Deconstructing the System (fwd)

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<H5>December 17, 2000</H5>

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<FONT SIZE=3D+3>Deconstructing the System</FONT>

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<hr size=3D1 align=3Dleft width=3D120>

<font size=3D+1><I>In the final volume of his writings, Foucault explores=

the nature of power.</I></font>

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<b>Related Links</b>

<LI><A HREF=3D"/books/00/12/17/specials/foucault.html">Featured Author: M=

ichel Foucault</A>

<LI><a href=3D"/books/first/f/foucault-power.html">First Chapter: 'Power'=

</a>

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<H5>By EDWARD W. SAID</H5>

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<FONT COLOR=3D#000000 SIZE=3D-1><B> POWER

<BR>

Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984: Volume Three.<br>

</B>



<FONT COLOR=3D#000000> By Michel Foucault.<br>

</B>



<FONT COLOR=3D#000000> Edited by James D. Faubion.<br>

</B>



<FONT COLOR=3D#000000> Translated by Robert Hurley and others.<br>

484 pp. New York:<br>

The New Press. $30.<br>

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<p>

<img src=3D"/images/w.gif" align=3Dleft alt=3DW>hen he died of AIDS in =

1984 Michel Foucault was 57, perhaps the most celebrated public intellect=

ual in Europe and extremely well known elsewhere. He had been an itineran=

t professor of philosophy in places like Tunis, Uppsala and Warsaw until =

1970, when he gained one of the chairs at the Collège de France, t=

he most sought-after and elite teaching positions in the country. Though =

without registered or degree-seeking students, the Collège is wher=

e 50 professors lecture formally to anyone who wants to listen without qu=

estions or discussion. Although his first book, ''Madness and Civilizatio=

n,'' has still never been fully translated into English (only an abridgme=

nt), Foucault has benefited from an extraordinarily attentive audience of=

academic readers in the United States for whom the long, unbroken succes=

sion of his many books has been a resource of quite seminal theoretical a=

nd historical importance.

<p>

In such works as ''The Order of Things,'' ''The Archeology of Knowledge,=

'' ''Discipline and Punish'' and ''The History of Sexuality,'' plus sever=

al volumes of essays and interviews, Foucault propounded fascinating, hig=

hly original views about such matters as the history of systems of though=

t, delinquency, discipline and confinement, in addition to introducing in=

to the vocabulary of history, philosophy and literary criticism such conc=

epts as discourse, statement, episteme, genealogy and archaeology, each o=

f them bristling with complexity and contradiction such as few of his imi=

tators and disciples have ever mastered or completely understood.

<p>

Of Foucault's work it is, I think, true that it leaves no reader untouch=

ed or unchanged for two main reasons. One, because, as he has said, each =

book was an experience for him of being enmeshed, imprisoned in ''limit-e=

xperiences'' like madness, death and crime, and also of trying rationally=

to understand ''this involvement of oneself'' in those difficult situati=

ons. Second, his books were written ''in a series: the first one leaves o=

pen problems on which the second depends for support while calling for a =

third. . . . They are interwoven and overlapping.'' Even those readers in=

whom he has produced a distaste that goes as far as revulsion will also =

feel that his urgency of argument is so great as to have made a lasting i=

mpression, for better or for worse. =

<p>

While it is probably too early to say that Foucault is as radical and st=

rong a figure as Nietzsche, the revolutionary German philosopher is the w=

riter closest to him. During much of his career, Foucault studied, commen=

ted on and took up Nietzsche with a rare affinity of spirit. ''Power'' co=

ntains a long essay, ''Truth and Juridical Forms,'' whose best section is=

also a remarkable meditation on Nietzsche's thought.

