Melissa

Fashioning the Body

October 8, 2007

Concept Rhyming Essay #1

Foucault on Power

            Power has many different meanings, but is mainly understood to be an intangible force that influences and controls. It makes one think of authority, strength, and dominance. Foucault takes a unique view on power as the invisible pressure behind society and the way all individuals act. He explores the depth of the influential powers in all of life. Who or what has the power?  What makes power? How can we play with power? Foucault uses the word “power” and morphs it into many different meanings and contexts. He uses it to explain innermost thoughts and actions and the way every part of society plays against each other to manipulate and form our existence and influence all that we do.

               While we think of power almost as an imaginary entity, Foucault talks about power as if it were alive and had personality. He says on page 44 of The History of Sexuality:

Foucault uses visual language to show power as an ever-present force in life. He sees power not only as a mental force, but as a physical one, often following it with a physical verb. He tries to explain to the reader how power affects every part of life. He says that power is so influential that it acts as a material force, and not only persuades us, but pushes us into action.

            Another way Foucault explores power is through what he calls “power relations”. He sees the person who has power over another as being a great pressure in their lives. They can impact and change that person’s mind, resulting in a change of their entire body. He also explains how powers can have relations with other powers.  There is never a time when Foucault sees an ultimate power. Instead he acknowledges power shifts and changes to form newly realized power and Foucault’s favorite, power struggles. For instance, Foucault writes about the power a parent or educator has over a child’s sexuality because they influence the child’s thoughts and actions. But, he also realizes that the child possesses his own power because his sexuality causes the parent to worry. This cause and effect is a play of power, a power relation.

            Though Foucault does not see power as being ultimate, he does view power as having other concrete characteristics. Often he refers to the “nature of power”. One of the traits he finds in power is that of repression.  Power enjoys suppressing pleasure. It feeds on the need to have complete control, usually of the cruel kind, over anything it can.

            Foucault uses this callous view of power to explain why sexuality and anything that is viewed as abnormal, is a cause of guilt within our society. To put it frankly, power wants us all to feel depressed and ashamed.

            Beside suppression, Foucault sees power as having a nature of knowledge. Often he groups the two together to become one unit of “knowledge-power.” When someone possesses knowledge they have an influence over someone who does not. We often look to someone with more knowledge for guidance, which in turn, gives them power over us. They have the power to share their knowledge or to keep it from us. The same relationship applies if the person has the knowledge of something we want to keep secret. They now hold the power because they can choose whether or not to divulge their knowledge of us. In this sense, power embodies knowledge and the two become reliant on each other and inseparable. Foucault uses this unit of knowledge-power to explain the ways we interact, and the power relations of everyday society.

            Foucault says that learning is a way of gaining more knowledge. Because knowledge is power, when you gain new knowledge you gain more power. The knowledge one already has helps them to learn, so knowledge is powerful in gaining more power.

The views of power that Foucault holds create a complex web that would not be the normal interpretation of the word.  To most, power is simply power, nothing in-depth and to be explored. We are all aware of power within our lives, but most people do not stop to think much about it. The way Foucault sees power as mainly negative, he seems to focus more on the victimization of power rather then the benefits that could come with power.

In our society it is normal to seek power. But Foucault would probably see the seeking of power as an influence of power itself. Society views power as positive so people seek it. Instead of gaining power, Foucault encourages us to escape power. The only form of power he seems to think acceptable is the power of knowledge.

Reading Foucault completely changes the meaning of power. The way he uses the word and his multiple interpretations makes us view power in a whole new way. He effectively uses the word to explain in depth the way our society functions through a play of knowledge, pleasure, and discourse that is controlled by and that controls power. Foucault sees everything as hypocrisy, so there is no real way to explain the views in or own words without sounding hypocritical ourself, especially since everything we do is affected by society’s power.

“Briefly, my aim is to examine the case of a society which has been loudly castigating itself for its hypocrisy for more than a century, which speaks verbosely of its own silence, takes great pains to relate in detail all the things it does not say, denounces the powers it excises, and promises to liberate itself from the very laws that have made it function.” Pg 8