In class today, we touched on Foucault’s notion of discursive regimes of power, that is, a web of power relations that normalizes certain discourses, marginalizes others, and therefore produces truth. Foucault, along with his postmodern counterparts, is claiming the death of the subject insofar as the Cartesian ego, i.e., an essential and coherent subject, is nonexistent outside of discursive (and for other postmodernists, performative) practices. There is no prediscursive subject, just as Saussure declared there are no preexistent ideas outside of language. Foucault is drawing attention to the fact that our subjectivities, those things that inscribe our identity, are discursively constituted by a rhizome (rather than a hierarchy, to use Delueze’s term) of power relations that are at once political, economic, religious, medical, sexual, etc.
Every production of identity is an imitation, a representation of an idealized norm that serves regulatory purposes. Bodies are produced and governed through a regime of discourses—specific mechanisms by which knowledge is codified—and furthermore, themselves (re)produce the very power that produced them (to quote Dr. J). For example, Foucault defines sexuality (in his book the History of Sexuality Part 1) as independent of biology; rather it is the production of socially situated discourse. That is to say, there is no way to think about “natural” biology outside of scientific discourse. According to Foucault, beginning in the eighteenth century, sex became a means by which institutions (namely, the state) utilized biopower (the systematic control of bodies) through the monopolization of truth discourse and authoritative knowledge concerning sex:
What was involved…was the very production of sexuality. Sexuality must not be thought of as a kind of natural given which power tries to hold in check, or as an obscure domain which knowledge tries gradually to uncover. It is the name that can be given to a historical construct… (The History of Sexuality Part 1, 105).
This new deployment of sexuality was marked by an “interplay between truth and sex”—a scientia sexualis, which demanded that sex produce truth (Foucault 57). Scientific discourse, along with those discourses within the political and social spheres, materializes that which it names; that is, by the mere utterance, truth is produced, identity is circumscribed, and bodies are materialized.
Within this new play of (performative) discourse, there is no subject outside that regulatory discourse which normalizes. One way identity is formed is in the very “process of assuming a sex” because of the “truth” that sex produces (Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter). In this way, sex is not possessed by the subject or merely a description of the body of the subject, but is “one of the norms by which the ‘one’ becomes viable at all, that which qualifies a body for life within the domain of cultural intelligibility” (Ibid). Those that are outside this domain, the “abject”, constitute those subjects that have not assumed a normative sex, gender, religion, political allegiance, psychological category, etc. That is to say, the subject is defined only in relation to the abject, that which it is not. At the same time, the existence of the abject exposes the instability of normative categories, and serves as a means by which “the force of the regulatory law can be turned against itself to spawn rearticulations that call into question the hegemonic force of that very regulatory law” (Ibid). I mention Judith Butler because she proposes a theory for resistance that makes Foucault’s explanation of power seem not so hopeless after all.
Within this new play of (performative) discourse, there is no subject outside that regulatory discourse which normalizes. One way identity is formed is in the very “process of assuming a sex” because of the “truth” that sex produces (Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter). In this way, sex is not possessed by the subject or merely a description of the body of the subject, but is “one of the norms by which the ‘one’ becomes viable at all, that which qualifies a body for life within the domain of cultural intelligibility” (Ibid). Those that are outside this domain, the “abject”, constitute those subjects that have not assumed a normative sex, gender, religion, political allegiance, psychological category, etc. That is to say, the subject is defined only in relation to the abject, that which it is not. At the same time, the existence of the abject exposes the instability of normative categories, and serves as a means by which “the force of the regulatory law can be turned against itself to spawn rearticulations that call into question the hegemonic force of that very regulatory law” (Ibid). I mention Judith Butler because she proposes a theory for resistance that makes Foucault’s explanation of power seem not so hopeless after all.
Alright, I think that's enough Foucaulting for one blog, yes?
5 comments:
Kelie--
Foucault whore.
P.S. Explicitly, how does Foucault relate to Existentialism for you? Is he a proponent or opponent of the philosophy? I know you have found the idea of freedom (as discussed in class) problematic time and time again. Clearly Foucault's ideas of power and regulation impede on our existentialist ideas of individual-making (that is, each person creating her own identity), but I'm interested to see what you, as the more well-read Foucaudian scholar, have to say about him and his relationship to the discussion on this blog.
