No More Learning

Michel Foucault
Key Concepts
Edited by Dianna Taylor
? ACUMEN
(C)Editorial matter and selection, 201 1 Dianna Taylor. Individual contributions, the contributors.
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? ? ? 1. 2.
4.
5. 6.
1 3 Disciplinary power 27
Richard A. Lynch Marcelo Hoffman
Contents
? ? Contributors Vll Introduction: Power, freedom and subjectivity 1
Dianna Taylor
PART 1: POWER Foucault's theory of power
Biopower 41
Chloe Taylor
Power/knowledge 55
Ellen K. Feder
PART II: FREEDOM
Foucault's conception of freedom 71
Todd May
Freedom and bodies
johanna Oksala
Freedom and spirituality
Karen Vintges
85 99
v
3.
7.
CONTENTS
8. The practice of freedom 111
Eduardo Mendieta
PART Ill: SUBJECTIVITY
9. Foucault's theory and practice of subjectivity 127
Edward McGushin
10. Subjectivity and truth
Brad Elliott Stone
11. Subjectivity and power
Cressida]. Heyes
12. Practices of the self
Dianna Taylor
Chronology Bibliography Index
143 159 173
187 189 196
? Vl
? ? Contributors
Ellen K. Feder is Associate Professor of Philosophy at American Univer- sity in Washington, DC. She is author of Family Bonds: Genealogies of Race and Gender (2007) and is writing a manuscript on ethics and the medical management of intersex.
Cressida J. Heyes is Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Gen- der and Sexuality at the University of Alberta and the author of Line Drawings: Defining Women through Feminist Practice (2000) and Self- Transformations: Foucault, Ethics, and Normalized Bodies (2007).
Marcelo Hoffman is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Marian University, Wisconsin. He is the author of "Foucault's Politics and Bel- licosity as a Matrix for Power Relations" (2007). His article "Contain- ments of the Unpredictable in Arendt and Foucault" is forthcoming.
Richard A. Lynch is Instructor of Philosophy at DePauw University. His translations include Foucault, Ewald, and Isabelle Thomas-Fogiel's Reference and Self-reference: On the "Death of Philosophy" in Con- temporary Thought (forthcoming), and his scholarly articles address Foucault, Hegel, Habermas, Bakhtin and others.
Todd May is Class of 1 94 1 Memorial Professor of the Humanities at Clemson University, USA. He is the author of ten books of philosophy. His most recent work is Contemporary Movements and the Thought of
Jacques Ranciere: Equality in Action (20 1 0) . VII
? CONTRIBUTORS
Edward McGushin is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Saint Anselm College, New Hampshire. He is author of Foucault's Askesis: An Introduction to the Philosophical Life (2007).
Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophy at the State University of N e w Yo r k , S t o n y B r o o k . H e i s a u t h o r o f G l o b a l F r a g m e n t s : G l o b a l i z a - tions, Latinamericanisms, and Critical Theory (2007) and co-editor of Pragmatism, Nation, and Race: Community in the Age of Empire (2009).
Johanna Oksala is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Dundee. She is the author of Foucault on Freedom (2005) and How to ReadFoucault (2007) as well as numerous articles on Foucault, feminist theory and political philosophy.
Brad Elliott Stone is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University, where he is also the Director of the University Honors Program. His research interests are contemporary continental philosophy, philosophy of religion and American pragmatism.
Chloe Taylor is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alberta. She is author of The Culture ofConfession from Augustine to Foucault (2009) and is writing a manuscript entitled Sex Crimes and Misdemeanours: Foucault, Feminism, and the Politics ofSexual Crime.
Dianna Taylor is Associate Professor of Philosophy atJohn Carroll Uni- versity, Ohio. She has written articles on Foucault and Hannah Arendt and co-edited Feminism and the Final Foucault (2004) and Feminist Politics: Identity, Difference, Agency (2007).
Karen Vintges is Lecturer in Social and Political Philosophy at the Uni- versity of Amsterdam. She is the author of Philosophy as Passion: The Thinking ofSimone de Beauvoir (1996) and several other books in both English and Dutch.
? viii
? Introduction:
Power, freedom and subjectivity
Dianna Taylor
Foucault the experimenter
Michel Foucault was not a systematic thinker. He referred to himself as an "experimenter" as opposed to a "theorist" (1991a: 27);1 eschewed the labelling of his work in terms of existing categories;2 and asserted that "thinking differently" and self-transformation, rather than "vali- dating what is already known", lay at the core of his philosophical work (1990b: 910). "I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am," Foucault states in a 1982 interview:
The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for a love rela- tionship is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don't know what will be the end. (1988: 9)
In addition to being unsystematic, Foucault's work also challenges fundamental aspects of the Western philosophical tradition. As he sees it, philosophers have exerted much intellectual time and effort and devoted many pages to creating a dualistic and overly simplified worldview that valorizes aspects of human existence that provide us with a false sense of our own ability to gain certainty about the world, and to thereby become masters of it and ourselves. This worldview imbues us with a false and misguided sense of security that, nonethe- less, because it is preferable to the threat that uncertainty appears to
? ? 1
MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
pose, ensures the reproduction and eventual systematizing of the same faulty thinking.
