Expressive Forms And Social Power Research Paper

Power is being exerted directly, by means of threats, orders, information, established consent. Or indirectly by influencing other actors’ frames of action, definition of the situation, goals, identities (Lamont 1989). Power may also function solely based on norms and expectations surrounding leading positions, directing subordinates’ inference of intentions of power holders, without their being explicitly announced.

A special type of power relations are conceived as ‘hegemonies,’ for example ideologies or visions of the world legitimizing one or a few dominant groups. Conversely, groups or classes aspiring for power not only depend on material resources, but must assume intellectual and cultural leadership to challenge dominant ideas (Gramsci 1971). Mostly conceived and diffused intentionally by adherents and ideological leaders, such visions are at the same time linked to deep, unacknowledged cultural assumptions. However, in order to achieve a pertinent social impact, ‘unconscious’ ideas must be brought to fore in organized action.

Generally, power is not based on physical force alone, but depends on communication, including the metalevel of ‘talking about talking.’ Thereby expressive forms assume a central place in the exercise of power. A threefold connection exists between power and communication. Being the basic social institution, language is a precondition for the establishment of other institutions, and thus of stable power relations (Searle 1995). Moreover, power presupposes complex decoding abilities in receivers. Alter must interpret and act on the signals emitted by ego, or the expectations implicit in his or her role. Thus, clarity and intersubjectivity are central virtues of expressive forms generating power. Finally, the power of expressive forms is connected to their rhetorical qualities in a broad sense. By virtue of a felicitous form, they have a seductive appeal to the eye and the ear, thereby shaping our perceptions of the world. Consequently, a constant tension exists between, on the one hand, the need for clarity in order for power to be exercised, and, on the other hand, the ambiguities inherent in messages with a strong appeal to listeners, readers and spectators.

Expressive forms (a) convey information, (b) produce labels and classifications, (c) depict nonexistent, possible worlds, (d) may be construed as rituals, (e) or broader lifestyles, and (f) form the base of generalized signal systems. In social relationships, these forms may be activated by (a) definitions of the situation, (b) persuasion by virtue of rhetorical efficiency, (c) emanation, whereby power of one instance is vested in another person or group, and (d) expression of collective identities.

Exercise of power on a wide scale through expressive forms presupposes not only use of symbols, but also control over the production of vocabularies and signs, as well as their material carriers, such as adornments, clothing, weapons, buildings. This implies the ability to influence the work of artists, artisans, architects, writers, professors, journalists, and editors who serve as producers and judges of aesthetic quality.

1. Power In Small Groups And Intimate Relations

In his descriptions of the strategies of everyday social interaction, Erving Goffman (1959), following up on the work of W. I. Thomas, points to the importance of communicative devices in establishing a definition of the situation. The person who succeeds in imposing his definition is accorded a privileged position in the ensuing interaction process. In its simplest form, definition of the situation implies evoking the relevant set of roles, and the rules accompanying them. Definitions may be extended from the role to characterization of the person filling it. Flattery, insult, irony, and double communication influence the self-image and the actions of the other person by creating confusion or diminishing control of the self. Rhetorical elegance is pivotal in producing these effects.

Gender relations highlight many of these issues. Generally, couples are characterized by reciprocal power relations: even if one of the parties is in a dominant position, the other is not powerless. The battle of the sexes is to a large extent fought by symbolic means aiming at undermining self-control or self-esteem in the other. Elaborate strategies are poetry—the beauty of words opening doors otherwise closed—and passionate calls for action, exemplified by Icelandic saga women egging their men to defend their honor. In addition to rhetorical strategies, symbolic power of women over men resides body images, shaped by jewelry, hairdressing, clothing, and manipulation of the face and the body itself. Symbolic power of men over women is usually somewhat less focused, residing in signs of strength rather than beauty, but occasionally combined with insistent poetic appeals.

In the relationship between parents and children, a substantial part of the socialization process consists in the transmission of signs, linguistic, and symbolic structures. A close connection exists between the learning of rules and grammars of symbolic forms, and that of moral and social norms. Narratives, fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and lullabies enhance the communicative competence of the child, while at the same time they serve as vehicles for learning of social expectations. Here, the complex effects of power in parents and other guardians come to the fore, constituting subjects in a double sense—as dependent group members and autonomous persons.

