{"id":297,"date":"2017-09-25T01:39:32","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T05:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/?p=297"},"modified":"2017-09-25T01:39:32","modified_gmt":"2017-09-25T05:39:32","slug":"power-askew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/second-blog-power\/power-askew\/","title":{"rendered":"Power Askew"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">George Orwell\u2019s \u201cShooting an Elephant\u201d is an interesting account grounded in power dynamics. British imperialism\u2014\u201cthe white man with his gun\u201d\u2014fulfills the precepts of traditional authority. Britain ruled over the Burmese people through advanced weapons technology. Yet, on this micro account of imperial rule in a rural village, doesn\u2019t it seem like Orwell holds the least amount of power? The Burmese people assume the European official, being the official, to solve the problem, and Orwell must submit to their assumptions of <i>his<\/i> power. His legitimacy would be under question if he doesn\u2019t play the role that \u201cthe norm\u201d has given him. Oddly, Orwell becomes powerless by the will of the Burmese people: if Orwell doesn\u2019t shoot, if he doesn\u2019t withhold his imperial visage, he will lose all his authority, all his power (then they\u2019d probably kill him). The will of the majority reigns supreme in this story\u2014despite their ignorance of it. Orwell sums it up in this line: \u201cThe futility of the white man\u2019s dominion in the East \u2026 seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of this yellow faces behind\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>George Orwell\u2019s \u201cShooting an Elephant\u201d is an interesting account grounded in power dynamics. British imperialism\u2014\u201cthe white man with his gun\u201d\u2014fulfills the precepts of traditional authority. Britain ruled over the Burmese people through advanced weapons technology. Yet, on this micro account &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/second-blog-power\/power-askew\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1746,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-second-blog-power"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1746"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions\/298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18f-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}