Foucault

[BobKKKindle$]

Heya, I've just started reading some stuff on Michel Foucault as part of my History and Politics degree, and I was wondering what the rest of you think of the man? I'm reading an introductory book at the moment and so far his ideas seem very interesting - particularly his arguments on the nature of power and how power is exercised in society. It also seems like he was very political as an individual - what were his politics like?

[black magick hustla]

I think he was a member of the PCF and then he just orbited around it for a while.

[reddevil]

Heya, I've just started reading some stuff on Michel Foucault as part of my History and Politics degree, and I was wondering what the rest of you think of the man? I'm reading an introductory book at the moment and so far his ideas seem very interesting - particularly his arguments on the nature of power and how power is exercised in society. It also seems like he was very political as an individual - what were his politics like?

I don't think very highly of foucalt or postmodernists in general. They have a nasty habit of fetishising brutality and supporting hideous tyrannies in the name of anti-rationalism. Foucalt went to iran and met the ayatollah khomeini personally, lauding his iron fisted theocratic rule and criticising the secular, feminist and socialist wings of the revolution.

[jake williams]

I don't think very highly of foucalt or postmodernists in general. They have a nasty habit of fetishising brutality and supporting hideous tyrannies in the name of anti-rationalism. Foucalt went to iran and met the ayatollah khomeini personally, lauding his iron fisted theocratic rule and criticising the secular, feminist and socialist wings of the revolution.
Basically this, except I do appreciate some of his less political, more intellectual work, I think it's interesting and I think it's stimulating.

[JimFar]

Foucault, I think, had a rather complex relationship with Marxism. It should be kept in mind that at the Ecole Normale Superieue, he studied under Althusser who helped to convert him to Marxism. As a young man Foucault joined the French Communist Party but was later expelled. By the 1950s Foucault was proclaiming himself to be a Nietzschean and he was taking an anti-communist political stance. During the early 1960s he served on commission to reform French higher education that was set up by Charles De Gaulle's government. Most of his colleagues at the time seemed to assume that he was a Gaullist. But by the mid-1960s his politics began to shift sharply leftwards. During a teaching stint in Tunisia he found that many of his best students to be communists and he became very close to them as they battled repression by the Tunisian government. After the May-June events of 1968 he became increasingly drawn to the young Maoists. During his Maoist years Foucault was active in struggles for the rights of mental patients and the rights of prisoners. After the mid 1970s he drifted away from Maoist politics (as did most of his erstwhile Maoist friends) but he supported the Iranian Revolution. In his last years he took an interest in liberal theory including the writings of Hayek and the Austrian School. I seem to recall reading somewhere that he is viewed in some quarters as one of the initiators of the revival of liberal thought among French intellectuals.


It is obvious that Foucault's political trajectory was complex. His relationship with Marxism was complex and tortured. It is interesting to note that despite his various political shifts he always remained on good terms with Althusser who always praised his books. Even when Foucault was explicitly anti-Marxist he continued to draw upon Marxist thought. Foucault's book, Discipline and Punish, for instance, is full of arguments that few Marxists would have much trouble with. In much of his work he seemed to be attempting to synthesize Marxian and Nietzschean ideas. Whatever one might think about the ultimate compatibility of Marx and Nietzsche it must be admitted that there is a long tradition of attempts to synthesize the ideas of these two thinkers (going at least as far back as Bogdanov & Lunacharsky in Russia for instance).

[Apeiron]

I like his work, though I know little about his political affiliations (aside from the posts above). Ultimately I think his personal political convictions are of little significance in reading and appreciating his work.. he hardly expresses any explicit political doctrines anywhere in his work. In fact, he described his own work as a theoretical toolbox of sorts, open for whomever wishes to reach in and use what they find to be useful for their own purposes. I'm gonna quote a few lines from his essay 'Questions on Method' because I think it sums up what I am getting at...


Critique doesn't have to be the premise of a deduction that concludes, "this, then, is what needs to be done." It should be an instrument for those who fight, those who resist and refuse what is. Its use should be in processes of conflict and confrontation, essays in refusal. It doesn't have to lay down the law for the law. It isn't a stage in a programming. It is a challenge directed to what is.

