The Face of the Other
Everything seen is seen with the help of the Others. At birth, we are thrown into a specificity of culture that is alien to us. We are engulfed in this culture and the networks of ideologies entailed by culture that define the world because there is a grounding for the possibility of ideology that lies not only in our existence of a subject with Others, but also in the way that culture, as a form of existence with Others, manifests meaning and understanding. Although we are thrown into culture, we cannot recognize us as beings alien to the cultural process itself, there is a primordial ethical responsibility that our existence with the Others calls forth.
Culture arises at the same moment it disperses, it is constantly being remolded by the individuals that take part in their everydayness as subjects.
Commonly understand, culture is the products of a given society. Value is assigned to these products through their historical relation to the crumbling network of production that we call ‘culture’. Commonalities in personalities of Others begin to arise exponentially as individuals encounter different experiences. There are some commonalities within all of our personalities, and more of these commonalities the specific subjectivities within a culture, these cultural codings are how the Others define each other. Culture is maintained and sustained through individuals. But, what is it that maintains similar subjectivities among each other, consisting us as neighbors? The term most readily available in English would have to be “ideology”.
Ideology functions through the use of language as it transmits culture; it acts as a systematic body of concepts that transgresses into an individual not only th...
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...rhetorical language as ideology. The same set of meanings that defines the terrestrial world affects all of us relatively equally. All of our reception is received into our thought-processes through the same “ideological” process as our encounter with language. It is ideological in that the elements are received as a whole, as a systematic body of beings. To receive the plenum of elements is to receive an ideology of sorts. And this reception is essential to ourselves as Visions, as looking out and understanding the world.
There is a difference between the acceptance of the meanings in language and the acceptance of substance in the world. But this is preceded by an acceptance and a vision. Mythical social structures envisioned by sociologists are words and only words. Ideology and language are inseparable; they arise and interact with us experientially.
Hockey is the game played with the curved stick and it is found in every culture. It has been a part of the Canadian and North American culture for over a hundred years. Hockey has developed from the original six to thirty teams, and many leagues. One thing that is prominent in hockey is the hit on the opposing player when he has the puck. Checking can be defined as using physical force to either gain possession of the puck or to disrupt the opposition’s play without breaking the rules. Checking has been a part of hockey since the beginning. Recently, there has been much controversy over whether or not checking in hockey should be banned. In the year 2005 and 2006 there were many rules and regulations added to checking that were not penalized before. Checking has made the hockey game more interesting game and also has given the opportunity to players to play more with minimal stoppage. I believe that checking should not be banned because medical science has gotten the ability to heal all injuries that occur in sports, players know in advance that there is high risk in the activity, and it allows a fan to sublimate his aggressive tendency.
Explaining the relationship between Culture and Ideology in one of his propositions in Critical Practice, George Grinnell notes “Culture delivers an ideology that is dedicated to keeping the status quo more or less intact” (Grinnell 46). More than this, he goes on to advocate that cultural objects and practices do not necessarily have to be explicitly ideological, but that they may also "encode certain assumptions quite subtly" (46). Though I concede that culture can be ideological in the sense that it may inculcate certain principles’, is it accurate to say that culture and ideology are two in the same? In From the Graveyard of the Arousal Industry, culture is our everyday lives, whereas an ideology is a set of values held by a particular group with the intended purpose of influencing the behavior of others. More than this, culture is the way in which we express ourselves, and how we share it with the world around us. In this sense, culture is also different from ideology in that the values retained within a specific culture are left open to interpretation and exploration, rather than being urged to be accepted by others. Take Jehovah's Witnesses for example; if you have ever lived in a community where religious practices are common, you have probably had one come to you...
Fielding, J., Christison, M., Harding, C., Meston, J., Smith, T., & Zook, D. (2009). Perspectives on ideology. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press.
