Summary of Truth and Power Interview of Michele Foucault
The
first question by the interviewers Alessandro Fontana and Pasquale Pasquino
asks Foucault about how he proceeded towards his study of criminality and
delinquency from his work on madness in the classical age.
Foucault then answers the question saying
that in the early 1950s the problem of political status of science arose and
what ideological functions it could serve in the society. Power stands for
political and economic structures of the society and knowledge stands for
sciences like theological physics, organic chemistry, psychiatry and medicine and
many more. Questions on power and knowledge were being asked in that time and
then Foucault wrote MADNESS AND CIVILIZATION which catered around the questions
on power and knowledge. Then he compares the two forms of sciences, theological
physics and organic chemistry with psychiatry; He says that the problem with
physics and chemistry is that when seeing its relations with political and
economic structures of society then it becomes complicated while psychiatry
practices with the whole range of institutions, economic requirements and
political issues of society. In THE BIRTH OF THE CLINIC he says that medicine
has a more solid scientific armor than psychiatry but it is deeply tangled in
social structures. He gives three reasons for his questions not interesting
those to whom it was addressed.
The first reason is that the Marxist
intellectuals in France wanted to gain attention of the university
administration the raised theoretical questions same as the establishment of
the administration. The intellectuals said that they are Marxist but not
strangers and are the only ones who can provide solutions to new concerns. Marxists
wanted a liberal renewal of university tradition at the same time communists
thought they are the ones who can take over and give new life to national
tradition. To Marxists history of science were more important than medicine and
psychiatry also the latter two were not serious and neither was on the same
level of classical rationalism.
The second reason was that there was no
vocabulary, terms or ready-made concepts for the power effects of psychiatry
and medicine. Post-Stalinist Stalinism won’t permit or approve of anything that
wasn’t a repetition of what was already said or repeated. Many like Marx,
Engels and Lenin had done a discourse on sciences (Science as was seen in the
19th century) and academics.
The third reason he is not very sure about
but still states it saying that he wonders whether the intellectuals of PCF (
party communist France or the communist party of France) didn’t want to confine
the political aspect of psychiatry, they were concerned about the disciplinary
grid of the society. In 1955-60 real extent of Gulag (prison houses of Stalinist
period) were not known since it was danger zone marked with warning signs. It’s
difficult to consider people’s degree of awareness. The leading party being
dominant and thus influential and in power could stop the people or prevent
them from saying a certain thing or writing about it. If Pavlovian psychiatry
was discussed among PCF intellectuals then psychiatric politics or psychiatry
as politics were hardly respectable topics. Because of political opening in
1968 Foucault could resume his discipline in penal theory and prisons.
The
second question is directed towards the concept of discontinuity.
In empirical forms of knowledge like
biology, political, economy, psychiatry and medicine the rhythm of
transformation doesn’t follow smooth. It does not seem to me to be pertinent to
history. Why there are certain changes and order of knowledge which result in
evolution and these transformation do not correspond to the calm and continuous
image which otherwise prevails.
The
third question deals with the concept of event. The interviewers said the Concept of event is
central to the thought of discontinuity. Event is what escapes our rational
grasp; it’s the domain of absolute contingency. Anthropologists analyze
structure history is of no use to them. The opposition of event and structure
is product of anthropology. Historians are trying to dismiss the event and the
event is shown as inferior order of history dealing with trivial facts, changes
etc. there are knotted problems in history which are neither trivial nor about
beautiful structures that are easy to analyze. Great internment- madness and
civilization represents knotted dichotomy of structure and event. Elaborate
this from the stand point on event.
1.
Event was evacuated by structuralism
not only from ethnology but from other sciences and history as well. He calls
himself an anti-structualist. Important thing is to not do for event what you
did for concept of structures. Everything should not be located on the level of
event but its necessary to realize that there are many events differing in
amplitude, chronology etc.
2.
Problem is to distinguish among
events, to differ the networks and levels to which they belong and reconstitute
the lines with which they are connected to one another.
3.
Refusal of analyses in terms of
symbolic field or structures, analysis will be only in terms of genealogy of
relations of force, strategic developments and tactics
4.
Reference should not be great model
of language and signs but war and battle. History has a form of war not
language but it also has no meaning because it works through relations of
power. History is intelligible and should be susceptible to analyzing smallest
details but only about struggles, strategies and tactics.
5.
Structure of communication can
account for intelligibility of conflicts unlike dialectic or semiotics.