A principal objective of Foucault's work is to illustrate the historical and contingent nature of what philosophy has traditionally viewed as absolute and universal. In fact, Foucault contends that the very ideas of absolute and universal knowledge and moral values are themselves historical phenomena. Foucault therefore does "not seek to identify the universal structures of all knowledge or of all possible moral action" (1984a: 46). Instead, he conducts an "ontology of the present", a type of philosophical analysis that, on the one hand, seeks to identify the conditions out of which our current forms of knowledge and moral- ity emerged and which continue to legitimize those forms, while also, and on the other hand, endeavours to "separate out, from the contin- gency that has made us what we are, the possibility of no longer being, doing, and thinking what we are, do, and think" (ibid. ) . In other words, Foucault investigates how persons in the West have come to be where they currently are, shows that in so far as their current condition is the product of historical development it is not a necessary condition, and enquires into how they might be different. Foucault is specifically con- cerned with promoting change that counters domination and oppres- sion and fosters what he refers to as "the work of freedom" (ibid. ).
Some scholars consider Foucault's unsystematic, non-traditional philosophical approach to be a weakness. They contend that the criti- cal aspects of his work undermine or even prohibit Foucault from being able to promote positive social change through his philosophy. Charles Taylor submits that while the critical aspects of Foucault's work might possess the potential to open onto new and emancipatory modes of thought and existence, the way in which Foucault conceives of the nature and function of modern power undercuts that potential. "There is no truth which can be espoused, defended, rescued against systems of power," Taylor writes, "[a]nd there is no escape from power into free- dom" (1986: 70). Similarly, Nancy Fraser argues that Foucault might be able to identify and critique problematic aspects of contemporary society, but he cannot provide us with reasons why we ought to reject these aspects. That is, because Foucault's critique encompasses tradi- tional moral systems, he denies himself recourse to concepts such as "freedom" and "justice", and therefore lacks the ability to generate posi- tivealternatives (Fraser 1994). JiirgenHabermassuggeststhatFoucault ultimately recognized that the critical and positive aspects of his work were fundamentally contradictory and therefore returned to a more traditional philosophical approach in his later work. "Perhaps", Hab- ermas writes, "the force of this contradiction caught up with Foucault,
? 2
? INTRODUCTION: POWER, FREEDO M AND SUBJE CTIVITY
drawing him again into the circle of the philosophical discourse of modernity which he thought he could explode" (1986: 108).
Thinking differently about power,freedom and subjectivity
Unlike Foucault's critics, the contributors to this volume see Foucault's unconventional philosophical approach as a strength. They reject the view that the critical aspect of his philosophy eclipses its positive and emancipatory potential. Each of the three sections of the book illus- trates how Foucault reconceptualizes a key philosophical concept - power, freedom and subjectivity - and provides examples of how that reconceptualization facilitates new ways of thinking and acting that are able to counter oppression and domination.
The essays in Part I of this book show that the view of Foucault's work as merely negative stems from a fundamental misreading of his conceptualization of power. Foucault argues that with the rise of the modern era, the exercise of power in the West takes new forms. In his book Discipline and Punish, he shows that sovereign power, which is held or possessed and then wielded repressively by one individual over another or others, became ineffective in the face of increasingly com- plex social, political and economic relations that developed in the latter part of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth centuries. For example, violent public executions (such as that of Damiens the regi- cide, which Foucault graphically describes in his book's opening pages) were no longer having the desired effect of displaying the king's power and thereby discouraging criminal acts and ensuring social and political order. Instead, these events were invoking the peoples' rage against the king's authority, thereby promoting social and political unrest.
Throughout his work, Foucault analyses the new, "productive" forms of power that emerge as a result of the waning of sovereign power. 3 As Ellen Feder notes in Chapter 4, power is productive in the sense that it consists of "both positive and negative, unstable valuations that can be reversed through history". As the chapters on disciplinary power and biopower show, Foucault conceives of modern power as an interactive network of shifting and changing relations among and between indi- viduals, groups, institutions and structures; it consists of social, politi- cal, economic and, as many of the contributors to this volume show, even personal relationships (including our relationships to ourselves). "I hardly ever use the word 'power'," Foucault states, "and if I do sometimes, it is always a short cut to the expression I always use: the relationships of power" (1994: 1 1). Given its productive, ubiquitous,
? 3
MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
dynamic and relational character, the pernicious effects of modern power are more difficult to identify, and therefore to counter, than the sovereign's power to take his subjects' lives in overtly violent and public ways.
Like most people in the modern West, Foucault's critics "[remain] attached to a certain image of power-law, of power-sovereignty" (1990a: 90). They therefore see Foucault's contention that "power is everywhere" negating freedom and subjectivity (ibid. : 93 ). Yet this would be the case only if we continue to commit the error of Foucault's critics and insist on conceiving of power only in its sovereign, "repres- sive" form. "It is this [sovereign notion of power] that we must break free of," Foucault writes, "ifwe wish to analyze power within the con- crete and historical framework of its operation" (ibid. : 90). Analysing the reality of the workings of modern power is crucial. Foucault argues that as long as we continue to adhere to a very limited and increasingly outdated understanding of power we cannot begin to navigate mod- ern power relations effectively. Uncritical acceptance of anything that is presented as natural, necessary, or ineluctable is problematic from a Foucauldian perspective. Such uncritical acceptance allows power relations to devolve into static states of domination, where only a very limited range of thought and behaviour is deemed valid or acceptable, with the result that many more modes of existence are considered invalid, immoral, or deviant and thereby deserving of social sanction, legal punishment, or eradication.
