Thurs 4/13

I agree with Gramsci’s point from note I that the way we view the world is influences by many shared social elements such as thinking and acting (p 60). His point is similar to the idea of culture, which is also a concept that cannot be considered authentic by itself due to the fact that concepts are influenced and intertwined with many other concepts. This topic is also related to the idea of conformity: are people partially or fully conformists in order to foster their conceptional development of the world. To get rid of this view that we are just deposit bins of information or conformists, the author suggested the audience to first have awareness of the “self.” I do agree with this suggestion because the more we focus on what “I” instead of what people want, our reasoning skills would soon distance itself from the external forces.  

Foucault gave a great example of the Cold Era to discuss the relationship between truth and power. I have never known that truth and power will always go hands in hands like they can co-exist in our society. Additionally, I was amazed at how the idea of truth has a relationship with other concepts that I have not thought of before: language, propaganda, events, transparent “film.” These terms help me realized that the truth is never objective since it co-exist with power. However, this relationship creates more complicated questions for me such as whether power has any authority in altering the truth in religion, since I know that it is impossible to for humans to defy against Jesus’ word and miracles.