Foucaults Analysis Of Power

Foucaults Analysis Of PowerFor Foucault, intimacy ceases to be close liberation and becomes a mode of surveillance, regulation and chequer. Examine this statement in singing to Foucaults analysis of baron. The issue of baron is a topic which has stick non only m whatsoever Sociologists, but reliablely many scholars indoors the field of Philosophy, Psychology and indeed many some others. The Sociologist almost noned with this hypothesis is Michel Foucault. Foucault gave a comprehensive and in depth analysis of king, which we will deal later. However, before we do, we must look at the life of Foucault, as to lucre a better understanding of his works.Paul-Michel Foucault, a French Philosopher, Historian and Sociologist lived from October 1926- June 1984. He held the title History of Systems of thought at the notably prestigious College de France, as well as lecturing at the University of Buffalo and the University of Berkley, one of Americas most famous institutions. H e ref employ time and time again to call himself a post-modernist, although he was highly influenced by post-modernist thought. He is most prevalentally recognised for his critical studies of Social Institutions, with particular emphasis on medicine, psychiatry and the kind-hearted sciences. His work on Power, Knowledge and Discourse has become the topic of more discussion, and has been abbreviaten up by many other key look aters. During the 1960s, Foucault was associated with the geomorphologic movement, however he tried to distance himself from this. He preferred to think of himself as a pupil formering the Enlightenment realizes of Kant, trying to appearance that a side or so individual liberty could be employ to improve the Enlightenment theory. accord to Giddens, The study of actor- how individuals and groups achieve their ends as against those of others- is of key importance in Sociology. Classical thinkers, much(prenominal) as Karl Marx and Max Weber, placed impo rtance on this theory, with Foucault building upon their foundations of theory.Unlike many before him, Foucault aphorism ability as not macrocosm concentrated in the reach of the few in one place. Foucault showed in his complex writings that index could be found in all social relationships and not good in the hands of States. However, much of his work is spent showing the slipway in which the States illustration their spot everywhere the populations. For Foucault, world power is ultimately conjugated with friendship they exist beca drug abuse of one another. Therefore, the States power then extends from the development of current types of Knowledge. With the emergence of these, bon ton is able to collect more information about the population and thus run across it better.Power, however, whilst restricting pile, asshole also enable them to do things. Power can also only operate if society has a certain amount of freedom, as society tries to restrict, people a great deal try, and succeed, in slipping from its grasp.Foucaults early work on Madness and elaboration (1967) described how, by the Eighteenth Century, unemployment, poverty and madness started to be light uponn as social problems by the States. Before this, the mad were free from state intervention, and were allowed to wave as they liked in rural areas or they were put to ocean in ships of fools. However, these became replaced with areas of confinement, such as madhouses, where they became isolated and separated from the rest of civilisation. According to Foucault, this was due to the European culture with a sense of responsibility for these social problems. A duty of responsibility was formed for the mad.However, by the 19th Century, these methods of separating groups was seen as being a mistake. New methods were developed to separate the different groups. psychopathology began to take off, and became a new means by which to categorise people, for example, as being mad or suffering from some form of illness. As this happened, the discourse of the social sciences came to be involved in power relationships. Maden Sarup (1988) argued that the margin discourse as used by Foucault, meant practices that systematically form the object glass of which they speak. According to this then, the development of psychiatric theories created mental illness. It was a discourse used to control certain groups within the population. This technique became crucial in the States gradational development of administration. The term administration allowed monitoring and workable control over people and their demeanor. However, according to Foucault, it was not just a straight forward power held by the state. Rather, it allowed power relationships on an individual level, for example, between a psychiatrist and a patient.In Foucaults later work, Discipline and Punish (1975), he explored these themes in much more depth. Foucault begins with a very gruesome forecast of the public exe cution of Damiens in Paris, 1757. He was, in todays terms, tortured. However, Foucault makes the point that by the late 18th Century the use of public punishment began to dwindle. penalty became private, rather than public, with the use of better, more efficient methods, for example, hanging. This also saw the execution of instrument of more prison sentences. They obey a strict governing of work, residuum and education. According to Foucault, these changes involved a channelize in the practices of punishment. Before the use of prisons, the main focus of punishment was on the pain inflicted to the body. However, the use of prisons rivet on punishing the soul. It was to do with a loss of right fields now, for example the right to freedom. The almost guarantee of being caught was meant to deter people, rather than the fear of public humiliation which thus had failed.This new method was intended to offer rehabilitation rather than to make the offender suffer. There was, as Fouca ult made unload no absolute shift in punishment methods, as expectant punishment was, as is, still practiced. However, on that point was a definite shift to the latter method from the former. A change in what exactly was being judged also occurred. Before, it was the act being judged, whereas now it was the type of person they were. mitigate circumstances were now taken into account. The level of punishment now cerebrate on the motivation behind the crime. As Foucault stated, The question is no eternal has the act been established and is it punishable? But also What is this act, what is this act of craze or this murder? To what level or what field of reality does it live? These questions could only be answered