Taking Foucault's analysis of the workings of modern power seri- ously does not destroy possibilities for freedom and subjectivity. But it does mean that these important concepts need to be reconceptual- ized. If, as the contributors to this volume believe, Charles Taylor and Nancy Fraser are incorrect in their respective assertions that Foucault's conceptualization of power destroys possibilities for freedom, then what does freedom in fact look like from a Foucauldian perspective? First of all, if power is not something tangible that one possesses and uses in a repressive manner against others (i. e. the king deploying his power against his subjects), then freedom does not stand in an opposi- tional relationship to power. As the chapters in Part II show, Foucault does not conceive of power and freedom as opposed; rather, they are mutually constitutive. "Power is exercised only over free subjects," Foucault asserts, "and only insofar as they are free" (1982a: 221). Freedom for Foucault is not a state we occupy, but rather a practice that we undertake. Specifically, it is the practice of navigating power relations in ways that keep them open and dynamic and which, in doing so, allow for the development of new, alternative modes of
4
INTRODUCTION: POWER, FREEDOM AND S UBJECTIVITY
thought and existence. The practice of freedom functions to " [discon- nect] the growth of capabilities . . . from the intensification of power relations" (1984a: 48).
During an interview, Foucault explains the relationship between power and freedom, and how engaging in the practice of freedom keeps power relations dynamic:
What does it mean to exercise power? It does not mean picking up this tape recorder and throwing it on the ground. I have the capac- ity to do so . . . [bJut I would not be exercising power if I did that. However, if I take this tape recorder and throw it on the ground - in order to make you mad or so that you can't repeat what I've said, or to put pressure on you so that you'll behave in such and such a way, or to intimidate you - Good, what I've done, by shap- ing your behavior through certain means, that is power . . . [I]f . . . that is to say, I'm not forcing you at all and I'm leaving you com- pletely free - that's when I begin to exercise power. It's clear that power should not be defined as a constraining act of violence that represses individuals, forcing them to do something or preventing them from doing some other thing. But it takes place when there is a relation between two free subjects, and this relation is unbal- anced, so that one can act upon the other, and the other is acted upon, or allows himself to be acted upon. (1980g)
If Foucault throws the tape recorder to the ground to shape the behaviour of the interviewer, the interviewer can respond in any number of ways: he can appease Foucault in order to finish the inter- view (without the use of tape recorder); he can refuse to conduct the interview on Foucault's terms and simply terminate it; he can simply appear to complete the interview on Foucault's terms, and then write whatever he originally intended to (or even include some uncompli- mentary remarks about Foucault). The point here is that although the relationship is not equal, the interviewer is free in so far as he can respond to and in turn attempt to influence Foucault's actions. The interviewer does not exist in a state of domination where no response to Foucault's actions is possible.
As mentioned previously, "effective" navigation of power relations involves critically analysing our present conditions in order to identify norms and practices that reinforce the status quo to the point where prevailing modes of thought and existence come to be seen as given, as what must be. It also entails thinking and acting in ways that do not simply reinscribe prevailing, narrowly defined terms of what it is
? ? 5
MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
possible and acceptable to think and do. If, as Foucault argues, power relations are continually shifting and changing, then we must continue to analyse our present critically: practices that facilitate our navigation of power relations in one context or at a certain point in time may not be effective in other situations or contexts. While the interviewer may be able to appease Foucault by agreeing to Foucault's terms, this action might not be effective in a different interview situation. Some other interviewee might, for example, lose respect for an interviewer who immediately gives in to her demands and decide to terminate the interview herself. It is no accident, then, that Foucault characterizes freedom as "ongoing work".
Just as Foucault posits a relationship between power and freedom, so does he also conceive of a relationship between power and sub- jectivity. In a late text, Foucault emphasizes that although he is best known as an analyst of power, subjectivity has in fact been his primary concern. "My objective", he writes, " . . . has been to create a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made into subjects" (1982a: 208). What does Foucault mean when he says that human beings are "made into" subjects? As the chapters in Part III illustrate, part of what he means is that the idea of "the subject" is itself a historical construction. Foucault explicitly states that "the subject" is a "form" as opposed to a "substance" (1994: 10). Within the context of the Western philosophical tradition, "a subject" takes the form of an active agent, an individual "rational being", to use Immanuel Kant's terminology, that thinks about and acts upon the world (which takes the form of an "object") and is a bearer of political rights and moral responsibilities. This understanding of what it means to be a subject (and, therefore, the specifics of the distinction between and opposition of subject and object) is perhaps most explicit within Enlightenment thinking, but its roots may be traced as far back as the work of Plato. Foucault devoted several of his College de France courses to analysing the different forms that subjectivity acquired in ancient, Hellenistic and early Christian contexts (see Foucault 1999a; 2005a). In doing so, he illustrates and provides support for his argu- ment that subjectivity is a social, cultural and historical form rather than a pre-given "substance" that is outside of and therefore distinct from sociocultural norms and values.
