Please note: this post is under construction whilst I read the article below. This notice will be removed when it’s complete.

The subject and power

Why study power? The question of the Subject

Foucault states that it his intention to establish the historicity of the modes by which individuals become the subjects of power. Foucault believes there are three modes of objectification by which a person becomes a subject; the subject being the focus of his work. These modes are:

1. Modes of inquiry that attempt take on the status of science e.g. the analysis of economics and wealth through the measurement and examination and objectification of the productive subject and the objectification of the fact of a person’s being alive in the study of natural history.
2. Modes of objectifying through “dividing practices” whether that be dividing the subject from others or dividing the subject internally e.g. the good and bad, the sick and healthy, and the rich and poor.
3. Modes by which human beings turn themselves into subjects e.g. objects of their own sexuality.

Foucault notes that an examination of the concept of power had, until his analysis of the subject, only relied on a study of the legitimation of power through models offered by the legal system and of institutional models through examination of the nature of the state.

So what does Foucault mean when he discusses power? In order to outline a new economy of power relations we need to look, as a starting point, the forms of resistance against different forms of power. These forms of resistance are a “chemical catalyst” to highlight power relations, locate them, and demonstrate the methods used. Power relationships can therefore be analysed through the antagonism which can be found in their strategies.

What do these struggles against authority have in common?

1. They can be found anywhere in the world, under any government.
2. Their aim is to put effect to power, for example the way medicine has uncontrolled power over the lives of its subjects.
3. The struggle is against an immediate enemy, with an immediate solution.
4. Struggles are against the “government of individualisation, asserting the right for humans to be different but fighting the separation of, the “individualisation” of the individual.
5. They are opposed to the effects of power through the use or abuse of knowledge, competence, and secrecy, in other words, they are a fight against the privileges of knowledge. “What is questioned is the way in which knowledge circulates and functions, in relations to power” (Foucault, p. 781)
6. These struggles revolve around the question “Who are we?”

In summary it could be said that all struggle is a struggle against a “form of power” that “categorises the individual, marks him by his individuality, [and] attaches him to his own identity”. In short this form of power is one that “makes individuals subjects”, subjects who come under the control and dependence of another, or tied to their own identity through “conscience or self-knowledge” (Foucault does not elaborate on the concept of conscience and how conscience may be affected by self-knowledge privileging conscience with an almost mystical quality that creates subjectivity).

Having outline the commonality can be found in forms of resistance Foucault proceeds to outline three types of struggle: against domination on religious, ethnic, and religious grounds, against exploitation that separates individuals from that which they produce, and subjection caused by tying an individual to themselves and submitting them thus to others. He points out that state power tends (or tended) to be totalising, ignoring the individual but a new form of power – pastoral power that is at once both individualising and totalising – has come to dominate the social body.

Pastoral power derives from the development of Christianity that organised itself through the development of churches and, amongst others, the appointment of pastors. The form of power can be noted as being:

1. Aimed at assuring individual salvation in the next world.
2. It doesn’t demand a sacrifice from the subject to save the sovereign but rather is prepared to sacrifice itself for the salvation of the individual.
3. It looks after the community but also the individual for life.
4. It requires an intimate knowledge of the mind of the individual, their conscience and secrets in order to provide direction.

This individualising form of power, despite the decline in the pastorate, has become diffuse through the social body through its adoption by the state. Whereas once pastoral power came from individual salvation, the meaning of salvation acquired new meanings including wealth, well-being, prosperity, and security. Concurrently the number of officials charged with providing pastoral care increased and included police, welfare agencies, agencies of the state, and the field of medicine. Additionally those in positions of power began to collect and develop knowledge; knowledge that was both globalising and quantitative concerning the population as a totality and analytical knowledge concerning the individual. As a result this pastoral power came to be an individualising mechanism pervading every aspect of the social body, from the family to medicine to politics and all the places in between.

The individualisation of society is problematic for Foucault. He questions the relevance of answering or even posing the question put by Kant as to who or what we are in relation to the Enlightenment. Rather the refusal of what we are deserves much thought and effort, largely as a way to break free from the individualising and totalising power of these new power structures pervading the social body. The imperative therefore becomes: “We have to promote new forms of subjectivity through the refusal of this kind of individuality which has been imposed on us for centuries” (Foucault, p. 785). (Let us bury the ghost of Descartes).

How is Power Exercised?

To assume power just “is” may be a form of fatalism according to Foucault. Rather then answering the question “what is power”, which assumes it already exists Foucault explores the exercise of power through the the means by which power is exercised, how it might come into existence. There are three aspects to power each of which are independent but overlapping. First the physical, the capacity to shape objects, to bring them into being, to destroy them, to change them, to make them different to what they were. Secondly this form of exertion is distinguished from power that is exercised through relationships existing between individuals and groups. Finally, there are relationships of communication through which relationships of power may work but that may not be utilised as a means for the exercise of power.

Foucault doesn’t expand here how power might be put to effect without relationships of communication. How is it possible for a relationship of power to exist without the agency of communication, some means by which meaning is signified to another? I suggest that relationships of communication may exist without the need for the existence of relationships of power but the reverse isn’t possible. Communication, some form of exchange of meaning, must surely be essential in the structuring and maintenance of any form of relationship.