Dialectic is avoiding the reality of conflicts by reducing it to Hegelian
skeleton, semiologists avoiding violent, bloody and lethal character by
reducing it to platonic form of language
The
fourth question is about discursivity. The interviewers say that Foucault was
the first to post the question of power regarding discourse at a time when
analysis along with semiology and structuralism were in fashion. Does question
of power means to ask who does discourse serve. The matter isn’t of analyzing
the discourse, understanding its meaning because as Foucault says discourse
must be transparent, they need no interpretation or meaning. Question of power
addressed to discourse has particular effects and implications in relation to
methodology and contemporary historical researches. Is it true? Or has Foucault
posed it?
Foucault wonders whether it’s on the left
or right that the problem of power is posed.
Right- power was posed in terms of
constitution, sovereignty etc. i.e. judicial terms
Left (Marxist) - power posed in terms of
state apparatuses.
How power would be exercised in terms of
its techniques and tactics and specificity was not ascertained. Power was
announced in a polemical and global fashion as it was in adversary camp.
Totalitarianism is where soviet socialists power was in question; power in
western capitalism was denounced by Marists as class domination, but power
mechanics were never analyzed.
After1968 on level of daily struggle and
grass root level mechanics of power was analyzed, concrete nature of power
became visible here and all this would be useful for political analysis.
Meaning psychiatric internment and mental normalization of individuals, and
penal institutions have very little to offer if one is looking for their
economic significance, on the other hand they are very essential for the
working of power. If power was calculated through economic significance then it
would be considered of very small importance.
So
Marxism and phenomenology had an objective obstacle to the forming of this
problematic of power and economy?
Foucault says yes to this question giving two
ways of analysis
1-
Constituent subject
2-
Economic; ideology and
superstructure and infrastructure
The
sixth question asks Foucault to situate genealogical approach and what made it
necessary.
Foucault wanted to see how problems of
constitution could be resolved by history not madness or criminality. But
historical contextualization needed to be something more than just revelation
of phenomenological subject. Problem can’t be solved by historicizing the
subject or fabricating it. To get rid of subject one has to dispense with
constituent subject. Therefore we can come on an analyses which can account for
constitution of subject with a historical framework- this is genealogy.
Marxist
phenomenology is screen and certain kind of Marxism is obstacle. How ideology
is screen and repression is Marxism. History comes to be thought within these
categories which give a meaning to phenomena like normalization, sexuality and
power. These two concept of screen and obstacle are utilized, on one hand is
ideology- it’ s easy to make reference back to Marx and on the other hand is
repression- concept often employed by Freud throughout the course of his
career. These thoughts and the people who employ them have nostalgia among
them; behind the concept of ideology, nostalgia of quasi-transparent form of
knowledge which is free from all error and illusion and behind the concept of
repression. Behind repression there is nostalgia of a form of power innocent of
all coercion, discipline and normalization. Ideology and repression are
negative, psychological and insufficiently analytical, in Discipline and Punish
where there is a kind of analysis that allows me to go beyond traditional forms
of explanation and intelligibility. Interviewer asks for thought on the matters
of ideology and repression. In Discipline and Punish there is positive history
emerging free of negativity and psychologism implicit in ideology and
repression.
Foucault says there is difficulty in making
use of ideology
1-
It’s supposed to count as truth and
the problem lies in seeing historically, now effect of truth are produced in
discourses which are neither true nor false.
2-
Concept of ideology refers to
concept of subject.
3-
Ideology is a secondary position
relative to something which functions as its infrastructure, as its material,
economic determinant, etc.
Repression corresponds well with whole
range of power. In Madness and Civilization he posits the existence of a sort
of living, voluble and anxious madness which the mechanisms of power and
psychiatry were supposed to have come to repress and reduce to silence.
Repression is inadequate for the productive aspect of power. When we define
effect of power as repression, one adopts purely juridical conception of such
power. We identify power with a no saying law. Power carries force of
prohibition, but this is all negative because had power only saying no would we
obey it? Power is a force that induces pleasure, knowledge and produces
discourse that is why it is accepted and hold good, it’s a productive network
and not something whose function is repression.
In Discipline and Punish he wanted to show
how 17th and 18th century onwards there was a
technological take off in productivity of power. There was a new economy of
power which allowed effects of power to circulate in a manner continuous,
uninterrupted, adapted and individualized through entire social body. These techniques
are effective and efficient and not risky or wasteful
The
eighth question is about repression of sexuality. Bourgeoisie class represented
sexuality, sexual desire etc. there were many campaigns against masturbation
and homosexuality in 18th and 19th century respectively.
These discourses on sexuality make possible a whole series of interventions of
surveillance, circulation and control which give appearance of repression.