By illustrating the sociohistorical character of a concept that is taken within the tradition of Western philosophy to be objective and neutral, Foucault helps us to see the extent to which the idea of being a subject is implicated in power relations. Remember that, for Foucault, power is productive: certain power relations give rise
6
INTRODUCTION: POWER, FREEDOM AND S UBJECTIVITY
to or produce the definition of subjectivity presented in the previ- ous paragraph, relations which that definition effectively masks. Thus, while all rational beings are purported to be subjects, the reality of the situation is that the Enlightenment understanding of subjectiv- ity excluded a wide group of people, including, for example, women and the people of lands that had been colonized by white European men. 4 Foucault further illustrates the degree to which subjectivity is implicated in relations of power when he analyses the production of different categories of subjects, as well as the processes by which we as individuals construct ourselves in, through and in opposition to those categories. Focusing on the modern era, Foucault illustrates how the emergence of the human sciences (psychology, anthropol- ogy, sociology, biology, psychiatry) during the eighteenth century both solidified the Enlightenment understanding of subjectivity and gave birth to a plethora of new subject categories: human beings have now become both the subjects and objects of their own knowledge. In Vol- ume I of The History ofSexuality, for example, Foucault shows how the fields of psychology and psychiatry categorized a whole range of human behaviours as sexually deviant, thereby producing a multitude of new modes of subjectivity that allow for (if not demand) social intervention into the population intended to distinguish "normal" from "abnormal" behaviour, encouraging the former and inhibiting (or even eradicating) the latter.
But, as noted above, Foucault also makes clear that subjectivity is not simply imposed externally. We take up and occupy the subject positions that our sociohistorical context makes available to us: sub- jects are not only made, we make ourselves. And, as contributors to this volume show, in so far as we make ourselves, we can unmake ourselves, or make ourselves differently: we can use the norms and values of our society in new ways, work on creating totally new forms of subjectivity, or even dispense with "the subject" as a mode of exist- ence. "Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are," Foucault writes, "but to refuse what we are. We have to imagine and build up what we could be to get rid of this kind of political 'double bind,' which is the simultaneous individualization and totalization of modern power structures" (1982a: 216). By showing that subjectiv- ity itself is a sociohistorical phenomenon, as well as by illustrating oppressive effects of prevailing notions of subjectivity, Foucault makes clear that experimenting with being other than what we currently are is not only possible but also an integral part of navigating power rela- tions in a way that both constitutes and in turn promotes the practice of freedom.
? 7
MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
Risky business
Armed with an accurate understanding of Foucault's conceptualization of power and, therefore, of the ways in which freedom and subjectivity are not opposed to but rather interconnected with and implicated in power relations, Foucault's emphasis on experimenting and thinking differently begins to make sense, and the positive ethical and political potential of his work begins to take shape as well. Foucault's analyses of power, freedom and subjectivity make clear that not being able to rely uncritically upon existing norms and values in order to gain access to absolute truths about ourselves and the world in which we live, or to provide us with a moral code we can uncritically follow, does not leave us either in a state of epistemological and moral nihilism, or trapped within a perpetual state of domination. Rather, as Foucault readily admits, taking his work seriously places us in an oppositional posi- tion relative to prevailing modes of thought and existence and thereby deprives us of "access to any complete and definitive knowledge" of both the world in which we live and the "limits" of our ability to know and act within that world (Foucault 1984a: 47). We are, as he puts it, "always in the position of beginning again" (ibid. ).
Perhaps part of what troubles Foucault's critics about the position in which he leaves us is that it offers no guarantees and it requires much of us. No one tells us how to perform the work of freedom. While Foucault may offer us some "tools", we must figure out the use to which we will put those tools. We must critically analyse our present, identify oppressive norms and practices and figure out how we may counter those norms and practices: simply telling us what to think and do would undermine the emancipatory aspects of Foucault's work. Moreover, Foucault encourages us to reflect critically upon why it is that we desire someone else to tell us what to think and what to do, why we believe that we must have absolute and universal norms and stand- ards that dictate our thoughts and actions, as well as upon the effects of that desire. What is perceived by his critics as Foucault's inability to provide norms and standards by which to think and live thus needs to be seen instead as a refusal to do so. What would it mean for us to begin to think and act differently, to "seek out in our reflection those things that have never been thought or imagined" (Foucault 1 980g) ? "What is good", Foucault tells us,
is something that comes through innovation. The good does not exist . .
The point here is that although the relationship is not equal, the interviewer is free in so far as he can respond to and in turn attempt to influence Foucault's actions. The interviewer does not exist in a state of domination where no response to Foucault's actions is possible.
As mentioned previously, "effective" navigation of power relations involves critically analysing our present conditions in order to identify norms and practices that reinforce the status quo to the point where prevailing modes of thought and existence come to be seen as given, as what must be. It also entails thinking and acting in ways that do not simply reinscribe prevailing, narrowly defined terms of what it is
? ? 5
MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
possible and acceptable to think and do. If, as Foucault argues, power relations are continually shifting and changing, then we must continue to analyse our present critically: practices that facilitate our navigation of power relations in one context or at a certain point in time may not be effective in other situations or contexts. While the interviewer may be able to appease Foucault by agreeing to Foucault's terms, this action might not be effective in a different interview situation. Some other interviewee might, for example, lose respect for an interviewer who immediately gives in to her demands and decide to terminate the interview herself. It is no accident, then, that Foucault characterizes freedom as "ongoing work".
