What makes someone an expert anyway? I read alot of books and magazines, watch alot of films and listen to lots of diffrent kinds of music and occasionally I write about it on blog on myspace does that make me an "expert"? I don't feel like one, although I know a few things if you ask me. I wouldn't call myself an expert but if a bunch of people started reading those blogs and agreeing with me I still wouldn't think that. Afterall, what do I know?
So why do people like Ebert win awards for their opinons. How are his so much more important then mine?
I know what the text says about cannoncity but that to me seems so suspicious. So if you did get alot of people reading my blogs and they were considered wonderful i'd have to wait around for other more important people to say "hey! Listen to her! She's smart!". What do they know?
People are just people, they all have their follies and make mistakes. Micheal Jordan's high school couach (him being in a position of authority and therefore the "expert" in this scenario) cut him from the team and said he'd never make it. Shows what he knows. Obviously Jordan's couch was cannonized or anything but his opinon wouldn't have been any diffrent if he was because jordan became one of the most popular basketball players ever.
Experts said the same about Van Gogh and Picasso but there works sell for millions of dollars and hang in the most prestigious art museums around the world.
I'm not saying that all "experts" are complete idiots. If I wanted to know how to make vegan carrot cake, I'd buy a vegan cookbook because I want to learn HOW and I don't want to burn down my apartment doing it. Or if i wanted to fix a leak or find a good sub place I would hope the infromation coming to me would be reliable and they knew what they were talking about.
I'm one of those who questions everything to a certain degree. As the text says "everything is suspicious" so I think that while your reading anyting, whether it be a novel or a magazine article you should be asking yourself "do I agree with this? what does it mean to me? why should I even care?". I thought that all the time when I read my textbooks in high school-which were all written from the straight, white, male poin-of-view- I'd think "Yeah right."
I think that alot when I watch films, there are films that the critics pan but I don't see them as being that bad or vice versa there's films that the public at large thinks are great that I think are awful.
It comes with the territory of being a thinking individual with opinons and diffrent tastes.
And that's also why it's important to have a discourse with not only diffrent forms of media but with diffrent people. What's the point in being around others if all we're going to do is nod our heads at the same time and say "Yes, you're absoultely right". Even within a group of like-minded people it's important to have that because no matter how like-minded you all are there's diffrences and opinons.
I think a discourse becomes powerful when this exchange of ideas and opinons opens minds to things they've never thought about before. "Stepping into another persons's shoes" per se.
Also, a discourse also becomes powerful when it goes beyond discoursing and becomes action. That's how the civil rights movement happend. Some one spoke and then another and another, they organized and used their collective thoughts to change a nation for good.
However it becomes dangerous when the actions from the discourse become violent, intolerant, hateful or non-progressive. Remember the same steps that lead to the civil rights movement also lead to Nazi Germany, except instead of changing the nation for the good, they ended up killing six million jews and countless others. Another example of a violent discourse is the Ku Klix Klan which preachs hate and violence against those that are diffrent.
That's why censorship is such a hot issue because, whether we take them for granted or not, words are powerful, especially words followed by actions.
As a wise (non-real) man once said, "With great power comes great responsibilty."
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BM: You've got some interesting point here, but, to start in the beginning- how would you go from being BellaMouse, blog writer, to BellaMouse, celebrated author? Foucault (and the TT text) have very specific idea about that and might answer some of your questions.
I encourage you to keep up the questioning. Be careful not to equate your opinions too much with the theory we're studying as a way of debunking them all, but, at the same tie, don't ignore your situated knowledge either.
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