Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that "to be great is to be misunderstood".
This is a coat that fits Foucault perfectly.
The French philosopher
is one of the most famous and infamous thinkers of the 20th century.
He is idolized and demonized as one of the great
figureheads of Postmodernism and this polarized reputation
is mirrored by the reception of the topic at the center of his work: Power.
Foucault accomplishes one of those rare moments in the history of philosophy
when a concept that has stood before our eyes for centuries
is suddenly turned on its head.
His innovative analysis of power transforms our understanding of
the concept from a hierarchical domination
into an oceanic force of nature.
In this episode, we're going to explore Foucault's theory of power,
why it is so revolutionary, and how it can be applied
to understand our everyday world and our own lives.
In coming to terms with Foucault theory of power.
The first thing we have to distinguish between is the theoretical
and the empirical levels of power
The empirical level is the study of forms
that power has crystallized into over the course of history.
It is these empirical trends that Foucault studies in his books
on the prison system, mental asylums, science and sexuality.
A step removed from this historical crystallization of power
there is the theoretical level of power, which is the fundamental nature of power
that is true across all of its manifestations.
This is the study of power itself,
and it's this level we're going to be exploring in this episode.
In exploring this theoretical level of power.
it would be helpful to first talk about what power isn't.
This in itself is an important part of Foucault's work and will serve
as a helpful backdrop against which his own theory will be seen much clearer.
According to Foucault there is a tendency "deeply rooted in the West"
commonly found in many "political analyses of power"
and sexuality to understand the concept in a certain way.
This misconception sees power as a top down phenomenon
and something that fans of conspiracy theories, Hobbes' Leviathan,
Orwell's 1984 and Gramsci's hegemony would be quite familiar.
In this view, Power is seen as something
that is wielded by the powerful over the not so powerful.
Central to this conception is the idea
that power always operates negatively.
That is to say power tells us what is allowed and what is forbidden
and it punishes us if we transgress these rules.
But the trouble with this misconception for Foucault is that it functions
like misdirection — causing us to overlook the majority of Power's workings
because we are fixated on a single, narrow understanding of it.
This perspective evolved out of a legalistic way of viewing power,
and it has a long history in the West, which Foucault and some of his College
de France lectures traced as far back as Aeschylus' plays about Oedipus.
It is one way of understanding power, but it is only a fraction of it,
and it is, in fact, a misrepresentation of the whole.
Power is not the power of the state dominating over its subjects,
nor is it the domination of one class over another as it is in Marxist thinking.
These conceptions of power all miss the wood for the trees.
They are partial views that obscure the fundamental nature of power.
So what is power then?
If it's not the potency of sovereigns or the machinations of the state or class
struggle or the dynamics of repression, then what is power?
In his 1976 work "La Volonté de Savoir", or "The Will to Knowledge"
there is a series of about a dozen pages where Foucault packs
in a condensed exploration of his theory of power.
You have to remember the vast majority of Foucault's writings
were investigations into the historical crystallization of power
in institutions like the asylum and the prison system.
He's very careful, even in his lectures, in speaking about power in itself.
The first thing to understand is that for Foucault, Power, is immanent.
That is to say, it isn't something concrete or tangible,
but it is nevertheless like gravity or magnetism,
a real and measurable force in the world.
We might not be able to observe gravity directly, but its effects are everywhere.
And by taking a step back from these empirical effects,
we can form a theoretical understanding of gravity.
The same goes for power.
It's an immanent force of nature that operates independently of individuals.
Foucault explicitly draws on this analogy with the hard sciences.
In his theory of power, referring regularly to the "micro-physics of power".
But of course it should be noted that where gravity is a quality
of the physical world, Power is a component of the social world.
Unlike Nietzsche, Foucault doesn't make a metaphysical conception out of power.
This leads us onto another important tenet of Foucault's:
power is intentional and non-subjective.
On the face of it, this seems like a paradoxical assertion,
but it's quite sensible and it dovetails nicely
with what we've been exploring recently on the channel.
By intentional, Foucault means that we make choices as free agents.
We have intention in the decisions that we make, but these choices
are steered by non subjective forces If you've ever been at a party
where someone asked you to put on a song, then you will recognize this distinction.
Yes, you have free choice.
Sure, you are technically free to put on Killing Me Softly by the Fugees.
That is within your power.
This is what Foucault means by saying the power is intentional.
Power is also non subjective.
You can't control what's cool and what's not.
This is the non subjective ocean of power
that shapes and guides your decision in certain directions.
Those of you who have seen the previous video
on the four quadrants model will easily recognize this as the distinction
between the first quadrant and the third quadrant.
There's the intentional domain of the internal individual Q1.
And there's the non-subjective domain of the internal collective Q3.
This brings us on to another core component of Foucault's theory,
and that is resistance.
In the Will to Knowledge, he writes that "where there is power,
there is resistance and yes, or rather consequently
this resistance is never in the position of exteriorrity in relation to power."
The final point is an important one.
Rather than seeing resistance as external to power Foucault sees it as internal.
In the classical model, the revolutionaries and rebels
might be seen as resisting the power structure from the outside.
There is the power and there is us.
Not so in Foucault's theory.
Resistance is a fundamental part of the power dynamic.
If there is no resistance, there's no power
tied up with this, we find freedom.
He writes that there cannot be relations of power unless the subjects are free.
If there are relations of power throughout every social field,
it is because there is freedom everywhere.
To return to our example.
While the power of context and common sense are trying to force your choice
in a certain direction, you can resist if you want to.
You are free to put on killing me softly.
Who knows?
You might just be able to pull it off as ironic and even be cool.
Power is funny that way.