<p>

This volume is the latest addition to the list of Foucault's posthumous =

writings to appear in average (in some cases somewhat below average) Engl=

ish translation. Shortly after his death, two of Foucault's closest frien=

ds collected all his miscellaneous shorter works in four large volumes th=

at were published by Gallimard as ''Dits et Écrits, 1954-1988.'' T=

hree English-language volumes have been selected and compiled from the Ga=

llimard edition. They have been arranged, according to the series' editor=

, the Berkeley anthropology professor Paul Rabinow, quoting Foucault, as =

follows: Volume I, ''Ethics,'' about ''the way a human being turns him- o=

r herself into a subject,'' that is, a self or ego; Volume II, ''Aestheti=

cs, Method, and Epistemology,'' ''organized around Foucault's analysis of=

'the modes of inquiry which try to give themselves the status of the sci=

ences' ''; and now ''Power,'' about ''the objectivizing of the subject in=

dividing practices,'' or, Rabinow adds, ''power relations.'' I would gue=

ss that ''dividing practices'' means the way by which, for instance, psyc=

hology is distinguished or divided from biology as a science, and the way=

the thinking ego or individual scientist in one case is a different pers=

ona in different situations.

<p>

<NYT_INLINETABLE version=3D"1.0" type=3D""><p><table align=3D"right" widt=

h=3D"175" border=3D"0" cellpadding=3D"2" cellspacing=3D"2">

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/17/specials/foucault.2.jpg" width=3D"160" height=3D"215"><br>

<font size=3D-2>Camera Press</font></td></tr><p>

<tr><td align=3Dleft><font size=3D-1>

<LI><A HREF=3D"/books/00/12/17/specials/foucault.html">Featured Author: M=

ichel Foucault</A></font><hr size=3D1></td></tr></table>

<NYT_INLINETABLE>

To the untutored reader even the introductory notes to this collection, =

while somewhat helpful, require decoding, since they depend on familiarit=

y with a whole world of philosophical investigation inherited and assumed=

by Foucault. Take ''the subject.'' Classical European philosophy from De=

scartes to Kant had supposed that an objectively stable and sovereign ego=

(as in ''cogito ergo sum'') was both the source and basis for all knowle=

dge. Foucault's work not only disputes this but also shows how the subjec=

t is a construction laboriously put together over time, and one very liab=

le to be a passing historical phenomenon replaced in the modern age by tr=

anshistorical impersonal forces, like the capital of Marx or the unconsci=

ous of Freud or the will of Nietzsche. Each of these explanatory forces c=

an be shown to have a ''genealogy'' whose ''archaeology'' Foucault's hist=

ories provide.

<p>

Foucault's studies furnish the evidence for this dismantling, in additio=

n to showing how various powerful social institutions like the church, th=

e public health and medical professions, the law and the police, as well =

as the processes of learning themselves, actually have built and administ=

er the power that rules the modern Western state. For him, what matters i=

s not the individual writer or philosopher but an impersonal, continuing =

activity he calls discourse, with its rules of formation and possibility.=

Those rules mean that users of the discourse must have qualifications an=

d academic accreditation -- plus a specialized technical knowledge -- tha=

t not just anyone can either possess or provide. =

<p>

Thus, to contribute to early-18th-century medical discourse one would ha=

ve had to think in very specific, even confining terms and be able to for=

m statements according to prescribed lines, rather than freely making dir=

ect and immediate observations that correspond to a patient's actual phys=

ical malady. Foucault's interesting idea is that ''health'' and ''disease=

'' are never stable states, or matters of truth and reality, but are alwa=

ys constructed to suit the type of medical ''gaze'' that the doctor has, =

whether that is therapeutic, punitive, providential or charitable. =

<p>

Truth is not a fixed absolute, Foucault says provocatively, but an effec=

t of the scientific discourse, which sets up a working, albeit contingent=

, distinction between true and false. And all of that depends on how the =

socially constructed networks of hospitals, clinics, laboratories, medica=

l schools and governmental administrations function together at various h=

istorical moments, which Foucault's work strives painstakingly to describ=

e and demystify, moment by moment, step by step. The net result is nothin=

g less than a history of truth seen, in the final analysis, as an art of =

government.

