Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

Timothy 10/11/07
Fashioning the Body
Fall 07/08
Julia Zay

Power and Foucault


What is power? Who is Michel Foucault? How do power and Foucault connect? In Foucault’s The History of Sexuality: An Introduction Vol. 1, he was fascinated in the “forms of power, the channels it takes and the discourses it permeates in order to reach the most tenuous and individual modes of behavior,” (Foucault, 11). Power was everywhere, especially in the evolution of sexuality, as it is known present day. Yet, power has multiples definitions. It can be defined as a set standard, a ruling; we either have it or we don’t. For Foucault, however, it was everywhere, woven within sexuality and society, and life. To us however, someone in authority, creating a hierarchy, holds power. Foucault disagreed with this statement.
“Power operated as a mechanism of attraction; it drew out those peculiarities over which it kept watch. Pleasure spread to the power that harried it; power anchored the pleasure it uncovered,” (Foucault, 45). By using words such as pleasure, Foucault was able to weave the concept of power into different meanings. It was something that was found within our minds, our bodies, and us. We can use power to further investigate the concepts within sexuality. “It did not set boundaries for sexuality; it extended the various forms of sexuality pursuing them to lines of indifference,” (Foucault, 47). It was this energy that existed everywhere. To everyone else, power was authority, the set way. Nevertheless grounded in Foucault’s theories was the concept that power could be many things.
Religion, and the confession was a concept of power. To confess was to transfer power. “Confession frees, but power reduces one to silence; truth does not belong to the order of power but shares an original affinity with freedom,” (Foucalt, 60). Confession, A shift of power from one to another, was key in the concept of power. Was religion a means of confining power? To express power was to express desire. By confessing ones sins, and particularly the ones concerning sexual deviances, power was easily acquired. Yet, power on both the behalf of the confessor and the confessed. This gave much insight into what we could learn from society, and from our own bodies. By confessing, we sought we relieve the body of sin. Yet, people weren’t so open about it. “Perhaps the point to consider is not the level of indulgence or the quantity of repression but the form of power that was exercised,” (Foucault, 41). What had we learned from being repressed? Were we? Foucault argues we weren’t.
What’s interesting to note is Foucault’s concept of power as a technology, a tool in which knowledge, or pleasure was gained. How have we progressed on this concept? Have we? Given’s present day and the concept of sexuality, I’d say we’ve progressed well. Technology is rapidly changing, as is the concept of power. We’ve seen it used in the confession, we’ve seen it used in the human body. We’ve seen it used in the mind. Where has power taken us as a society? Power is like knowledge, in that it’s influential. Do students have power? Or, are they in the process of gaining knowledge which gives them power? To Foucault, power is something that is intertwined within everything. Yet, with our modern definition of power as something that seems set in place. Can the two coexist? It seems that power, as we know it is strength. By knowing about our sexuality, we contain power. Yet Foucault appears to agree with this as well. Sexuality for Foucault is strength. It’s like power, found in so many aspects of life, but more specifically in us.
“How have we come to be a civilization so peculiar as to tell itself that, through an abuse of power, which has not ended, it has long, “sinned” against sex,” (Foucault, 9). Historically, as society revolutionized, more power was gained. Yet, if power was gained, it must have been transported from one individual to the next. Not simply by someone always in authority.
“Pleasure and power do not cancel or turn back against one another; they seek, overlap, and reinforce one another,” (Foucault, 48). If this is true, than what could pleasure be defined as? Something gratifying? Accomplishment? Success? Power is interwoven into numerous concepts and terms. Foucault persistently stresses this. By having the pleasure of knowing about the human body, how we functioned, we gained power. By seeking advice from a therapist, or a doctor, power is frequently changing hands. Foucault’s concept of power complicates our comprehension of it because we’re used to seeing it in terms of authority. In war, power is shown by the ability to fight. In politics, power is shown by the ability to lead.
Power surrounds us; it’s everywhere, from the interaction between a soldier and his general, to inside the church where a priest listens to the sins of a villager. It flows from one mouth to the next, or one mind to another. Power is inside our own body, as a means of life, of expression, or knowledge. We find it when we least expect it. So, how does Foucault’s definition of power differ from our own? Does it? It appears that while, for him it’s more of a concept that is always being redefined in numerous instances. To us, we see power as more of a solid object: visibly apparent, in the media, in politics, in life. We see power in a CEO, a president: in someone of authority. Yet we realize how easily, power can be transferred: within the knowledge between a student and a teacher, or a doctor and patient. Power can be in the human senses, it can be in the human mind, it can be anywhere and everywhere. “We need to take these mechanisms seriously, therefore, and reverse the direction of our analysis: rather than assuming a general acknowledged repression,” (Foucault, 73). By thinking of power as something that is not always repressed, it allows us to simply redefine it, or look at in another context.