Bourgeoisie society repressed sexuality to
the point it would be considered no-existent. Freud discovered that eve
children have sexuality. Children’s sex is spoken in pedagogy and child
medicine. The discourse of sexuality was seen as problematic by the parents and
this focus was to prevent children from having a sexuality.it was put in
children’s head that this relationship with their body was also problematic.
The consequence was that children would be under vigilance of their parents,
the result then is a sexuality of familiar domain. Sexuality is a positive
product of sexuality then power was repression of sexuality. One must free
oneself of juridical schematism of all previous characteristics of nature of
power. A historical problem arises of discovering why west insisted on seeing
the power it exercised as juridical and negative rather than as technical and
positive.
The
west maybe sees its power as juridical because the thought power is mediated
through the forms prescribed in the great juridical and philosophical theories.
There is an immutable guilt between those who exercise power and those who
undergo it.
This can be or can’t be related to monarchy
because it developed during middle ages at the backdrop of previously endemic
struggles between feudal power authorities. Monarchy presented itself as a
power capable of ending a war, violence and pillage and saying no to these
struggles and private Feuds. It was accepted because of its juridical and
negative function. Sovereign law and prohibition formed a system of
representation; political theory wasn’t obsessed with person of sovereign. We
need a political philosophy that is not affected by problem of sovereignty and
so it won’t be around law and prohibition. King’s head needs to be cut off.
People
are trying to replace King’s head with discipline (17th century
comprising functions of surveillance, normalization and control, punishment,
correction, education). Where does this system come from? Why it emerges and
what its use? There is a tendency to attribute a subject to great molar,
totalitarian subject- modern state (16th and 17th
century) which brought with it a professional army or admin bureaucracy.
A problem of state means problem in terms
of sovereign and sovereignty in terms of law. If phenomena of power is
dependent on state apparatuses this means grasping them as repressive; army as
power as death and police and justice as punitive instance. He is not saying
state is not important but wants to say the relation of power and its analysis
must be made of state and it must extend beyond limits of state in two senses-
1-
Because state can’t occupy all
actual power relations
2-
State can operate on basis of other,
already existing power relations
State is superstructural in relation to a
whole series of power networks that invest body, sexuality; knowledge, technology
etc.
The
interviewers say can’t we open about possibility of overcoming the dualism of
political struggles that feed on opposition between state and revolution.
Doesn’t it indicate a wider field of conflict than where the adversary is
state?
State consists in codes of power relations
which made its functioning possible and revolution works with different codes
of same relations. It means there are many revolutions as many as there are
possible subversive recodification of power relations and that can conceive
revolutions perfectly which leaves essentially untouched power relations which
form basis for the functioning of the state.
The
twelfth question deals with Power as an object of research that one has to
arrive at the idea that politics is continuation of war. One has to invest
classes with formula. Is military model the best for describing power, is war
simply a metaphor? Or is it the literal, regular, regular, everyday mode of
operation.
As one detaches power with its techniques
and procedures form of law one is driven to ask the question- isn’t war a form
of warlike domination? Shouldn’t all problems of power be n terms of relations
of war? Isn’t power a generalized war considering forms of peace and state?
Peace would be a form of war and the state a means of waging it. Who wages war
against whom? Is it between two classes or more? What’s role of army and
military in civil society? What are the concept of tactics and strategies for
analyzing structures and political processes? What is mode of transformation of
power relations?
The
thirteenth question in on the concept of population. Moheau saw the problem in
political control of population. Does this disciplinary power act alone?
Doesn’t it draw support from the conception of population; we then have on one
hand molar body and micro body. Molar is body of population with discourses and
micro is docile, individual bodies. Asks how you see nature of relationships
which are engendered between these different bodies- molar and micro?
During 18th and 19th
century, with new technical inventions a new power also emerged which was more
important than constitutional reforms and new forms of government. Leftist
view- power is that which abstracts, which negates the body, represses,
suppresses and so forth. Foucault thinks that these new technologies of power
are concrete and have precise character; they have a grasp of a multiple and
different reality. A new form of power comes with exercises through social
production and social service. It obtained productive services from
individuals. A real and effective incorporation of power needed to gain access
to bodies of individuals, their acts, attitude and behavior. Schools were a
course of manipulation and conditioning. The new power needed to grapple with problem
of population. Problem of demography, public health, hygiene, longevity,
fertility and housing condition arise. Political significance of sex- sex is
between discipline of body and controlling of population.
Interviewers
say how your work is related to everyday political struggle. What is the role
of individuals?
