80.00. Bibliography

Power and its Currents

The development of these ideas will be further outlined on the 82.01. Power Discourse page.

Power is the network of boundaries that shapes possible action, according to Clarissa Hayward's De-facing Power (2000). Itself an attempt to synthesize ideas from Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas, Hayward's description of power attempts to make interpretations from the "power is diffuse" camp actionable: even though power is embedded in institutions and culture, it is still possible to differentiate between "good" and "bad" uses of power as we think of it in terms of inequity. Everyone is subject to social boundaries that define what actions are possible, though mechanisms of power can contract or expand those boundaries. This aligns with the critique of distributive justice from Iris Marion Young in Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990), where she suggests access to resources as the primary indicator for equitable policy takes focus away from the role non-material concepts play in oppression.

Power's role in social inequity is only helpful for policy decisions if it is understood how power's mechanisms appear in the world. The first manifestation of Power is through that of the Power Reactors, which include culture and institutions. Shared practices and expressions shape acceptable behaviors and thoughts, as covered by Pierre Bourdieu in Outline of a Theory of Practice (1972), just as the entities that formalize those values produce who people are and what they can or cannot do, as Foucault explores in Discipline and Punish (1975). Both of these avenues place an emphasis on organized or unnamed systems rather than explicit actions from actors, meaning their effects are often less obvious than the traditional notion of power.

However, there is tension between this school of thought that theorizes power as diffuse and that which focuses on explicit domination from actors. After all, even without power itself being held, tangible enablers of "the powerful" to dominate others do seem to exist, such as money and status. I think this conflict can be resolved by distinguishing Power Capacitors, or accumulative capital that serves as potential for power's mechanisms. Even though power is not always necessarily a result of deliberate domination, it is still valuable to identify differences in capacity to act (determined both by the Power Reactors and individual actions). This invites consideration from the lineage of scholars that contributed to the "three dimensions" of power: 1) Robert Dahl's established formula for visible power in Who Governs? (1961) as A getting B to do something they wouldn't otherwise do; 2) Bachrach & Baratz identifying the hidden power of agenda-setting in Two Faces of Power (1962); and 3) Steven Lukes' description of ideological influence as invisible power in Power: A Radical View (1974). Though exclusive focus on actor-based domination is an incomplete view of power, it is necessary to consult in tandem with embedded manifestations of power to understand social inequity.

Social Inclusion and Exclusion

The development of these ideas will be further outlined on the 82.02. Culture Discourse page.

Power, as established above, defines what is or is not possible for someone (physically, normatively, morally, and so on). These boundaries make up their Realm of Freedom. Power's mechanisms result in Realms varying from person to person, and in a society, there are patterned variations between groups of people. Modern exploration of this concept to understand the oppression of minoritized communities often stems from studies on intersectionality, as coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex, 1989) or advanced by Patricia Hill Collins (Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory, 2019). To develop Realms beyond marginalized identities however, we must also trace the roots back to another thread that begins with W.E.B. Du Bois in his study of The Philadelphia Negro (1899). Du Bois concluded that cultural practices for Black Americans could not be understood in a vacuum without considering the impact of racial discrimination and other systemic inequities they faced. In other words, the Power Reactors (culture and institutions) are highly interrelated and interdependent, and they do not manifest uniformly across a society.

Later sociologists studying subculture (e.g., Frederic Thrasher's The Gang in 1927 and Albert Cohen's Delinquent Boys in 1955) seemed to echo Du Bois, indicating that a group's distance from the mainstream, or rather the "sub" from the "parent" culture, played a role in their own definition of themselves and their practices. J. Milton Yinger then took it a step further by distinguishing what would later become the concept of "counterculture" in his essay Contraculture and Subculture (1960). Countercultures are groups that define their normative system in explicit rejection (in part or whole) of what the mainstream considers normal. A given collective with heterogenous values and beliefs (i.e., society) cannot represent those contradicting interests in formalized institutions simultaneously though, so some groups are excluded from the Dominant Realm.

