Gabriel,
you are quite right that Foucault does not deny that repression exist. I
perhaps overstated the case. Rather, Foucault says repression is not the
primary way by which power operates. My argument is that, if repression
were non-existent, then Foucault's notion of productive power would be
unimportant. Why? We all know that our options for action in any given
situation is limited by a number of factors, some of which are beyond our
control. FOr FOucault's notion of power to be substantive, power must be
something we control and somethin we care about controlling. SO, for
example, the medical profession controlled the birthing process around the
middle of this cenutry. WOmen were forced into hopsital rooms and husbands
were made to saty outside for the safety of the mother and child. This is
important because it denies certain real interests we have: to have support
during painful circumstances (such as shoving a bowling ball through a golg
ball hole), to have bonds develop between us and our children, to not have
our feelings rerouted to other areas of expression from their primary
target. We care about controlling this invasion of power into our lives
which grounds itself in medical knowledge. But it also represses real
interests we might have, by producing us as certain kinds of individuals:
the father who controls his emotions and remains distant from emotional
circumstances in the family, for example. The mother is made into a
patient: some who needs to be drugged, operated on, cared for, placed in a
supine position, when all she really needs is to sit up and push the kid
out.The analsysi of power by Steven Lukes in Power: A Radical View captures
this productive aspect of power well, but does so through the use of
ideology, which FOucault denies as important.
I also meant something much broader by true selves than normal parlance
dictates. My ideal of a true self is something which may be fluid,
changing, centered but not determined. As Kant says, happiness is
different for different people. Thus he introduces a subject rationality
for each person which does not differ. This is what happens intotalizing
theories, they dislocate our more potential selves and locate us as some
non-changing subject, geist, intellect. What have you. My notion of a
self is one from Aristotle and Aquinas: a being with many possibilities and
potentialities such that we are not exhausted by one configuration. This
allows a sort of Deleuzian flow to enter. Thus, I agree with Foucault, if
that is what he is arguing for, that we must remain open to possibilities.
I think this is the only "real" interest we have.
Jeff
you are quite right that Foucault does not deny that repression exist. I
perhaps overstated the case. Rather, Foucault says repression is not the
primary way by which power operates. My argument is that, if repression
were non-existent, then Foucault's notion of productive power would be
unimportant. Why? We all know that our options for action in any given
situation is limited by a number of factors, some of which are beyond our
control. FOr FOucault's notion of power to be substantive, power must be
something we control and somethin we care about controlling. SO, for
example, the medical profession controlled the birthing process around the
middle of this cenutry. WOmen were forced into hopsital rooms and husbands
were made to saty outside for the safety of the mother and child. This is
important because it denies certain real interests we have: to have support
during painful circumstances (such as shoving a bowling ball through a golg
ball hole), to have bonds develop between us and our children, to not have
our feelings rerouted to other areas of expression from their primary
target. We care about controlling this invasion of power into our lives
which grounds itself in medical knowledge. But it also represses real
interests we might have, by producing us as certain kinds of individuals:
the father who controls his emotions and remains distant from emotional
circumstances in the family, for example. The mother is made into a
patient: some who needs to be drugged, operated on, cared for, placed in a
supine position, when all she really needs is to sit up and push the kid
out.The analsysi of power by Steven Lukes in Power: A Radical View captures
this productive aspect of power well, but does so through the use of
ideology, which FOucault denies as important.
I also meant something much broader by true selves than normal parlance
dictates. My ideal of a true self is something which may be fluid,
changing, centered but not determined. As Kant says, happiness is
different for different people. Thus he introduces a subject rationality
for each person which does not differ. This is what happens intotalizing
theories, they dislocate our more potential selves and locate us as some
non-changing subject, geist, intellect. What have you. My notion of a
self is one from Aristotle and Aquinas: a being with many possibilities and
potentialities such that we are not exhausted by one configuration. This
allows a sort of Deleuzian flow to enter. Thus, I agree with Foucault, if
that is what he is arguing for, that we must remain open to possibilities.
I think this is the only "real" interest we have.
Jeff