Josh Karthikeyan Week 9 - Attention!
In today’s day and age, the most power does not come from authority or brute force. It comes from the ability to decide what people notice and what they ignore.
Power is the notifications on your phone that pulls your attention away before you even choose to look. Power is the algorithm that decides which stories become popular and which ones disappear without notice. Power is the ability of institutions to redirect focus from the unsolved problems to convenient narratives. Our time and attention is limited so the groups that get to control where attention goes are the ones with the most influence in society.
For instance, at our school, this type of power exists. During discussions in school, it is often the person who speaks the most who changes what the class focuses on. Teachers also hold power by emphasizing certain topics over others, affecting the student’s interpretation of what is most important and what to focus on.
Attention based power is more subtle and sophisticated compared to traditional power. It is also extremely dangerous because of the illusion of choice. The perception of being fully free and choosing your own decisions changes their views on topics. When people believe that they are the ones who chose what to care about, it makes the influence from subtle power harder to notice. This power is stronger than authority because there are very few restrictions compared to the rules and punishment authority relies on.
Ultimately, the most significant control is from quietly shaping our beliefs today. By recognizing this subtle form of power, it enables us to decide on how to engage with it instead of being guided without awareness. We should respond with a more critical view of the forces guiding our focus.
Image by the Cleveland Clinic
I absolutely agree that power and control go hand in hand, and ultimately, in some situations, they are one and the same. When a person has significant power or even at least more than the other, they automatically have more control over that individual. Whether that means that they can manipulate them to do their bidding (that sounds so villainous) or influence the way that person thinks, it's all part of the control the more powerful individual has. You mention that power is the notification from our phones that unconsciously pulls our attention toward it. I think that this is an issue that everyone has, especially in this day age where almost everyone over the age of 13 has their own phone. However, power and control also exists beyond the block in our hands, and often goes unnoticed. There's the power of love, which can "control" people to do actions that they normally wouldn't. There's the power of (as you mention) institutions to "control" or shift the narrative in a manner that is most beneficial to them. I could go on and on, but I think that breaking our of this cycle of power and control is one of the biggest obstacles in life, on that not many achieve.
ReplyDeleteHi Josh! Power ABSOLUTELY comes from attention, and I’m so so glad you addressed that. Power is the Iranian government shutting down the internet to try to stop videos of atrocities against protests from getting out; it is the North Korean government banning access to all sorts of “anti-revolutionary” internet materials (or materials in general); it is some business tycoons deciding what pops up most on social media. “What people notice” being a form of power has been a theme throughout history, with Martin Luther King Jr. recognizing that the only way protests against racism would succeed in the US was if the protests garnered enough attention and media coverage; it was the same thing with Mahatma Gandhi in India, and Cesar Chavez in the US, and even modern examples like the Black Lives Matter movement or the protests against the Iraq war in 2003. Attention is what made those movements succeed (or at least helped them to a certain extent). On your writing, I think your use of anaphora really helps you emphasize the main point of your blog (power’s relationship with attention) and your strictly academic tone allows you to sound more credible and even make power through attention sound more dark; however, even with your amazing writing style, I do believe a little bit of humor for our Gen-Z brains might go a long way, although that may just be my style. Thank you for a fantastic piece!
ReplyDeleteThis is a really intriguing topic, Josh, especially in the context of the current political climate and numerous technological innovations in recent years. As I read your post, this quote heavily stood out to me: “The perception of being fully free and choosing your own decisions changes their views on topics.” This section of your post reminded me about a topic I’m very passionate about—choice feminism.
ReplyDeleteChoice feminism is a feminist philosophy that reasons that women’s empowerment lies in their ability to make choices. It reasons that for most of human history, women have had their freedom of choice suppressed, preventing them from possessing any sort of autonomy. Therefore, when women have the ability to choose what they want to do with their lives and bodies without restrictions, the gap in gender inequality will be alleviated. On a surface level, this thinking seems pretty self-explanatory—of course women should have the ability to choose what they want for themselves. However, what is dangerous about choice feminism is that it makes it entirely too easy for patriarchy to repackage itself in pink wrapping paper and deliver itself to modern women. For example, more and more women are getting plastic surgery by the day, to change the shape of their face, remove and prevent wrinkles, and enlarge or reduce the proportions of their body. Choice feminism tells us that this is empowering—women are the ones choosing what to do with their body, and their choice is giving them a sense of confidence and self-love. So, we shouldn’t complain that no one ever gets a nose job to enlarge the size of their nose, and that people almost always get these cosmetic surgeries to make themselves look more attractive according to a certain beauty standard. It’s no secret that patriarchy has weaponized beauty standards for hundreds if not thousands of years to diminish, demean, and suppress women by tying their self worth and value to their appearance. It has historically rewarded women who conform to this standard, and has cast women who don’t or refuse to out, labeling them as unattractive, undesirable, and ultimately worthless. The problem with choice feminism is that it ignores the subtle influences that are “quietly shaping” (as you said) the choices that women make. Choice feminism fails to recognize that choices do not exist in a vacuum; sure, a woman is making a choice to pay for a cosmetic surgery, and she has the agency to not do it if she doesn’t want to. Yet, there are patriarchal forces in her mind telling her that if she doesn’t go through this surgery, she won’t attain the feminine confidence and value that attractive women have, and that she’ll remain plain and undesirable. She is making a conscious decision, but that decision has been swayed by factors that seek to oppress, rather than uplift her. I could go on for hours about this topic alone; the entire theme of subtle influences of power is complex and extremely relevant today. Amazing post!