In your message of 20:05 Jun 20 1996, you write:
>
> >What does everyone make of the statement:
> >"Although the universal juridicism of modern society seems to fix limits
> >on the exercise of power, its universally widespread panopticism enables
> >it to operate, on the *underside of the law,* a machinery both immense
> >and minute..."(DP 223)
>
> >Then what might this mean in connection with Michael Walzer's article on
> >"The politics of Michel Foucault?"
>
> >Where Walzer says:
> >"And so Foucault's radical abolitionism, if it is serious, is not
> >anarchist so much as nihilist."(Foucault Critical Reader page 61, ed.
> >D.C.
> >Hoy)
>
> >Please keep in mind the first quote when responding, because it is in
> >the location of law counterposed against disciplline that I think this
> >problem emerges. Might there be a way to counterpose law and
> >discipline, that doesn't alienate the use of law for beneficial social
> >change? I am thinking along the lines of the use of "governmentality"
> >except that government is infused, through and through with the
> >combination of law
> and sovereignty.
>
> In partial response to your last question I would give a resounding yes.
> In vol. I of HoS Foucault makes it quite clear (clearer than he does in
> other places) that a space remains for BOTH juridical and disciplinary
> power. Walzer (and often Taylor and others as well) has to assume that
> Foucault cannot account for juridical power if he is to come to the
> conclusion that Foucault is a nihilist (or an anarchist). Focuault turns
> most of his attention to disciplinary power because of its often
> invisible and always insidious nature, but he never assumes that
> disciplinary power wholly replaces the juridical system--it does in fact
> operate on this "underside of the law."
>
> Just a beginning,
>
> Sam
>
I think Sam makes a good point about power. I too think that Foucault
would acknowledge a layering of modes of power throughout society.
That's in part what makes the whole analysis of power especially
difficult.
I would also want to go a little further, perhaps by noting the problem
inherent in "Might there be a way to counterpose law and discipline in a
way that doesn't alienate the use of law for beneficial
social change?" Problem is the word "beneficial". I don't want
to claim that Foucault is a "relativist" -- a claim that seems to
misunderstand Foucault's project, to my mind. But supposing that the
word isn't itself problematic in this context is also questionable.
And I think that the problem is related to that layering of power. The
fact that such layerings exist -- and, I would point out, the fact that
modern subjects are formed within such layerings -- suggest that there
are numerous and multiple effects of any actions. While notoriously
unpredictable are the effects of power, there are different forms of
power to boot, making the whole exercise of determining (let alone
predicting) the effects of power more difficult. Add to that a
general and perhaps less controversial set of disputes related to the
"goals" of society, and you've got the recipe for something akin to
chaos. (BTW, I would suggest that in the enlightenment era and beyond, chaos
has come to mean somethinig very close to unpredictable.; hence the
interest in chaos theory -- a theory of the unpredictable is better than
leaving it unpredicable, to our scientific minds.)
Anyway -- so is all this unpredictability more like anarchism or
nihilism? Hmmmm. I don't know. But I would suggest that it's the
latter concept that defines our approach; but I would also say that it's
not a matter of the nothingness usually implied by nihilism; rather we
are overcome by meaningfulness that may verge on meaninglessness, but
only if we give up. I think that's why Foucault instead calls for what
he calls a "hyper- and pessimistic activism" -- hyper because there's so
much to do, pessimism because we enter it knowing we can not complete
it. And that activism is -- at least I am arguing here -- the
alternative reaction to anarchism.
My final argument for Foucault's modified nihilism as opposed to
anarchism? Not a good one, but here it is: Charles Taylor, as a
criticism I take it, described Foucault's work as something like
"radical anarchist chic". So it must *not* be. : )
Blaine Rehkopf
Philosophy
York University
CANADA
--
>
> >What does everyone make of the statement:
> >"Although the universal juridicism of modern society seems to fix limits
> >on the exercise of power, its universally widespread panopticism enables
> >it to operate, on the *underside of the law,* a machinery both immense
> >and minute..."(DP 223)
>
> >Then what might this mean in connection with Michael Walzer's article on
> >"The politics of Michel Foucault?"
>
> >Where Walzer says:
> >"And so Foucault's radical abolitionism, if it is serious, is not
> >anarchist so much as nihilist."(Foucault Critical Reader page 61, ed.
> >D.C.
> >Hoy)
>
> >Please keep in mind the first quote when responding, because it is in
> >the location of law counterposed against disciplline that I think this
> >problem emerges. Might there be a way to counterpose law and
> >discipline, that doesn't alienate the use of law for beneficial social
> >change? I am thinking along the lines of the use of "governmentality"
> >except that government is infused, through and through with the
> >combination of law
> and sovereignty.
>
> In partial response to your last question I would give a resounding yes.
> In vol. I of HoS Foucault makes it quite clear (clearer than he does in
> other places) that a space remains for BOTH juridical and disciplinary
> power. Walzer (and often Taylor and others as well) has to assume that
> Foucault cannot account for juridical power if he is to come to the
> conclusion that Foucault is a nihilist (or an anarchist). Focuault turns
> most of his attention to disciplinary power because of its often
> invisible and always insidious nature, but he never assumes that
> disciplinary power wholly replaces the juridical system--it does in fact
> operate on this "underside of the law."
>
> Just a beginning,
>
> Sam
>
I think Sam makes a good point about power. I too think that Foucault
would acknowledge a layering of modes of power throughout society.
That's in part what makes the whole analysis of power especially
difficult.
I would also want to go a little further, perhaps by noting the problem
inherent in "Might there be a way to counterpose law and discipline in a
way that doesn't alienate the use of law for beneficial
social change?" Problem is the word "beneficial". I don't want
to claim that Foucault is a "relativist" -- a claim that seems to
misunderstand Foucault's project, to my mind. But supposing that the
word isn't itself problematic in this context is also questionable.
And I think that the problem is related to that layering of power. The
fact that such layerings exist -- and, I would point out, the fact that
modern subjects are formed within such layerings -- suggest that there
are numerous and multiple effects of any actions. While notoriously
unpredictable are the effects of power, there are different forms of
power to boot, making the whole exercise of determining (let alone
predicting) the effects of power more difficult. Add to that a
general and perhaps less controversial set of disputes related to the
"goals" of society, and you've got the recipe for something akin to
chaos. (BTW, I would suggest that in the enlightenment era and beyond, chaos
has come to mean somethinig very close to unpredictable.; hence the
interest in chaos theory -- a theory of the unpredictable is better than
leaving it unpredicable, to our scientific minds.)
Anyway -- so is all this unpredictability more like anarchism or
nihilism? Hmmmm. I don't know. But I would suggest that it's the
latter concept that defines our approach; but I would also say that it's
not a matter of the nothingness usually implied by nihilism; rather we
are overcome by meaningfulness that may verge on meaninglessness, but
only if we give up. I think that's why Foucault instead calls for what
he calls a "hyper- and pessimistic activism" -- hyper because there's so
much to do, pessimism because we enter it knowing we can not complete
it. And that activism is -- at least I am arguing here -- the
alternative reaction to anarchism.
My final argument for Foucault's modified nihilism as opposed to
anarchism? Not a good one, but here it is: Charles Taylor, as a
criticism I take it, described Foucault's work as something like
"radical anarchist chic". So it must *not* be. : )
Blaine Rehkopf
Philosophy
York University
CANADA
--