and again!
yet another push to write a paper in a single week so that I have that much time left for the last big one of the semester. SWEET!
This one is calling Barnett and Duvall (I don't know their first names) a couple of doofuses (or is it doofi?) for trying to deconstruct the concept of power. The main line of logic they use is flawed right from the start, and in hoping that power can't be so unidimensional because otherwise its not family friendly, they argue that there are 4 kinds of power that range from pulling a gun on someone to the power Bill Gates has over me because of the institutional make up of our society. Its all crap. They assume that the way in which we use power is what defines it. Thats like saying bath water, sink water, toilet water, and drinking water are all different kinds of water. Its crap. To understand water, you don't look at how we use it, you look at what it is... The other problem I have is that they figure their taxonomy of power will allow a more indepth discussion of power. Crap. By breaking power up into its constituent parts, they're missing the reality of what power is. By dismantling a car, will you get to understand what its like to drive the thing. No. Tho understanding its elements may help conceptualize how it functions, but until power/the car is reconstructed you can't grasp how it works upon the world.
This one is calling Barnett and Duvall (I don't know their first names) a couple of doofuses (or is it doofi?) for trying to deconstruct the concept of power. The main line of logic they use is flawed right from the start, and in hoping that power can't be so unidimensional because otherwise its not family friendly, they argue that there are 4 kinds of power that range from pulling a gun on someone to the power Bill Gates has over me because of the institutional make up of our society. Its all crap. They assume that the way in which we use power is what defines it. Thats like saying bath water, sink water, toilet water, and drinking water are all different kinds of water. Its crap. To understand water, you don't look at how we use it, you look at what it is... The other problem I have is that they figure their taxonomy of power will allow a more indepth discussion of power. Crap. By breaking power up into its constituent parts, they're missing the reality of what power is. By dismantling a car, will you get to understand what its like to drive the thing. No. Tho understanding its elements may help conceptualize how it functions, but until power/the car is reconstructed you can't grasp how it works upon the world.
posted by kalen at 11:22 AM
1 Comments:
You'll find this argument everywhere, K. Before your B&D (I don't remember their last names), you'll find Stephen Lukes & John Gaventa & their 3 dimensions of power. It sounds like these two were a bit closer to the mark. They don't look at how power is used, but what forms it takes & how it relates to people's interests. For example, the 3rd dimension (they are probably Star Trek nerds) of power is where the powerless do things out of their interests without being told. There's direct power and indirect power (through socialization).
It's the old power-over vs. power-to argument I suppose. There's a bazillion arguments for what power is and isn't, because it is a central concept to Political Science. And heaven forbid we agree on what a central pillar of our discipline actually means.
I think power is best thought of as an essentially contested concept. Its used by different people in slightly different ways, but there are some agreed principles. Some people will stress different defining characteristics more than others because it is in their interests to do so. Its not so much an excerise in finding A definition as much as explicitly recognizing the contested nature of the concept - the areas of agreement & disagreemtn. Viewing power as a collection of meanings allows the discipline to move on from the squabble - hopefully to studying politics, for example.
Again, email me if you want citations for this crap.
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