Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 16:18:04 BST
From: SOC POSTGRADUATE LAB - PC1 <M.Drake@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Re[4]: what is bio-power? (fwd)
To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Priority: Normal
Reply-to: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Forwarded Message:
From: SOC POSTGRADUATE LAB - PC1 <j103@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 16:12:58 BST
Subject: Re: Re[4]: what is bio-power? (fwd)
To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Re: bipower/surveillance
Isn't the point not so much that we 'all' accept
surveillance, but that to object is to implicate oneslf.
Here in the UK we don't yet have identity cards, but there
are proposals to introduce them 'voluntarily', with the
explicit qualification that 'only those who have something
to hide' would object to them. The legitimate citizen
becomes the subject of continuous acquiescence, who cannot
say no to reasonable authority because to do so would be to
remove oneslf from the realm of legitimacy. There is indeed
a certain 'comfort' in this (which could perhaps be related
to the current nostalgia in Russia for 'the old days')- I
think we're all trying to recapture the old certainties of
modernity through technological exclusion of the
consequences of the collapse of its project. Of course, what
we get is empty, and our attempts are thoroughly
paradoxical. Virilio has written recently of how
surveillance of public space forecloses on the legal as well
as the political subject (The Vision Machine). Anonymity
itself has become subject to surveillance -and isn't it
interesting that in public surveillance its not the
anonymous figure that is suspect, but the one that can be
identified? Once, 'Stadtluft macht frei', but now even
anonymity has been stolen from us!
I think what we're left with (pun intended) is *government*,
in the sense Foucault abstracted and genealogised, which
constantly adjusts itself to operate upon its constituted
objects, which thereby become one with its ends...In the
case of liberal governance, this means the interests of
individuals, both as a flock and as each and every one.
Mike Drake
UEA
>I don't know about you, but I pretty much assume that I
>might be under
>some form of electronic surveillance at any time.
>And following Rodney King, who isn't aware of the
>possibility of
>unexpected videotaping?
....
>My point is that we are now so accustomed to this that we
>welcome it.
>I'm not saying that that's a good thing, but I don't think
<it's so easy
>to say it's a bad thing, either. It just is the case;
>there is a
>certain comfort in such surveillance for modern subjects.
....
> So...I'm not sure that we ought not to be wondering what
>other form of power besides disciplinary power is now being
>used, i.e.,
>a form of power that we are not aware of. I know Deleuze
>talks about
>some of this stuff, but I just wondered what others think.
>Blaine Rehkopf
>York University
>CANADA
--
I think Mike is right in introducing the notion of government in the
discussion of the relation between control and discipline. There is a
clear shift in the work of Foucault in the end of the 70s, where he
develops the problematics of government (of the self and of others).
He begins to see that there is apart from legal und disciplinar power
another form of power, that works on subjects. In the center is
neither la norme (legal power) nor le normativ (discipline) but la
normalisation. Government does not start from the norm, it does not
try to correct individuals with respect to a preexisting norm, but it
start from a positive norm, which is a statistical given (for example
a certain rate of suicide, criminality etc). It does not try to exort
this rate, on the contrary it is taken as something natural, which
has to be controlled. The aim is to govern societies and the
disciplination of individuals is only one part of the project, which
means that discipline is a form of government (the work of Ewald in
L'Etat providence and other co-workers of Foucault is continuing on
this aspect).
When I was working on the notion of government in the work of
Foucault I came across what Deleuze called societies of control. He
uses the same structural distinction (law, discipline, control), but
there are differences in the chronology and Foucault links government
much more to forms of self-technologies than Deleuze does (well, the
text or the texts, since there is another interview where he refers
to that notion, is very short).
Thomas
From: SOC POSTGRADUATE LAB - PC1 <M.Drake@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Re[4]: what is bio-power? (fwd)
To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Priority: Normal
Reply-to: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Forwarded Message:
From: SOC POSTGRADUATE LAB - PC1 <j103@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 16:12:58 BST
Subject: Re: Re[4]: what is bio-power? (fwd)
To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Re: bipower/surveillance
Isn't the point not so much that we 'all' accept
surveillance, but that to object is to implicate oneslf.
Here in the UK we don't yet have identity cards, but there
are proposals to introduce them 'voluntarily', with the
explicit qualification that 'only those who have something
to hide' would object to them. The legitimate citizen
becomes the subject of continuous acquiescence, who cannot
say no to reasonable authority because to do so would be to
remove oneslf from the realm of legitimacy. There is indeed
a certain 'comfort' in this (which could perhaps be related
to the current nostalgia in Russia for 'the old days')- I
think we're all trying to recapture the old certainties of
modernity through technological exclusion of the
consequences of the collapse of its project. Of course, what
we get is empty, and our attempts are thoroughly
paradoxical. Virilio has written recently of how
surveillance of public space forecloses on the legal as well
as the political subject (The Vision Machine). Anonymity
itself has become subject to surveillance -and isn't it
interesting that in public surveillance its not the
anonymous figure that is suspect, but the one that can be
identified? Once, 'Stadtluft macht frei', but now even
anonymity has been stolen from us!
I think what we're left with (pun intended) is *government*,
in the sense Foucault abstracted and genealogised, which
constantly adjusts itself to operate upon its constituted
objects, which thereby become one with its ends...In the
case of liberal governance, this means the interests of
individuals, both as a flock and as each and every one.
Mike Drake
UEA
>I don't know about you, but I pretty much assume that I
>might be under
>some form of electronic surveillance at any time.
>And following Rodney King, who isn't aware of the
>possibility of
>unexpected videotaping?
....
>My point is that we are now so accustomed to this that we
>welcome it.
>I'm not saying that that's a good thing, but I don't think
<it's so easy
>to say it's a bad thing, either. It just is the case;
>there is a
>certain comfort in such surveillance for modern subjects.
....
> So...I'm not sure that we ought not to be wondering what
>other form of power besides disciplinary power is now being
>used, i.e.,
>a form of power that we are not aware of. I know Deleuze
>talks about
>some of this stuff, but I just wondered what others think.
>Blaine Rehkopf
>York University
>CANADA
--
I think Mike is right in introducing the notion of government in the
discussion of the relation between control and discipline. There is a
clear shift in the work of Foucault in the end of the 70s, where he
develops the problematics of government (of the self and of others).
He begins to see that there is apart from legal und disciplinar power
another form of power, that works on subjects. In the center is
neither la norme (legal power) nor le normativ (discipline) but la
normalisation. Government does not start from the norm, it does not
try to correct individuals with respect to a preexisting norm, but it
start from a positive norm, which is a statistical given (for example
a certain rate of suicide, criminality etc). It does not try to exort
this rate, on the contrary it is taken as something natural, which
has to be controlled. The aim is to govern societies and the
disciplination of individuals is only one part of the project, which
means that discipline is a form of government (the work of Ewald in
L'Etat providence and other co-workers of Foucault is continuing on
this aspect).
When I was working on the notion of government in the work of
Foucault I came across what Deleuze called societies of control. He
uses the same structural distinction (law, discipline, control), but
there are differences in the chronology and Foucault links government
much more to forms of self-technologies than Deleuze does (well, the
text or the texts, since there is another interview where he refers
to that notion, is very short).
Thomas