Problem

Author: Yu Hong et al. / Country:
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-09-01
Features: The Eye of Power In fact, when we involve ourselves in the relationship between active and passive, seeing and being seen within the gaze of desire, we touch upon an important aspect of visual culture—the eye of power. We know that seeing is a cultural phenomenon, and every individual is situated within a specific social and cultural context. Therefore, how and what one sees are determined by society. There is no pure, natural eye. However, society always exists with power relations, with power dynamics of oppression and subjugation, and thus, seeing is inevitably intertwined with power relations. Hence, Foucault has a vivid term—"the eye of power." Foucault argues that human civilization is actually filled with oppression and violence, and the eye serves as an effective organ of power, exercising various functions of power. He notes that this eye of power evolved from a closed, segmented space for monitoring and isolating the plague in the 17th and 18th centuries to a panopticon of surveillance. The control of the plague shaped a "closed, fragmented space, under constant surveillance." Meanwhile, the Panopticon created by Jeremy Bentham inverted the principles of dark, closed dungeons—"sufficient light allowed the gaze of the surveillant to capture the prisoners more effectively than darkness, because darkness ultimately secured the prisoners. Visibility itself is a trap." Foucault emphasizes that the former was designed to address specific dangerous situations, while the latter became a generalized operational model, inspiring new ideas and variations over two centuries, becoming a symbol of political technology in architecture. Unlike traditional voyeurism and surveillance, the traditional "mechanism of observation is a dark room where people sneak in to watch. Now, it has become a transparent building where the operations of power can be monitored by the entire society." Foucault firmly believes that these two "disciplines" in the 17th and 18th centuries led to the birth of the "disciplinary society." He vividly describes this: to exercise such power, it must possess a persistent, all-seeing, omnipresent means of surveillance. This means must make everything hidden visible. It must be like a faceless gaze, transforming this social body into a perceptual field: with thousands of eyes scattered everywhere, a flowing attention always alert, and a vast hierarchical network. This scenario is often seen in modern society. During China's "Cultural Revolution," such a situation existed, where the eye of power was everywhere, making any deviation or rebellion almost impossible. Exposing everything to "public scrutiny" became the basic rule of operation of the eye of power. This condition can also be seen during Stalinism and even Nazi fascist rule. Not only in some extreme periods of human history does the omnipresent eye of power exist, but it is also prevalent in our daily lives even during ordinary times. Through the analysis of the formation of the "disciplinary society," Foucault pointed out two important modern trends: First, since the 18th century, there has been a widespread fear of dark spaces, fearing that darkness obscures truth and seeking to eliminate the dark areas of society; second, 18th-century urban planning gave rise to a certain "centralized observation system," where the visibility of the body, the individual, and objects were principles frequently attended to by the planners (note: the author refers to the urban planners here). Returning to the view previously cited by Berger, the way we see things is influenced by what we know and believe. Foucault also firmly holds this belief, as Martin Jay, an American scholar, discovered: "What we see is mediated by our culturally constructed natural perception." Foucault often writes with irony, emphasizing the artificiality of our visual experience; what is considered self-evident in our visual experience is precisely what must be questioned." Therefore, in a "disciplinary society," vision is not a natural sense; rather, it is a certain "cognitive construct." Through "cognitive" analysis, it is sufficient to reveal how vision becomes a tool of power. Foucault believes that in any society, there is some form of "episteme" or "cognitive" that constrains or controls how people talk about and think about issues. These rules are presented through specific forms of discourse. He writes: "I intend to write an archaeology of discourse on sexuality. These discourses indicate what we do, what we are forced to do, what is allowed and what is not allowed in the realm of sexuality; and what we are allowed and not allowed to say about sexual behavior. This is the key point. It is not a question of fantasy but a question of discourse." Although Foucault here refers only to the realm of sexuality, the same applies to any other sociocultural phenomenon. As mentioned earlier, traditional societies had various taboos on seeing, which were forms of visual power discourse. We would never deviate from the norm and gaze at things recklessly. On the surface, the habits and behaviors of seemingly natural seeing actually conceal complex visual systems and domination. So, how do these power visual discourses operate? Foucault's research is not on discourse as consciousness but as a technique or tactic of power, that is, how visual discourse functions through a set of game rules. Foucault notes that people discuss issues according to a series of complex mechanisms, the most important of which is a series of binary opposition categories: true-false, good-evil, rational-irrational, normal-abnormal, scientific-unscientific, etc. These distinctions ultimately boil down to an opposition between acceptance and exclusion, meaning that some words or gazes are acceptable, while others must be excluded. True, good, rational, normal, and scientific are accepted, while the opposing categories are to be excluded. It is worth noting that these distinctions are often carried out in the name of "knowledge" and "truth," meaning that whether in speech or visual activity, there is a will for truth or knowledge, which Foucault calls the "will to truth" and the "will to knowledge." Thus, "knowledge" and "truth" become synonyms for power. Therefore, power produces knowledge, and knowledge, in turn, reinforces power. However, there is a difference between traditional and modern societies. In traditional societies, power operates through public punishment, while in modern society, power produces effects through the self-discipline and control of individuals, making power more subtle. Just as the complex meaning of the English word "discipline" represents, on one hand, it refers to disciplines and knowledge, and on the other, it refers to training, discipline, and punishment. We can turn the analysis of this gaze toward the human body. Foucault has spoken of military training, school education, and other aspects of body training, from which one can easily glimpse the "eye of power." But I would like to point out a particular phenomenon: in an increasingly democratized society, in a society that appears to grant individuals ample freedom of choice, the "surveillance" of one's own body is actually the work of an invisible "eye of power." The cultural industry of modern society creates various myths about the body, that is, the "cognitive" of the body, such as what constitutes a healthy, perfect body, and provides people with various "models" or "paragons" of the body through models, movie stars, singers, and sports stars. Those chubby, loose, or distorted bodies are considered "problematic." Thus, the fashion for the body in contemporary life drives people to pursue physical perfection, constantly examining their own bodies through the eyes of others and their own eyes to achieve or approach the standards demanded by the body's "cognitive." The widespread anxiety about the body, that is, the anxiety caused by the distance between one's own body and perfection, constantly reinforces the gaze of others and the self. The body is used to be shown to others and to bring satisfaction to oneself, so the eye of power continuously shapes the "disciplined body." This gaze does not come from coercive collective training (such as military training), but from the individual itself. The technology of the body is first and foremost a visual technology, that is, the technology of how to watch and evaluate one's own body, and only secondarily the technology of how to shape or change the body. Therefore, the body becomes an object of power, and every gaze that pursues physical perfection becomes the "eye of power."