Foucault, Young
First note: The readings for Thursday--two chapters from Justice and the Politics of Difference by Iris Marion Young, are on e-reserve. However, the author is listed, inexplicably, as Yang. Do not be deterred by this complication.By now you should be in the process of finishing up with Foucault.
A few questions for you as you finish up:
Does Foucault succeed in providing an alternative to juridico-political/sovereign models of power?
What are the key features of this alternative?
Why does Foucault call it "bio-power" in the concluding section of the book?
Foucault concludes by speculating that one day people will be very puzzled by the importance with which we viewed sex and sexuality in our society. What is it that will puzzle them so much, according to Foucault? Has he provided reason to find his suspicion likely?
posted by David Watkins @ 8:24 PM
8 Comments:
Foucault predicts that in a future system based on ‘a different economy of bodies and pleasures’ (159) people will look back upon the current system based on ‘analytics of sexuality’ (148) with puzzlement. This puzzlement will be based on the current drive to recognize the supposedly repressed importance of sex, when in actuality the importance of sex has been reinforced through various ‘ruses’ for quite some time. This future knowledge seems like it will be based on enlightened examination of the type Foucault engages in, however the presence of puzzlement seems unsupported.
The previous system described by Foucault is where blood is of central importance, a society based on the ‘symbolics of blood’ (148) Foucault does not view this system with a sense of puzzlement. While acknowledging the basic power differences between the systems, Foucault finds room for ‘overlappings, interactions, and echoes’ when comparing the systems. It seems that a future, third system will lend itself to comparative analysis with our present system, probably with the same ‘overlappings, interactions, and echoes’.
Certainly the irony of the current system will be recognized, but Foucault does not express puzzlement regarding blood society, and provides no evidence that a future examination of current society will differ.
"Bio-power was an indispensable element in the development of capitalism"(141) and this was in regards to the 18th century in which this era was geared towards the mode of production and the working class and having power over other 'bodies' and being able to control a population. Bio-power was the people ("the controlled insertion of bodies into the machinery of production"(141) to Foucault.
The reason why I think people will be puzzled by sex and sexuality in our society according to Foucault is that from the 18th century to the present sex and sexuality has become less 'repressed' "In the twentieth century-having broken free of a long period of harsh repression, a protracted Christian asceticism, greedily and fastidiously adapted to the impoeratives of bourgeois economy"(158). So in centuries down the road from now, at the rate it is going people will accept sex and sexuality and the taboos and discourses will be a thing of the past.
A comment on Tim's observation that "discourses will be a thing of the past":
I don't think Foucault would agree. I think Foucault would say that so long as human society exists, so discourses will exist and continue to shape our ideas, our bodies, our politics, our ideologies -- every facet of our human existence.
Even if we accept the "other Victorians" -- which I would argue that in large part we already have -- the process by which this acceptance takes place and the formulation and preservation of future conceptions of sexuality will continue to rise from discourses.
Foucault does make a different approach to power than Young's analysis of justice and the distribution of wealth, power, etc. By analyzing the social element new actors emerge with new techniques of repressing opponents. The social element combines the analysis of distribution of power and resources together with the ability to convince other groups to systematically alienate potential competitors in the political/social arena.
Does Foucault succeed in providing an alternative to juridico-political/sovereign models of power?
This is a difficult question to answer. The juridico-Discursive model sees power as negative; it always restricts something, or says no to something. It sees power as a law that determines how sex should be treated and understood, as acting only to prohibit and suppress sex, and to censor sex. Finally, it sees power as uniform, excercised in the same way at all levels.
Why is this view problematic? This kind of power is incapable of invention, only posts limits, and centered on the "truths" that we have discovered about ourselves from a Scientia Sexualis, or by means of confession. We prefer to think of power in this manner because if we see power as something that acts upon us, then we are seperate from it and therefore free from it and able to restist it. If we thought of our response to power as part of the power relation, then we would not be independent of it.
So what does Foucault say about an alternative to the Juridico-Discursive theory? His view of power is that it is all-embracing, whereas the juridico view says it is excercised to dominate. Everything and anything is a source of power.
Power has five features for Foucault. First, power is not a thing one can have or not have. It is excercised from all points in any relation. Second, power is not applied externally to relationships, it is intrinsically a part of all relationships. Third, power doesn't always come from above, as in a ruler excercising power over the subject, rather power is present in all relationships at all times.
Fourth, individual subjects do not control power relationships. Finally, resistance is part of a power relationship, not outside of it.
For these reasons, Foucault argues that we cannot think of sexuality as a unilateral or negative power relationship.
He calls it bio-power because instead of having the power over, it is a power to relationship. In the Middle Ages, the law was designed so that it read "thou shalt not..." Subjects were free to do what they pleased as long as they did not violate any of the King's rules. Now however, we live in a society where it is the "thou shalt" design. We have traded one form of government for another, but the difference is that today's government is much more invasive of privacy. This is for the better good in my opinion because we are increasingly concerned with such things as racial equality, civil liberties, basic human rights, etc. Power is now derived by its domination over life and how we live it, and not so much focused on the power to take life away.
Foucault believes that people on day will not be puzzled by why sex was supposedly "repressed" in our society, but instead, that we have built up such a huge discourse around sex that includes a melding of analytical research and comfort in medical confessions. People will realize that this discourse has been built up as a class dominance struggle, as the bourgeousie seek to preserve their stature by having a healthy sexual being, and soul. This is what foucault believes separates them from the proletariot.
He suggests that power is as prductive as it is repressive, that it is multi-faceted and is present everywhere simultaneously. It is the multiplicity of relation that causes resistance.
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