In families, as well as work groups expressive leadership is of prime importance for integrating common tasks, or easing the burden of common hardships. Power in the form of expressive leadership is assumed by the use of family myths, proverbs, slogans, and work songs.

2. Public Power: From Decoration To Constitution Of Legitimacy

In larger groups, the simplest relationship between power and aesthetics is that of decoration or status marker. Powerful individuals and groups demonstrate their power by symbols and lavish embellishments setting them apart from the lives of ordinary people. This is seen not least in feudal and autocratic regimes. The decorative function should not be viewed as an epiphenomenon. The aesthetic expressivity of the powerful calls forth fascination among subordinates, which in itself reinforces their power. Further reinforcement emerges from the legitimizing effects of exquisite clothing, music, well-modulated speech, and impressive buildings. Hardly any person can enter the Louvre or Taj Mahal without being struck by awe and admiration. Beauty and solemnity emanate on those who are in command of it, and convey that they deserve their powerful status. These mechanisms are aptly summarized in Nietzsche’s ‘aristocratic equation’: ‘Good=noble=powerful=beautiful=happy=loved by God’ (Nietzsche 1992, Sect. 7).

Symbolic messages carry information about specific rights and duties in social arenas, drawing the border between public and private territory or between profane and sacred spheres. The ability to manipulate symbols designating types of arenas is a notable source of power, because they to a large extent determine what is acknowledged as acceptable roles and modes of action. Related effects are found in palaces, parliamentary buildings, courthouses, or churches. It would be simplistic to assume that aesthetics mainly function via direct effects on behavior, for example, that a given architectural design of the courthouse yields a higher number of confessions. The main effect of design is the reinforcement of a definition of the situation already established, concentrating attention on the relevant processes taking place in a given arena. Uniforms used by public officials, soldiers, police forces have similar effects. In early modern societies, military uniforms were given great aesthetic value, obviously to generate admiration and deference in spectators. Spectacular shows of military drill accompanied by music and drumming (McNeill 1995) indicated an irresistible force springing out of the groups’ readiness to act in concert, under one will, in a virtually mechanical way. Modern uniforms have fewer aesthetic features, but make stronger reference to the bearer’s membership in a bureaucratized organization, reflecting the duty to perform certain tasks on behalf of the authorities. Even if uniforms are not threatening in themselves, they demonstrate that behind the person wearing it stands a much larger group, whose resources may be mobilized if necessary.

Uniforms usually signify both the larger group (‘Spanish cavalry,’ ‘US Air Force’) and the rank within the group. Symbols of rank, such as crown regalia, may also be confined to unique roles or persons. French kings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries exercised monopoly not only over official signs of power, but also over informal objects such as clothing, furniture, and the use of special colors. The king dictated the style of the court, while at the same time his own possessions were to be so exquisite that nobody could compete with them, by virtue of being prohibitively expensive, or due to regulation of the production through royal monopoly (Auslander 1996). This specificity of aesthetic objects put the king in a position where he could not be rivaled in any respect, not only in what concerned his formal power over the citizens. Poetry celebrating the great deeds of power holders have a similar impact.

Aesthetic monopoly has a direct connection to the wider legitimacy of power. In addition to the purely aesthetic effects, Max Weber (1968) assumes that legitimacy is enhanced through the construction of social myths and narratives, intended to justify the position of the rulers. In such diverse societies as the Kwakiutl, Aztec, and Nazi Germany, ascending groups managed to reinterpret and reconstitute existing cosmologies to make them fit their own needs (Wolf 1999). In a similar vein Pierre Bourdieu (1991) conceives symbolic power as the ability to define what is common sense, and thus affect other actors’ knowledge and perceptions of the world. Roland Barthes (1972) points to a source of naturalization of everyday mythology in the conflation of denotation and connotation.

