Re: [Foucault-L] Pathologies of Power

Michael,

Power was far too vague, let me refine that a bit. I've thought about
quite a bit and I haven't been able to identify a distinct type of
power that I associate with pathological forms. Instead of a type, I
think of it as an imbalance in power relations. Sovereign power is one
example, the origins of slave morality could be related to a pathology
of power, and maybe even the bad conscience itself could be a pathology
of power.

The Stachniewski book is out of print, do you know of a place where it
can be found?

The Laing book is at Amazon.com for VERY cheap.

Thank you for the directions, it is something I've been thinking about
and I appreciate any help.

Thanks again!
sam



michael bibby wrote:


>"For us, the human body defines, by natural right, the
>space of origin and distribution of disease; a space
>whose lines, volumes, surfaces and routes are laid
>down, in accordance with a now familiar . . .
>anatomical atlas. But this order of the solid, visible
>body is only one way--in all likelihood neither the
>first, nor the most fundamental--in which one
>spatializes disease. There have been, and will be,
>other distributions of disease." Foucault, Birth of
>the clinic.
>
>Having said that, we are now better prepared to
>entertain other possibilities of distributions of
>disease apart from those which confine them to the
>space defined by the human body.
>
>Before I said anything further on the matter, I would
>first ask you to paraphrase your questions by finding
>synomous terms and expressions for the- all too often
>encumbant- word 'power'. (I.e., if power is productive
>of truth-effects, then all truth-effects imply a power
>regeime).
>
>I can, however, suggest the following work of
>histiography: 'The Persecutory Imagination: English
>Puritanism and the Literature of Religious Despair',
>by John Stachniewski, (Clarendon, 1991). On this note,
>a historical study on the persecutory imagination
>should, I believe, take two historical related themes
>deeply into its consideration: 1) the structure and
>organization of the persecution complex which
>functions at the heart of what Nietzsche called slave
>moralities, 2) the formation of the conscience (both
>phylogenic and ontogenci).
>
>If you are interested in looking into alternate
>distributions of the idiopathological complexes
>characteristic of the schizophrenia groups, such as
>delusions of persecution and self-reference,
>catatonia, mutism, negativism, waxi-flexibility, etc.,
>then I recommend checking out R.D. Laings study on
>'Sanity, madness and the family' which attempts to
>make the process of the formation of the
>symptomalogical complexes typical of the schizophrenia
>group as they take shape in the naturalistic setting
>of the family intelligible in terms of social praxis.
>
>
>There are many other directions whcih lay open to
>us...
>
>
>
>
>
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  • Re: [Foucault-L] Pathologies of Power
    • From: michael bibby
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