Inspired by the talk with Rongrat this morning. I was thinking all day about how ambiguos words work in politics.
I think Foucault discourse analysis can be a good approach here. Foucault argues, truth about discourse is not important, the more important thing is "how" discourse works to effect changes, what impacts it has to people practices and ideas.
Then, it is not useful to 'interpret' the ambiguous words. The words themselves are not supposed to 'mean' anything. The more important thing to observe, to follow Foucault's line, is "how will they effect people behavior".
I reckon, some ambigous words are just conveying "power" to legitimate what might be a "predetermined" action.
Rambo said it best… “When you're pushed… Killing's as easy as breathing."
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This might interested you!
The film Rambo 4, yes you're right - that John Rambo guy, is about Mr.John saving people in Burma from the military men.
The preview of the film is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiHNZw9qFtM
Interestingly, as the news reported, Stallone chose to make film about Burma based on the information that it is one of the few areas left in the world with inhumane conducts done by the military dicatorship. (Then, as you know, Rambo has to go out and kick the military asses)
Well...John Rambo, the country next to Burma now also has a military dictatorship to be overthrown. Are you interested, John?
If you have read this blog enough, you should have recognized one important shift in my standpoint.
I have been much more critical toward "morality".
I actually have some story to tell you about this. As the student from Thammasat, when I first come to Oxford, I was filled up with ideologies on morality. Many of my thoughts and arguments related to development were justified on the ground of morality.
When I did my first essay for anthropology, I wrote about consumerism, justifying it as dangerous based on morality ground. Although there're plenty of Thai famous academics who said the same thing, my first essay was tore apart by the professor. He argues, which I found out later to be right, that in an academics point of view - it is not legitimate to justify anything based on "moral" ground. To write a good academic piece of work at international level, morality from Thai perspective doesn't really have any use.
In addition, going through a tough course on anthropolgy of development, I also come to realize the drawback of morality. Morality itself have a close relations with power. If you are critical about some part of the Thai history, then it should not be too difficult to realize that many events in Thailand clearly demonstrate this point. Reading history from many developing counties, I also realized that "morality itself is not bad, but when it is used by people - then it can become a means for domination, oppression, or even for demolition".
Hence, I concluded that "let's keep morality to be about practice, not to be about....saying words that make you look good"
(บทความนี้ได้รับแรงบันดาลใจและข้อมูลจากหนังสือ Fault-Line of Democracy in Post-Transition Latin America โดย Felipe Aguero และ Jeffrey Stark ครับ สนใจหาอ่านได้ตามห้องสมุดใกล้บ้าน)
ตรงจุดนี้นี่เองที่ทำให้นักทฤษฎีประชาธิปไตยในยุคถัดมาตั้งคำถามว่าทำไม ทำไมบางประเทศเช่นบราซิลที่ Rule of Law ก็ห่วย ระบบการเมืองก็ห่วย ภาคประชาสังคมก็แตกแถวแตกแยกกัน เศรษฐกิจก็ล้มๆลุกๆ ถึงได้มีประชาธิปตยที่มั่นคงได้
First of all, instead of finishing the first draft of my core essay early, I finished it a day late. Now, my supervisor don't have time to read it for me. I take all the responsibility (for being late). Herrrrrr.
Second, I'm stucked with my thesis, couldn't outline the specific question yet. I know it's early, since I'll have a year to do the thesis. But I'm worried. Still don't have much time coz I need to prepare for exams.
After a long quest in dealing with the Oxonian exams, finally I got it done. It's such a pleasure, so I did take a week off from work, enjoyed myself and the sun (which is now back on the blue sky). Things were great last week, I got my laptop back repaired, and I accomplished one of my dream - which is to go to watch Arsenal play at their new stadium. Good things happen in sequence, indeed.
I'll be back to update my blog with more thoughts. I'll try to be consistent, probably around once or twice a week then. During the preparation for the exams, I got so many good ideas coming up to my mind. Sadly, I didn't have time to put them here. Anyway, I can still remember them, and will be bombarding you guys with these rubbish thoughts pretty soon.