Cultural Studies & Power Dynamics, Media Studies, And True Education : A Brief Discussion.

Introduction : This blog is a response to the Thinking Activity assigned by my revered professor Dr Dilip Barad Sir as the part of Cultural Studies. In this blog, I shall be discussing few questions related to Cultural Studies and its contemporary significance in studying several other fields along with the connection between 'Power' and 'Knowledge.'

For the understanding of Cultural Studies, touch the following image :

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》Let us understand the various layers of meaning of the term 'Power' first : 

There are different meanings of the word 'Power' in different fields : (Oxford Dictionary of English Language) : 

(1) Politics : political or social authority or control, especially that exercised by a government. 

(2) Law : authority that is given or delegated to a person or body. 

(3) Military : the military strength of a state. 

(4) Religion : a supernatural being, deity, or force. 

(5) Physics : capacity or performance of an engine or other device. 

(6) Sports : denoting a sports player, team, or style of play that makes use of power rather than finesse. 

(7) Electrical : energy that is produced by mechanical, electrical, or other means and used to operate a device. 

(8) Mathematics : the product obtained when a number is multiplied by itself a certain number of times. 

So, the word 'Power' with its varying interpretations by and large has pervaded in different dynamics of day-to-day life and various other disciplines; but what Sir Michel Foucault has to say regarding the relation between 'Power' and 'Knowledge' as his expertise, is quite interesting to be understood. In this concern, I have come across an honors thesis of Mr. Martin A. Hewett titled as 'Michel Foucault : power/knowledge and Epistemological Prescriptions' from University of Richmond, United States, wherein he discusses the presence and implementation of 'Power' in various strata of society, politics, economics, religion, and culture. Here is an excerpt taken from the thesis mentioned above : 

Foucault offers five important propositions about the nature of power in 'The History of Sexuality Volume I' that are meant to distinguish it from the 'sovereign' conception of power: 

1. Power is not a thing that can be acquired; but is "exercised from innumerable points." 

2. Power relations are 'imminent' - they are not exterior to other kinds of relations that operate in social relations. 

3. Power "comes from below" - no duality exists within power relations between rulers and the ruled, or oppressors and the oppressed. Rather, the types of relationships that result in hegemons and rulers are sustained by local power relationships: "One must suppose rather that the manifold relationships of force that take shape and comes into play in the machinery of production, in families, limited groups, and institutions, are the basis for wide-ranging effects of cleavage that run through the social body as a whole." 

4. Power is always intentional - power relations do not exist that are supposedly exercised without "aims and objectives." Power is therefore strategic, but does not involve a dominant or knowing subjectivity. The way that power relations manifest themselves within a society, culture, or discourse is fully intentional, but without a specific individual or sovereign source whose objectives and aims might have determined the network of power's strategies.

There is also an interesting and knowledgeable video on the topic Power Dynamics made by TedEd Foundation :

Now, my understanding of 'Power' and 'Knowledge' relationship is as follow : 

As far as my present and further growing understanding proposes thoughts regarding the connection between 'Power' and 'Knowledge' is that anyone who is considered powerful in given societal structure, either for one's economic strength or for racial identity, is not actually powerful from within, but is made by the 'subjugated' people who hold the powerful person's belief of being powerful as their own and thus the person considered as powerful remains powerful by the down-trodden mindsets of ignorant and uneducated people. In Hindi language there is a proverb which legitimises one's powerful position and one's control over various social, political, and religious dynamics : 

'जिसकी लाठी उसकी भैंस ।'

(Word-for-word translation : A buffalo belongs to one who possesses cane.) 

(Meaningful English translation : Those who are in powerful position has right to call truth as false and vice-versa or those who are powerful shall win.) 

This proverb seems to be of animalistic rule where animals who have fine brawn shall rule or lead the herd, which - if applied to human race - will be utterly foolish or an epitome of uneducated, barbaric, and divested of rational side of human beings. 

Another thing of Power Dynamics which works in political regime is directly related to people's "emotional susceptibility." When a leader calls forth the nation's well-being in the name of religious and idealistic figures which emotively appeal to people's conscious as well as cultural sub-conscious psyche of reverence towards the religious figure being idealized, and this allows leaders to emotionally captivate ignorant people for the benefit of their political parties which is also located in Sir George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' novel as 'Orwellian' use of language. 