Just as Foucault posits a relationship between power and freedom, so does he also conceive of a relationship between power and sub- jectivity. In a late text, Foucault emphasizes that although he is best known as an analyst of power, subjectivity has in fact been his primary concern. "My objective", he writes, " . . . has been to create a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made into subjects" (1982a: 208). What does Foucault mean when he says that human beings are "made into" subjects? As the chapters in Part III illustrate, part of what he means is that the idea of "the subject" is itself a historical construction. Foucault explicitly states that "the subject" is a "form" as opposed to a "substance" (1994: 10). Within the context of the Western philosophical tradition, "a subject" takes the form of an active agent, an individual "rational being", to use Immanuel Kant's terminology, that thinks about and acts upon the world (which takes the form of an "object") and is a bearer of political rights and moral responsibilities. This understanding of what it means to be a subject (and, therefore, the specifics of the distinction between and opposition of subject and object) is perhaps most explicit within Enlightenment thinking, but its roots may be traced as far back as the work of Plato. Foucault devoted several of his College de France courses to analysing the different forms that subjectivity acquired in ancient, Hellenistic and early Christian contexts (see Foucault 1999a; 2005a). In doing so, he illustrates and provides support for his argu- ment that subjectivity is a social, cultural and historical form rather than a pre-given "substance" that is outside of and therefore distinct from sociocultural norms and values.
By illustrating the sociohistorical character of a concept that is taken within the tradition of Western philosophy to be objective and neutral, Foucault helps us to see the extent to which the idea of being a subject is implicated in power relations. Remember that, for Foucault, power is productive: certain power relations give rise
6
INTRODUCTION: POWER, FREEDOM AND S UBJECTIVITY
to or produce the definition of subjectivity presented in the previ- ous paragraph, relations which that definition effectively masks. Thus, while all rational beings are purported to be subjects, the reality of the situation is that the Enlightenment understanding of subjectiv- ity excluded a wide group of people, including, for example, women and the people of lands that had been colonized by white European men. 4 Foucault further illustrates the degree to which subjectivity is implicated in relations of power when he analyses the production of different categories of subjects, as well as the processes by which we as individuals construct ourselves in, through and in opposition to those categories. Focusing on the modern era, Foucault illustrates how the emergence of the human sciences (psychology, anthropol- ogy, sociology, biology, psychiatry) during the eighteenth century both solidified the Enlightenment understanding of subjectivity and gave birth to a plethora of new subject categories: human beings have now become both the subjects and objects of their own knowledge. In Vol- ume I of The History ofSexuality, for example, Foucault shows how the fields of psychology and psychiatry categorized a whole range of human behaviours as sexually deviant, thereby producing a multitude of new modes of subjectivity that allow for (if not demand) social intervention into the population intended to distinguish "normal" from "abnormal" behaviour, encouraging the former and inhibiting (or even eradicating) the latter.
But, as noted above, Foucault also makes clear that subjectivity is not simply imposed externally. We take up and occupy the subject positions that our sociohistorical context makes available to us: sub- jects are not only made, we make ourselves. And, as contributors to this volume show, in so far as we make ourselves, we can unmake ourselves, or make ourselves differently: we can use the norms and values of our society in new ways, work on creating totally new forms of subjectivity, or even dispense with "the subject" as a mode of exist- ence. "Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are," Foucault writes, "but to refuse what we are. We have to imagine and build up what we could be to get rid of this kind of political 'double bind,' which is the simultaneous individualization and totalization of modern power structures" (1982a: 216). By showing that subjectiv- ity itself is a sociohistorical phenomenon, as well as by illustrating oppressive effects of prevailing notions of subjectivity, Foucault makes clear that experimenting with being other than what we currently are is not only possible but also an integral part of navigating power rela- tions in a way that both constitutes and in turn promotes the practice of freedom.
? 7
MICHEL FOU CAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
Risky business
Armed with an accurate understanding of Foucault's conceptualization of power and, therefore, of the ways in which freedom and subjectivity are not opposed to but rather interconnected with and implicated in power relations, Foucault's emphasis on experimenting and thinking differently begins to make sense, and the positive ethical and political potential of his work begins to take shape as well. Foucault's analyses of power, freedom and subjectivity make clear that not being able to rely uncritically upon existing norms and values in order to gain access to absolute truths about ourselves and the world in which we live, or to provide us with a moral code we can uncritically follow, does not leave us either in a state of epistemological and moral nihilism, or trapped within a perpetual state of domination. Rather, as Foucault readily admits, taking his work seriously places us in an oppositional posi- tion relative to prevailing modes of thought and existence and thereby deprives us of "access to any complete and definitive knowledge" of both the world in which we live and the "limits" of our ability to know and act within that world (Foucault 1984a: 47). We are, as he puts it, "always in the position of beginning again" (ibid. ).