I view Nietzsche's work to offer the same promise; regardless of his own political convictions (this is currently an ongoing debate in another thread), his critical thought serves to be immensely beneficial to contemporary political struggle, thus there's no reason to ignore it. This is the same reason I like Carl Schmitt. He was a Nazi, yes, but he also offered one of the best critiques of liberalism during the 20th Century. And I'm sure plenty of the folks on here read Heidegger too...
Foucault's insights on the structure of power in contemporary societies seems indubitably valuable to leftist political struggles today. Distancing yourself from his work due to political convictions he held personally seems to be nothing less than doing a disservice to your own critical and analytical toolbox.

Also, I really like the comment of viewing Foucault's work at attempting a synthesis of Marx and Nietzsche. I've certainly thought this myself, and it's an interesting approach to take when reading him.

[Reclaimed Dasein]

I don't think very highly of foucalt or postmodernists in general. They have a nasty habit of fetishising brutality and supporting hideous tyrannies in the name of anti-rationalism. Foucalt went to iran and met the ayatollah khomeini personally, lauding his iron fisted theocratic rule and criticising the secular, feminist and socialist wings of the revolution.

I highly recommend reading "In Defense of Lost Causes" by Slavoj Zizek where Zizek argues that Foucault misunderstands certain aspects of the Iranian revolution while recognizing its essential core. Zizek argues that Foucault saw the act itself as a radical revolt against domination that ultimately died under its transition to a positive state (dominated by religion).

I would also argue that many here miss the mark when they assert Foucault attempts to synthesize Marx and Nietzsche. While Foucault was certainly familiar with Marx, he viewed himself as engaging in the Nietzschean genealogical project rather than a Marxian analysis. I recommend Order of Things for at least one view of Foucault's perspective on Marx.

That being said, Foucault's work on systems of power, most notably Discipline and Punish, served as a theoretical framework for resisting domination. Advocates for prison reform often use his work to point out the brutality and intentional creation of criminality within the legal system. As with all things, we should understand what in Foucault is emancipatory and excise what is not.

[JimFar]

I would also argue that many here miss the mark when they assert Foucault attempts to synthesize Marx and Nietzsche. While Foucault was certainly familiar with Marx, he viewed himself as engaging in the Nietzschean genealogical project rather than a Marxian analysis. I recommend Order of Things for at least one view of Foucault's perspective on Marx.

I don't doubt that Foucault's objective was to carry out a Nietzschean genealogical project. It's just that he often employed Marxian analysis to that end, as is apparent in Discipline and Punishment, for example.

[Reclaimed Dasein]

I don't doubt that Foucault's objective was to carry out a Nietzschean genealogical project. It's just that he often employed Marxian analysis to that end, as is apparent in Discipline and Punishment, for example.
As part of my wider philosophical and political project, I would push you to be very precise about the philosophical position you're taking. I would make this rough argument.

Foucault rigorously uses the Genealogical method is only Nietzschean.
Foucault's analysis of the prison system corresponds to a Marxian analysis of the prison system.

The hidden and important condition is that the "reactionary" Nietzsche looks like the revolutionary Marx when applied properly and rigorously to the world.

[Foldered]

I know not much of his political works or his political leanings, but he is definitely a very intelligent, interesting person. I haven't read much other than History of Sexuality and the Chomsky Foucault Debate, but his intellect alone is respectable.

[alternate_redstar]

I highly recommend reading "In Defense of Lost Causes" by Slavoj Zizek where Zizek argues that Foucault misunderstands certain aspects of the Iranian revolution while recognizing its essential core. Zizek argues that Foucault saw the act itself as a radical revolt against domination that ultimately died under its transition to a positive state (dominated by religion).

Yes, definitely read that! It is a typical move of conservative and many progressives too to dismiss Foucault because of this Iranian misadventure. From what I have read of his writings on the topic, though, it seems to me he was much more interested in the possibilties that could have been in Iran than he was in Khomeni's regime.