Establishing legitimacy on a broader basis requires elaborate symbolic systems based on delegation, mainly in one of two forms. Persons in powerful roles may delegate their competencies to third parties, who are entrusted to perform their duties on behalf of the power holder, be they tax collectors, police forces, or royal academies. Alternatively, delegation in a wider sense is connected to symbolic systems, such as legal codes or money systems. In the case of money, the power holder issues currency to be used by the population. Delegation takes the form of a guarantee from the central power that the money circulating is genuine, and that it will be accepted by other actors within its jurisdiction. These mechanisms of delegation are dependent on the recognition and eventual legitimacy of the central power holder, be it a king or a more anonymous state apparatus. They cannot be operative without writing (Goody 1987) and derived symbolic systems: heraldic insignia, tax forms, badges of identification, stamps, uniforms, money bills, that by virtue of their form convey to the public the unambiguous message that they represent the power holder and are guaranteed by it. Such mechanisms are most widespread in modern societies, but they hold an important position in highly developed premodern societies as well; for example in late Aztec culture, the design of codes regulating clothing and the production of status symbols was a privilege of the throne, directly regulated by the ruler Motecuzoma (Wolf 1999).

More diffuse, but no less important to modern states than the explicit delegation of power, is the national culture surrounding it. A modern society can hardly function without a channel of legitimacy imprinting a collective identity on its population. This may be seen as a more elaborate version of the myths of legitimation surrounding the rulers. Basis for national cultures are foundational myths and folk art, refined and shaped into tales conveying the dominating self-images of the people: how ‘we’ became ‘us’ through conquest, acts of liberation, adoption of a constitution. This process is expanded into national historiography and cultural traditions within art and literature (Hohendahl 1989), school textbooks, as well as the national and popular press.

3. Social Groups And Classes—Identity Formation Through Inclusion And Exclusion

In his theory of stratification, Weber (1968) distinguished between classes and status groups. Classes crystallize around common economic interests and similarities of life chances, whereas status groups are based on common lifestyles. Expressive forms serve status group interests by being part of mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. The more groups compete over status or resources, the greater tendency to group closure. A related point was made by Emile Durkheim (1961), who in his sociology of religion underlined the impact of naming and labeling, and thus of classification of social states or persons, into sacred and profane, groups of worthy and unworthy.

The definition of groups takes place in two steps; drawing boundaries (Lamont 1989) and creating collective identities. The most elementary case is the use of signs or uniforms to signal group membership. In addition to the possible effects on third parties, the uniform permits to distinguish between allies and enemies, and thus enhances the possibilities for rational operation in the battle group. This is true of team sports as well as military operations. In groups without uniforms, standards, flags, and the rhythmic shouting of slogans serve as rallying points, vividly described for example, in Snorri Sturlusson’s narration of the last battle of Saint Olaf. Albeit more silently, public monuments commemorating kings, poets, or local notabilities contribute to the constitution of a collective identity by representing a common heritage or a common cause.

Dress codes are widespread signals of group membership, also in societies without official prescriptions on clothing. Even if less visible to the public, tastes in home decoration function as status markers for owners and their peers who are invited in. The same is true of tastes in art, music, literature, as well as vacations and general lifestyles (Bourdieu 1984). Through networks of communication tastes are diffused into the public sphere, visualized through furniture catalogs, record reviews, press coverage of art auctions. As a parallel to the judgment of artistic achievements, specific judges of taste acquire a visible role, by laying down what constitutes acceptable style. Manuals on courtly etiquette are known as far back as the twelfth century, and from the seventeenth century special magazines devoted to the ‘right’ style made their appearance (Auslander 1996).

Rhetorical elements and the fascination they create in listeners and spectators, have a pivotal role in the construction and diffusion of collective identities. This is true for eminent political orators from Demosthenes to Montgomery (1983), as well as charismatic religious leaders. Related mechanisms are found in modern advertising. Even if it is foremost aimed at selling specific products, very often it does so by selling lifestyles, carefully tailored to a variety of target groups. The ambiguity of advertising—simultaneously communicating puffery and fact—has developed into complex aesthetics, where irony and metacommunication play an increasingly significant role (Parmentier 1994). Creating semiautonomous semiotic worlds, the ad for the product becomes part of the product itself, with the power of lifting mediocre products into the world of exquisite taste.