by a range of specialists, for example, psychiatrists and psychologists. Control became split in this specialist knowledge. Foucault claims A corpus of knowledge, techniques, and scientific discourses is formed and becomes complex with the practice of the power to pu nish. Even as the state developed methods to control people, it gave power to the experts who had the knowledge, thus again proving the link between knowledge and power.However, with the exercise of power and knowledge relationships, Foucault makes the grievous point that they are not tout ensemble negative. There also exist positive responses to them. It can allow certain things to be achieved. The example Foucault uses is the motivation of workers to become better and improve the crusade power that societies may require. Moreover, power is not something possessed by individuals, power is exercised rather than possessed. Also, power can only be used when people drop a choice about what to do and Foucault makes the point that there are extremely few occasions when people will contribute no choice. Someone would be able to resist by maybe committing suicide, or killing the other, (Foucault 1988). Therefore, it is always possible to resist those exercising power, the result, ho wever, produces an member of uncertainty. Power has the ability to be reversed. He argues the fact that I am older and that at first you were intimidated can, in the course of the conversation, sport about and it is I who can become intimidated before someone, but because he is younger, (Hindess, 1996).In his work on discipline, Foucault again states that power and knowledge are inseparable, We should admit that power produces knowledge that power and knowledge at once imply one another that there is now power relation without correlative constitutions of a field of knowledge, now any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations. Thus, it becomes possible to resist the exertion of power by challenging the knowledge on which it was based. For example, a patient may question a doctors diagnosing, thus challenging the knowledge and overcoming the power of the doctors expertise. Because each implies the other, power relationships can be seen in all aspects of society. They are not just seen between State and citizen relations, or between classes. Therefore, for Foucault, Marxism is too limited as it only focuses on the power relationships between classes. As the same, Pluralism only focuses on state exerted power. They are pitiable as they are too narrow, and fail to look at the terrene interactions of people and the commonly used discourses involved therein.Foucault does not believe that power and knowledge is not exercised by the state alone however that does not imply that he feels they are absent from the state either. Attempts are continually made by Governments and other bodies to control and manipulate behaviours. Sophisticated techniques can be developed to do this, although they are neer entirely successful.In his text, Foucault enters into extreme detail about the ways in which states oversee activities involving power and knowledge. He discussed the English philosopher Jeremy Benthams prison design, the Panop ticon. It was never fully used, although pieces of the design were incarnate into prison construction. The main feature of this design was a central tower. It allowed the guards to see into any cell at any given time. Back fervour would mean they could observe without the prisoners knowledge thus forcing them to never misbehave, as they would never know if a guard was looking at them. They would have discipline enforced upon them.For Foucault, discipline was an important feature for modern societies. Surveillance techniques, such as Closed Circuit Television, or CCTV, were used to observe peoples behaviour in public places, thus encouraging a strong regime of self-discipline. People then began to grow accustomed to control their actions, whether being find or not, the fear was enough. Discipline therefore gives people the power to amaze their own behaviour. This is based on Foucaults notion that we all have a soul, and this can be manipulated. However, what Foucault calls a soul being manipulated, some may argue that it is, in fact, a psychological technique, thus taking the power away from the state and back to the expert psychologist. This notion is more effective, however, than only when inflicting pain. You do not punish the body rather you produce tame bodies which pose no threat as they are self-disciplined.Discipline plays an important in Governance, however it is also found in many other organisations, and is never truly successful. According to Hindess (1996), the suggestion is, then, that we live in a world of disciplinary projects, all of which suffer from more or slight successful attempts at resistance and evasion. The result is a disciplinary, but scarcely disciplined society. For Foucault, government goes beyond the activities of state. The pupil who misbehaves or the patient who denies the diagnosis are as much a feature of modern societies as the docile body of a disciplined citizen.In conclusion, Foucaults work provides prodigious i nsight into the nature of power. He succeeds in showing how power and knowledge are connected closely. He also shows how power is found in other social relationships other than what involves the government, and demonstrates how power is never likely to be absolute. Furthermore, he successfully shows how people will try to evade any exertion of power onto them. His work is much more subtly through than the theory of some Marxists and Pluralists. However, it can be said that he fails to take into account the importance of some of these theories in relation to power. He neglects the view that power can be exercised in the field of economics, and also neglects the power that the military can exercise.Moreover, Foucault at times seems to contradict himself. He claims that the Governments have an increased ability to surveil and regulate the citizens. However, he then says that power can be exercised when we have some freedom, and that resistance is impossible. These statements would seem to be at opposite ends of the pole. Furthermore, Foucaults definition is much different than that of, for example, the sociologist Max Weber, who asserts that power is exercised because we do not have freedom to act as we chose to do rather than as we are told to do. However, Foucault does certainly offer an alternative estimation which is provocative in the field of research. He uses a very intrigue analysis of how States develop techniques of social control.