On what is best in Foucault: the analysis of the microstructures of power that operate in the most localised ways, in ways of speaking, doing: the way that the whole of society is ultimately an artifact constantly being shaped. Potentially there is a Marxist reading here, one that wildly alters, however, the meaning of "production" for Foucault would seem to be saying that production is not just something that happens in the factory, but at school, the army, the dole office, the prison and even in one's home, we produce here the disciplines and habits that make society what it is. It is this difference that means Foucault is more Nietschzean than Marxian wihout being alien from Marx: Foucault has said that at his project was at once an attempt to break away from the strictures of the dogmatic Marxism that was dominant in the French University system of his day and that nonetheless, Marxism was one of the basic assumptions of his thought.

Ultimately, however you must remember that Foucautl does not answer any questions, his work should be seen as a cautiously laid bridge between the heyday of Marxism towards a new set of possibilities that may require someone to repeat Marx in order to establish.

[alternate_redstar]

as your by-line says "the future is unwritten"... hope that at least your essay comes to be! Umm, written, that is.:rolleyes:

[berlitz23]

I admire Foucault tremendously and for his invaluable critiques of modernity. He was a complex and eclectic thinker who drew from multiple sources and problematic while aligning himself with no single one. For me his analysis of modern rationality serving as a coercive force and the domination of the individual through social institutions, discourses and practices illuminated a new avenue for me to study systems through a framework that enriches my soliticiousness. Conversely, instead of a single analytical framework that possibly could tunnel vision my theories on certain institutions, discourses etc. I understand he recieved criticism for his ardent support of the Iranian Revolution, yet I hope this doesn't overshadow his work, he played a tremendous influence on Delueze and Guttari, Baudilliard, Critical Theory etc. who I believe played an integral part in shaping Post Modern thought today, even if you tend to view it as inane or stultifying. I don't believe I can add much to this conversation in terms of his beliefs, philosophy, principles, examinations at certain junctions, because attempting to convey his ideas will ultimately become a defeatist endeavor on my part. I highly recommend reading his ouevre and vast body of work especially Discipline and Punishment, Archaeology of Knowledge, Madness and Civilzation

[gauchisme]

don't think it's accurate to call foucault a "postmodernist" (whatever that means)... certainly he has little in common with baudrillard or lyotard.

http://foucault.info/documents/whatIsEnlightenment/foucault.whatIsEnlightenment.en.html

he was in iran after the revolution working as a journalist, not an ideologue.

zizek (in 'in defense of lost causes') calls foucault's (and heidegger's) political engagements 'right steps in the wrong direction', after which they retreated from genuine political involvement altogether.

one has to acknowledge and grapple with the fascist potential inherent in politics as such, may've been close to zizek's point.
better to be a failed john brown than a successful barack obama.

[Le People]

Foculat is excellent as an analyst of society in its modern form. His studies on power, and the history of power (a clearly Nietzschean project) is useful to Marxism from the standpoint of understanding the structures we must smash. However, Foculat is a reformist through and through...he views revolution as another structure being erected. I view him as a man who sided with what he considered politcally right, rather than be a strict domagmatist.

[gauchisme]

well that's one criticism which thinkers like agamben and zizek sometimes hit foucault with: exhaustive investigations into the history of power relations can justify procrastination and is compatible with gradualism ('a long march through the institutions', to quote rudi dutschke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudi_Dutschke)).

early in foucault's career (his work with prisoners, for instance) finds him at odds with this problem: he says we must radically critique the ways society separates the innocent from the guilty, else we'll find ourselves coopted by humanitarian reforms (e.g., give prisoners flush toilets and everything'll be alright).

isn't 'discipline and punish' one of the most uncompromising rebukes of reformism? ...we think we've made progress because we don't draw-and-quarter criminals anymore, but we still subject countless bodies to normalization in the guise of rehabilitation, and on a much wider scale.

as for later in foucault's career, i'd ask you to take a look at this text he wrote after the iranian revolution:
http://madrasa.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/is-it-useless-to-revolt/

...it's funny that both of the criticisms advanced against foucault in this thread cancel one another out - either he's too quick to endorse crazy revolutionaries or he's too reformist to smash rightist structures, but i'm not sure how he can be both at the same time.