<p>

It is quite evident from this brief summary that Foucault's interest in =

such things as penology or mental illness or even sciences like philology=

and economic theory can be traced back to his lifelong fascination with =

confinement, punishment and the micromanagement of details by an at times=

insinuating, at other times dominating power. ''Power'' is full of essay=

s and interviews that show in often compelling and ingenious terms the wa=

y a Renaissance sovereign personality like the king or cardinal slowly di=

sappears, in order to reappear as the legal minutiae of a penal code admi=

nistered by impersonal committees, theoreticians of surveillance and puni=

shment like Jeremy Bentham or guilds of scholars and experts who guard th=

eir ''fields'' with jealous alertness against intruders. Whereas Louis XV=

had a would-be regicide slowly tortured to death before his impassive ga=

ze, the modern wielders of power are scattered along many strands of the =

social fabric, invisible, impersonal, but just as cruel when they deal wi=

th transgressors and delinquents. No one more than Foucault has studied t=

he workings of these systems of power, and the way in which we have all b=

ecome ''governable.'' No one more than he has understood the dangers pose=

d to the system by renegades and rebels like Sade, Nietzsche, Mallarme an=

d other great transgressive artists.

<p>

<NYT_INLINETABLE version=3D"1.0" type=3D"">

<table align=3D"right" width=3D"240" border=3D"0" bgcolor=3D"#ffeecc" cel=

lpadding=3D"6">

<tr><td><font color=3D9900000><h5><center>FROM THE ARCHIVES<br></h5></cen=

ter></font>

<font size=3D-1>"French intellectual life is a scenario. It has its stars=

and

histrionic polemics, its claque and fiascoes. It is

susceptible, to a degree remarkable in a society so

obviously literate and ironic, to sudden gusts of lunatic

fashion. A Sartre dominates, to be followed by

Levi-Strauss; the new master is soon fusilladed by

self-proclaimed 'Maoist-structuralists.' The almost

impenetrable soliloquies on semantics and

psychoanalysis of Jaques Lacan pack their full houses. Now th=

e mandarin of the hour is

Michel Foucault.

<P>

". . . an honest first reading

produces an almost intolerable sense of verbosity, arrogance =

and obscure platitude. Page

after page could be the rhetoric of a somewhat weary sybil in=

dulging in free association.

Recourse to the French text shows that this is not a matter o=

f awkward translation. . . .

<P>

"One asks these questions because Foucault's claims are sweep=

ing, and because, one

supposes, he would wish to be read seriously or not at all. H=

is appeal, moreover, to

contemporaries of exceptional intelligence both at home and i=

n England (this book appears

in a series edited by R. D. Laing) is undeniable. This is no =

confidence trick. Something of

originality and, perhaps, of very real importance, is being a=

rgued in these often rebarbative

pages."

