Power: Interpersonal, Organizational, and Global Dimensions Wednesday, 2 November 2005 TOPIC: How is power institutionalized? Foucault. Note: Excerpts from today are taken from “Two Lectures” by Michel Foucault by Pantheon Books (1980) Foucault, (1926-1984) French. Foucault talks about how power creates truth, not what truth/knowledge can tell us about power. He explores what rules of governance, what relationships, what conceptions of rights/obligation, what conceptions of truth are produced and implemented by different relations of power… He is concerned with the how of power, the mechanisms of power... – Not specifically with the rules/rights of law that provide formal/official limits, but with power Truth, Knowledge, Theories of rights "Right" rights, governance, law– how power works to the effects of truth that power produces/transmits, effects which reproduce this power (feedback loop) He begins with the traditional question of political philosophy: How is philosophy concerned with truth? How is philosophy (the pursuit of true knowledge) able to set limits to the rights of power? (What rules of right are implemented by the relations of power in the production of discourses of truth?) Traditional question is how can philosophy tell us what is true about power and its limits? Philosophy produces truth and truth produces power. power is a function of truth, power = f (truth) Foucault’s point: He reverses this relationship. Power produces truth, truth is a function of power, truth = f (power) “My problem is rather this: what rules of right are implemented by the relations of power in the production of discourses of truth? Or alternatively, what type of power is susceptible of 11/02/05, page 1 of 5producing discourses of truth that in a society such as ours [he means Western capitalist society] are endowed with such potent effects? What I mean is this: in a society as such as ours, but basically in any society, there are manifold relations of power which permeate, characterize, and constitute the social body…” (Foucault 1980: 93) - cannot achieve intended/foreseen effects without language, without communication (except in one form of force) - discourse is just what is said and done “There can be no possible exercise of power without a certain economy of discourses of truth which operates through and on the basis of this association. We are subjected to the production of truth through power and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth.” (Foucault 1980: 93) Every society has a different conception of where truth comes from and where you can make it. Our society, we have particular way of producing truth – it’s not the same as it was in the past (e.g. through religion or the sovereign) but is now based in claims of knowledge/science/ truth. “…we are forced to produce the truth of power that our society demands, of which it has need, in order to function: we must speak the truth; we are constrained or condemned to confess or to discover the truth.” (Foucault 1980: 93) When we lived in a world before science/empirical knowledge, truth was given by religious figures, by leaders. What was true was "the way it has always been." People did not justify their authority/power; they just said “God says,” e.g. “It is written, but I (Son of God) say unto you...” Foucault says to speak now, to have legitimacy now, we can’t say “it is written and now listen to me,” but we have to claim that it is the truth, what we constitute as knowledge. We can’t speak as religious or traditional authority, authority without question, authority today must speak truth (knowledge, expertise). Recall Weber’s reasons for social action: - habit/tradition - expressive/emotion - substantive value - instrumental/needs/ends/relationships (this last one is like Foucault) “…we are constrained or condemned to discover the truth. Power never ceases its interrogation, its inquisition, its registration of truth: it institutionalizes, professionalizes and rewards its pursuit…we must produce truth as we must produce wealth, indeed we must produce truth in order to produce wealth in the first place.” (Foucault 1980: 93-94) (Is this not MIT after all?) e.g. A child says he wants a bucket of candy. The parent can respond with either: “No, because I said so” or “No, you’ll get sick and I’m telling you the truth.” paradigms of power – in the modern world we exercise power by expertise not by legitimate/ normative/ historical authority, or force (we declare force unacceptable, relegate to crime or war, or the province of law). “we are also subjected to truth” (Foucault 1980: 94) = what is true justifies action 11/02/05, page 2 of 5“we are judged, condemned, classified, determined in our undertakings…as a function of true discourses which are bearers of the specific effects of power.” (Foucault 1980: 94) Foucault is talking about the way we speak, about what we speak, the categories that we create – all are produced through discourses which are themselves produced by power. “…polymorphous techniques of subjugation. Right should be viewed…not in terms of a legitimacy to be established [i.e. what is appropriate/respectable/valued], but in terms of the methods of subjugation that it instigates.” (Foucault 1980: 94) It’s not a matter of whether or not laws are about what is legitimate/ or good – but how does the law institute different forms of domination and subjugation? Foucault discusses the question of legitimacy, what we owe the Leviathan. We have substituted the problem of domination and subjugation for sovereignty and obedience. So now it’s not what we owe the ruler, let’s talk about how we are subjugated! Foucault’s methodological precautions: four lessons on how to study power ♦ (1) we shouldn’t pay attention to the “continued effects” of the central offices but the study of power “should be concerned with power at its extremities, in its final destinations, with those points where it becomes capillary” (Foucault 1980: 94) - he is concerned with how power operates in our fingertips, not the head, in the persons and communities, not the central government - by society he means the citizenry, not the government/state – how our individual lives are shaped by power - “Its paramount concern, in fact,