All of which brings us on to the core piece
of Foucault's Theory of power and that is force relations.
Force relations are the atoms of Foucault's bottom up power system.
In the Will to Knowledge, Foucault gives a definition of power
that begins as follows: "It seems to me that power must be understood
in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations.
Immanent in the sphere in which they operate" We've already covered
what we mean by immanent here.
But now let's talk about multiplicity of force relations.
Let's say you're getting ready to go to school one morning
as you think about what you're going to wear for the day.
You can feel the tug of various force relations trying to yank you
in different directions.
For a start, there are the force relations visible to the classical understanding
of power, the considerations of domination from above.
You have to worry about the school's dress code and whatever laws
your country might have.
So if you're in France, you can't wear a niqab.
If you're in Saudi Arabia, you can't not wear a niqab and so on.
But in Foucault's theory, this is just the beginning.
It's also the opinions of your parents.
There's the opinion
of whatever clique you're in at school, like Goths, jocks, or nerds.
Then there's your other schoolmates.
And beyond that,
there's a general consideration of what's in fashion and what's cool.
These are the multiplicity of forces nations the Foucault is referring to.
And they don't pull on you individually.
They all operate all at once.
Just like different minerals dissolve and diffuse through a body of water,
these force relations are simultaneously active in the same place.
You these force relations are the centerpiece of Foucault's theory of power
— they are the different elements
coaxing and coerce and you in different directions.
These force relations don't remain static and contained in one individual.
However, And this is where things get really interesting.
These local force relations, the feeling of your friends, peers
and parents opinions all pulling at you don't exist in isolation from each other.
They don't just act on you, pulling you this way or that.
They act on each other.
Having established the multiplicity of force relations
Foucault goes on to talk about "the process which, through ceaseless
struggles and confrontations, transforms, strengthens or reverses them as a support
which these force relations find in one another, thus forming a chain or a system.
Or, on the contrary, the disjunctions and contradictions which isolate them
from one another." So these force relations struggle with each other.
On a side note, you'll notice in all of this the essential importance
of war to Foucault's framing of power In his 1975 work
Discipline and Punish Foucault writes that one should "take as power's model
a perpetual battle rather than a contract regulating the transaction
or the conquest of territory." This takes us back to Heraclitus,
and Nietzsche and the central place
that struggle and adversity takes in their metaphysics
So these individual force relations don't just act on you.
They act on each other.
And the one hand we have them struggling and confronting each other.
This confrontation can lead this force relations to transform and strengthen
or to reverse.
But and this is where it gets really interesting.
Force relations don't just struggle with each other.
They can also support one another and bond together to form chains or systems.
Let's think about this in terms of the getting dressed for school example.
If we look at the different force relations at play,
we can see how some combat and isolate and some support and combine.
You might see the opinions of your parents, the school's dress code
and your country's laws supporting each other
and pushing you in one direction.
On the other hand, you might have the opinions of your peers
and of what's in fashion working together.
This combination of force relations might be struggling
against the more conservative force relations of the other group.
Both groups of force relations might be strongly antagonistic
to some innate desire in you that wants to dress like Bozo the Clown.
So already at the local level of your morning clothing choice,
we can see the wrestling of many collections of force relations.
But this doesn't stop at the individual level.
The final part of Foucault's definition of power moves from talking
about these chains and systems of force relations to "the strategies
in which they take effect whose general design or institutional
crystallization is embodied in the state apparatus,
In the formulation of the law, in the various social hegemonies."
So now we are moving from the realm of micro physics
into the macro realm of culture.
Local force relations — the opinions of your friends,
your classmates, your parents — are what Foucault, again
using the language of warfare, calls tactics.
Tactics are local, they are micro.
But the macro level, we have strategies
as we've seen force relations can work together.
The force relations of your parents
opinions can join with those of the school and the state.
In fact, since the school's theory of power is bottom up,
it has local micro opinions like your parents,
that ultimately creates the force relations of the school and the state.
Their opinions join with those of other parents and like minded parties.
And these tributaries of force
relations become rivers and gather more and more steam
as they head to the great ocean of globalized influence.
Greta Thunberg is a perfect example of this.
Her tactical use of force relations, organizing a walkout from school,
converged with a greater trend in the substrate of power.
Her local tactical force relations got swept up in
a much bigger strategical chain of force relations
that had money and influence and brought her to the world stage.
On a side note, it's also the perfect example of the intentional non subjective.
Neither she nor anyone else, for that matter,
could have predicted that her local tactical action
could have had such major resonance in the non subjective ocean of power,
which goes to show the dynamic living thing that power is the strategic
level is a greater collection of shared force relations.
As these strategical alliances grow larger and denser, in time
we see what Foucault terms "institutional crystallization".
These chains and systems of force relations crystallize into institutions.
This could be a series of laws like the Civil Rights Act, the Paris
Climate Agreement.
Or it could be a whole
new form of government like happened in the wake of the American Revolution,
the French Revolution and the Bolshevik Revolution.
What started as a discontent of a few as a small resistance
against an entrenched power in time formed a chain of allied force relations
and ultimately led to the toppling of governments
or massive innovations of law and the way we organize society.
It would also be interesting to explore the connections between this conception
of power and Foucault and the Jugian analysis of gods and mythology.
In future episodes, I'd love to follow up this trail
and explore and map over between Foucault and Jung.
I think what Foucault calls Micro Physics of power would mix very curiously
with the idea of Gods as archetypal forces in the collective unconscious.
Could the ancient gods be seen as chains of force relations?
And what would ritual and sacrifice look like through that lens?
It's a fascinating stream of thoughts to consider.
But for now, though, that's everything.
For this episode of The Living Philosophy.
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Thank you for watching.