Reaching out through the void, we come to know ourselves.
How has society shaped the character of Man? Foucault’s work on power relations centered on this question, and it affected his work significantly. Over the past several weeks, I have explored Foucault’s work in epistemology, aesthetics, methodology, and ethics. Today I hope to wrap up everything I’ve been reading while covering the remainder of Foucault’s work on power. So, who are we?
Foucault’s analysis of the Pastoral mode colors a broad portion of his analysis of power. The Pastoral mode primarily emerged from the Hebraic, Egyptian, or Oriental social system. In Oriental societies, the shepherd was the head of governance (pp. 300-303), e.g., Pharaoh. In the Hebraic mode, this political leader wields power over his flock and not the land; gathers, guides, and leads his flock; leads his flock to salvation by providing for their emotional and physical needs; and at least, the shepherd has a duty to the people, not himself. Foucault notes that while this does describe the Hebraic themes of the shepherd, it doesn’t necessarily encapsulate the role of the shepherd completely, but it is good enough.
According to Foucault, Greek society didn’t really have a Pastoral mode; the shepherd wasn’t a recurring theme in Greek society (pp. 304-307) as a political figure. Citing The Statesman, Foucault notes the limited role of the pastoralist in Greek society. Each individual in the Greek milieu is seen as a kind of pastoralist if the Pastoral mode can be identified in Greece. The politician, however, i.e., the leader of the polis, is not considered a shepherd. Instead, he is more closely related to a constituter of culture; i.e., he binds men to various things considered important to the polis. While the Oriental mode (i.e., the Pastoral Mode) seems to influence the Greek world, specifically Plato through Pythagoras, it was generally impugned.
With the advent of the Christian mode, Pastoralism became more widespread within Greece and Europe (pp. 308-311). The Christian shepherd, i.e., the pastor, must render an account of what his flock does; he also demands his flock’s submission; understands each member of his flock (which is achieved through the confessional mode – he leverages their accounts against them to get them to submit); and lastly, he emphasizes mortification – i.e., the pastor was aiming his flock towards worldly renunciation. Foucault seemingly suggests that the union between the Greek city-state mode and the Christian Pastoral mode made the West “very demonic” (p. 311).
From this historical analysis, he wants to know how these experiences (i.e., the experiences of the Pastoral and city-state mode) relate to knowledge and power. Foucault notes that the Pastoral mode did not die out during the Middle Ages (p. 312). The Pastoral mode served as the rational framework to discipline people; it was effectively hijacked by the state and Power for their interests (pp. 313-314). Remarkably, this idea is similar to Bertrand de Jouvenel’s analysis of the state’s ascent. The admixture of state power and the Christian Pastoral mode produced the state’s rationality. The state’s rationality established the rules that defined the art of governance. Circularly, the state justified its own rationality, not some general rationale outside the state, and these rational systems were self-reinforcing. Knowledge was essential for the state to control the population and defend itself, i.e., to reinforce itself. Thus, it established the statisticians or arithmeticians to gather knowledge. To gather this statistical and arithmetic knowledge, the state made use of the police.
The police, Foucault notes, were concerned with everything. Their primary concern, however, is Man and his relation to the state. By constantly surveilling the state’s members, the police ensured the state’s vigor and communication between men. In the minds of people arguing for the state, because the state’s members could communicate with each other, they were strengthened and – thus – served the state.
According to Foucault, this historical analysis depends on four assumptions (p. 325). Firstly, Foucault thinks power is about how people relate to each other and subjugate each other. Thus, the Europeans were subjugated by the state’s rationale through power relations. Secondly, governance involves a particular type of rationality. Without this rationality, i.e., a socially constructed rationale, the state could not justify itself, and its actions, defend itself, or gather information. Penultimately, the state’s or government’s rationale – to exert power, i.e., subjugate its people – must be questioned; i.e., a power game must be played with the state to prevent stultified rules from delimiting the individual. Lastly, the state is the central, “most redoubtable,” form of human governance, thus, if one must resist the state through power games, challenging the state’s rationale will be exceedingly challenging.
What Foucault is pointing to is the fact that the state effectively made subjects or – even – the subjects made themselves.
