power to themselves and use it to subdue and oppress others, as witnessed in how different nations relate across the world. But individuals and even societies can strategize the power to act in specific ways that can improve their productivity and have positive outcomes in both their private and public lives in the community.
The arguments presented by Homi Bhabha in Postcolonial and Postmodern can significantly help in understanding the power relations in various cultures. He calls for postcolonial thinkers and scholars to recognize the geopolitical divisions that led to the cultural and political contradictions and conflicts that exist in modern societies today. The colonial period polarized the power relations where the industrialists and colonialists oppressed the less powerful nations and cultures. Some of the effects of colonial governance included the migrations of groups and individuals seeking exile, immigrating, displacements, and dislocations. In the process, various cultures lost their identities and ways of life (Beck, 2018). Bhabha suggests that the only way to avoid the conflicts of modernization is to prevent the rationalization of modernity. Instead, it is essential to conceptualize contemporary cultures as translational and transnational to bring basic literacy and cultural practices in various societies. Understanding modern cultures as transnational and translational by different cultures returns the power to the colonized, women, and minority groups. It eliminates the oppositions between the dominant and less dominant and the First and the Third worlds. Neglecting the postcolonial agents leads to risks of giving privileges to the same models of culture based on patriarchal and bourgeoisie ideologies. Moving past the conflicts and contradictions of modernity requires cultures to rethink the postmodernism from the postcolonial perspective. It is also essential to avoid the rationalization of modernity when addressing the cultural differences that exist in various societies. Responsible decision making also plays a significant role in determining power relations and discussing the distinct cultural differences. Knowledge helps individuals to make a morally responsible decision that informs their behavior and actions towards themselves and other people in society. Jacques Derrida’s presentation that responsible decisions must rely on knowledge defines both the possibility and impossibility of conditions of responsibility. It is harmful to communities to make decisions based on rationalized power relations and the concepts of modernity because working on existing knowledge will cause people to favor the bourgeois and patriarchal ideologies technically.
Conclusion
Power relations exist at every level, including the private and public spheres of human social existence. Power is not something that individuals and institutions can have for themselves and use to oppress others in society. Strategic power relations can increase the productivity of individuals and groups because power exists everywhere for every member of the community. It is essential to avoid the rationalization of modernity when addressing the cultural conflicts and contradictions in society. Postmodernism requires that people rethink the language of the cultural community through the lens of post-colonialism. Conceptualizing contemporary cultures as transnational and transactional gives the voice and power to the groups initially expelled from the cultural productions of power. Knowledge helps individuals and groups to make responsible decisions in a society that helps address the cultural differences and bring a better understanding of the power relations in society.
References
Ahlstrom, A. R. (2017). The Indeterminate Subject: Urban Citizenship and the Aporias of Sovereignty (Doctoral dissertation).
Beck, U. (2018). The Reinvention of Politics: Rethinking Modernity in the Global Social Order. John Wiley & Sons.
Foucault, M. (2019). Power: The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954-1984. Penguin UK.
Mondal, K. (2018). Postmodern and Postcolonial Perspectives in the Films of Rituparno Gosh.