(longer post)
I've been reading this Michel Foucault lecture series. In them, he
reminds the audience that his concept of power has changed since he
debuted with his seminal works on madness and punishment. He sees power
not so much as represented in instances of repression, but rather a flow
or current between actors, a concept better represented as two actors
engaged in battle. In
Society Must Be Defended, Foucault explores the
concept of war and its historical relation to the role of the
nation state and its population's identity.
That Foucault adopts a new concept of power after having written his
early works does not devalue them. Foucault's project has not changed:
generally, he engages in an archaeological exploration of Western man's
conceptual relation to himself and others; specifically, he analyzes how
some people engineer and/or assume apparatuses of power used on other
people, focusing on the post-Middle Ages emergence of kinds of knowledge and systems of
disciplinary power.
In
Society Must Be Defended, he begins by asserting that, circa
1600, Europeans began assessing their own history in terms of race and war, whereas previously
they self-identified in the person and bloodline of the sovereign and spoke of the Roman history in which they lived. So, what were
once mere hiccups within the Roman Empire now signified the
coming of the Franks, Gauls, Celts, and so on. The key for Foucault here
is not the races or inter-European racism to come, but the idea of
(potential) revolution and the political historization of the peopled nation state that emerges and casts itself as the rightful inheritor of sovereignty and
greatness, with the distressed and disenfranchised newly identifying themselves as people on the
losing end of a historical injustice.
The change in historical perspective is initiated by a shift at the
top: the nobility assume power over the education of the monarchy, a
role previously held by judges and (accounting) clerks appointed by the sovereign. This education, which centers on history, organizes the
past--and, therefore, the present--around "society" rather than royal
lineages. And, so it goes, with the nation no longer identified in the
body of the king, a new focus on society yields limited concepts of
nationalism, race, and class. Of course, society was being narrowly defined around
the culture of the previously distressed and disenfranchised nobles (the bourgeoisie, presumably).
Then, yet another shift occurs: a culture with arts, agriculture, trade, and industry becomes a
precondition for nationhood. A nation's legitimization is complete once it has a legislature and law.
Society no longer just constitutes the nation--it runs it (or, rather, the bourgeoisie runs it, presumably). Finally, with the recognition of society as the bellwether of the nation state, we find institutions of power concerning themselves with the biological phenomena of the social body, thereby giving birth to what Foucault famously calls biopower. Very nice.
In
Society Must Be Defended, Foucault gives a history of Western Europe, recounting legends told from the
Middle Ages on and narrating this shift in discourses on power, history, and the State. This narration does get bogged down in details
(and more than a little confused), so this lecture series is a
difficult read unless you're especially interested.
Notes:
- This shift to a politicized historical
discourse coincides with a larger movement re-organizing and,
eventually, licensing knowledges.
- Foucault's work usually involves describing some major
shift in focus and narrative that followed the Middle Ages. When reading
him, I'm often a little disappointed he doesn't spend more time
describing the systems being displaced or forgotten. And, as a rule, I'm
always a little skeptical when someone argues that something major has
changed or some new age is dawning, etc., so this can make Foucault's
work hard to square when I find myself needing more information.
Earth in beauty dressed
Clouds tumbled overhead, an ash avalanche, a silent disaster film, while she, the money-counter, stationed herself bedside, gazing upon the ones, fives, tens, twenties, fifties, and hundreds arranged on the comforter, catching dull the morning light like eyes of dead children arranged before the killer. Her husband made noise in the kitchen: microwave beeping, plates knocking. She knew he hungered always for her fear and submission, but tomorrow she would serve him his death. She will pay the hitman tonight.
The real story is that Agassi, like most other tennis pros, was mercilessly raised to succeed in professional tennis. His father drilled him on a home court everyday for years. Forever after Agassi resented his father and hated tennis. Nevertheless the experience left Agassi super-competitive and as he came of age he desperately wanted the coveted rankings of more consistent players in his era like Pete Sampras, his main rival. Unsurprisingly, Agassi traces his own inconsistent performance (more than once he fell from the top to the bottom) to his lack of confidence and poor sense of self. But these flaws, though nearly universal in their appeal, are never fully explored in Open.
I know a seagull. He watches me uncaringly. Sometimes when he flies the sky warms from a restless midnight ink to a delicate warm peach speckled heaven blue. He is overhead now. Hello again, Seagull.
I've been reading this Michel Foucault lecture series. In them, he reminds the audience that his concept of power has changed since he debuted with his seminal works on madness and punishment. Now he sees power not so much as represented in instances of repression, but rather as a flow or current between actors, a concept better represented as two actors engaged in battle. In Society Must Be Defended, Foucault explores this concept of battle, of war and its historical relation to the role of the nation State and its population's identity.