MJ,
1) I'm hardly well-read and certainly not a Foucault scholar in any sense of the word (I assume, of course, that you were joking). I do have a huge crush on MF, though (intellectual and otherwise) which is blatantly obvious.
2) I think Foucault in a lot of ways is an extension of existentialism but only in the sense that he's reacting to it. I wouldn't say he's a proponent or opponent necessarily of the philosophy, but (like I said) perhaps a reactionary. For example, phenomenological/existential concepts like the Other and the Gaze are definitely utilized in postmodern philosophy. The tenet that existence proceeds essence is also related, although postmodern philosophy takes it one step further by denouncing the humanist aspect and arguing that there is no subject. I would say postmodernism also adopts existentialism's critique of a rational subject.
3) With that said, as far as Foucault specifically, yes there is the big issue of the subject/identity only existing within discursive/disciplinary means, but I'm not sure Foucault would dismiss freedom altogether. As far as I know, Foucault isn't even interested in the question, "Are we free?" but rather (and as Zizek put it) "What does it mean to say you are 'free'? What sort of things constitute that 'freedom'?" Foucault would place freedom within a socio-historical context, within the web of power relations. So my question is: is that really freedom? Even in the Sartrean sense? I think Foucault's main issue with Sartre was that he wasn't doing anything really "new" in the sense that Existentialism was still a humanism, like all of western thought proceeding it.
4) Here's a quote that might be helpful of Foucault on Sartre:
"I think that from the theoretical point of view, Sartre avoids the idea of the self as something that is given to us, but through the moral notion of authenticity, he turns back to the idea of that we have to be ourselves - to be truly our true self. I think that the only acceptable practical consequences of what Sartre has said is to link this theoretical insight to the practice of creativity - and not that of authenticity. From the idea that the self is not given to us, I think there is only one practical consequences of what Sartre has said is to link his theoretical insight to the practical creativity - and not that of authenticity. From the idea that the self is not given to us, I think there is only one practical consequence: we have to create ourselves as a work of art. In his analyses of Baudelaire, Flaubert, and so on, it is interesting to see that Sartre refers the work of creation to a certain relation to oneself - the author to himself- which has the form of authenticity or inauthenticity. I would like to say exactly the contrary: we should not have to refer the creative activity of somebody to the kind of relation he has to himself, but should relate the kind of relation one has to oneself to a creative activity"
What about meaning? That seems to be the pay off in existentialism. Even though there is no inherent meaning in the world, we can make it ourselves because we are free. Would Foucault say that not only is there no real meaning in the world, but we can't even make meaning ourselves? If so, are we in anyway responsible for our actions? Does he think we should simply relieve all criminals from moral responsibility and behave according to our desires as we cannot be held accountable for the environment out of which our characters have developed?
Jen-
It depends what you mean by "real meaning". I think what Foucault et al are trying to say is that no, there is no absolute 'real' meaning in the world (Derrida would call this logocentrism--the western obsession with finding 'truth' inherent in a text. And for Derrida, there is nothing outside the text). However, I think that Foucault would agree that individuals are meaning-making to the extent that they create meaning for themselves. Does it matter that that meaning is socially situated? We tend to think that institutions, because they are social constructions, are inherently bad or wrong. On the contrary, their relative nature allows us to replace them, to exchange them, to resist them. Butler's notion of the abject illustrates this point well. There are always people that do not fit the rule or paradigm, and it is their very existence that allows the possibility of change.
When I first read Foucault for the Power class ("Society Must be Defended), I was extremely torn, because he appeared to working against everything that we had learned in Existentialism. While I enjoy existentialist philosophy, Foucault makes more sense in that the subject was created within the networks of power. He mainly analyzed class struggles and what he called the "tactical generalization of knowledge," and war. What nagged me the whole time was the concept of freedom. If we are free but only within the extent of the power network we function in, how drastically can change occur? Do you also agree that power cannot be possessed, and it "flows" through the network of power? Where does the responsibility lie if power cannot be possessed and we are just recreating what created us, and hoe would that not doom us to always become a product of our environment?
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