The reading selections from EG&T and Foucault were great complements to each other. The EG&T chapter introduces and discusses critical approaches to organizational communication. Essentially, this critical approach, or challenging the status quo, is similar to Foucault's "The Discourse on Language," which focuses on breaking cycles. For starters, I observed that neither disciplines nor ideologies are absolute or neutral as they assume to be: both are social constructs. As Foucault explains,
"A discipline is not the sum total of all the truths that may be uttered concerning something; it is not even the total of all that may be accepted, by virtue of some principle of coherence and systematisation, concerning some given fact or proposition. [They] ...consist of errors as well as truths [and] ...must fulfil certain conditions, in a stricter and more complex sense than that of pure and simple truth: at any rate, other conditions" (223).
By that same token, ideology "shapes and limits our social constructions of reality by providing a sense of what is good, right, and possible" (190). Power emerges from ideology and is imposed on employees by higher-ranking officials as well as the manufactured consent and concertive control of the employees themselves. This ideological control, or hegemony, is what many organizations want from their employees: for them to internalize the goals of the organization. The IBM narrative is a prime example of how hegemony functions and how employees are indoctrinated to uphold the values and rituals of an organization.
On another note, EG&T discuss how resistance challenges organizational power and control. According to Deetz's, critical theory entails both adopting a particular role and a way of life characterized by critical modes of being (being filled with care, being filled with thought, and being filled with good humor) (189). Recently, I received an email that is an example of good-humor resistance. As a disclaimer, I would like to confess that I, April Davis, am guilty of the following and seriously need to adhere to the advice mentioned below. The email reads as follows:
CDC Alert:
The Centers for Disease Control has issued a medical alert about a highly contagious, potentially dangerous virus that is transmitted orally, by hand, and even electronically. This virus is called Weary Overload Recreational Killer (WORK). If you receive WORK from your boss, any of your colleagues, or anyone else via any means whatsoever - DO NOT TOUCH IT. This virus will wipe out your private life completely. If you should come into contact with WORK, you should immediately leave the premises. Take two good friends to the nearest grocery store and purchase one or both of the antidotes - Work Isolating Neutralizer Extract (WINE) and Bothersome Employer Elimination Rebooter (BEER). Take the antidote repeatedly until WORK has been completely eliminated from your system. You should immediately forward this medical alert to five friends. If you do not have five friends, you have already been infected and WORK is controlling your life.
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1 comment:
Thanks for that little CDC alert at the end. It is forever true in my personal experience.
I wanted to comment about hegemony for a moment. The critical theorists and post-modernists ceaselessly talk about hegemony and the oppression of the capitalist ideology. Yet they fall into the same "trap" that they espouse as evil--a will to truth. I think it comes from what Bizzell would call "theory hope," or the belief that theory will set us free from the hegemony. The problem, as Bizzell points out, is that the theory becomes hegemonic. "There is no truth" becomes a truth. "Down with ideology" becomes an ideology. Critical theory cannot save critical theorists from being "the man" they enjoy ridiculing. It's an interesting phenomena that rarely gets discussed outside of Bizzell. Props to her.
(And you, April, for inspiring this comment.)
DTR
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