Furthering the discussion on 'Power' and its role in social justice which specifically there in old times in form of 'Panchayats' especially in India, we find that landlords are appointed as the head of Panchayat or Five Officials' Council, where male particularly heads the lead. So, the idea is that how patriarchy has seeped into the societal affairs when it comes to justice, taking feminine approach to look at it for granted; and why feminine voice is lacking in the power positions can possibly be known through the reading of adages of ancient Indian justice system, there is a famous and highly prejudiced saying for women and the cerebral capacity they possess : 

'लडकियों का दिमाग घुटनों में होता है। '

(Word-for-word translation : Women have their intellect in their knees.) 

(Meaningful English translation : Women have lesser intelligence as compared to men.) 

So, this becomes interesting to see that how the patriarchal notions of controlling every area of day-to-day life by men and thus in order to degrade femininity, men have such aforementioned highly prejudiced biases for women which becomes the part of controlling gender by control over language and its usage which gets converted into as traditional knowledge system of the taken societal stratum.

》Media Studies :

The importance of Media Studies is a blazing concern arising in present days. Basically, the term 'Media' is  a plural form of 'Medium.' So, any apparatus, especially electronic one, which works as a mediator between producers to mass becomes the subject of Media Studies; if less, more focus is laid upon what is shown rather than from which medium it comes. I have an apposite video to share herewith :

So, through the lively discussion on Mass Media Production and Manufacturing Consent by Sir Noam Chomsky, we can find the power dynamics functioning in media platform too! The way rich have occupied the media cities and cinema world is alarming call for the rest marginalized population. Here the relation of 'Power' and 'Knowledge' plays a vital role, for rich are interested only in the financial gain and less concerned with public charity, so, whatever will be beneficial for rich, will be telecasted and printed in the T.V. shows, especially in News Channels and in Newspapers respectively. Thus Sir Chomsky counterquestions to a girl who comes and asks him that how the elite control the media, in sudden response Sir Chomsky retorts that the elite don't have to control media, they own it. 

The third relation of Media Studies is with the idea of Post-Truth, I have prepared a blog on this, so if you want to visit the blog, click here to get the concept of Post-Truth right in order to understand the relation of it with Media Studies. 

So, having said that the rich control media or what is to show and in how much proportion to the rest marginalized population, now the concern of Post-Truth arises. Let us have a real-life example regarding this : 

Paula White who is the spiritual advisor of former United States' president Donald Trump believes that there is a demonic conspiracy against Trump's rule and thus sets out to pray as the protection against it :

Thus, how the true reading, piercing probing skill, and the spirit of "Question! Examine! Test!" as suggested by Sir George Bernard Shaw have become watershed need of the day. Thus one coming across anything in one's life, especially through the medium of Television, Newspaper, or Social Media Applications is highly expected to scrutinize the given even in order to prevent false being spread which can be misleading and then proven dangerous.

》'Truly' Educated :

The very word 'Truly' if prepositioned to the word 'Educated' becomes problematic but the startling reality of nowadays' education system, even at the global level! The concern is extremely expected to be discussed on the table, for nowadays education has just remained as going somewhere and getting the paper-evidence, i.e., degree from there, but does it add anything to students' life and values they are expected to come out with as their academic career ends? The most would go with negative answer that is No! So, Swami Vivekananda has rightly said in his 'The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda - Volume 2' : 

"The ideal of all education, all training, should be this man-making. But, instead of that, we are always trying to polish up the outside. What use in polishing up the outside when there is no inside? The end and aim of all training is to make the man grow. The man who influences, who throws his magic, as it were, upon his fellow-beings, is a dynamo of power, and when that man is ready, he can do anything and everything he likes; that personality put upon anything will make it work." 

My Understanding of a Truly Educated Person : 

As far as my present and growing understanding hits me, I would opine that anyone who is truly educated has the wider perspective which layman lacks, further the point of view of the very person is globally inclusive but racist, nationalist, or religious. 

One thing is to be understood is the difference between education and pretentious personae. The personality is a type of identity which takes birth in the subconscious minds of people belonging to any given culture, and that is why anyone who is aware of given culture's mental fancies would pretend to be the make-believed goody-goody guy or girl who conforms to the expected behavioural personae of the given culture or society wherein the person lives. So, but education is completely different job as compared to personality, further we can say that personality is a part of the whole of education. 

Thus, I feel that a truly educated mind is the one who is  able to entertain anything without biases or prejudicial reading. The one who can really ascertain given subject of his/her field of interest without being influenced by other outer sources. Further, the one who is global identity is a truly educated person, the one whose all mental functionaries have consciously reached at the zenith of universality can be righteously considered as a 'truly' educated personality.

Thank you!