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Abstract
We always have some cognitive presupposition when thinking of something. Such presuppositions are mainly based on our prior experience and knowledge. This is also true regarding our theoretical problems. It is far easier to develop a theoretical solution to a problem if we have a well-functioning theoretical framework or a theoretical model that effectively describes the essential relations of a given complex system. In my article, I build on my concept of the Heraclitan contradiction to propose a theoretical framework for a political theory that includes both Foucault’s biopower and Shusterman’s somapower. I am convinced that such a theoretical framework can also function well in political philosophy and political science.
Abstract
Capillary practices of power are spreading in the contemporary form of the society of control, which was described by Gilles Deleuze in “Postscript on the Societies of Control,” where he developed the Foucauldian analysis of power relations in the disciplinary society and adjusted it to the present conjuncture. Practices of power reach individual bodies, whose movements and actions in the world are controlled by digital technologies—tracked, monitored, and formed according to the images promoted. The contemporary form of power digitally embraces each and every one of us in an entirely unprecedented way, extending over intimate and private spheres. Again, as feminists claimed in the 1970, “the private is political”; more than that: the private sphere has become public. The contemporary forms of power are exercised directly on the body and through the body as disciplinary power and biopower, to use Michel Foucault’s terms. However, the body is at the same time the ultimate site of resistance to these practices of power. This is recognized by Leszek Koczanowicz and conceptualized as somapower, drawing on Foucault’s biopower and on Richard Shusterman’s somaesthetics.
The case study I examine in this chapter concerns power exercised on bodies by global corporations and somapower capable of emancipating one from the corporations’ practices of power. Then, I address the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed global corporations to reach potentially all the bodies in the world through pharmaceutical corporations in cooperation with the World Health Organization, imposing mandatory vaccinations on countries. The critical response to such developments that can be understood in terms of somapower has included the revival of interest in traditional healing, the knowledge of herbs, and traditional practices (for example, using Plantago lanceolata-based infusions and syrups as anti-virus protection). These practices are firmly embedded in bodies, which are an active and integral part of persons, and represent a form of resistance to contemporary biopower by developing bodily sensibility, which is a practical aim of Shusterman’s somaesthetics. Arnold Berleant also stresses this factor in his call for recovering sensibility from
Abstract
Recent urban space development prompts us to think of new smart urbanity in terms of a hybrid environment, where traditional forms of physical and biological interaction blend with patterns of digital embodiment and AI-driven agency. On the experiential and social levels, there is good reason to expect these hybrid urban environments of the rising smart cities to promote safety, efficiency, and creativity. While these values seem positive, they are achieved at the cost of the inhabitants’ intimacy and privacy. As reported, this breeds problems of biased transparency and the surveillance of citizens caused by constant interactions with AI-powered agents. As such effects are observable at the very beginning of the evolution of smart cities, questions arise concerning the possibilities of resistance to and subversion of their dominant protocol. Notably, since most currently available concepts of urban resistance and subversion are developed with the traditional, physical model of body ecology in mind, they either fail to recognize the specificity of the hybrid environment or propose rejecting the entire digital sphere as non-human and harmful. This situation triggers serious queries about whether the dominant, and in a way oppressive, role of technology in the hybrid environments of smart cities will result in ubiquitous surveillance and conformity, or whether it will be balanced fast enough by new protocols of resistance and subversion, corresponding to the new, hybrid understanding of embodiment. Yet another option is that as dispersed, urban agency emerges, it will remove traditional discourses on urban embodiment, calling for thoroughly new approaches.
Abstract
Strange though may seem, the practice of cooking has an intrinsic aesthetic and political value. In this chapter, I use the perspective of relational philosophy (a with-y approach) to propose understanding cooking as participatory education, a laboratory for cultivating an integral and ecological sensibility that corresponds to holistic aesthetic education. Based on conviviality, sharing, and caring, cooking has strong socio-political implications. I explore these issues through the lens of John Dewey’s pioneering vision of cooking and taste as aesthetic activities. Subsequently, I link this ensemble of themes to somaesthetics and to the Sōtō Buddhist school founded by Dōgen. Finally, I offer some contemporary examples (the edible school gardens project, participatory art performances, and an unconventional appreciation of wine) to support the notion that an education with and through food (rather than of food) develops a (soma)aesthetic sensibility through which it is possible to oppose and redress some aspects of today’s—fragmented, hyper-specialized, and individualistic—social and educational system.