The sentence "Our agency is both constrained and enabled by the contexts in which we find ourselves" deals with situations in which even though we have limited power too we can do something to change it. Bordwell and Thompson bring up interesting points on how most of the things we do in our lives we have no control over. But it is our decisions on these non-controllable encounters that really affect our lives. The true question comes down to how can an action be enabled by something that constrains it. Lets take an example of trying to see a sold out movie (kind of lame but it gets to the point). With this constraint you have really two decisions. Do you go see another movie or do you try and sneak in to find an empty seat? This principle plays off a number of these so-called constraints that affect us everyday and the agencies we use to get around them.
Being stuck in a relationship that you know is not even close to working out has many constraints. In order to get out you have to use your agency, unless you want your agency to basically never come back in that relationship. If you don’t end up using your agency it will end up becoming limited and eventually come to a halt.
1 comment:
When is our agency the only consideration? What else have you learned in this class that leads you to believe your agency is not the only thing at play?
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