The readings for this session deal with state as it is
thought of in biological and sexual terms that render the abstract state into a
physical reality easier to connect with. Thinking about state in bodily terms
offers us a theoretical allowance to ascribe desires, feelings and other
biological states to the otherwise lifeless political machinery. Readings take us away from the world of dry political theory to the world of feelings, desires and passions which state evokes in its everyday social life and in
its representation by the media.
Inspired by the work of Marx and later Marxist scholars such
as Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, Michael Taussig is of the opinion that
state fetishism is not as much talked about as commodity fetishism though state
is reified similarly. Alluding to A.R. Brown’s anarchical thoughts on the nonexistence
and fictional quality of state, he puts forth the question of the ‘reality of
the political power’ of the fiction of the state in the form of state
fetishism. He counterposes Philip Abrams critical insights to Brown’s
fictionalization stating that state is not the reality that stands behind the
fiction, but it is the mask or façade that blocks our vision to comprehend the
reality of the political practice and the exercise of power. He enquires into
the processes by which state becomes associated with the repressive powers and
is symbolically recognized by the people over whom it exercises power. True to
the poststructuralist treatment of reality and representation, state is seen as
a representation that occludes the reality behind it, rather than being the
reality that hides itself behind the mask. He uses the analogy of nervous
system to describe the state phenomenon. Like the nervous system, the
functioning of which we are capable of conceiving as an idea but not in its
tangible materiality, the idea of the state must be believed but its existence
as an abstract formal object disputed. In its magic like quality, state
resembles God. State for him is like impure sacred (very much like black magic
forces) which though evokes horror commands respect.
Taussig reiterates the contradictory nature of the idea of the
state which exercises monopoly over the legitimate use of violence and is at
the same time an ‘embodiment of reason’ in its everyday functioning through
bureaucracy (this insight is not new following our discussions on Weber and
others throughout this seminar). He holds that a keen understanding of the
cultural practice of statecraft is required to make sense of how these two
contradictory forces combine together. Further he adds it is essential to look
at the confluence of violence and reason to unmask the violence that always
hides behind the reason and reduces reason to just a mask, a power-effect
making the modern state legitimized by rational and legal authority a fetish
that commands obedience while threatening to wield violence at any moment. Throughout
the discussion, he uses very powerful sexual metaphors to unravel the mystic,
horrific nature of state fetishism. For instance, speaking of violence-reason
combine, he uses the phrase “institutional penetration of reason by violence”.
Elaborating on the idea of maleficium (an evil magical
force), he refers to various anthropological and sociological insights (mainly Durkheim)
on magic and mystery and traces a genealogy of totem and its working to
illuminate on the fetishistic quality of state. He likens the idea of state to
the idea of God that often is a proxy for the superseding authority of the
society (particularly Durkheim’s description on the constitution and working of
sacred within a society) and engages with the theories of representation and
signification to tell us how fetish is a signifier that “depends upon
signification, yet erases it” resulting in the ‘worship of the objectness’
itself. State likewise is a totem – an empty signifier bereft of signification
beyond its symbolic existence, an effect produced by a hollow core. His own
work on sorcery, magical objects helps him to understand the mysterious
authority of the state as a force that elicits both reverence and trepidation,
like any sacred object. He alludes to literary works of Jean Genet and Sartre
to elaborate on the mystical, the saintly and the criminal side of the state. In
this postmodern treatment of state – representation becomes more important than
the represented, and in the last analysis one should realize the nonexistence
of the represented. Taussig also argues that social scientists of all kinds
have consistently ignored this fetishistic quality of state and often their
epistemological endeavours are already subsumed and afflicted by the same kind
of state fetishism. He urges all scholars to overcome the thralldom of the
state and enquire its fetishistic influence.
Aretxaga’s article on strip search of women prisoners in an
Irish prison also engages partly with the magical authority that is attributed
to the state which can be examined only during excesses when the authority
exercised cannot be justified by those who wield power in the name of the
state. The prison location where the bodies are subject to total state control
seems like an ideal location to understand the ultimate weapon of the state –
violence. She builds her arguments on Abrams (reification of state), Taussig
and Foucault. She examines state in the excesses it can’t reason out much along
the lines of Taussig’s discussion of violence and reason. The significance of
her analysis is in bringing the gender factor to the dynamics of power relations
exercised in the name of the state. Extending Foucault’s observations on technologies
of discipline that act on the bodies of subjects, she underlines the gender
difference when the same kind of discipline is exercised over female subjects. Making
the power of the state symbolic of male power, the intimate power dynamics as
seen through strip searches becomes a performance of violence tantamount to
rape on its female subjects. The way power operates on female subjects, she
argues is fundamentally different from the way it does on male subjects, thus
visibilising the sexual selves of the female prisoners. Violence against the integrity
of personhood in the private space of each of their prison cells a realization
of sexual fantasy. Aretxaga in recounting the narratives of women prisoners and
reporting the after effects of the strip search on prisoners repeatedly
emphasizes the unjustified arbitrariness of state power and the fear it induces
among the victims of strip search. She uses Deleuzian theoretical framework and
discusses technologies of control, fascination with them, ‘fantasies animating
them’ and ‘fictions that legitimize them’. She shows how state violence is
gendered and sexualized.
Weiss’ article on Israeli nation and the discursive construction
of nation, its semiotic significance when associated with the concept of body discusses
the process of gendering the political body of the state. It particularly
focuses on the role of media in the formation of public opinion especially with
regard to terrorism against Israeli state. It discusses the active part played
by media in the setting the political agenda of the state. Doing a content
analysis of media content of the coverage of terrorist attack on Israeli state
it shows how it takes the form of a certain kind of ‘bodyTalk’ and explains the
processes through which nations are inscribed onto bodies.
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