Foucault

After reading Foucault's "The Subject and Power" (which you can find on CuLearn), tell me 3 things you learned about Foucault's conception of "power." Summarize his arguments, and then give examples OF YOUR OWN to illustrate them. Note that this is different than the Benveniste blog assignment. You are not indicating whether you agree with Foucault, but rather illustrating what he means using your own examples.


Foucault's first intriguing idea placed forward in this reading is the idea that to understand power we must investigate the resistance to those forms of power. He offers the example of understanding legalities by understanding those which are illegal. In the same sense it could be argued that to understand the democratic party and the candidates which are being chosen from it would be most valuable to observe the republican party, and the issues they have at the forefront. But in a broader context if we wanted to understand the two party system as a power operative we should examine the third parties.

Later in the article foucault says:

'Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are, but to refuse what we are. We have to imagine and to build up what we could be to get rid of this kind of political “double blind”, which is the simultaneous individualization and totalization of modern power structures.'

This idea is similar to the ideas we have discussed in that it assumes we need to organize ourselves within the world in order to understand our place in it. Foucault recognizes that the build up of the state has led to what he describes as the double blind power struggle. In effect this argument serves to devalue the fringe groups unwilling to accept the system within which they exist. By refusing what we are we attempt to separate ourself from the current power system failing to realize that by operating within the system the system can change. It is similar to adolescent teens rebelling against their parents, they fail to see that what they are is their parents and that by refusing their parents (figuratively or literally) they are resisting the power systems.

Foucault presents the idea that we must distinguish power relations from communication relations. This was very difficult for me to accept as a communication major as well as a student. I completely despise the communication major so I am not simply arguing for the necessity of communication, rather it was a shock for me to think that power relations exist beyond the communicative relations. The most common way that we see power manifested is through communication, be it the symbols we see or the symbolic words we choose. Communication can be seen as effect of the cause if the cause is power. As foucault claims power without communication exist in an elementary state. It is a polished product when it is combined with communication. It is also more effective. Communication is our ability to interpret and make sense of symbols (be it words, actions, things...). Our ability to do so is determined by our understanding of power relations, the struggle for dominance between oppositions we envision these forces and make sense of their actions. Thus power has created communication