_

"I am not in agreement with someone who would say: 'It is useless to revolt; it will always be the same thing'." - foucault

[S. Zetor]

I read Foucault before I read Gramsci, and I don't think I would have understood too much of the latter unless I had read the former first. I think Foucault is essential reading.

I'm not very impressed by his politics, but to me that's not the issue. The issue is rather whether his ideas are useful, and to that the answer is clearly yes. 'Discipline and Punish' is probably the best Foucault book to start with, because much of what he's written is unnecessarily convoluted.

Even though as a whole he's not "compatible with Marxism" (if someone wants to see it that way) I think in some respects Foucault was "more Marxist" than Marx himself, in that he took the historicizing of reason a step further. Marx in my view tended to have a more straightforward ideas about reason, and was still caught within the liberal ideas of universal emancipation.

(Michele Barrett deals with theories of ideology-as-distortion in Marx and subsequent Marxism in her book 'The Politics of Truth'.)

Another worthy contribution by Foucault is the concept of power as something that's not so much inhibitory, distorting, holding things back and preventing something from happening, but rather as something that also makes things possible.

In this view, if you keep workers down by brute force, you're not using power, you're just using naked force. But if you manage to keep workers down and make them feel it's good for them so that they don't rise up in the first place, then you're using power.

If you force a Coca-Cola T-shirt on a person on the point of a gun, you're just using force.

If you force a Coca-Cola T-shirt on a person in such a way that the person actively wants, on his/her own initiative, to wear the T-shirt and walk around as a free advertisement for the corporation - now that's Power.

Make people love their chains. That's the thing, and how do they do it? Classical Marxism doesn't have very much to say to that, I'm afraid. "Lies and propaganda" are pretty unconvincing explanations to me.

The implication is that if people really knew the truth, they would rise up. I've heard this argument a million times when I've attended meetings where propagandistic events are planned, and I think this is untenable.

Mark Poster writes in his book 'Foucalt, Marxism and History' that "The conceptual arsenal of Marxism does not permit one to go beyond the mode of production to make intelligible the forms of domination that emerge at other points in social space and, in addition, to regard these forms of domination as conceptually distinct from the relations of production". (p. 107.)

"As a consequence of Foucault's study of prisons, the Marxist historian can no longer be satisfied with explaining directly the emergence of the penitentiary by the needs of the capitalist mode of production." (p. 108-109.)

Of course you can point to the fact that prisons had everything to with controlling the flood of people that were moving to the towns from the countryside where capitalist development was pushing them off the land, but that's only the very general framework where the birth of the prison took place, and does not explain things very far from that point on.

There's also several criticisms one can come up with even if one held F. in high regard.

One of the biggest problems of Foucault's thought was that he didn't really give too much room for active subjectivity (or at least didn't elaborate how it's made possible). As Poster writes, "And yet the question of the status of the subject in Foucault's discourse and more generally a theory of resistance remains open. Foucault's chief argument remains intact: the disciplinary technology of power is made intelligible only by constituting the historical field outside the perspective of the subject. And yet, thus constituted the object of history (discourse/practice) is inadequate in accounting for resistance." (p. 113-114.)

As an example of this failure Poster notes that the prison, which F. studied, was a dismal failure from the viewpoint of the aims the model had (normalization of the prisoners). "But without an account of the response of the prisoners to the system, the 'failure' of the system sits in his text like an uninvited guest. [..] How can one developt a theory of resistance without falling back into the problems that plague the Marxist ideas of class consciousness and the proletariat as a revolutionary agent?" (p. 147-148.)

