Foucault
Jun 16 2005 12:30
has anyone read any of this dudes work?
seems quite interesting, especially the ideas of knowledge and ideas of truth being linked to the dominant power structures within any given period of history and the way we attach these ideas and notions when looking back at previous epochs, like people imagine words, phrases and social relations to be similar or comparable to those of today.
There are a few grey areas though, for instance if the dominant ideas of a period and the way people think are dictated by power relations how exactly does he propose we escape this train of thought, or how does he explain people who arent just sheep bleating their masters words over and over. Also he claims that 'epistemes' or periods of history in which the dominant ideas shift, like a paradigm shift are completely detached from each other, as in the shifts are arbitary and not linear in any way, surely Marx's notion of history and the history of class struggle negates this just a little bit?!
Jun 16 2005 12:46
#2
Is there a reason this is in culture?
Jun 16 2005 12:48
#3
rkn wrote:
Is there a reason this is in culture?
To piss you off? 
Jun 16 2005 12:54
#4
most likely 
Jun 16 2005 12:57
#5
Quote:
I even look like him
do you even have ears as big as his?
Quote:
Is there a reason this is in culture?
beacuse i put it here 
Anyway i bet theyd have him on that 'culture show' on channel 4 if he was still alive
Jun 16 2005 13:09
#6
Vaneigemappreciationclub wrote:
do you even have ears as big as his?
*Checks* Just about. Although my hair (or lack thereof), nose, eyes & jawline are my most Foucault-like qualities.
Jun 16 2005 13:22
#7
Well as I always say, Focualt can suck my balls.
Actually I quite like Foucault though he is very overrated.
Button is of course correct in pointing out that Foucault's definition of power is a constitutive one. What i would say is that Foucaults theory of power is essentially a reworking of Marxs "labour", it can be constituted in a multitude of ways or even be denied but it is always present. It is his ontological basis.
The problem is that Foucault, in later writings, began to fragment all moments of power and began to see them as seperate ontologies. Hence he tells us that the relationship between a doctor and a patient has to be taken on it's own and not generalised into a metanarrative about the state. Problem is that certain power relations are dependent on larger dynamics, the relationship between a screw and a con can be understood on a micro level but it makes little sense if we do not attempt to grasp why they are in such a relationship in the first place, and that requires us to look beyond the particular to wider power relations ie the economic imperrative that sees the screw come into work everyday when they'd probably rather be chillin and the ecomonic discourses that make robbing banks a crime.
so yeah Foucault is alright but he tends to explain the how of power whilst tending to ignore the why of power.
Jun 16 2005 13:25
#8
*looks at picture of foucault on front of book*
do you often parade around with a deep green garment draped over one shoulder whilst holding a chalice?
So, away from foucaults physical asaethetic for a mo, didnt foucault go on about "biopower"?
All the stuff ive read so far seems to concentrate on the repressive side of power, eg prisons, the media, the role of institutions in constructing notions of delinquency and madness and the coercive institutions role in then enforcing these notions of madness and criminality. I dont suppose you could give us a brief explanation of what he means when he suggests that these 'epistemes' are arbitary and arent interlinked in any way with each other.
Jun 16 2005 13:34
#9
thats exactly where Foucault loses it for me, when he begins to take these discourses out of a historical trajectory and treat them as arbitrary dynamics with self contained ontologies. Funny enough is early work on crime and punishment had a deeply historical strain and was essentially neo marxist.
Jun 16 2005 14:21
#10
i mean how can you take historical periods as being completely unrelated and separate from each other? Surely the beginnings of new epochs are born within the old society and surely historical periods dont have distinctive sudden beginnings and endings, or am i just interpretting foucault's ideas wrongly?
