I'm currently reading A History of Sexuality: Volume 1 by Michele Foucault. In it, he explains the process in which the Victorian-Age has shaped our view of sexuality as a whole. He comes at the subject with a filter he names The Regression Hypothesis and breaks down the system as follows:
The Victorian-era regression of sexuality pushed the topic into the realm of taboo which thus propeled the industries of prostitution and porn into almost mainstream society- causing sexuality to become a bigger deal and the Victorian regression to up its ante in return.
In this system, the two sides (regression and transgression) have been fighting endlessly and thus maintaining a sort of stability. And thus ends my first example of a real world system-
Does Foucault refer at all to the Prohibition on alcohol as a similar example? This is certainly an example of an interesting feedback loop phenomenon, when a policy's goals backfire because other aspects of the system are not considered or addressed. Please explain more - it's fascinating!
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ReplyDeleteI think that the reason these polarized systems of regression/transgression and prohibition/liberation are so problematic is because the functions of these systems are inherently mutually exclusive. In other words, prohibition makes zero room for those who would want to legalize, and legalization makes no room for prohibition (although this can be debated, especially in a country with state laws, county ordinances, city laws, and a seemingly endless system of appeals).
ReplyDeleteThe same goes for regression and transgression: they cannot coexist - at least not in any real proximity to each other - because they are systems that inherently interfere with one another.
This an interesting post, and I like this example. The one thing that really jumped out to me as something worth mentioning is as you say at the end and JJ also commented on. This idea of the systems "fighting" or living in a way in which they "cannot co-exist", I wonder if this form of regression/transgression back and forth isn't a co-existence? Systems have a tendency of working is such a way that they do balance themselves out or collapse. As you already mentioned with the idea of this tentative "stability", these changes and overcompensations resemble the oscillations that we saw in chapter two of the Meadows book.
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