“Blocks” in which power is exerted include the school, says Foucault. The layout of school buildings and windows (objective capacities), relationships of communication through lessons, demonstrations, tests), and surveillance, reward, and punishment (power relations) all exist and are finely adjusted to maximise the extent of the exercise of power within the block. Thus the block becomes a place for the constitution of disciplines, for the ongoing adjustment of capacity-communication-power to produce an ever more rational and economically focussed society.

What constitutes the specific nature of power?

Foucault next turns his attention to the nature of power which he believes is exercised through the relationships of power with the aim of using actions to modify the actions of others. Power therefore exists only when put into action and is not a function of, or reliant on, consent; although consent may be given. Power then doesn’t act directly on another, it acts to take action that affects the actions of others. Power is not violence, although violence may be used. There are two essential elements required for the articulation of a power relationship; the “other” maintained always as a person who acts, and an endless amount of options available as potential actions. Power then is:

“…a total structure of actions brought to bear upon possible actions; it incites, it induces, it seduces, it makes easier or more difficult; in the extreme it constrains or forbids absolutely; it is nevertheless a way of acting upon an acting subject or acting subjects by virtue of their acting or being capable of action. A set of actions upon other actions” (Foucault, p. 789).

The exercise of power, therefore, requires the guidance of another’s actions and this is done through ‘government’ as a means to structure the available choice of actions of the governed; a way to give structure to the possibilities available to a subject. In the interplay between actions upon actions guided through government we see that an important element must be present; and that element is freedom. Power can only be exercised over a free subject and only to the extent that they are free. Slavery is therefore not a relationship of power, and power and freedom are mutually exclusive. The two are constantly involved in a struggle, an “agonism”:

“At the very heart of the power relationship, and constantly provoking it, are the recalcitrance of the will and the intransigence of freedom” (Foucault, p.791).

How is one to analyze the power relationship?

Foucault believes that it’s quite possible to define and analyse power by focusing on specific institutions such as schools, hospitals, and asylums. He notes the problems of such an analysis, particularly that one might attempt to explain power as something emanating from the institution. In this regard he highlights the importance in an analysis of power to recognise that the fundamental anchorage of relationships of power is external to the institutions in which they are found. Rather relationships of power are found deep within the social body, not as a political overlay supra to the social body.

At this point Foucault appears appears to develop a criticism of the Habermasian notion of the public sphere by suggesting that power comes from deep within society. Habermas contended that power was external to the public sphere, whereas notions of civil society as proposed by Dean and others side with Foucault positioning power as an integral part of civil society.

“That is to say, power relations are rooted deep in the social nexus, not reconstituted “above” society as a supplementary structure whose radical effacement one could perhaps dream of. In any case, to live in society is to live in such a way that action upon other actions is possible – and in fact ongoing. A society without power relations can only be an abstraction” (Foucault, p.791).

Resulting from the deep-seated nature of power relationships Foucault proposes that their study and analysis and the analysis of the “agonism” occurring within power relationships is an inherent political task of social existence. In order to undertake such an analysis he proposes five points that must be established as follows.

1. The system of differentiations which is to say the difference that is required by and caused by a relationship of power (economic, competencies, linguistics).
2. The types of objectives that are being attempted to be achieved through actions upon the actions of others (profits, legislation, control).
3. The means of bringing power relation into being: how power relationships come into being (threat of violence, legislation, rules, surveillance).
4. Forms of institutionalization: what types of institutions are used (state legislation, economic/financial/commercial, closed, systems of surveillance)
5. The degree of rationalization: how effective are the instruments of power in relationship to their effect? Are they appropriate to the ends? Cost effective?

Relations of power and relations of strategy

Referring to the achievement of power being actions taken on the actions of others Foucault outlines three uses of strategy: the means to attain an end; the manner in which a person anticipates and responds to the moves – anticipated and actual – of their adversary; and the means by which a combatants might end a struggle by depriving the other of the resources and/or will to continue. These elements of strategy are that which is utilised in all power relationships as part of the essential struggle, potential flight to freedom (with a possible nod of the head to Deleuze), the agonism that marks a power relationship.

“…there is no relationship of power without the means of escape or possible flight. Every power relationship implies, at least in potentia, a strategy of struggle, in which the two forces are not superimposed, do not lose their specific nature, or do not finally become confused. Each constitutes for the other a kind of permanent limit, a point of possible reversal” (Foucault, p.794).

The end game of a relationship of confrontation is a relationship of power. The finality of a relationship of power is either total subordination (unlikely) or ongoing confrontation with a newly acquired adversary.

At a later date I intend to expand on the relevance of Foucault’s work in relation to employee bloggers. How might the subjectivity of an employee be affected both by the very fact of their writing about their work, and by the response to their blog from the people in a position of power, their employer? How might we relate to the power/knowledge shift when it comes to bloggers? What could be said about surveillance? Are employees engaging the same methods of surveillance on their employers as employers are imposing on employees? Is their a shift away from the judicial system in terms of the source of potential strategies available to both?

References

Foucault, M. (1982). “The subject and power.” Critical Inquiry 8(4): 777-795.

Note

Ontology – the study of being or existence; a specification of a conceptualization; the theory of objects and their ties.

Share this Post