"History Begins At Ground Level, With Footsteps"

From Michel de Certeau's L'Invention du Quotidien: Vol. 1, Arts de Faire , or The Practices of Everyday Life. Michel de Certeau (1925 - 9 January 1986), obtaining degrees in classics and philosophy from Paris, Grenoble and Lyon as well as a seminal degree from Lyon (Jesuit), ordained in 1956 to do missionary work in China, going on to earn a doctorate in theology from Sorbonne in 1960. He is a student of Freud and a founding member of L'Ecole Freudienne in conjunction with Jacques Lacan. de Certeau is a cultural critic, who reads culture by studying semiotics; that is, studying signs. We can all read those big red octagonal boards that say S-T-O-P and observe the interactions therein; these are not the signs we are discussing. A sign, semiotically, is "The relationship between a signifier and a signified," JB so eloquently described.

Vocab list for reading de Certeau:

Strategy issued by an institution (governments, seats of power [thrones?])

Tactic creative modes invented by the individual; ways of meaneuvering around/in strategies (read above). A tactic is a mode of subversion; it is unmappable (read: cannot be located or represented cartographically) -slippery (like trying to catch a skateboarder) it is playful; it takes existing structures and works around them, or reworks them, using/deploying them in unexpected ways. Tactics are subconscious (link to Freud). Example of a tactical way of moving around a structure: jumping up on top of a chair and dancing around. Furthermore, a tactic is not an institutionally-supported method of experiencing structure. I.e. jumping on the chair and dancing, as opposed to sitting in it.

Structures physical objects and conceptual objects (i.e. a chair vs the structure of an institution)

de Certeau references Hobbes, primarily LEVIATHAN: the commonwealth (state), which is but an artificial man, though a greature stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and devence it was intended; and in which hte sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body"

The Panopticon, a circular prison built around a central tower wherein prisoners do not know whether or not they are being watched, as it is possible to be watched at all times. As you are unsure whether or not you are being observed, you must school and moderate yourself and this, of course, is the cheapest, easiest and most efficient form of moderation. Unprecedented because of its uneven relationships: the prisoner could not see the observer or any other prisoner, but the watcher is able to see everyone (including himself should he posses a mirror).