Perhaps part of what troubles Foucault's critics about the position in which he leaves us is that it offers no guarantees and it requires much of us. No one tells us how to perform the work of freedom. While Foucault may offer us some "tools", we must figure out the use to which we will put those tools. We must critically analyse our present, identify oppressive norms and practices and figure out how we may counter those norms and practices: simply telling us what to think and do would undermine the emancipatory aspects of Foucault's work. Moreover, Foucault encourages us to reflect critically upon why it is that we desire someone else to tell us what to think and what to do, why we believe that we must have absolute and universal norms and stand- ards that dictate our thoughts and actions, as well as upon the effects of that desire. What is perceived by his critics as Foucault's inability to provide norms and standards by which to think and live thus needs to be seen instead as a refusal to do so. What would it mean for us to begin to think and act differently, to "seek out in our reflection those things that have never been thought or imagined" (Foucault 1 980g) ? "What is good", Foucault tells us,
is something that comes through innovation. The good does not exist . . . in an atemporal sky, with people who would be like the Astrologers of the Good, whose job it is to determine what is
8
? 1.
2.
3.
4.
the favorable nature of the stars. The good is defined by us, it is practiced, it is invented. And this is a collaborative work. (Ibid. )
Notes
Foucault states: "Each new work profoundly changes the terms of thinking which I had reached with the previous work. In this sense I consider myself more an experimenter than a theorist; I don't develop deductive systems to apply uniformly in different fields of research. When I write, I do it above all to change myself and not to think the same thing as before" (1991a: 27).
"I have never been a Freudian, I have never been a Marxist, and I have never been a structuralist" (Foucault 1990c: 22).
Foucault makes clear that sovereign power does not disappear completely with the rise of modernity. See Foucault ( 1 9 9 1 b) .
Many feminists and philosophers from a diversity of racial and ethnic back- grounds have argued that to the extent that the enlightenment notion of sub- jectivity continues to be adhered to it continues to produce oppressive effects.
INTRODUCTION: POWER, FREEDOM AND S UBJECTIVITY
9
PART I Power
? ONE
Foucault's theory of power
Richard A. Lyn ch
An important step in understanding Foucault's broader projects is to understand his view of power. 1 Foucault's analyses of power are simul- taneously articulated at two levels, the empirical and the theoretical. The first level is constituted by a detailed examination of historically specific modes of power and how these modes emerged out of earlier forms. Hence, he identifies modern forms of power, such as the closely related modes he termed "disciplinary power" and "biopower", and earlier, premodern forms such as "sovereign power". Indeed, much of his work on power is devoted to the task of articulating the emergence of later modes of power from earlier ones, and his analyses of disciplinary power in particular have been especially useful for subsequent scholars.
Three very simple examples can illustrate these forms of power. First, imagine a pyramid, with a king at the top, his ministers in the middle and the king's subjects (the people) at the bottom. If the king issues an edict, then his ministers will execute the order, imposing it upon the king's subjects. Traditionally, power has been understood as "being at the top of the pyramid"; and that was all that it was understood to be. But Foucault expands (indeed, totally reconceives) what constitutes power, and shows how this traditional view can be situated within a fuller understanding. He observed that in actual fact, power arises in all kinds of relationships, and can be built up from the bottom of a pyramid (or any structure). Thus, an academic transcript, the record of a student's courses and performance, becomes an instrument of power (how many times have you been told that "this will go on your per- manent record"? ), but begins from observation at the bottom of the pyramid, not from an edict from the top. Each and every student has a
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transcript, and this record of their performance, the fact that each one is observed (and not that the school has a principal), is what influences students' behaviour. The academic transcript is an instrument of dis- ciplinary power: it serves to make a student regulate or discipline her own performance and behaviour. Similarly, observing which groups in the population are most likely to contract a disease (such as lung can- cer) can lead to a discovery of its causes (cigarette smoking, or asbestos exposure). Like academic transcripts, this third kind of power - in this case to save lives, by eliminating asbestos or smoke inhalation - does not require a "top of the pyramid" to function. But unlike an academic transcript, this kind of power does not directly address particular indi- viduals, but rather groups of people and populations as a whole. This third example is an illustration of what Foucault calls "biopower".
The second level of Foucault's analyses (the "theoretical" level) tran- scends historical particularities and is common to the diverse modes of power that Foucault has described. It is at this level that we can grasp the most general and fundamental features of power and its operation, and so we would do well to approach Foucault's work from this theoretical perspective.
Foucault's most explicit thinking about power developed in the 1970s, particularly in two published works, Discipline and Punish (1975) andLaVolantedeSavoir(1976,translatedasTheHistoryofSex-
uality, Volume I: An Introduction), as well as his courses at the College de France between 1974 and 1979. We will focus upon his most con- densed and generalized presentation of power, Part Four of La Volante de Savoir, to accomplish three tasks. First, we will be able to grasp why Foucault's analyses can be called a "theory" of power. Second, we will identify the mistaken theories of power that his analysis is meant to sup- plant: the theories against which he is arguing. Third, we will be able to articulate the basic characteristics of power according to Foucault's theory: a network of force relations throughout society, relations that are characterized by resistance and which interact by means of local tac- tics and larger strategies. Since these characteristics serve to describe not only modern forms of power such as disciplinary power, but also earlier forms, they represent the substance of Foucault's theory of power.
A "theory" of power
What we can call a "theory" of power emerges from Foucault's mid- 1970s analyses of psychiatry, the prison and sexuality. This theory is not restricted to descriptions of one empirical period or "regime", but
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FOU CAULT'S THEORY O F POWER
describes certain general characteristics of power and its operation, across historical epochs and periods.