Ultimately, the study of both countercultures and subcultures would evolve to a particular role of power analysis. Herbert Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man (1964) influenced countercultural activity with critique of normalized and repressive control from modern social structures. Theodore Roszak also helped cement opposition as a way to rethink what is taken for granted, arguing in his The Making of a Counter Culture (1969) that the countercultural groups of the 1960s illuminated the seemingly neutral regime of experts, the technocracy, that used rationality to justify its maintenance of the status quo. Meanwhile, Stuart Hall and other members of the Birmingham School demonstrated in Resistance Through Rituals (1975) that the mere existence of subcultures helps to demarcate dominant culture. By incorporating Foucault's insights on power and Antonio Gramsci's insights on the hegemonic mechanics of dominant culture, Hall made numerous contributions to this framework's understanding of cultural formation, consumption, and negotiation.

The Reality of Truth and Knowledge

The development of these ideas will be further outlined on the 82.03. Knowledge Discourse page.

Individuals and groups with varying Realms of Freedom experience life differently, as can be observed through comparative effects of capital, laws, cultural expressions, and so on. They also interpret it differently, as John Gaventa explored in his Power and Powerlessness (1980). The Appalachian miners he featured were economically exploited by the corporations consolidating the coal industry, yet the relationship was normalized for the "powerless." This illustration set the stage for Myth's role in social inequity, as the production of stories we tell to rationalize a complex and often contradictory world may support a particular group's interests. Myths compose part of culture, which means there is also the inevitable translation to policy: White Logic, White Methods (2008) from Bonilla-Silva & Zuberi deconstructed the influence of subjective interpretations on dominant measurement of what is "correct" in society. This can even be traced throughout the known record of written human history, with heterodox interpretations of metaphysics and religion cast aside by institutions as rejected knowledge, described by Wouter Hanegraaff in Esotericism and the Academy (2012).

Charles W. Mills (The Racial Contract, 1997) described how the position of Whiteness itself, when taken for granted or left unquestioned, offers numerous justifications for taking part in social structures that oppress and exploit non-Whites. Cultural groups are linked together through these bundles of networked myths, or Mythoscapes. Individuals are comprised of many mythoscapes that might be in contention, as described by Du Bois' concept of double consciousness in The Souls of Black Folk (1903). Each element that contributes to someone's identity comes with its own set of stories, beliefs, and implicit guidelines, and this is also the case for broader processes of social participation. What we assume to be basic, universal processes like gathering information or connecting with others occur with shared recognition of unwritten rules and flags. Is it possible that oppression even silently occurs through Mythdirection, when actors leverage the style of myths or mythoscapes but subvert their function to meet other needs?

Next Steps

Eras of rapid technological change impact the organization of society and therefore the way that power relations are defined. Compared to what once was, the actors (tech companies, content creators) and institutions (digital platforms, ranking algorithms) that now influence so much of everyday life have unique properties, and technology itself presents new possibilities for both oppression and liberation. While traditional understandings of material oppression remain useful for strategies to address inequity, disparities in accumulated capital and influence on political systems are only the tip of the iceberg for a world turned upside-down by Cyberspace.

The fruits of this industry are understood as human progress, and the knowledge it produces as free of human bias. However, this wave of technology is particularly ripe for domination. Consumption and production of culture changed, as individuals see the world through highly personalized feeds obscured to the physical community around them. Institutions are shaped in board rooms for shareholder profit rather than the collective values of the communities they serve. The responsible structures in both cases could (theoretically) be reformulated if there were public will to do so, but even with AI accelerating the trajectory of power in Cyberspace, the world seems to be on an inevitable course without significant protest. Why?

Given that society is built from the relations and constructions of its people, it appears to me that understanding the formation, maintenance, and weaponization of myths is a critical baseline for inequity in the digital age. Our unstated assumptions associated with many basic processes literally cannot occur in Cyberspace the same as the outside world, and yet those assumptions are still leveraged in ways to fit new mechanical purposes. Because Cyberspace is embedded in so much of the minutiae of everyday life, how likely is it that the Dominant Realm of this second reality bleeds into the first? Does it shape our values, our culture, and the systems we build to mirror the vision of tech entrepreneurs? Or, does the decentralized nature of Cyberspace open a path to enlightenment and liberation that hasn't yet been seen?