Besides narrating fascinating fictional stories, popular literature, film, and TV soaps transmit interpretations of the real world—what are viable values and central concerns in life, how are conflicts solved, what are significant alternatives to the present state of the world, to mention only a few. To a large extent they are also edifying stories, drawing boundaries between the ‘ins’ and the ‘outs,’ and clarifying what is required to be among the ins. Albeit on an artistically lower level, in this they are not very different from the great works of the nineteenth century, be they by Austen, Balzac, or Dickens.

Collective identities are also reinforced by exclusion. Exclusionary devices are found is definitions of the situation and in ways of talking and classifying people and events. High walls around the estates in upperclass living areas articulate a clear message: ‘Stay where you belong.’ Alternatively, exclusion may take place through metaphorical characteristics and ‘labeling’ of persons, whether of a positive or negative type.

Moreover, exclusion is enacted by the interpretation of consumption patterns. The classic example is that of conspicuous consumption (Veblen 1899), underlining the distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ and making ‘them’ feel inferior due to their modest consumption pattern. Dress codes is one of the most widespread phenomena of this type. On a more general level, the creation of separate class styles by representatives of the dominating culture may subdue aspirations of mobility in the lower classes (Auslander 1996).

Exclusion may also be triggered by self-selection due to low familiarity with social codes. One effect of shifting fashions is the weakening of self-confidence among those who stand outside the group of consumption pioneers, and are unable to appreciate the new codes of elegance. The same point has been made on high culture and tastes for modern art in general. Some forms of cultural consumption (abstract painting etc.) evoke a feeling of inferiority in most people, because they presuppose aesthetic competencies not possessed by the general public (Bourdieu 1984).

4. Institutionalization Of Expressive Forms

The exercise of power being dependent on communication, power holders have an interest in codifying systems of meaning as clearly as possible. The need for institutionalization of expressive forms becomes the more pressing in modern, populous societies.

Language is the most obvious case; some dialects and sociolects are regularly elevated to the official norm. National languages are further refined by writers, academies, and professional linguists. In the wake of Dante’s Di ine Comedy, the Tuscan dialect became the dominant variant of the Italian language. In France, the sociolect of the court in Paris was elevated to the national norm and further refined by the Academie Francaise from the seventeenth century. On the popular level, conscription for military service was among the most important sources of linguistic homogeneity in Europe. The normalization of one dialect sociolect not only creates national homogeneity, but also enhances the cultural dominance of those groups that come close to this linguistic form as their native language (Bourdieu 1991).

Cultural dominance at the level of linguistic pragmatics is explored by Michel Foucault (1984) under the conceptual heading of ‘discourse.’ The discourse in this meaning is a broad ‘way of talking’ structured by several sets of factors: certain themes are proscribed (desire, power, madness, truth). The discourse is unified through assumptions about canonical texts and authorship, while at the same time rituals, doctrines, and discourse communities limit the number of relevant speakers.

In his theory of social institutions John Searle (1995) describes how vast social systems of power resources, such as the institution of money, are based on symbolization analogous to those found in speech acts. Performative speech acts, constituting social facts solely by expressing them (‘Hereby I declare the Parliamentary session opened,’ ‘I declare you man and wife’) are essential to the workings of social institutions. Even if the act is purely linguistic, the result is the creation of a binding institutional fact. These speech acts take on a highly formalized and expressive form. One source of formalization is the fact that they are repeated again and again by the speakers—when Mary and John marry they are neither the first nor the last couple to appear before the magistrate. The speech acts also have to be recognized as such by hearers; the couple, along with third parties, need to know that they were properly married when the ceremony was taking place.

Expressive forms are even more crucial in religious rituals. The ritual as an elaborate speech act (Tambiah 1985) establishes a connection to an otherworldly instance, by callings to God or the gods, material or symbolic sacrifices, and reenactment of earlier contacts with the deity. Rituals institute and make visible the divine power over life. Their effects are closely related to the strictness of the expressive form, both as concerns the effects on the deity and on the congregation of believers. Moreover, the enactment of the ritual confers power on worldly persons or instances. It emanates to the priest, who establishes the connection to the otherworldly realm, and onto the church or other religious organization of which he is member. They acquire a high degree of control over the lives of members—as well as an income from their pecuniary contributions.

