It is followed by Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow’s 1982 second edition. Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneuticsyou will find an important but little-known essay by Foucault himself entitled “.subject and power”Here, the French theorist offers what he interprets as a summary of his life’s work spanning the 1961s. madness and civilization Unfinished until volume 3 history of sexualityHe was still writing at the time of his death in 1984. He began by saying that he was not primarily concerned with power, despite the word appearing in the title and argument of his essay and in nearly every sentence. everything else he wrote. Instead, he sought to discover “modes of objectification that transform humans into subjects.”
This distinction may seem like a difficult and unnecessarily redundant semantic problem. This is not the case with Foucault. In this important and decisive difference lies the originality of his project in all its various stages of development. As an abstraction, as an objective relation of domination, “power” is static and conceptual, the image of a tyrant on a coin, the image of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan sitting on a throne.
On the other hand, subjectification, subjectification, objectification, and individualization (key terms in Foucault’s vocabulary) are active processes, disciplines, practices, and relationships between individuals and organizations that determine the character of both. These relationships can be situated in history, as Foucault does in example after example, and they can be critically studied in the present, and thus perhaps resist and transform what he calls the ‘anarchist struggle’.
Foucault calls for a critical theory that takes “a new economy of power relations” and “forms of resistance to different forms of power as a point of departure.” For example, when approaching a state of genocide, it is necessary to consider the processes that separate “criminals from “good boys,” processes that function independently of reason. How can a system create classes of people who are caged and those who are not, when the standard rational justification, namely, protecting society from violence, fails spectacularly in millions of cases? From such excesses, Foucault writes, arise two “diseases of power”: fascism and Stalinism. Despite the “inner madness” of these “pathological forms” of state power, “they made great use of the ideas and devices of our political rationality.”
People have come to accept that mass incarceration, invasive medical techniques, economic deprivation, or mass surveillance and over-policing are necessary and rational. They do so through what Foucault calls “pastoral power,” the secularization of religious authority as essential to the Western state.
This form of power cannot be wielded without knowing the innermost thoughts of people, without delving into their souls, without forcing them to reveal their deepest secrets. It means knowledge of conscience and the ability to guide it.
In his later years, Foucault shifted his focus from the institutional discourses and mechanisms of psychiatry, cancer medicine, and medicine to disciplinary practices of self-restraint and the governance of others through “pastoral” means. Rather than ignoring individuality, he writes, the modern state “developed as a highly sophisticated structure capable of integrating individuals under certain conditions.” It means that this personality is formed in a new way and is subjected to a set of very specific patterns. While writing his memorial, history of sexualityhe gave a series of lectures at Berkeley exploring the modern policing of the self.
In his lectures on “Truth and Subjectivity” (1980), Foucault draws attention to forms of interrogation and various “truth therapies” that function as subtle forms of coercion. Foucault returned to Berkeley in 1983 to give a lecture exploring the concept of “discourse and truth.” parrhesiaa Greek word meaning “freedom of speech,” or as he puts it, “telling the truth as an activity.” Through an analysis of Euripides’ tragedy and the crisis of modern democracy, he reveals that the act of speaking truth to power is a kind of tightly controlled performance. Finally, in his lecture series “The Culture of the Self,” Foucault discusses ancient and modern practices of “self-care” or “care of the self” as techniques designed to produce a kind of strictly circumscribed subjectivity.
You can listen to some of these lectures or access the full audio post above. Also, on Ubuweb, Download the lectures as MP3s and listen to some of Foucault’s early French lectures dating back to 1961..
At the beginning of his last series of lectures in 1980, the philosopher asked: interview and Daily Californian On his motivations for critically examining power and subjectivity. His response speaks to both his practical concern for resistance and his almost utopian belief in the infinite possibilities of human freedom. “No aspect of reality should be allowed to become a determinate and impersonal law for us,” Foucault says.
We must stand up against all forms of power. However, power is not only defined in a narrow sense, referring to the power a government or one social group has over other social groups. These are just some specific examples of power.
Power is that which tends to make immovable and untouchable what is offered to us as real, as true, as good.
Read Foucault’s statement of intent and essay.subject and power” and learn more about his life and work in the 1993 documentary below.
Foucault’s lecture series will be added to our collection. 1,700 free online courses from top universities.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on the site in 2018.
Related content:
Watch Michel Foucault’s ‘Lost Interview’: Missing for 30 years, now recovered
Michel Foucault and Alain Badiou talk about “Philosophy and Psychology” on French television (1965)
Clash of the Titans: Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault debate human nature and power on Dutch television, 1971
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Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
