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Created: March 30, 2003
Latest Update: March 30, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Communal Violence

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, March 2003.
"Fair use" encouraged.

This essay started with [Reader-list] Gandhi and Gujarat, a listserv posting. I had found it on a Yahoo search for Foucualt and sovereignty, and because the posting included the paragraph below and some further discussion, it came up in my search.

"In a very different context, Foucault contrasts "sovereignty" and "governmentality". Sovereignty for Foucault is a pre-modern political rationality. With the onset of modernity (Foucault's date, in this huge debate, is "Europe", 1650), came a transformation in power, in its effects, in its targets, in its expressivities. This transformation he calls "governmentality".
From the Gandhi and Gujarat Reader List.

Although the paragraph did include an arguably good definition of sovereignty by comparing it to governmentality, it didn't offer the basics I was looking for. Nevertheless, before going on, I wanted some documentation on Gujarat and the communal violence referred to in this post. And, as luck would have it, (there's always a little luck in broad searches of this type), I came across the work of Murad Banaji, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University College London, Department of Medical Physics and his Home Page.

At about that point, I heard the voice of a conservative colleague on my shoulder, "Did you vet this? Are you sure it's good for our students?" And I felt angry; not with the colleague, whose voice isn't anywhere near as formidable as that of my mother when she appears on my shoulder, but with the whole academy for having indoctrinated several cohorts of our students over the years to tolerate our "vetting" of the sources to which you are subjected. Vetting sucks. It means that I have decided that the material I pass on to you has been deemed worthy of passing on to you. It suggests that my schooled and disciplined thought is superior to yours, and must take charge of yours, so that you will grow as I believe you should. And that is so wrong it makes me angry. I don't believe that a liberal arts education is meant to channel you to the "right" materials. It is meant to teach you critical reasoning, and subject you to a broad array of information, as broad as we can manage, and then trust your critical reasoning to help you choose your authorities wisely, in harmony with your values, not the values favored by the academy.

I suffered the voice of this "vetting" angel twice this week. First, when I added links on our Home Page and Current Issue Page to conservative news: The Weekly Standard and NewsMax. Michael Savage/a> had just announced on MSNBC that those who protest the war are practicing sedition, and should be jailed. I was livid with rage.

"Liberal Weenies vs. Conservative Realists: "Liberals, while the Twin Towers were still a fresh smoldering pile of body parts and rubble, rushed to understand our enemies. They bought books on Islam. They wanted to determine if maybe, just maybe, we did something to provoke the attack. In other words, a liberal is someone who wants to understand the guy who just broke into his house, who burned the place down, who raped his wife and murdered his kids. Yes, the liberals wants to discover what he or she might have done to deserve the attack. The conservative doesn't care what religious affiliation the villain hides behind, what holy robes he may wear, or what he calls himself. When he sees the enemy coming ... the conservative shoots him dead before he gets in the house."
"Sample the Savage Wit (and Wisdom) of Michael Savage, " from his The Conservative Book Service, on Michael Savage's Savage Nation They're out of it, by the way. jeanne. March 30, 2003.

The First Amendment is one of our most cherished rights. Never mind that his analysis was simplistic and inaccurate, he was so far from illocutionary discourse or any understanding thereof that I was actually depressed. News Max is a whole conglomeration of things. Ads, bookstore, listing of the top ten most conservative books. I shuddered at the thought that aggressive, affective arguments like those of Michael Savage might take you by surprise, that you might not have enough training to see the alternative perspectives. Then my own hesitant and overwhelmed voice said: "Trust them; you've taught them; now you have to trust them." An I listened to me, and I put up Max News. Not only did I put it up; but I promise to find the time to comment on some of it. I will not hide from words. Our answer in the name of freedom has always been "more words."