How did the state achieve this? In the first part of The Subject and Power, Foucault reviews his idea of how the Pastoral system was used by Power to subjugate the people, coordinate them as a population, gather information on them as individuals, and control them with the police. Importantly, he’s interested in how this shaped the European subject, at least. He concludes the first section of this paper by referencing Kant, who asked a question that defined the European mind for generations: Who are we as enlightened beings and what does this mean? It is Foucault’s interest in this question, i.e., how Europeans have been subjugated through the pastoral system of the state via government (through rational systems especially), that is his attention’s focus.
In the second section of The Subject and Power, Foucault clearly states that he does not want us to confuse power relations, communication systems, or objective capacities. Communication systems could best be described as the systems of signs, their meaning, and how they relate to a conveyed message. Objective capacities are certain intrinsic or developed traits that create hierarchical competency sets (i.e., the ability and capacity to argue, wrestle, do arithmetic, read and write, etc.). These three relate to each other as constants in themselves, ensuring various formulae: i.e., disciplines. These show how systems of objectivity and power relations interact, i.e., “are welded together” (p. 339). These disciplines have enabled Europeans to adjust to changing economic and social conditions. The question Foucault leaves open: What are Power Relations?
Thankfully, Foucault answers this in the next section of his paper. Power relations are defined by how the subject acts upon an object, generating a field of potential responses, results, consequences, reactions, and interventions (p. 340). Foucault emphasizes that these power relations are really a question of government – i.e., the way in which the conduct of individuals or groups might be directed (p. 341). Power, according to Foucault, cannot exist without freedom. The field of potential necessary for power relations to occur could not exist without the people’s freedom. Rather than being antagonistic to freedom, Foucault believes the relationship between freedom and power is agonistic. In other words, the people subjugate themselves by freely interacting with the state, which the state permits, letting the state evolve with respect to its citizens’ needs (p. 342) so the state or Power can get the population to serve his needs.
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Foucault establishes five points to convey how power relations operate. Firstly, The system of differentiations. These “permit one to act upon the actions of others.” These can be juridical or cultural differences; differences in wealth, property, or status; differences in the ability to produce goods, culture, linguistic techniques, etc. Secondly, Types of Objectives. These are the different goals a subject may want to achieve. Thirdly, Instrumental Modes. This point relates to how people achieve their aims relative to their point of differentiation. Penultimately, Forms of Institutions. These are the various institutions that different modes may be carried out within, to achieve particular goals, based on one’s points of differentiation. And Finally, The degrees of rationalization. This point relates to the intersecting or self-contained rational system the subject is engaging with, defining the institution he’s carrying out a particular mode within, to achieve a particular aim, delimited by his points of differentiation (p. 344). If anyone is familiar with the concept of intersectionality, this model seems highly similar.
Foucault suggests in parts three and four of The Subject and Power that the free interaction between individuals enables power games to be established through the subjects’ power relations. How people differ, their goals, mode of engagement, the institutions they engage within, and the rationales defining those institutions and society are all highly relevant factors if one wants to understand these power games and how they relate to the subject's development. In other words, through games of competitive selection, certain forms of Man are generated and established within the society for Power’s or the state’s ability to maintain dominance over its population and compete with other states. The “Who” in our initial question is thus answered: we are a product of natural, sexual, and artificial selection, the latter two of which can be understood through power relations and power games; we are creatures capable of shaping ourselves. Enlightened beings thus recognize they are shaping themselves and can, thus, do so consciously.
From Foucault’s aesthetic work, it should be clear that spaces – specifically heterotopias – are an object of interest as they relate to power. His work on these matters is always – in my opinion – eye-opening. In an interview with him on the subject (Space, Knowledge, and Power), he shows the ways architects, the state, and government (as a techne) have shaped the structures and spaces we live, work, shop, or socialize within, at least. Take for example a shopping mall. I remember as a child walking through shopping malls. The windows would be on the ceiling, there were many places to rest, room for children to play but always – from side to side – places to shop. If you sat on a bench, your eyes would be drawn to a shop. And after you’d walked around all day, you could go to the food court where bright colors would draw your attention to food filled with sugar so you could get addicted to the location. The entire space was structured or designed for you to shop, buy, consume, and repeat. This kind of analysis constituted by how power relations are established through the logic and rationale of a space, and the logic and rationale of the society the space is contained within, can be applied to various settings. Truly, it’s a fascinating work. The space, as Foucault makes clear, can focus on security, as well.
