1. He mentions two diseases of power being fascism and Stalinism yet there are far more flaws in power than just these two concepts. 2. I disagree when he says he believes the word, "rationalization" is dangerous, I believe it is necessary in order to point out flaws and things that need to be worked on.
I noticed a lot of similarities between Foucault and the Existentialists in these readings. For one, he seems to be making use of phenomenology in his “analysis” of power. This seems most evident to me with statements such as: “since Kant, the role of philosophy is to prevent reason from going beyond the limits of what is given in experience”, and “for us it is not only a theoretical question but a part of our experience.” Apart from Foucault’s emphasis on the multiplicity of power relations between individuals and groups, I don’t recognize much that distinguishes him from the Existentialists in this piece.
I found Foucault’s thoughts on “pastoral power” enlightening, particularly how it has extended from Christianity into society. When he speaks of it being “a form of power that looks after not just the whole community but each individual in particular” it reminded me of Sartre’s seriality. This is also apparent when Foucault states that “we have to promote new forms of subjectivity through the refusal of this kind of individuality that has been imposed on us for several centuries.” It seems very similar in spirit to the refusal of seriality. Is this a fair interpretation?
Foucault's parallels between the transition between pastoral power and the modern state ring true of today's society when he explains that salvation in the afterlife has been replaced by salvation in this life under the domains of security, wealth, health etc. It demands individuality while also demanding that your life is devoted to serving the system, and if you "work hard enough" the system will reward you with modern salvation.
When Foucault says "Finally, the multiplication of the aims and agents of pastoral power focused the development of knowledge of man around two roles: one, globalizing and quantitative, concerning the population; the other, analytical, concerning the individual," it reminds me of Heidegger's writings about technology and our modern day trend towards calculative thinking.
Foucault is making a statement that the effectiveness of revolt is largely unknown. We know the people revolt, and we know that revolutions take place, but measuring and estimating their effectiveness is seemingly impossible.
What we do know from revolution, to Foucault's point, is that revolution is in itself a form of press. It increases and amplifies ideas around a certain concept. It feels as though the Foucault is saying that typical intellectual strides, such as writing a journal, does not gain traction. But to have an idea gain traction, one has to go to the extreme of making a revolution.
When Foucault talks about the subject and power, he talks about how the subject can be made to be an object. Although he is in a different camp than the existentialists and phenomenologists, I feel a sort of similarity to them on this idea. Objectifying a person is a good way to convince them that one has some sort of power over them, which again seems to be the way Foucault wants to take this idea.
Like his assessment of power as it relates to sexuality, I get the idea that Foucault sees revolution or any “confrontation between two adversaries” as not opposing power, but playing into power, and exploiting the relationship. Foucault doesn’t think there is a way to be free of these power dynamics. And while an existentialist might search for a way to overcome the power dynamic, Foucault appears to look for different ways to embrace it and worth with it as if it is an inevitable fact of reality.
Throughout the reading I noticed quite a few parallels with Sartre's notion of serialisation. Especially with the idea that our individuality has been imposed upon us by various institutions.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding his conception of power relationships, but I get the feeling foucault is claiming they will always exists and we have to just accept the subsequent oppression?
I find his discussion about the diseases power cause to be interesting. He choses two authoritarian governments. However I feel he could somewhat limited the diseases of power to government but he could have made it much more broad.
I find his idea about the effects of revolt to be intriguing. He says that people do not really know the effectiveness of revolution. I found this because I always believed that revolution always brought about change. This is true however change can be anything positive or negative. Revolution can lead to complete chaos in which the common person would rather go back to oppression. Revolution can also lead to people being able to govern themselves. The results are vastly different and lead to Foucault's point that no one really knows what revolution brings.
I found his analysis of power to be quite interesting however some of the examples were historically inaccurate. For-instance what he calls 'Stalin-ism' has never actually existed. Instead what was present in mid-twentieth century communism was known as 'Marxism-Leninism". The term was coined by Stalin to make his government more legitimate in the eyes of the soviet masses, who had a love for both Marx and Lenin. However Foucault is not wrong The determent of all Marxist Leninist societies was the structure of Democratic Centrism, this lead to widespread cultural stagnation, and the brutal repression of dissidents, most of whom were loyal communists. The combination of which proved to ultimately be the undoing of the soviet union. Had the government pursued a multiparty democratic structure and free speech the result would have been much different.
1. He mentions two diseases of power being fascism and Stalinism yet there are far more flaws in power than just these two concepts.
