InTheMatterOfBoots

u havent read, otherwise u would have never made such silly assumptions about biopower in the first place.

before u start discussing things u dont know about, READ! he also relates biopower to class in volume 1 of the history of sexuality.

r u at all aware of how degeneracy and child molestation have been used against homosexuals for DECADES? if u need direction, read freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. he will help clarify this for u.

have u actually read about and comprehended bio-power, or are u simply being reactive to something u dont understand???

biopower refers to the regulatory practices and methods (in foucault's terms, "techniques" and "technologies") of modern institutions and states that are used to subjugate and control human bodies for the "health" of a society--some obvious examples are the ban on gay marriage (for in the eyes of many, gay marriage would lead to degeneracy, a term u seem to be fond of) or the ban on HIV positive tourists from other countries. another is the military training of people in order to use them in wars, which are intended to "protect us from harm" and secure our "well-being."

foucualt carved out a history of sexuality and analyzed it as a form of bio-power. in the History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge, he showed, in great detail, how the modern concept of sexuality created four groups of people in order to follow as paths in its deployment: 1) the pervert; 2) the hysterical woman; 3) the masturbating child; 4) the malthusian couple. as such, he provided an analysis that hinged on a complicated intersection of sexuality, gender, childhood/adolescence, and race.

since u obviously dont know what ur talking about, i will give u a quote that explains how biopower has been absolutely necessary to the functioning of capitalism: "biopower was without question an indispensable element in the deployment of capitalism; the latter would not have been possible without the controlled insertion of bodies into the machinery of production and the adjustment of the phenomena of population to economic processes" (pp. 140-141, History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge).

this is just one example of how he relates this form of power to capitalism. i recommend u read more and refrain from calling someone homophobic and hateful things like a "degenerate child molester."

"Pacifism fundamentally denies this basic right of self-defence against the encroachment on liberty."
- Indeed. While I find this to be true and maintain that violence is a highly probable outcome of the worker's seizing the means of production, I should like to caution our comrades against over-emphasis on violence. I find that many on this forum are perhaps even eager to retaliate, and this sort of attitude has a very dangerous aspect to its realization (that is the turning of violence against those who are not opposing the revolution for whatever reasons).

As for the individual/collective division of resistance, I was merely pointing out that these two are one and the same. My claim stemmed from the feeling I get from the boards here that many of our comrades neglect the individual scale of class consciousness, focusing only on the Marxist notion of the state.

- August

Aren't you positing that 'the revolutionary struggle is necessarily violent' (I assume here you mean physical violence) as a certainty when it could be non-violent? And should this possibility exist, why settle for 'a great deal of destruction and suffering'? I understand the realist/practical views of such a revolution, I am merely asking.

You referred to a collective solidarity/refusal. I completely see your point, and in regards to a large scale organized revolution, this seems vitally necessary to me. Yet is the collective not composed of individuals? And if this is the case, does compassion/refusal not begin with the individual's rejection of their society and the structures which dominate their lives - thereby reassuming their own will power? And is it not only following this act that these individuals can then assemble and form 'collective solidarity/refusal'?

- August