Foucault disliked the term "theory " . He noted in La Volante de Savoir that "The aim of the inquiries that will follow is to move less toward a 'theory' of power than toward an 'analytics' of power . . . " (1990a: 82; we will soon see how this sentence ends). Foucault emphasized analysis over theory in part because he was reluctant to make any claim to a permanent or complete understanding of the world in which we live. In his 1976 College de France course, Foucault explained at least part of his distrust for theory: "the question 'What is power? ' is obviously a theoretical question that would provide an answer to everything, which is just what I don't want to do" (2006a: 13 ). It is only in so far as theories can be used "untheoretically" in this sense - that is, without claiming to answer everything ? that they can be valuable. Nevertheless, he did refer to his own project as a theory: his task "is a question of forming a different grid of historical decipherment by starting from a different theory ofpower" (1990a: 90-91, emphasis added). 2 For Foucault, then, the term "theory" must be used with caution; we should embrace theory only in the sense of "a theoretical production that does not need a visa from some common regime to establish its validity" (ibid. : 6).
With this terminological caution in mind, I shall use the term "the- ory" in an experimental sense: a theory is a hypothesis to organize diverse data, but also to be tested and revised or abandoned in light of that data. That a theory aims to be more general than a description of a single historical period or epoch is an essential part of its value and usefulness for our understanding of the phenomena it encompasses, and it is for these reasons that the term remains a useful term with respect to Foucault's analyses of power. Such a theory does not "answer eve- rything"; its warrant comes from the empirical data that it organizes and that supports it, and it is subject to revision.
Foucault's theory of power suggests that power is omnipresent, that is, power can be found in all social interactions. As he put this in 1977, "it seems to me that power is 'always already there', that one is never 'outside' it" (1980e: 141). That power is omnipresent - that is, that power is co-extensive with the field of social relations; that power is interwoven with and revealed in other kinds of social relations - does not mean that power functions as a trap or cage, only that it is present in all of our social relations, even our most intimate and egalitarian. 3 Nor is Foucault saying that all relations reduce to, or consist of nothing other than, power relations. 4 Power does not "consolidate everything" or "embrace everything" or "answer everything"; power alone may not be adequate to explain all, or every aspect of, social relations. So
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MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
Foucault's theoretical task (and the conclusion of the sentence we left earlier) is to work "toward an 'analytics' of power: that is, toward a definition of the specific domain formed by relations of power, and toward a determination of the instruments that will make possible its analysis" (1990a: 82).
How notto understand power
Foucault first distinguishes his own theory from three mistaken, inad- equate or misleading conceptions of power (each ofwhich corresponds to a tradition or school of social thought, as I note below in brackets).
[T]he word power is apt to lead to a number of misunderstandings - misunderstandings with respect to its nature, its form, and its unity. By power, I do not mean "Power" as a group of institutions and mechanisms that ensure the subservience of the citizens of a given state [such as characterize many liberal analyses] . By power, I do not mean, either, a mode of subjugation which, in contrast to violence, has the form of the rule [typical of psychoanalytic approaches]. Finally, I do not have in mind a general system of domination exerted by one group over another [i. e. class oppres- sion] , a system whose effects, through successive derivations, per- vade the entire social body [as in many Marxist views].
(1990a: 92)
Foucault's worry is not that these analyses are entirely useless, but that they often mischaracterize an accidental feature of power in a particular context as an essential characteristic of power in general.
The analysis, made in terms of power, must not assume that the sovereignty of the state [liberal], the form of the law [psychoana- lytic] , or the over-all unity of a domination [Marxist] are given at the outset; rather, these are only the terminal forms power takes.
(Ibid. , my comments in brackets)
So each of these forms of power (sovereignty, law, domination) may in fact be present in certain contexts as terminal forms, but none are fundamental. And Foucault's first task in understanding power is there- fore to develop a new method - based on a richer theory - that begins with the basic molecules of power relations and then builds to more complex forms.
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FOU CAULT'S THEORY O F POWER
The most important misconception is what Foucault terms a "juridico- discursive" understanding of power. This misconception, "deeply rooted in the history of the West", is common to many "political analyses of power" (ibid. : 8 3 ) and approaches to sexuality. His argument is that this misconception, so generally accepted, has functioned as a mask by which much of the actual operation of power is obscured, thereby making manyoftheactualmechanismsofpowertolerable(ibid. : 86).
According to this "juridico-discursive" theory, power has five prin? - cipal characteristics: first, power always operates negatively, that is, by means of interdictions. Second, power always takes the form of a rule or law. This entails a binary system of permitted and forbidden, legal and illegal. These two characteristics together constitute the third: power operates through a cycle of prohibition, a law of interdiction. Hence (and fourth), this power manifests in three forms of prohibi- tion - "affirming that such a thing is not permitted, preventing it from being said, denying that it exists" (ibid. : 84) - which reveal a logic of censorship. Fifth and finally, the apparatus of this power is universal and uniform in its mode of operation:
From top to bottom, in its over-all decisions and its capillary inter- ventions alike, whatever the devices or institutions on which it relies, it acts in a uniform and comprehensive manner; it operates according to the simple and endlessly reproduced mechanism of law, taboo, and censorship. (Ibid. )
Notice how Foucault has characterized this uniformity, "in its over- all decisions and its capillary interventions alike". Implicit in this char- acterization is a distinction between macro-structures (the "over-all decisions") and micro-practices ("capillary interventions"): a distinc- tion that will be very important in the development of Foucault's own understanding of power. Recall our opening illustrations: a transcript would be a "capillary intervention", whereas epidemiological studies of cancer rates reflect macro-patterns. Foucault's analysis begins at the micro-level (in Discipline and Punish, for example) and is modified as it encompasses the macro--level (especially in the 1978 and 1979 College de France courses). 5 That this distinction is not made in the "juridico-discursive" view is just another indication of how it differs from Foucault's own analysis, and how it is mistaken about, and masks, the actual operation of power.
