Neil wrote:
I said before, I do think having *Avon* in the role subverts it quite nicely
No. He might subvert our expectations of the way in which the power relation is expressed, but he does not subvert the power relation itself. He can't, any more than the cowboy can stop being a cowboy and become an indian. He is trapped there. As are we all.
This is not true. We are not irrevocably trapped within our social and cultural roles. One's whole being is not contained within one's culture. A whole book by L. Trilling, 'Beyond Culture' is dedicated to this question and it proves very convincingly that there is a residue of personality, however small, over which general culture doesn't hold sway, and which provides a standpoint for resisting this culture. This may be expressed in one's interest in other cultures, other traditions, whose set of societal or moral values is different and can be used for making subversive comparisons. One can also reach beyond culture by resorting to one's innermost core, instincts and feelings, or to the simple biological facts of life: your body is not a product of your society, and it is also you.
(A good example of this is Orwell's W.Smith, who cannot compare his wretched living conditions with anything different in his experience, but feels in his bones and his stomach that everything around him is wrong.)
A lot depends on how much importance you place on the differences. The differences emerge from the particularities of the characters. The similarities are rooted in something deeper and wider - ideology. If you want to study the characters, then yes, you look at the differences. If your attention is focussed on ideological values embedded within a text (eg, to assess it in terms of its didacticism) , you turn to the common ground and ignore the differences. They're too distracting.
I disagree again. If you're looking for ideological values within the text you cannot ignore the characters. A lot of what an author is consciously or unconsciously trying to tell us is conveyed through his characters. A character may be a typical representative of a certain class or society if it suits the author's intentions. It is also possible that an author believes he has created a very unique character, but that said character is still stereotypical, because the author is not aware of his own ideological limitations.
Some characters, however, are truly unique, and cannot be reduced to their (or the author's) social and class background. Stephen Dedalus is not just another middle-class Irishman who lives in Dublin at the turn of the century. He is a very unique person who rebels against a whole range of social and religious dogmas. If you miss the peculiarities of his character, you miss just about everything the author is trying to tell you. Likewise, Roj Blake is not just another alpha-grade engineer or whatever. The author uses his character to express a certain set of values and ideas - the invincibility of human spirit, humane attitudes, 'dreams worth having'. Didacticism or the author's world-view are also expressed through characters and their clashes and differences.
N.
Natasa Tucev wrote:
It is also possible that an author believes he has created a very unique character, but that said character is still stereotypical, because the author is not aware of his own ideological limitations.
Or just his limitations as a writer.
Mistral
--- Natasa Tucev tucev@tesla.rcub.bg.ac.yu wrote: >
This is not true. We are not irrevocably trapped within our social and cultural roles. One's whole being is not contained within one's culture. A whole book by L. Trilling, 'Beyond Culture' is dedicated to this question and it proves very convincingly that there is a residue of personality, however small, over which general culture doesn't hold sway, and which provides a standpoint for resisting this culture. This may be expressed in one's interest in other cultures, other traditions, whose set of societal or moral values is different and can be used for making subversive comparisons.
I agree with this completely. I would also add that culture are neither homogenous nor hermetically sealed. Who was representative of German culture in 1942 ? Hitler, Bonhoeffer, Willy Brandt or Erich Honecker ? In understanding nationalist movements Arab world at the beginning of the century one needs some kind of grasp or both Arab/ Islamic and European culture. We are not defined by culture because we have some choice over what bits of our culture we find attractive. A great deal of the social/ political conflict in our current society (Debates over feminist issues, censorship, sexuality, the role of religion, education etc.) is about cultural issues as much as economic. The choices we make will determine the sort of culture we have in the future.
Likewise, Roj Blake is not just another alpha-grade engineer or whatever. The author uses his character to express a certain set of values and ideas - the invincibility of human spirit, humane attitudes, 'dreams worth having'. Didacticism or the author's world-view are also expressed through characters and their clashes and differences.
The classic example is the three way debate between Avon, Blake and Jenna in the Computer room in Space Fall, which you quote. In a lot of the early episodes characters are representative of tendencies in Federation society. Travis and Servalan represent the military hard-liners, Rai and Samor represent an older tendency in the military class which still believes in honour. (I think a parallel with the conflicts in the German Officer class in WWII was intended), Meanwhile the politicians - Bercol, Rontane, Joban - hover hoping to benefit from Servalan's ruthlessness whilst fearing it. A picture of the galaxy is developed through a cast of (often minor) characters.