ReplyDelete2. I disagree when he says he believes the word, "rationalization" is dangerous, I believe it is necessary in order to point out flaws and things that need to be worked on.
I noticed a lot of similarities between Foucault and the Existentialists in these readings. For one, he seems to be making use of phenomenology in his “analysis” of power. This seems most evident to me with statements such as: “since Kant, the role of philosophy is to prevent reason from going beyond the limits of what is given in experience”, and “for us it is not only a theoretical question but a part of our experience.” Apart from Foucault’s emphasis on the multiplicity of power relations between individuals and groups, I don’t recognize much that distinguishes him from the Existentialists in this piece.
ReplyDeleteI found Foucault’s thoughts on “pastoral power” enlightening, particularly how it has extended from Christianity into society. When he speaks of it being “a form of power that looks after not just the whole community but each individual in particular” it reminded me of Sartre’s seriality. This is also apparent when Foucault states that “we have to promote new forms of subjectivity through the refusal of this kind of individuality that has been imposed on us for several centuries.” It seems very similar in spirit to the refusal of seriality. Is this a fair interpretation?
Foucault's parallels between the transition between pastoral power and the modern state ring true of today's society when he explains that salvation in the afterlife has been replaced by salvation in this life under the domains of security, wealth, health etc. It demands individuality while also demanding that your life is devoted to serving the system, and if you "work hard enough" the system will reward you with modern salvation.
ReplyDeleteWhen Foucault says "Finally, the multiplication of the aims and agents of pastoral
power focused the development of knowledge of man around
two roles: one, globalizing and quantitative, concerning the
population; the other, analytical, concerning the individual," it reminds me of Heidegger's writings about technology and our modern day trend towards calculative thinking.
Foucault is making a statement that the effectiveness of revolt is largely unknown. We know the people revolt, and we know that revolutions take place, but measuring and estimating their effectiveness is seemingly impossible.
ReplyDeleteWhat we do know from revolution, to Foucault's point, is that revolution is in itself a form of press. It increases and amplifies ideas around a certain concept. It feels as though the Foucault is saying that typical intellectual strides, such as writing a journal, does not gain traction. But to have an idea gain traction, one has to go to the extreme of making a revolution.
When Foucault talks about the subject and power, he talks about how the subject can be made to be an object. Although he is in a different camp than the existentialists and phenomenologists, I feel a sort of similarity to them on this idea. Objectifying a person is a good way to convince them that one has some sort of power over them, which again seems to be the way Foucault wants to take this idea.
ReplyDeleteLike his assessment of power as it relates to sexuality, I get the idea that Foucault sees revolution or any “confrontation between two adversaries” as not opposing power, but playing into power, and exploiting the relationship. Foucault doesn’t think there is a way to be free of these power dynamics. And while an existentialist might search for a way to overcome the power dynamic, Foucault appears to look for different ways to embrace it and worth with it as if it is an inevitable fact of reality.
Throughout the reading I noticed quite a few parallels with Sartre's notion of serialisation. Especially with the idea that our individuality has been imposed upon us by various institutions.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'm misunderstanding his conception of power relationships, but I get the feeling foucault is claiming they will always exists and we have to just accept the subsequent oppression?
I find his discussion about the diseases power cause to be interesting. He choses two authoritarian governments. However I feel he could somewhat limited the diseases of power to government but he could have made it much more broad.
ReplyDeleteI find his idea about the effects of revolt to be intriguing. He says that people do not really know the effectiveness of revolution. I found this because I always believed that revolution always brought about change. This is true however change can be anything positive or negative. Revolution can lead to complete chaos in which the common person would rather go back to oppression. Revolution can also lead to people being able to govern themselves. The results are vastly different and lead to Foucault's point that no one really knows what revolution brings.
I found his analysis of power to be quite interesting however some of the examples were historically inaccurate. For-instance what he calls 'Stalin-ism' has never actually existed. Instead what was present in mid-twentieth century communism was known as 'Marxism-Leninism". The term was coined by Stalin to make his government more legitimate in the eyes of the soviet masses, who had a love for both Marx and Lenin.
ReplyDeleteHowever Foucault is not wrong The determent of all Marxist Leninist societies was the structure of Democratic Centrism, this lead to widespread cultural stagnation, and the brutal repression of dissidents, most of whom were loyal communists. The combination of which proved to ultimately be the undoing of the soviet union. Had the government pursued a multiparty democratic structure and free speech the result would have been much different.