My take on this is that there has to be some aspect of sovereign power that
acts as an "engine" for disciplinary power -- an empty guard tower in the
Panopticon would not work; it has to be occupied at some times and a guard
has to appear at some times in order for disciplinary power to work. It is
an efficient use of power, not one where the "traditional" uses of power are
nonexistent. Somewhere in DP Foucault writes something like: the mechanisms
of disciplinary power (he used another word) do not *replace* the
traditional mechanisms of power, but rather takes them over, or co-opts
them.
Here is the quote I was thinking of (yes, I got up off my lazy butt): "Not
because the disciplinary modality of power has replaced all others; but
because it has infiltrated the others, sometimes undermining them, but
serving as an intermediary between them, linking them together, extending
them and above all making it possible to bring the effects of power to the
most minute and distant elements. It assures an infinitesimal distribution
of the powers relations (DP 216)."
To extend something is not to get rid of it.
Mark
On Fri, 22 May 1998 02:04:26 -0400 (EDT),
foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote...
>On p. 138 of the Vintage edition of D&P, the following passage appears:
>"A 'political anatomy', which was also a 'mechanics of power', was being
>born; it defined how one may have a hold over others' bodies, not only so
>that they may do what one wishes, but so that they may operate as one
>wishes, with the techniques, the speed and the efficiency that one
>determines." This makes it sound as if this "mechanics of power" involves
>someone who has power exercising it, for a certain purpose, over someone
>who does not; i.e. it sounds like a more traditional view of power, where
>power is just a matter of one person (or group) forcing another person to
>do something.
>
>So I'm wondering: is the translation somehow misleading here (which is my
>guess), is this just sloppiness on Foucault's part, or is it evidence of
>some kind of equivocation?
>
>----Matthew A. King------Department of Philosophy------McMaster
>University----
> "The border is often narrow between a permanent temptation to commit
> suicide and the birth of a certain form of political consciousness."
>-----------------------------(Michel
>Foucault)--------------------------------
>
>
Mark Jensen
wils0253@xxxxxxxxxx
oldbuck@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
acts as an "engine" for disciplinary power -- an empty guard tower in the
Panopticon would not work; it has to be occupied at some times and a guard
has to appear at some times in order for disciplinary power to work. It is
an efficient use of power, not one where the "traditional" uses of power are
nonexistent. Somewhere in DP Foucault writes something like: the mechanisms
of disciplinary power (he used another word) do not *replace* the
traditional mechanisms of power, but rather takes them over, or co-opts
them.
Here is the quote I was thinking of (yes, I got up off my lazy butt): "Not
because the disciplinary modality of power has replaced all others; but
because it has infiltrated the others, sometimes undermining them, but
serving as an intermediary between them, linking them together, extending
them and above all making it possible to bring the effects of power to the
most minute and distant elements. It assures an infinitesimal distribution
of the powers relations (DP 216)."
To extend something is not to get rid of it.
Mark
On Fri, 22 May 1998 02:04:26 -0400 (EDT),
foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote...
>On p. 138 of the Vintage edition of D&P, the following passage appears:
>"A 'political anatomy', which was also a 'mechanics of power', was being
>born; it defined how one may have a hold over others' bodies, not only so
>that they may do what one wishes, but so that they may operate as one
>wishes, with the techniques, the speed and the efficiency that one
>determines." This makes it sound as if this "mechanics of power" involves
>someone who has power exercising it, for a certain purpose, over someone
>who does not; i.e. it sounds like a more traditional view of power, where
>power is just a matter of one person (or group) forcing another person to
>do something.
>
>So I'm wondering: is the translation somehow misleading here (which is my
>guess), is this just sloppiness on Foucault's part, or is it evidence of
>some kind of equivocation?
>
>----Matthew A. King------Department of Philosophy------McMaster
>University----
> "The border is often narrow between a permanent temptation to commit
> suicide and the birth of a certain form of political consciousness."
>-----------------------------(Michel
>Foucault)--------------------------------
>
>
Mark Jensen
wils0253@xxxxxxxxxx
oldbuck@xxxxxxxxxxxxx