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Secondly, recognizing that the discourses surrounding sex that developed and in some cases were deployed over the course of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries helps one to understand why "what is said about sex must not be analyzed simply as the surface of projection of these power mechanisms," because it is the actual discursive deployment themselves which embody the power mechanisms under discussion (Foucault 100). These discourses cannot help but to legitimize and reiterate the reigning power structure. The discourses of morality, science, and criticism utilized by the "family organization" in order to constrain and control an individual's sexuality simultaneously serve to define and support the family organization in the first place. This is a crucial contribution to the study of rhetoric and ideology, because it serves to demonstrate how rhetoric deployed in the service of ideology inherently works to buttress that ideology even as it expands and modifies it. Foucault demonstrates the necessity of constantly questioning any given and being aware of the often violent shifts discursive entities undergo by pointing out that these discursive entities are not simply the tools of power, but power itself.
When examining Foucault's summary of his description of the application of power in relation to sex via a kind of discursive multiplication and the key theoretical guides one must be aware of in performing this description, it becomes possible to see the important contributions Foucault...
Foucault's theory reveals two key facets regarding the "power-knowledge" that is utilized and reiterated in the deployment of a kind of discursive weapon. First, he productively describes the ideologically informed deployment of discourse by acknowledging the evolutionary changes discourse undergoes. Secondly, Foucault reveals how every specific discourse instigated by the deployment of discourse in the service of power ultimately simultaneously serves to legitimize and obscure that power. Both of these details remain important considerations for anyone investigating rhetoric, ideology, or the society-wide ways in which language and discussion is used to control the physical world.
Works Cited
Eribon, Didier. "Michel Foucault's Histories of Sexuality." 7.1 (2001): 31-86.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume 1. New York: Vintage
Books, 1978.
Leps, Marie-Christine. "Critical Productions of Discourse: Angenot, Bakhtin, Foucault." Yale
Journal of Criticism. 17.2 (2004): 263-286.
Lochrie, Karma. "Desiring Foucault." Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. 27.1
(1997): 3-16.
Shepherdson, Charles. "History and the Real: Foucault with Lacan." Postmodern Culture. 5.2
(1995): n. page.
Winnubst, Shannon. "Exceeding Hegel and Lacan: Different Fields of Pleasure…
Works Cited
Eribon, Didier. "Michel Foucault's Histories of Sexuality." 7.1 (2001): 31-86.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume 1. New York: Vintage
Books, 1978.
Leps, Marie-Christine. "Critical Productions of Discourse: Angenot, Bakhtin, Foucault." Yale
Rhetoric relates to the control of knowledge, and thus, the control of social and political power. It is therefore essential to deconstruct rhetoric to discover patriarchal and other forms of bias. Not only do biases lead to distorted knowledge, but biases like sexism also lead to the normalization of misogyny. Bell Hooks also notes that feminist rhetoric deconstructs, challenges, and ultimately eliminates all forms of oppression and not just
Conclusion In the final analysis the film under discussion can be deconstructed and critiqued from a postmodern perspective. This refers to the underlying ideologies and metanarratives that inform the narrative and imagery of the film. From a postmodern point-of-view truth is never static or fixed and is always relative to a certain context or stance. The film in question makes use of a number of rhetorical devices to put forward its
It was not until the Renaissance that the art of rhetoric would retain the heights it had reached in the classical period. The Renaissance favored classical forms of rhetorical theory - particularly Latin. The Renaissance period can be seen as a severe reaction to the medieval period's emphasis on dialectical forms of scholastic endeavor. One of the key figures in the revival of the classical study of rhetoric was Erasmus.
While these are some of the more famous elements of rhetorical theory, they do not require extensive discussion here for two reasons. Firstly, they are fairly well-known. Secondly, and more importantly, they actually do not provide much insight into the uses of rhetoric, because Aristotle implicitly inserts an ethics into his discussion of rhetoric that precludes it from having as robust an application to the real world as would
Jacques Derrida has been accused of writing in a deliberately obtuse and obfuscated manner, so the relationship between his work and that of Plato's might not be immediately discernible. Perhaps the clearest connection between the two can be derived from Derrida's of Grammatology, especially as it compares to Plato's aesthetics and view of reality. In this rather dense treatise, Derrida first outlines the phenomenon of what he calls logocentrism --
The speech is full of images and words denoting grand principles, especially "freedom," and the manner in which these are intermingled with the logical arguments and exhortations for support -- and pledges of support -- that have direct literal meanings blur the line between discursive and presentational symbols. Each of Obama's words has specific meaning out of the context of this speech, and each word largely retains this meaning