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I've recently had the pleasure of watching this video:
Remember to turn on CC when you watch.
While I thought Foucault had some points in that we are limited by the walls the institutions have put around us, I found myself more in agreement with Chomsky, that our innate curiosity is what determines our growth and that because of the society which we live in now, human creativity (in the west at least) is not repressed by the state / institutions.
The reason I find myself in agreement with Chomsky, is that I used to believe in Foucault (without ever having known of the man), blaming society and thinking nothing mattered since I was destined to fail. But as one grows in life, I began to realise that the hindrances I have in my life are usually the ones I have put in front of myself. I started to change the way I lived through small steps, and now I aim to do something productive every day.
Also in a religious sense I feel like that I am in agreement with Chomsky, when he said that the limitations put upon us by the institutions makes us seek out the knowledge outside of it. Think of Plato's cave for an analogy that you can draw as a parallel. This is because I grew up with almost no knowledge about my own faith, and the only introduction I had to it, was inside the institutions that Foucault mentioned. This lead me to having a very narrow Weltanschauung, however my own curiosity and that of my brother, both made us start to question aspects of our faith, and find other materials that further grew our perception of the nuance in our religion, and recognise the flaws of the Hadiths and the Sunnah. Had my brother and I been locked in a state of mind where we only sought out truth inside the walls that Foucault says we are in (granted he also says great discoveries transforms society, but the institutions despite transformation still remains) we would have not been able to escape the cave, and just think that the opinion / stance of those we perceived as having more knowledge about the topic to be inherently always true.
That being said, I also recognise that ones life can be impacted through a bad start, such as being born in a socio-economic poor environment where education and knowledge is not fostered, and that the walls of the institutions around you would feel like a subconscious cage, constricting the free flow of your minds movement. This is why I truly believe that we need to foster our fellow humans, early on, through good education and character building to make them see each other as thinking individuals, have solidarity with them and nurture their mind through a socratic manner.
Remember to turn on CC when you watch.
While I thought Foucault had some points in that we are limited by the walls the institutions have put around us, I found myself more in agreement with Chomsky, that our innate curiosity is what determines our growth and that because of the society which we live in now, human creativity (in the west at least) is not repressed by the state / institutions.
The reason I find myself in agreement with Chomsky, is that I used to believe in Foucault (without ever having known of the man), blaming society and thinking nothing mattered since I was destined to fail. But as one grows in life, I began to realise that the hindrances I have in my life are usually the ones I have put in front of myself. I started to change the way I lived through small steps, and now I aim to do something productive every day.
Also in a religious sense I feel like that I am in agreement with Chomsky, when he said that the limitations put upon us by the institutions makes us seek out the knowledge outside of it. Think of Plato's cave for an analogy that you can draw as a parallel. This is because I grew up with almost no knowledge about my own faith, and the only introduction I had to it, was inside the institutions that Foucault mentioned. This lead me to having a very narrow Weltanschauung, however my own curiosity and that of my brother, both made us start to question aspects of our faith, and find other materials that further grew our perception of the nuance in our religion, and recognise the flaws of the Hadiths and the Sunnah. Had my brother and I been locked in a state of mind where we only sought out truth inside the walls that Foucault says we are in (granted he also says great discoveries transforms society, but the institutions despite transformation still remains) we would have not been able to escape the cave, and just think that the opinion / stance of those we perceived as having more knowledge about the topic to be inherently always true.
That being said, I also recognise that ones life can be impacted through a bad start, such as being born in a socio-economic poor environment where education and knowledge is not fostered, and that the walls of the institutions around you would feel like a subconscious cage, constricting the free flow of your minds movement. This is why I truly believe that we need to foster our fellow humans, early on, through good education and character building to make them see each other as thinking individuals, have solidarity with them and nurture their mind through a socratic manner.