Foucauldian theories on power and their social relevance part I

 For better or worse, the theories of french philosopher Michel Foucault shaped alot of my thinking and writing between 2015–2023. I have since moved on theoretically and today I would place myself as ecclectic in terms of theory: the aim of using theory should be to explain reality, rather than proving the works of a certain philosopher. Still I have thought alot about the relevance of Foucault and my interpretentions of them. In this two piece entries I will try first try to explain some of Foucault theory of governmentality and some of his philosopher, and in the next entry I will try to describe how some of them might relate to contemporary society on a wider base. 

Foucault is perhaps one of the most ambigious philosophers, since his work to a large degree have intersections even though they deal with different subjects and time periods. But perhaps the most common way to understand Foucault is his discussions on power and how society shapes human behaviour. The word power in itself is tricky to define in the words of Foucault, so I will actually not go into it to a to large degree. 


To me Foucaults work on governmentality, together with his writings on knowledge and power, have been the most intriguing aspect. In my understanding governmentality claims that during the early modern period the sovereign came to an important conclusion: the population is not only a source of military power but also a resource in itself. This resource - economical, politically and military - however needed to be managed. Therfore a new way to think about the subjects were born. People would no longer be supressed by power and by bruteforce  made to act according to the sovereigns wishes. Instead they would internalize the sovereigns goals to be their own, where they for instance would pro-create, not break the law, not challenge the social order and above all, work to create a nations wealth. In Foucualts view the social control of the early modern era thus came to not work "above" the subject, but rather through it. People should, from this perspective, want to be part of society and share a common goal, rather than being forced to produce for the sovereign. Another way to view it is that the state would not have to intervene on their subjects, since the subjects would learn to intervene on themselves. 




Is this really a case where the social order managed to create such subjects? To a large degree yes, but also to some degree no. We can for instance see that most people act according to social norms, but society will always meet those who won't. And when this happeneds, those people become a problem. When I wrote my PhD a large influence was Barbara Cruikshank and her work "The Will to Empower" which deals with social policy in the United states. This is a excellent work of Foucauldian analysis on contemporary society, where Cruikshanks highlights that the goal of social policy is often not to manage those in need but rather to create subjects that can intervene on themself. In this regard, for instances those dependent on welfare have to take part in classes were they learn to apply for work etc etc, so that they once they are facing a similar situation once again know what to do, so that the state do not have to intervene on their behalf. In the next entry I will highlight why these relations are worth investigating. 


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