Foucault also accuses "normal" social science of pretending to find the "truth" about things, whereas in reality social science (or any science, for that matter) is just using its own technology of power that it imposes on people. But F. never investigates into what kind of power/discourse he himself is creating with his own theories. Marx at least consciously took the viewpoint of the proletariat and investigated the social conjuncture where ideas like that could take form in the first place, but Foucault's reticence to commit himself to anything but criticism is just plain intellectual dishonesty and cowardice to me.

[Reclaimed Dasein]

I read Foucault before I read Gramsci, and I don't think I would have understood too much of the latter unless I had read the former first. I think Foucault is essential reading.

I'm not very impressed by his politics, but to me that's not the issue. The issue is rather whether his ideas are useful, and to that the answer is clearly yes. 'Discipline and Punish' is probably the best Foucault book to start with, because much of what he's written is unnecessarily convoluted.

Even though as a whole he's not "compatible with Marxism" (if someone wants to see it that way) I think in some respects Foucault was "more Marxist" than Marx himself, in that he took the historicizing of reason a step further. Marx in my view tended to have a more straightforward ideas about reason, and was still caught within the liberal ideas of universal emancipation.

(Michele Barrett deals with theories of ideology-as-distortion in Marx and subsequent Marxism in her book 'The Politics of Truth'.)

Another worthy contribution by Foucault is the concept of power as something that's not so much inhibitory, distorting, holding things back and preventing something from happening, but rather as something that also makes things possible.

In this view, if you keep workers down by brute force, you're not using power, you're just using naked force. But if you manage to keep workers down and make them feel it's good for them so that they don't rise up in the first place, then you're using power.

If you force a Coca-Cola T-shirt on a person on the point of a gun, you're just using force.

If you force a Coca-Cola T-shirt on a person in such a way that the person actively wants, on his/her own initiative, to wear the T-shirt and walk around as a free advertisement for the corporation - now that's Power.

Make people love their chains. That's the thing, and how do they do it? Classical Marxism doesn't have very much to say to that, I'm afraid. "Lies and propaganda" are pretty unconvincing explanations to me.

The implication is that if people really knew the truth, they would rise up. I've heard this argument a million times when I've attended meetings where propagandistic events are planned, and I think this is untenable.

Mark Poster writes in his book 'Foucalt, Marxism and History' that "The conceptual arsenal of Marxism does not permit one to go beyond the mode of production to make intelligible the forms of domination that emerge at other points in social space and, in addition, to regard these forms of domination as conceptually distinct from the relations of production". (p. 107.)

"As a consequence of Foucault's study of prisons, the Marxist historian can no longer be satisfied with explaining directly the emergence of the penitentiary by the needs of the capitalist mode of production." (p. 108-109.)

Of course you can point to the fact that prisons had everything to with controlling the flood of people that were moving to the towns from the countryside where capitalist development was pushing them off the land, but that's only the very general framework where the birth of the prison took place, and does not explain things very far from that point on.

There's also several criticisms one can come up with even if one held F. in high regard.

One of the biggest problems of Foucault's thought was that he didn't really give too much room for active subjectivity (or at least didn't elaborate how it's made possible). As Poster writes, "And yet the question of the status of the subject in Foucault's discourse and more generally a theory of resistance remains open. Foucault's chief argument remains intact: the disciplinary technology of power is made intelligible only by constituting the historical field outside the perspective of the subject. And yet, thus constituted the object of history (discourse/practice) is inadequate in accounting for resistance." (p. 113-114.)

As an example of this failure Poster notes that the prison, which F. studied, was a dismal failure from the viewpoint of the aims the model had (normalization of the prisoners). "But without an account of the response of the prisoners to the system, the 'failure' of the system sits in his text like an uninvited guest. [..] How can one developt a theory of resistance without falling back into the problems that plague the Marxist ideas of class consciousness and the proletariat as a revolutionary agent?" (p. 147-148.)

Foucault also accuses "normal" social science of pretending to find the "truth" about things, whereas in reality social science (or any science, for that matter) is just using its own technology of power that it imposes on people. But F. never investigates into what kind of power/discourse he himself is creating with his own theories. Marx at least consciously took the viewpoint of the proletariat and investigated the social conjuncture where ideas like that could take form in the first place, but Foucault's reticence to commit himself to anything but criticism is just plain intellectual dishonesty and cowardice to me.
I agree with a lot of this, but I would like to raise three points about Foucault.