I must say that I prefer this threefold division between Blake, Jenna and Avon mirrored by the threefold division in the Federation elite in the early stories to the "Servalan and Avon race after this weeks widget" story of s4. Blake's 7 was much better when it was about something.
Stephen.
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This is not true. We are not irrevocably trapped within our social and cultural roles. One's whole being is not contained within one's culture.
True, but a large percentage of it is, I would argue. Anthropological concepts of the person hold that the person is a combination of physical elements (i.e. the body), individual personality, social relationships and societal influences, none of which are separable from the others. It is totally impossible to be a human being without being influenced by our cultures, whether we like it or not.
whole book by L. Trilling, 'Beyond Culture'
To which I would counter R. Jenkins, "Social Identity."
One can also reach beyond culture by resorting to one's innermost core, instincts and feelings, or to the simple biological facts of life: your
body
is not a product of your society, and it is also you.
Yes, but for how long? What you're saying is that it's only possible to resist culture by withdrawing totally from it. Which is a fair point, but I think it also makes it clear that as human beings we are irrevocably linked with our cultures.
(A good example of this is Orwell's W.Smith, who cannot compare his
wretched
living conditions with anything different in his experience, but feels in his bones and his stomach that everything around him is wrong.)
But again, this decision and feeling is not outside his society. Smith has not personally experienced anything different, but other parts of the book suggest that he would have had at least casual contact with ideas about other ways of being, through his parents or through old people like the prole man in the pub. Anyway, the fact that he "feels in his bones" that the society is wrong does not make this sense of wrongness a biological reaction; quite the opposite.
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
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From: Natasa Tucev tucev@tesla.rcub.bg.ac.yu
Neil wrote:
No. He might subvert our expectations of the way in which the power relation is expressed, but he does not subvert the power relation itself. He can't, any more than the cowboy can stop being a cowboy and become an indian. He is trapped there. As are we all.
This is not true. We are not irrevocably trapped within our social and cultural roles.
I'm afraid I believe that we are, but at the same time those roles are not fixed. They shift over time. Sticking with the sexism line, there has been a dramatic shift in male-female power relations over the last three decades, altering the ideologically sanctioned balance of power, or indeed obscuring it in many cases. Not that that has put an end to sexism, but things do seem to be moving in the right direction.
How do these power nodes shift? Probably not of their own accord. They are moved by people, by the cumulative effect of millions upon millions of thoughts, words and actions which challenge the ideological norm. The ideological norm itself thus changes. Politically correct language that was once ridiculed is now the de facto standard. (The Two Ronnies did a sketch in the mid-70s about non-sexist language. Repeated twenty years later, it was simply unfunny. To talk about a 'chairperson' had become not just commonplace, it had become the expected norm.)
One's whole being is not contained within one's culture. A whole book by L. Trilling, 'Beyond Culture' is dedicated to this question and it proves very convincingly that there is a residue of personality, however small, over which general culture doesn't hold sway, and which provides a standpoint for resisting this culture.
I haven't read Trilling (nor indeed even heard of her/im - see what I mean, 20 years ago I'd have just assumed 'him') and I'm hardly in a position to argue with his/er work. But: One's whole being not contained within one's culture? Yes, I can believe that. But one's whole being is not how one relates to the rest of society, which is where the ideological norms act on one. Take the cowboy/indian scenario I mentioned earlier. Ideological norm has it that cowboy shoots indian and massacres his buffalo.
Scenario 1: Nasty cowboy shoots indian and massacres buffalo. He is going along with the norm, and the norm consequently does not change. Scenario 2: Nice cowboy asks indian if he can shoot a buffalo or two and offers to pay adequate compensation. He is going against the norm, but the norm is again not changed by that single act, because the next cowboy to ride over the hill is more than likely going to be a nasty one. If *lots of other cowboys* start being nice, then yes, the norm will change. They might be inspired by the sterling example of the original nice cowboy, in which case we can say he has made a measurable impact - over time. But *at the moment* of him being nice, the norm doesn't shift. He is trapped - *at that time* - within the role allotted to him, however ardently he resists it.
