I Got Stuck on This Thought

Yesterday I came across some blogger's reports after he landed in KL a few years ago. I am guessing the blogger had recently graduated from some social science program and was trying to put his knowledge into his experiences here. I could not wrap my head around the fact that he was enamoured over Michael Foucault and his theory and then tried to apply it to the posts he wrote. What came to my mind, was Foucault's theory that knowledge is power...

Linking this to landing in KL, and then staying on the subject of what the smells were in KL (as they are everywhere here) I cannot figure out what the blogger was using as the thread that kept Foucault's theory and the smells in KL joined. Yes, there is an aroma, shall we say, that is distinct to this place.  It happens in my own area, as soon as I cross the causeway from Singapore. That ripe rotting open-sewer miasma that lets you know you are back, long before your eyes confirm this. A blind man could know he has crossed that border.  Why? Because this country does not use the usual infrastructure of closed sewer systems, and probably very little in the way of water treatment plants. Much like the sewer Jean Val Jean crawled through to escape from the enemy in the 1800's.  Much like the citizens of a place called Brooks, in Canada, where those people have no idea of what stench they exist in with a cattle processing plant, these people are desensitized to the aromas produced here by rotting garbage et al.  If you are driving on the highway and nearing Brooks, your nose knows exactly where you are long before you see any road signs. When I recall this, I say kudos to vegans. What did the blogger mean? I do not think the fact that my nose realizes I smell a stench gives me any power. If it did, I would think I would find a ticket out of the place and go somewhere it does not reproduce the experience.  But the blogger did not suggest this. The blogger was just delighted in thinking about the whole knowledge is power thing and what it smells like in KL.  I am sure I too have made some very odd statements here. And I can. It is my blog, just as the other is his.