Jun 16 2005 20:00
#11
i thought i could tolerate foucalt till i read all his mad anti-doctor shit in birth of he clinic, then actually i realised he was pretty worthless
Jun 17 2005 08:30
#12
yeah i can see that there is perhaps some reason in the notion of scientific discourses being influenced by power relations but that shit about how western medicine isnt actually beneficial its just a matteer of being different to say herbal medicines is a load of bollocks in most cases
Jun 17 2005 08:54
#13
cantdocartwheels wrote:
i thought i could tolerate foucalt till i read all his mad anti-doctor shit in birth of he clinic, then actually i realised he was pretty worthless
I think the problem here is that you're reading what is an analytics as a critique. For Foucault to describe a regime of power/knowledge is not the same as him critique-ing it in the same way as (say) a Marxist theorist would do.
One of my favourite little Foucault quotes that really sums up his approach for me is, "I am not saying that [such-and-such] is bad, I am saying that it is dangerous."
So in the case of medicine & its personnel, he's not saying "Boo! Drs are bastards! Medicine is bad!" He's looking at the way medical knowledge is deployed (and knowledges are always-already deployed) in & through a certain regime of power/knowledge.
Which, if you ask me, is a lot more fruitful an approach than the endless debates we get on here along the lines of "Are drs working class?" "Are teachers working class?" "Are social workers working class?" and so on and so on and so on.
Doctors are not bad people. Medicine is not a bad thing. Yet you cannot ignore the fact that medical & psychiatric knowledges are a key element in fixing certain "deviant" populations as objects of governance.
Jun 19 2005 18:13
#14
yeah good post button.
problem is all sorts of fuckwits who worship Foucault don't seemt to grasp this.
My problem with foucault is not how he roots such discourses in wider relations but rather how he moved towards denying any stratification of discourses and presented them as all equally pervasive. This to me ends up flattening power in such a way that calling my mate a cockfaced turd is the same as the state labelling certain sections as sub human or degenerate.
Jun 20 2005 08:35
#15
Well, rather then get into the minutiae of "what Foucault meant when he said.....", I can recommend Jacques Donzelot's The policing of families. Foucauldian as fuck, with a class perspective & he even writes about anarchists. 8)
Jun 24 2005 18:01
#16
I find Foucault's writing style hard to read fully, but maybe this is due to translating, I don't know. However he did some great works on mental illness along with Scheff. He did some interesting works on prisons to, however I haven't even started reading his 'Disipline and Prisons'.
Jun 27 2005 08:49
#17
powertotheimagination wrote:
I find Foucault's writing style hard to read fully, but maybe this is due to translating
I think you're right there. A good example is the notion of "power/knowledge." Now, in English, that just looks , but in French it's "pouvoir/savoir," which
1) sounds nicer and
2) both verbs are based on "voire," which is the verb "to see."
So in that little 2 word phrase, Foucault manages to make his point that power and knowledge are mediated through the panoptic gaze in a regime of disciplinary power. 8) as fuck.
Rather than reading the books, maybe a good place to look would be Foucauld's interviews & lectures, which are in the process of being published. The first volume of his lectures is called Society must be defended, the second is called Abnormal, which covers the same ground as Madness & civilisation, but in a more accessable way.
Jun 27 2005 08:55
#18
You know what I want to follow that post with, right?
Quote:
So in that little 2 word phrase, Foucault manages to make his point that power and knowledge are mediated through the panoptic gaze in a regime of disciplinary power.
You're just taking the piss, innit?
Jun 27 2005 09:05
#19
Nah. It's because it's Monday morning, & the only person I've spoken to since Friday afternoon is the Mrs.* I'll be back to normal in an hour or 2.
*Foucauldian goddess & combat Scrabble enthusiast.
Ooohhhhhhhhhh yes. I even look like him.
This is quite good for starters: -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault
with linked articles on individual books by the great man.
The thing to remember is, that for Foucault at least, power is not simply "repressive." Power enables as well as constrains, and it's not something which is external to, and stands over against the individual.
A lot of critiques of Foucault proceed by importing someone else's notion of power, and then slagging off Foucault for saying that power can't be resisted.