In The Risks of Security, an interview conducted in 1983, Foucault covers various topics, including the right to take one’s life, social security, and the citizen's relation to the limits imposed on him in a state that provides him security. Working conditions are also a topic of discussion within this interview. How do, for example, the problems of society – including the risks posed by working conditions – contribute to the social costs and limits placed on the whole population? Eugenics also is tangentially discussed in the interview. Foucault doesn’t have a solution to the problems eugenics poses. The state’s members could effectively subjugate themselves to eugenic selection systems through the power relations they establish with the state. In the desire to establish security, well-being, and a strong population, the populace may favor policies that artificially select traits that increase their security, well-being, and strength and impose those selective standards on themselves, developing rationales that favor eugenic selection. The space, thus, can select for these traits, over traits deemed dysgenic, and enrich them through governmental techniques.
Ultimately, as is generally the case, Foucault thinks the individual or groups have a role to play in their subjugation. I.e., they must negotiate with the state to recognize themselves in their choices, especially as those choices relate to their security or the state’s. For example, if there are alcoholics that drink daily, there might be certain costs imposed on them for their choices. These individuals – and the people around them – should have a say in how these costs (these burdens) – affect them. Foucault shows that these problems do not require the state or social body exclusively. The social body could resolve the social security costs or the state – through the population’s will – can resolve these social security costs. Whether the problem will be resolved by the people or the state is up to the state and its population(s) ability to negotiate on these matters.
Punishment – the costs imposed on the population for their socially inappropriate behavior – also is an interest for Foucault. In What is Called “Punishing,” Foucault explores the idea of the penal system. What is remarkable is his hesitancy for prison reform and well-intentioned solutions. He recognizes, and I think he’s right, that punishment is a social game. If the state and penal system abdicate their responsibilities, punishing people who Foucault regards – explicitly – as evil will fall into private hands. The inability to escape punishment – as if it is a requirement – makes it an exceedingly complex problem. Foucault also seems to believe that penal institutions can exacerbate the criminal’s tendencies rather than resolve or diminish them. Once again, it seems Foucault’s solution would be some ethical or existential self-development concerning these issues, tied up with real-world interactions that serve as the factual basis for any theory that explicitly justifies some end.
In Interview with Actes, Foucault elaborates on his thoughts surrounding social punishment and prison reform. In this piece, Foucault seems very tentative about prison reform. He is also seemingly interested in how therapeutic practices are confused with punitive practices. He doesn’t think punitive practices should be replaced by collective justice or the “people’s justice.” If the judicial system turns to restorative and therapeutic justice, but it also abandons the penal system, the people are left to punish criminals themselves. Punishment is determinate. As I recall, this problem of vigilante justice is a consistent problem when the state does not do its job. The state needs to punish criminals – the question is how it should do so without utterly violating the rights of the criminal.
Unfortunately, if the state is permitted to preserve itself for the people's sake, it can end up slaughtering them. How does the state achieve this? In The Political Technology of Individuals, Foucault explores this topic. The questions defining this piece: How do our history and practices of self-regulation relate to each other; How did we develop our identity through certain ethical techniques of the self; and thus – most importantly – how do people use political techniques to become a society, i.e., a social entity? His answer: first, the state established a technique of governance that – to reiterate – made it dependent on the acquisition of knowledge to preserve its strength. The goal of the various governmental techniques was to ensure that a state could compete with other states. Lastly, to achieve this aim, it defined the individual as a servant of the state. As far as the government was concerned, if the individual could not or did not serve the state, he did not exist. To achieve the ends and means of state governance, the state recruited and deployed the police – as I previously covered. Again, the role of the police was to ensure the state’s survival by invigorating its citizens. The target, again, of the police as a tool of surveillance and coordination (and public well-being) was the total population. According to Foucault, utopian ideals developed around using the police to achieve the ends and means of state governance, which were reflected in the laws of a society; i.e., to ensure it was properly ordered – through the use of governing technics, the state used the police to organize, coordinate, and order the population into various social forms, forming a society.
Foucault’s question: How did a system designed to serve the people contribute to their slaughter? The state, as a service for the total population, required its citizens to serve it, and if by dying they ensured its continuation, their slaughter was necessary. In other words: they were slaughtered for the state’s and Power’s “greater good.”