In modern and protomodern societies, secular knowledge is produced and diffused by specific institutions having a pivotal role in the socialization of the population. Elementary training in schools to a large extent consists of indoctrination of recognized cultural achievements, mostly with greatest weight on literature, but also in other arts. At the higher level, universities produce judges of taste: editors, curators, critics, interpreters, who function as mediators between the direct producers and their public. These intellectuals contribute to the canonization of established works, while at the same time recording and judging new, emerging forms. Thus, schools and universities are central in the production of the established aesthetic sensibility and the diffusion of works deemed socially valuable, at the cost of other cultural patterns.

Moreover, governance relies on the production and distribution of knowledge, not only that of the natural sciences, but also the humanities and behavioral sciences (Foucault 1991). Textbooks, manuals, and discursive practices build up a scientific mode of reasoning in the population, giving access not only to useful knowledge, but to a more general rational and ‘disciplined’ way of thinking, which is a precondition for mastering the complexities of modern societies. At the same time, the exercise of power is to an increasing degree dependent on support from the public mediated by the press, in which images produced by the media have an essential role. The transmission of news becomes globalized, television setting agendas on an ever larger scale. The Gulf War in 1991 was the first full-blown media war, with worldwide TV audiences as crucial participants in the events. It made Jean Baudrillard ask whether the war was actually fought out in the media only. Even if the question is dismissed as purely rhetorical, it demonstrates undeniably that the border between image and reality is becoming blurred.

5. Hegemonies And Cultural Constellations

As pointed out in the introduction, hegemony and related macrophenomena should primarily be treated as intentional. However, cases where nonintentional structures acquire a position similar to that of power deserve discussion. In relations between minorities and majorities, even when no discriminatory behavior takes place, forms of pseudodiscrimination may occur. A minority group with a separate language is forced to take up the majority language, in order to fully participate in society. The same may be true if groups using the same language have distinctly different codes of interpretation, as is often the case with social class, gender, or ethnic groups. Likewise, the absence of cultural resources and role models may contribute to keeping one group in an inferior position, even if it is intended by nobody. Finally, a relatively powerless minority may be experienced as threatening, and thus influence the majority to exaggerate the need for precautionary steps to avoid confrontations that on the average are rather insignificant.

More intriguing is the position of the mass media. Some of its most important social consequences are aggregate effects that only partially may be characterized as intended results, while at the same time being very pertinent to the functioning of modern societies. Take first the press and the news media. Their basic inclination is simply to transmit news. But the transmission is necessarily selective. In the enormous diversity of social events taking place every day, only few events and facts are singled out as being relevant to the social agenda. This depends on a combination of expected sales figures and professional criteria. Important aggregate effects emerge as journalists normally rely on each other when selecting the ‘news that’s fit to print.’ Thereby, reciprocal expectations in the media sector influence not only the level of information, but the general pattern of tastes and social norms as well.

To some extent this is also true for the culture industry. The seductive character of popular culture has been attacked on the assumption that its power of fascination gives the mass media a grip on the mind, making them an ‘opium for the people.’ In postwar sociology, this point was made most energetically by the Frankfurt School. Even if the immediate goal of the culture industry is not the exercise of power as such, by directing peoples’ attention away from basic social conflicts and into unrealistic daydreaming, the culture industry is assumed to reinforce the legitimacy of established power groups and thus pave the way for a quasitotalitarian regime (Horkheimer and Adorno 1972).

6. Questioning Power: Resistance And Social Change

A core assumption in the criticism of the culture industry is that resistance has been appropriated by power holders. But power from above is invariably met by resistance from below, even if their forms may differ. Processes of legitimization of power are never perfect; hence, countercultures have a tendency to appear in all societies.

In totalitarian societies resistance is mainly covert. In Eastern Europe under communist rule productions of classical plays could take on a special significance if they contained hidden references to the forces in power. Jokes about power holders were a permanent part of everyday life. Under other oppressive regimes, music has been one of the privileged forms of resistance, a prominent example being black culture in America. Even if they change nothing in the day-today operations of power, these symbols make it easier to breathe, and contribute to the maintenance of collective identities.

A specific neutralization of power structures is institutionalized in carnivals and feasts where everyday power relations temporarily are bracketed and turned upside down. The powerful are relegated to common positions, while the ‘queens’ and ‘kings’ of the feast are selected among ordinary participants. In literature, the archetypal version is the comedies of Aristophanes, ridiculing the brave citizens of Athens. From the mid-ninenteenth century, criticism of bourgeois society became a regular feature of the arts in the Western world.