Like proletariat is bearer of universal
because of historical necessity, similarly intellectuals through moral,
theoretical and political choice aspires to be bearer of universal. The intellectual
means to be the consciousness/ conscience of all. Intellectuals can also work
within specific sector where their own conditions of life situate them
(hospital, asylum etc.). This gave them awareness about struggles and
non-universal problems. Intellectuals are close to proletariat for 2 reasons
1-
It’s a question of real material and
everyday struggles.
2-
Confronted in the same category as
proletariat.
Two types of intellectuals are specific and
universal.
The figure of specific intellectuals
emerged after Second World War. The discourse of nuclear threat was universal
and the atomic scientist intellectuals were seeked by political powers because
of his knowledge and at this level he became a political threat.
The universal intellectuals derived from
specific figures. The man of justice, power, law, who is against abuse,
arrogance of wealth, believes in justice and equity. The Foucault talks about
Darwin, post- Darwin, and the figure of atomic scientists started appearing
clearly. Debates began between theorists of socialism and theorists of
relativity.
Biology, physics were limited to zone of
specific intellectual. His real importance came from technico- scientific
structures in economic and strategic domain. He is no longer ‘writer of genius’
but ‘absolute savant’. He opposes unjust sovereign. He is strategist of life
and death. Foucault says that we are experiencing the disappearance of the
figure of ‘great writer’.
There are certain dangers that the specific
intellectuals face:
1-
Danger of remaining at the level of
conjectural struggles.
2-
Pressing demands restricted to
particular sectors
3-
There is risk of letting himself be
manipulated by political parties and trade union apparatuses
4-
Risk of being followed by limited
groups
An example of this is France. There is
struggle around the prison, penal system and police- Judicial systems because
it developed in ‘solitary’, social worker and ex-prisoner. Separate themselves
from the forces which would make them grow. There is a new ideology that makes
the criminal into a victim and pure rebel. Return to 19th century
anarchist themes was possible because new strategies failed. As a result there
is a deep split between these campaigns and only few masses have good reason
not to accept it as a valid political currency.
Function of specific intellectuals need to
be reconsidered but not abandoned despite the nostalgia for universal
intellectuals. The role of specific intellectual’s becomes more and more
important in proportion to the political responsibilities which he is obliged
to accept. It would be dangerous to remove him from power- on ground that his specialty
does not concern the masses.
1-
Specific intellectuals serve interest
of state or capital.
2-
He propagates a scientific ideology
Foucault then talks about truth. Truth
doesn’t lack in power and also is not reward of free spirits. It induces
regular effects of power each society has its own rule of truth and politics of
truth. Political economy of truth is characterized by five important traits.
1-
Truth is centered on the form of
scientific discourse and the institutions which produce it.
2-
It is subject to constant economic
and political incitement
3-
It is object, under diverse forms, of
immense diffusion and consumption
4-
It is produced and transmitted under
the control, dominant if not exclusive, of a few great political and economic
apparatuses.
5-
It is the issue of a whole political
debate and social conformation.
Intellectual is not the ‘bearer of
universal values’. It’s the person occupying a specific position. The
intellectual has threefold specificity.
1-
Of class position
2-
That od his conditions of life and
work, linked to his condition as an intellectual
3-
The specificity of the politics of
truth in our societies
With this last factor the position can talk
on a general significance and his specific struggle can be unprofessional. The
intellectuals can struggle a general level of rule of truth which is essential
to structure of society. It is necessary to think of the political problems of
intellectuals not in terms of ‘science’ and ‘ideology’, but in terms of ‘truth’
and ‘power’. And thus the question of the professionalization of intellectuals
and the division between intellectuals and manual labor can be envisaged in a
new way.
Then Foucault gives certain propositions
about truth.
1-
Truth is to be understood as a
system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, distribution,
circulation and operation of statements.
2-
Truth is linked in a circular
relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it.
The rule of truth is not merely ideological
or superstructural; it was a condition of the formation and development of
capitalism. The essential political problem for the intellectual is not to
criticize the ideological contents supposedly linked to science, or to ensure
that his own scientific practice is accompanied by a correct ideology, but that
of ascertaining the possibility of constituting a new politics of truth. What we
have to change is the production of truth. We have to detach the power of truth
from the forms of hegemony, social, economic and cultural, within which it
operates at the present time.
The political question, to sum up, is not
error, illusion, alienated consciousness or ideology; it is truth itself.
Deepali Yadav
Student at Kamala Nehru
College (DU)
Contact me @ deepaliyadav2896@gmail.com
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