Through many of Foucault’s pieces, he makes clear that individuals are responsible for governing themselves. People justify the violence that is -- or can be -- used against them. They also are responsible for setting up intransigent standards that they will not cross for themselves or -- if they do not -- they will put themselves on a precipitous path that leads to Power’s subjugation of them. The individual, engaging through his creative and intellectual capacities, according to Foucault, must critique the thoughtless thoughts so many of us engage with if people genuinely desire a better society and world. But he also tends to be cautious – if we undo a (seemingly) anachronistic institution through some power game, what chaos (field of power relations) might we unleash? As was the case with his advice to the Iranians and his critique of the Iranian regime, while it's important to resist the government if you feel it's illegitimate, you should be cautious about installing another form of Power that lacks the necessary morals to govern dutifully. One, according to Foucault, also shouldn’t delude themselves that Law is a way of achieving the order, stability, or security one wants from society. Foucault sees Law as a generator of disorder – effectively, conflict. And in many ways, he’s correct. Law is like war, hence the advent of asymmetrical lawfare in places like Israel, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
So, what have I taken away from Foucault’s work?
Foucault’s work is clearly complex and dynamic. His ethical work requires intense introspection and exploration on the part of the subject to discover the truth about himself and develop a character capable of confronting the challenging environments he finds himself within. This character work -- then -- bleeds into his aesthetic work. Using his archeological and genealogical methods, Foucault can capture the feeling of an environment that both shapes and can be shaped by the character he develops. Throughout his ethical, aesthetic, methodological, and epistemological works, Foucault intensely focuses on the written word as a delimiting and affordance-generating device. In the process, he acquires knowledge about the rationales of the systems he’s engaging with and the meanings of the languages he’s interpreting. With this knowledge, he shapes himself, his environment, and those around him by challenging them through critique.
Power relations are at the heart of this critique. As a subject, Foucault’s work enables a subject to act upon another subject as an object, generating a kind of power game constituted by power relations. Foucault’s ethical work requires the subject to develop an understanding of themselves, to care for themselves and -- thus -- know themselves as they are and could be. This knowledge allows one to effectively engage with another object during a power game. In conjunction with his aesthetic work, deeply understanding the rationale of a system, and becoming conscious of the way a space affects the body and mind, the power games Foucault describes can be deeply enriched.
At the heart of Foucault’s work is a challenge to experience the world. He seems critical of pure theory, of top-down knowledge bereft of tangible, on-the-ground experience. Instead, he challenges the subject of his work to make mistakes, engage with the world, and develop knowledge (connaissance) out of those experiences. This experiential knowledge can, then, lead to goals or theoretical objectives (savoir). When he challenges the bureaucrats' unthinking and possessed behavior in psychiatric hospitals or prisons (not that their work is invalid), he is attacking this theoretical knowledge, constituted by anemic or unfounded beliefs. By irritating them, he gets them to see patterns of behavior they had not noticed before.
Through the creation of a character, a representational self that can eventually be inhabited as if it is the self, an individual can engage in the very power games capable of generating the affordances (power relations) that allow an individual to change how he’s governed in specific spaces and the world. However, this point needs an addendum. This process is founded upon a personal, “universal” morality for Foucault. For example, he uses this "universal" morality in his criticism of the Iran regime. Yet, Foucault’s “universal” morality is self-generated. It is a product of his ethical work and it is, thus, only nominally universal. It might apply at all times and all places to Foucault but how does this mean it must apply to the Iranians? What Foucault’s ethical model, what many ethical models I’ve seen are lacking is a genuine universal morality. These ethical systems have a tremendously difficult time playing power games with transient moralists (consequentialists, essentially) without betraying their subjective interests over any other interests. Maybe there’s no solution to this. Perhaps a Man’s form is more important than his values. Still, what’s good for him is not necessarily good for everyone else, but Foucault seems to mistake the two.
Ultimately, Foucault’s work deeply challenges the subject to reflect upon the world he’s living within, his relationship with himself (i.e., so he can care for himself), others, his surroundings, and the society he resides within. While not everyone can do the work Foucault has done and convicts us to do if we want to live in a better world, it is an interesting start. The inability of most people to do the work Foucault prescribes is a real challenge for ethical models generally. Just as a society governed by intellectual or enlightened individuals will breed resentment and conflict because most people cannot become enlightened, most people will not be able to change their society or the world because they cannot do Foucault’s ethical work. Still, with the inclusion of Foucault’s conception of power games and relations, those who can do the ethical work demanded by Foucault may find that – if they remain organized – they can preserve the authority and power they’ve acquired, specifically the power to change the world.
Bibliography
Foucault M. and Faubion J.D. (editor) (1994). Michel Foucault: Power. Edition Gallimard.