More direct challenges to existing power structures come from religious and social protest movements. Religious conviction may serve as a source of obstinate resistance to the secular power of the prince or the bureaucratic state. This was a central element in the founding of the United States as a nation. Social movements develop their own aims and their own signs of collective identities. One important source of their mode of operation lies in the openness of symbols and concepts used by the established power, which permits their meaning to be constantly adjusted and reinterpreted (Snow et al. 1986). A telling example is the slogan of ‘Liberte, egalite, fraternite’ from the French revolution. When first put to use, the concept of political equality was reserved for a small fraction of the population—mature men with a certain property. During the subsequent two centuries the concept was broadened, first to include larger groups of property owners, then all men regardless of their property, then also women, and later citizens of lower age, down to 18 years and in some countries even down to 16 years.

Art and literature, moreover, are used by social movements in order to strengthen collective identities and enhance their own power of action, while at the same time envisaging the long and difficult struggle and depicting future goals. The European labor movement put great effort into creating a wholly separate cultural domain for its members, with their own literature, publishing houses, theaters, and sports clubs. Regional movements typically make use of literature from ‘their’ region (Draper 1989). Likewise, to the modern feminist movement it has been of prime importance to reissue, upgrade and shed new light on female writers and artists of the past.

More diffuse countermovements and subcultures, such as youth cultures, rely heavily on expressive forms to challenge established authority systems, while stressing the here and now rather than long term political goals. Instead of functioning as a vehicle, expressive form becomes a goal in itself. Specific dress codes, musical styles, and linguistic expressions constitute the core of the protest. Viewed from the social establishment, the hippie or punk styles are felt as extreme, and that is exactly the point. In this respect, protest culture has common features with a ant garde art, aiming at shocking the general public, by defying mainstream aesthetics, and thereby the accepted lifestyles. This has been analyzed most extensively in protest movements among British working-class youth, not least directed against the culture and discipline of the class-based school system (Hall and Jefferson 1976). But youth protest is not limited to issues of class, as the phenomenon is ubiquitous in the modern world.

An intriguing dialectic exists between these protest cultures, the media, and commercial interests, often making them victims of their own success. In their search for ‘news,’ the media quickly pick up new trends and aesthetics, thus amplifying the voice of protest. Reaching a larger audience, the protest gets mixed up with commercial interests, such as the record industry and the fashion industry. Protest against power becomes appropriated by powerful instances, gets watered out, and in diluted form the aesthetics of protest may even be taken over by well-established consumer groups.

During the 1990s the Internet developed as a new channel for popular protest. By enhancing the possibilities to reach a critical mass for small and scattered groups, identities and abilities of collective action are reinforced. International alliances among aboriginal peoples is an example close at hand, extremist groups barred from operating in the open is another. More generally, the Internet presents unprecedented opportunities for putting pressures on individuals and groups by the distribution of petitions, spread of information and rumors. Small groups with few direct resources are the ones most likely to build out their power in cyberspace.

7. Challenges To Further Research

The most significant recent development in the study of power in the last decades stems from a growing awareness of the pivotal position of communication. The work of Foucault and Bourdieu probably has been the most influential in this respect. Despite being anchored in social action, the communicative impulses in their theories are to a surprising degree marked by a structuralist bias, albeit in different versions. In Bourdieu’s conception, internalization is excessively strong; actors being guided by a habitus which hardly leaves any room for free choice. In Foucault the opposite problem is dominating: individuals are seen as disciplined by external forces, which taken together create a virtually impenetrable social structure.

These biases reflect two still unresolved problems in social theory. The first is connected to the understanding of values, preferences, and social autonomy in individuals. To be efficient, socialization presupposes the long-term exercise of power over individuals. But how can this process result in individual autonomy and a capacity for moral action? Second, if social structure is simply seen as the outcome of myriad social actions over long time, how is it conceivable that societies may function as relatively stable environments? These questions are haunting social theory in general, and they become even more acute when focusing on the significance of communication, and thereby expressive forms, for the exercise of power.

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