The Concepts and, Myths of the Modern World Essay

The Concepts and, Myths of the Modern World - Essay Example The followers were called Rationalists. The Utopians strive to banish from memory the dark struggle against feudalism in pursuit of revolutionary principles, and a new class of the industrial commoner is conceived by the application of the enlightened sciences. The concepts of Degeneration and Regeneration operate on the basis of an assumed mutual-understanding of order and chaos, function and malfunction, the normal and the pathological. It is closely associated to the ethical realm of norms and values. The concrete, spatial transgression of boundaries (between the house, the garden, the street, the country and the city, as well as between inner and outer space) found in the above, often symbolizes a transgression of conventional gender norms. (Buchholz et al, 2002). An in-depth understanding of the above can, it is argued, lead to avoidance of the deficits or malaise (this seems so normal in the dystopian scheme), of the modern world. In ancient civilizations like the Mesopotamian, the 'juridico-discursive' power is entirely at the hands of a 'sovereign authority who exercised absolute control over the population through the threat or open display of violence' (Foucault, 1978). Bentham's concept of 'Panoticon' or the 'Inspection House' symbolizes this authority transferred to buildings in (especially constructed in circular forms) wherein people were to be kept under Surveillance or inspection. This is, particularly applicable to "Penitentiary-Houses, Prisons, Hospitals, Schools, Industrial Houses, Poor-houses, Lazarettos and Mad-houses" (Bentham, 1787). Surveillance, becomes an important tool of the state is but, a sort of mapping of contours, geographies, and finally human beings too. Modern states also used such "thematic mapping technologies", a notable one, being "the cadastral map, which record land ownership and resource characteristics" (Goss, Jon. 1995). Constant surveillance which, when internalized, as in "disciplining the body, takes hold of the mind as well to induce a psychological state of 'conscious and permanent visibility" (Foucault 1977). It then becomes a disciplinary power that is used directly on the body, and collectively, to control social groups. Foucault speaks of the structured ways of knowing and exercising this power, in respect of Body, Power and the Sexuality; Subjectivity, identity and resistance; and Freedom, power and Politics.( Armstrong,2005). Speed: Relationship between new technologies, spaces and new identities. Speed is inversely proportional to the time within which a work is done. It is something that man, by conscious reformation of his techniques, "more conscious that ever of himself and his time in life," (Kudera, 1996) has brought in with the technical revolution. This revolution is evident in the rampant automation of many every-day processes. Asger Jorn(1958), elucidates the process of automation as something that progressive and, "adds more than it replaces or suppresses." The invention of the bi-cycle, can be said as the first step. Constant improvisation lead to rapid industrialization (mass production), the off-shoot of which is the railroad system. The fascination for Speed not only lead to