Ideology is defined as the representation of the imaginary relationship of the individuals to the real conditions of their existence. This creates an air of false consciousness that conceals the truth, controls class conflicts, and maintains the status quo. Ideological State Apparatuses, the institutions in which ideology operates, imposes onto individuals a designated role, or forme, and restricts their ability to transcend those objective roles. Since humans cannot recognize themselves outside of their assigned ideologies, they must acquire their identities by seeing themselves through the perception of others. (Althusser ISA's)
Before we ask ourselves why ideology has become such an important concept in the modern age, let’s first see how different authors in different times have defined ideology. I combined the most thoughtful and influential definitions that circulate within the social sciences in the postwar decades. All these definitions have revealed the extent to which ideology remains a very flexible conceptual tool. To some of the authors, ideology is dogmatic, while the others say it carries connotations of political experience. Others think its basis is of concrete interests of a social class while others say it is a characteristic of an absence of economic interests. In the book titled “The Authoritarian Personality”, ideology has been defined as an organization of attitudes, opinions and values. It is a way of thinking about people and their society with respect to the different areas of social life: economics, politics, minority groups, religion and so forth (Adorno, 1950). Loewenstein also defined ideology as a consistent integrated patterns of belief and thoughts that explains man’s
As defined by Merriam Webster, the term ideology refers to “a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture” (Ideology, definition 2a). In the socio-political realm, the term often refers to the reasoning or concepts supporting a political or cultural system that is beneficial to a ruling or powerful class. As a result of the more powerful class or race wanting to maintain the status quo and grasp on their power, this often leads to the oppression of their subordinate class or racial group. In a collection of texts previously analyzed for this class, Havel, Bonilla-Silva, and Stoltenberg all make pointed arguments concerning contemporary ideologies that are present in society. In each essay, the authors argue that these
The Great Gatsby is full of symbolism, colors, for example. Throughout the book the author uses them to represent different themes of the novel. Some of these colors are white, yellow, grey, green, pink, red and blue. However, I picked white and green for my commentary because I think these colors have a special meaning different from the others. White is mainly used to describe the character’s innocence, fakeness, and corruption. While green represents Gatsby’s hopes, ambitions, and dreams. In addition, sometimes green symbolizes the jealousy of certain characters.
“Culture is often described as the combination of a body of knowledge, a body of belief and a body of behavior. It involves a number of elements, including personal identification, language, thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions that are often specific to ethnic, racial, religious, geographic, or social groups”.
To understand Smith’s essay, Smith feels it is important to be aware of her use of the word Ideology. For her the word has two different meanings “to mean not only a conscious system of meaning, e...
Whether you belong to a certain race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, geographical region or you identify with a certain sex you belong to a particular culture. Culture as define by Shiraev and Levy (2013), “Is a set of attitudes, behaviors, and symbols shared by a large group of people and usually communicated from one generation to the next” (p. ). In other words, we are a product of what has been handed down to us from the generations before. However, culture is evolving and it changes all the time. Hence the reason, no one group has a unique culture, since we are all influenced by each other’s way of life. As a result of this influence, we form relationships with people we know little about and share our values and beliefs with each other. Thereby creating a cross-cultural mix.
Barker, C. (2000b). The question of ideology. In Cultural studies: Theories and practice (pp. 54-65). London, England: Sage.
Ideologies are mental systems that organize socially shared attitudes, and these mental systems are social representations that function as “models which control how people act, speak or write or how they understand the social practices of others” (van Dijk, 1995: 2).
Culture can be present in any group, large or small. There are no special skills required to form a culture, all that is needed are the thoughts and ideas of the social group’s members. These provide a meaning to the people inside the culture and provide something to study for those outside the culture who wish to better understand it.
As ‘systems of ideas’, ideologies are sociocognitively defined as social representations of social groups, and more specifically, as ‘axiomatic’ principles of such representations. As the basis of the social group’s self-image, ideologies organize its identity, actions, aims, norm and values and resources, as well as its relations to other social groups (p. 115).
Fairclough (1992: 88) is of the view that “ideologies reside in texts” (p. 88). But it is noe necessary that the discourse would be interpreted in the same way as desired by the producers. Several interpretations can be made of a single piece of discourse. The ideological import may keep on changing with each new interpretation of discourse (Fairclough, 1992: 89).