The indian, used to nasty cowboys, might shoot him before he gets a chance to be nice. Actually this happens all too often. Because nice as he might be, he is still a cowboy, and he carries with him all the ideological baggage labelled 'Mr Cowboy - Nasty'. No matter that all his bags might be empty - the indian still sees the bags, not their contents.
Because what matters is not what the cowboy knows is in his bags, it's what the indian expects to be in there, and indeed what other cowboys expect them to contain. It is those expectations that trap people within ideological power structures, and any challenge or subversion - taken individually - does not alter those expectations. Cumulatively, the impact can be quite drastic.
(A good example of this is Orwell's W.Smith, who cannot compare his
wretched
living conditions with anything different in his experience, but feels in his bones and his stomach that everything around him is wrong.)
Yeah well, he really shifted a lot of ideological norms, didn't he?
I disagree again. If you're looking for ideological values within the text you cannot ignore the characters. A lot of what an author is consciously
or
unconsciously trying to tell us is conveyed through his characters.
True. What I meant was, ignore the characters as characters, but don't ignore them as representations of an ideological position. See them for *what* they stand for, rather than *who* they are.
EG: Avon - educated, civilised, visitor, knowing, scientific. And male, of course. Meegat - uneducated, primitive, native, ignorant, spiritual. And female, by some strange quirk of coincidence.
These different aspects of superiority/inferiority are (in this case) largely mutually reinforcing. We can choose to see Avon/Meegat as an essentially male/female interaction (which seems to have been Wendy's take), with Avon's male superiority enhanced by his education, civilisation, scientific acumen etc. Or we might go for the civilisation angle (essentially the basis of my keg marxist effort), where his maleness serves only to throw his civilised nature into starker contrast with Meegat's female primitiveness.
Or we could say that his education, maleness and scientific acumen (taken together as a mutually reinforcing whole) account for his superiority as a visitor over Meegat's native status. This is something that really does need to be accounted for, otherwise any old passing tourist is going to sort out all the problems in your home town. Meegat really ought to have an edge here, being one of the locals, but her native status is actually associated with all the other things that make her inferior and hence it itself becomes a signifier of inferiority.
Superiority or otherwise is largely grounded in ideology, rather than actuality. The relative superiority of men over women (or vice versa) is the one most obviously open to question, but so are the others. Is civilised really 'better' than primitive? Or science 'better' than the spiritual? (Obviously I have my own opinions on this one.) Educated over uneducated might have some merit, but then we've all heard of the brilliant academic who can't tie his own shoelaces.
Avon in Deliverance is a nice cowboy. But still a cowboy. Meegat is the indian. The rocket is therefore no longer a phallic object but a huge herd of buffalo being packed off to a nice safe sanctuary.
Neil
"Give me a home where the buffalo roam And I'll show you a house with a very messy carpet." Bill Oddie
EG: Avon - educated, civilised, visitor, knowing, scientific. And male, of course. Meegat - uneducated, primitive, native, ignorant, spiritual. And female, by some strange quirk of coincidence.
Neil
I haven't seen most of the episodes in a long time, so I can't remember: how much education (and what sort) did Ro have?
Sandra Kisner sjk3@cornell.edu
Sandra Kisner wrote:
EG: Avon - educated, civilised, visitor, knowing, scientific. And male, of course. Meegat - uneducated, primitive, native, ignorant, spiritual. And female, by some strange quirk of coincidence.
Neil
I haven't seen most of the episodes in a long time, so I can'tremember: how much education (and what sort) did Ro have?
Isn't he educated by the Federation? Can't remember the details exactly. I thought the Kommissar was his tutor.
Una
sjk3@cornell.edu wrote:
EG: Avon - educated, civilised, visitor, knowing, scientific. And male, of course. Meegat - uneducated, primitive, native, ignorant, spiritual. And female, by some strange quirk of coincidence.
Neil
I haven't seen most of the episodes in a long time, so I can't remember: how much education (and what sort) did Ro have?
Sandra Kisner sjk3@cornell.edu
And who is to say that 'an hour or so' after the Liberator left Meegat and friends didn't invite the 'camping out' group to stay in the space vacated by the now departed rocket, and were debating what they would get the next group of passing space visitors to help them out with? (as with Damien in Drop the Dead Donkey)
Jacqui
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