Why does Foucault term this view a "juridico-discursive" represen- tation of power? First, it is juridical because it is modelled upon law, upon prohibition: "it is a power [more precisely a representation of
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MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
power] whose model is essentially juridical, centered on nothing more than the statement of the law and the operation of taboos" (ibid. : 85 ) . But as Foucault makes clear, the actual operation of power cannot be reduced to one model - the law, the state, or domination - but instead functions in a variety of forms and with varying means or techniques.
Second, according to this view, power is essentially discursive: its prohibitions are tied together with what one can say as much as what one can do; in this way restrictions on language should also function as restrictions upon reality and action - this is the heart of the "logic of censorship" (ibid. : 84). While this view emphasizes discourse as the primary arena in which power's effects manifest, Foucault notes that discourses are related to power in much more complicated ways than this view would suggest: "Discourses are not once and for all subservi- ent to power or raised up against it . . . discourse can be both an instru- ment and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling-block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy" (ibid. : 100-101).
Let us consider another example to illustrate this "juridico-discursive" view of power: is what you are wearing today an effect of power rela- tions? If you picked your clothes to conform to a dress code (skirts must fall below the knee, no profanity on T-shirts, etc. ), then your choices can be explained by a "juridico-discursive" account: a prohibi- tory, discursive law specified what you could or could not wear. Within those rules, on that view, your choices were presumably made without external interference. But when we look more closely, this view is not correct: a number of other, "capillary" (your friends) and "macro" (fashion) as well as extra-legal power relations have almost certainly shaped your choices of what to wear. Foucault's own theory of power is meant to replace these "juridico-discursive" accounts:
It is this image that we must break free of, that is, of the theoreti- cal privilege of law and sovereignty, if we wish to analyze power within the concrete and historical framework of its operation. We must construct an analytics of power that no longer takes law as a model and a code. (Ibid. : 90)
A Foucauldian view of power
It is time now for us to turn to this constructive task, and begin to articulate Foucault's own positive understanding of power. Foucault's self-described task is to use empirical analyses to discover a new theory
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FOU CAULT'S THEORY O F POWER
of power, which will in turn provide a new framework for (and the hypotheses to be tested in) subsequent historical analyses (Foucault 1990a: 90-91). He begins:
It seems to me that power must be understood in the first instance as [1] the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization; as [2] the process which, through ceaseless struggles and confron- tations, transforms, strengthens, or reverses them; as [3] the sup- port which these force relations find in one another, thus forming a chain or a system, or on the contrary, the disjunctions and con- tradictions which isolate them from one another; and lastly, as [4] the strategies in which they take effect, whose general design or institutional crystallization is embodied in the state apparatus, in the formulation of the law, in the various social hegemonies.
(Ibid. : 92-3 , my numerals)
There is much to unpack in this sentence. The bracketed numbers indicate four principal aspects of Foucault's initial definition. We have a set of "force relations", processes by which these relations are trans- formed, systems or disjunctions that are constituted by the interplay of these force relations, and larger strategies (or "terminal forms") with general and institutional characteristics that emerge from these rela- tions, processes and systems. He begins at the micro-level, looking at local relations of force rather than at the macro-level of hegemonies and states, which can only be fully understood as functions of the local relations. In other words, Foucault begins with individuals' behaviours and interactions ("local relations" like academic transcripts, or choices of what to wear), to see how larger patterns, and eventually national norms or regulations, grow out of them.
First, then, power must be understood at the micro-level as relations of force. Foucault is unambiguous on this point: "It is in this sphere of force relations that we must try to analyze the mechanisms of power" (ibid. : 97). But what are these "force relations" at the basis of power? With this term, Foucault makes an explicit analogy to physics; he refers on numerous occasions, for example, to the "micro-physics of power" (1979: 26; 1990a: 16). 6 Force relations seem to be the basic unit, the undefined or given, in this approach to power. Very broadly, force rela- tions consist of whatever in one's social interactions that pushes, urges or compels one to do something.
We can use the analogy to help us understand this notion of force relations as the basic unit of power. In Newtonian physics, force is
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MICHEL FOUCAULT: KEY CONCEPTS
defined as mass times acceleration. Force is thus the extent to which a body will be put into motion: larger objects (greater mass) will require a greater force to begin moving; a greater force will also be necessary to make an object move more quickly (greater acceleration). The impor- tant point here is that "force" is whatever serves to put an object into motion, regardless of the origin or source of that force. Force may be introduced by gravity, magnetism, or some other means. Its action thus can be described independently of any particular agent or object as the "creator" of that force. Analogously, Foucault speaks of power relations in terms of force relations without reference to a source or agent. This suggests that Foucault does not mean to imply that individuals cannot act as agents within power relations, but rather to draw our attention, especially for methodological reasons, to the force relations as such rather than to agents or actors.