=

<p>

-- <I><a href=3D"/books/00/12/17/specials/foucault-order.html">George Ste=

iner's review of "The Order of Things,"</A> (Febr. 28, 1971) </I></font><=

/td></tr>

</table>

</NYT_INLINETABLE>

There are many problems and questions that come to mind as one reads Fou=

cault, but one thing is never in doubt: he was a prodigious researcher, a=

man driven by what he once called ''relentless erudition.'' Perhaps the =

most riveting extract in ''Power'' is ''Lives of Infamous Men,'' a short =

introduction he wrote to a collection of early-18th-century records of in=

ternment (police blotter entries most likely), about quasi-anonymous men =

and women convicted of particularly horrible crimes -- infanticide, canni=

balism, incest, dismemberment and the like. These minimal biographies, he=

says, are ''singular lives, transformed into strange poems through who k=

nows what twists of fate -- this is what I decided to gather into a kind =

of herbarium.'' In other words, they are gems gathered by him from the le=

avings or excess of his bibliophilia. These not-quite-anonymous people ''=

were able to leave traces -- brief, incisive, often enigmatic -- only at =

the point of their instantaneous contact with power,'' a convergence that=

produced a ''blend of dark stubbornness and rascality . . . lives whose =

disarray and relentless energy one senses beneath the stone-smooth words.=

'' Just as their memorialist Foucault displays remarkable literary flair,=

responding brilliantly to the grisly semi-secrecy of their lives, their =

macabre presence on the fringes of society, simultaneously menacing and g=

ripping. =

<p>

It is that exercise of imagination focused on the marginal and shadowy, =

harnessed to a formidably ascetic work ethic, that so distinguished Fouca=

ult as a philosopher and historian. I saw him lecture once at the Coll&eg=

rave;ge de France in the early spring of 1978, when he addressed a very l=

arge and quite motley crowd drawn from the beau monde all the way through=

the academic ranks down to the clochards (or tramps) who had wandered in=

for shelter. Dressed in a white shirt buttoned to the very top, tieless =

and in a black suit, his completely bald (perhaps shaven) head glistening=

in the poor light, he strode in quickly, sat down and began to read from=

his redoubtably well-prepared text. No jokes, small talk, hemming and ha=

wing. His performance that day was an exercise in stark, concentrated asc=

eticism, his severity of learning and dedication keeping every word taut =

and in place. The subject was ''governmentality,'' and the lecture is in =

''Power,'' where it is identified as part of a yearlong course on ''Secur=

ity, Territory and Population.'' Though this was just before he had openl=

y espoused the gay politics and self-experimentation of his last years (p=

robingly investigated by James Miller in ''The Passion of Michel Foucault=

''), one could sense in his lecture a coiled-up energy as he surveyed the=

pastoral and police element in modern government that, I now feel, he wa=

s highlighting in order to undermine later. =

<p>

Unfortunately, not all of the material in ''Power'' is of equal merit, n=

either in the way it is presented nor in its substance. In order to make =

shorthand generalizations about major social and epistemological shifts i=

n several European countries, Foucault resorts to maddening, unsupported =

assertions that may be interesting rhetorically but cannot pass muster ei=

ther as history or as philosophy. Too often, grand statements about socie=

ty as a whole or at its extremes are presented without evidence or proof =

(Foucault seems to have had an addiction for the beginnings of centuries,=

as if history ran in hundred-year periods, of which the first part was u=

sually where the important events occurred), while at other times complic=

ated interviews that were conducted with him about a specific situation i=

n Iran or Poland are left to stand gnomically, without explanation or con=

text, and, sad to say, seem very dated. At other times, a lamentably lite=

ral translation, as in ''One of the great problems of the French Revoluti=

on was to bring an end to this type of peasant plunder,'' delivers approx=

imate meanings that may be funny but aren't very helpful. Can you imagine=

an energetic bureaucrat called ''the French Revolution'' bustling around=

like the March Hare trying to do something about a ''problem'' called ''=

peasant plunder''? =

<p>

Some of these difficulties have to do with editors, translators and a pu=

blisher who out of a worthy respect for Foucault's memory and achievement=

probably thought they should leave the great man's words as they were, e=

ven when they were delivered hastily or far too allusively. While this as=

sures completeness of texts, it doesn't help the reader, who is left to f=

lounder unnecessarily in passages that could have been eliminated altoget=

her or improved considerably with useful notes. On the other hand, to foo=

tnote a passage from an untranslated essay in an unobtainable source by w=

ay of assisting the reader is, finally, a silly conceit. That occurs too.=

But despite these flaws there is no doubt that at least half of ''Power'=

' is well worth having and making the effort to understand.

<p>

What I found specially valuable in the collection were the unexpected pl=

easures of essays like ''Lives of Infamous Men'' and a magnificent long d=

iscussion, ''Interview With Michel Foucault,'' originally published in It=

aly around 1980. Not only can one hear him elaborate on the continuity of=

his thought and its relationships with the Frankfurt School, Freud, Marx=

, Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem (his main teacher, the eminent =

French historian of science), but we are also given a rare opportunity to=

see how a great and original mind produces its work as well as itself at=

the same time, clarifying issues while discovering new problems in thoug=

ht and in life. Foucault's extraordinary blend of energy and pessimism gi=

ves a remarkable dignity to his work, which is anything but an exercise i=

n professorial abstraction. =

<p>

Rather, as Foucault puts it, his thinking is animated by the frightening=

realization that ''the Enlightenment's promise of attaining freedom thro=

ugh the exercise of reason has been turned upside down, resulting in a do=

mination by reason itself, which increasingly usurps the place of freedom=

=2E'' This impasse is the real core of Foucault's work. Even more dramati=

cally, it also illuminates the impasse that his astonishingly intense, co=

mpacted life seems on some level to have exhibited.

<br>



<NYT_AUTHOR_ID version=3D"1.0" type=3D"books">

<P>

<HR SIZE=3D1 ALIGN=3DLEFT WIDTH=3D120>

<I>Edward W. Said, a professor of English and comparative literature at C=

olumbia University, is the author of the forthcoming book ''Reflections o=

n Exile.''</I>

<P>

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