First, I have a friend who does a lot of work with Foucault. Every time he teaches it he gets a least one student who asks, "Well, I think Foucault's right about all of this, but how do we get out of the power structure?" My friend always responds the same way. "Not everyone is trying to tell you what to do." I think that's an important point to take into account. There's a strong argument to be made that Foucault wants to show us how to critically analyze various structures in our society. What we do from there is our problem.

Secondly, Foucault does tell us what needs to be done to a certain extent. In Foucault's essay "Truth and Power" from the book Power/Knowledge, he argues that the point of any intellectual is to fight over the contures of truth as power. In this case, Marxist economists should fight over the field of truth of economics to wrest control of the discourse from the Chicago school. You may now generalize your particular field upon this example.

Thirdly, it's difficult to make generalizations about Foucault. He tries to take special care in limiting his claims only to the evidence he can find about a very specific subject. How would any Foucaultian theory of widespread revolution look? It's not enough to look at any given theory of revolt and resistance, so it's hard (if not impossible to say).

[S. Zetor]

First, I have a friend who does a lot of work with Foucault. Every time he teaches it he gets a least one student who asks, "Well, I think Foucault's right about all of this, but how do we get out of the power structure?" My friend always responds the same way. "Not everyone is trying to tell you what to do." I think that's an important point to take into account. There's a strong argument to be made that Foucault wants to show us how to critically analyze various structures in our society. What we do from there is our problem.

I don't really disagree with what you said, though I want to re-emphasize that refusing to "tell people what to do", i.e. refusing leadership, is bad politics. IMO, political leadership is vital because the status quo imposes a certain inertia on people and things, and it is useful (and often necessary) to weigh in on whatever events are at hand.

I've taken part in countless of meetings where a brief comment has changed the whole orientation of the meeting. The reason is that not so many people who are willing to do something for some cause are quite sure just how things should be done; whether it's about organising a series of talks and deciding who to invite to speak, or whether it's about which line of action the group should take.

I think you're throwing away your possibilities to influence the course of events, if you refuse to comment on what should be done, and instead just leave it "for the people" to decide.. if you have a preference, and don't voice it, I think you're being unfaithful to what you believe in.

It's like in a factory where the bosses come to tell the workers, ok listen, we have to speed up things, we can't have this old relaxed way anymore, etc. More likely than not is that after a little bit of grumbling
the workers will pick up their tools and conform, even if they're not happy about it. To excercise political leadership in a situation like this is to say, "We won't have this!"

A spark like this can ignite the whole situation if the mood is right (and the right mood or other circumstances might not last too long). I think it's a pretty different setting in a classroom (to refer to your friend's case) where the issue is perhaps not so much about political action. Teaching people to find their own solutions has a place, of course, but it also has a scent of armchair intellectualism that I think is not useful for situations that demand action (which is my main interest also re Foucault).

The agitator has no way to "tell the workers what to do", unless they want to do it, unless they want to fight the bosses who are trying to tighten the discipline.

The same way an intellectual (and even the shop floor agitator is an intellectial in the Gramscian sense) cannot compell anyone to do anything, unless there already is a willingness to listen what he/she has to say.

I think Foucault fails this test, when he says in an interview in 1978, "I have absolutely no desire to play the role of a prescriber of solutions. I think that the role of the intellectual today is not to ordain, to recommend solutions, to prophesy, because in that function he [sic] can only contribute to the functioning of a particular power situation that, in my opinion, must be criticized." (Foucault, 'Essential works vol. 3, p. 288.)

Several quotes from the interview testify to the same effect: he says that he wants merely to pose the problem, ("in an effective and genuine way [..] with the greatest possible rigor") and then it's up to the "people themselves" to decide what to do, instead of throwing his own influence in the scales. I think that's bad politics.