Foucault's View Of Power

For example in the setting of a workplace the power does not pass from the top down; instead it circulates through their organizational practices. Such practices act like a grid, provoking and inciting certain courses of action and denying others. Foucault considers this as no straightforward matter and believes that it rests on how far individuals interpret what is being laid down as "obvious" or "self evident", institutional power works best when all parties accept it willingly. Foucault's notion of power is a difficult notion to grasp principally because it is never entirely clear on who has the power in the first place, once the idea is removed that power must be vested in someone at the top of the ladder, it becomes much more difficult to identify what power is or where and whom it lies with. Foucault believes that we are used to thinking about power as an identifiable and overt force and that this view is simply not the case, because it is taken for granted that the above statement is true then it is much more complicated to comprehend power as a guiding force that does not show itself in an obvious manner.

To appreciate Foucault’s contrasting (good use of language to emphasise what you are doing) angle that social order is a product of authoritative knowledge, discourses and power, we can examine his viewpoint that social institutions are what influence our conduct through the powers of intervention. He feels that the values and rules for conduct, which are proposed to individuals by diverse institutions such as the family, education systems or churches are what govern social order. These institutions bring forth and integrate discipline. Discipline is a mechanism of power which regulates the behaviour of individuals. He suggests that 'the good' is something that is practised, not discovered ‘social control becomes internalised and becomes self control’(Silva,2009,pg.320). Foucault feels that power work through discourse, ‘discourses provide the frameworks that shape what can be thought about and talked about’ (Silva,2009,pg.320)

Foucault’s Theory of Individual Power and Knowledge have allowed one to see the other side of arguments with more posing questions. Domestic Violence is now resulting in a spouse being labeled with the brand of “battered woman’s syndrome” and it opens the door for a many unanswered questions, and is debatable at best. In the case of Francine Hughes Wilson, “The Burning Bed” shed new light on the ever growing problems within a domestic abusive relationship and gave way to social change, knowledge and empowerment within such situations. One must question if “Battered Women’s Syndrome” is a mental illness or an excuse for murder without consequences due to a momentary lapse of judgment.

The repetitive practice and actions of these individuals create order, but as these practices change so social change comes about. Whereas Foucault suggests that we live in a disciplinary society, one where corrective action is used to obtain and enforce obedience and order. (Silva, 2009, p. 322) From this point of view it is social order that shapes and constrains people, human behaviour being regulated by many different organisations. Foucault’s studies put forward three different types of power that are involved in the making of social order. He terms these sovereign power, that of the ruling authorities, who use punishment and laws to maintain social order. The second is surveillance, behaviour is controlled through the keeping of information about people. If people are aware of being watched they tend to regulate their own conduct. Foucault argues that the power of surveillance becomes internalised as individuals seek to make their routines and practices fit with the norm. The third is liberalism, where people are under the illusion that they are individuals with self-direction and personal choice, but have actually internalised social order due to the widespread discourse of individualism. So for Foucault social order is achieved through these different levels of power permeating through society, creating disciplined self-control in the individual, what form this

dealing simply with subjects, or even with a “people,” but with a “population,” with its specific phenomena and its peculiar variables." (298/25) This is where we begin to see Foucault's concept of Biopower come into play. One of the central themes of Foucault's writing, he defines biopower as "[T]he forms of power, the channels it takes, and the discourses it permeates in order to reach the most tenuous and individual modes of behavior, the paths that give it access to the rare or scarcely perceivable forms of desire, how it penetrates and controls everyday pleasure—all this entailing effects that may be those of refusal, blockage, and invalidation, but also incitement and intensification: in short, the 'polymorphous techniques of power.'” (292/11 For Foucault, Biopower relates to the government's concern with fostering the life of the population, but is also a form of complete control of that population through surveillance or perceived surveillance. Foucault believed that Biopower permeates through the

However, Scott and Foucault has very different understanding of power. Scott thinks power is something that is externally imposed on mankind’s social life, whereas Foucault thinks power is

Foucault, From “What is an Author?” 1. In The Order of Things, Foucault analyzed discursive content in texts. a. Categories that are considered include “analysis of wealth,” “natural history,” and “political economy”. b.

I understand power as a mountain range where the summit reaches beyond cloud cover. Below the clouds are everything Foucault’s power ideology reigns over and above the cloud cover Hobbes holds dominance. With that being said I can related my idea of power to a combination of Foucault and Hobbe’s notion of power.

Foucault idea of how to reach ethical outcomes by self observation can be problematic. As Foucault emphasizes to obtain freedom, one must have power. There are those with and without power in society, if this is so is it ethical that those without power are not granted freedom? There lack of freedom would be unethical making it hard for is theory to currently apply on a large scale without hypocrisy. His theory of ethics is based on individual self understanding because as stated by Mary Moore of the department of behavioral sciences at the University of Indianapolis, in her journal “Ethical Discourse and Foucault 's Conception of Ethics” “ethics is thought to refer to the behavior of individuals because only the individual is the authentic moral

The natural reaction to power is the resistance as explored through the paragraph; Foucault’s insight on resistance is that it stems off power – no matter what the use of power is resistance will follow. Foucault calls this a “plurality of resistances”; the suppression of sex as a social construct came with resistances (Foucault, 84) the issue as Foucault brings up is that it is extremely difficult to have a binary viewpoint towards these power moves thus, resistances come from a multitude of angles and from a diverse group of people (Foucault, 96). The binary route to resistance can be viewed through the lens of sexuality through the concept of homosexuality. As power created an opinion towards homosexuality throughout history it was once

In contemporary society, there are two schools of thought in regards to power: power as ‘stuff’ and power as ‘relational’. James Arvanitakis explores the significance of power, inequality, and the numerous complex facets of modern society. This includes the emergence of uneven power relationships and the supremacy of particular groups in society. Hence, the idea of ‘social construction’ and its dynamic effect on power as ‘stuff’ and ‘relational’. The work of philosopher Michel Foucault in regards to social power and disparity attempts to uncover the fundamental cause of these uneven power relationships in contemporary civilisation. This in turn, portrayed Foucault as a controversial figure in relation to his intricate concepts of power and on the subject of modernity. “We need multiple viewpoints to interpret a reality made up of many realities” .

If Geoffrey Chaucer for some unforeseen reason was unable to published The Canterbury Tales, then perhaps, his version of Troilus and Criseyde would be widely acknowledged as one of his most epic tragic poems. However, Chaucer’s poem, though adapted widely into various modern translations, for the sake of this paper the translation by Barry Windeatt will be used, the tale’s influential go-between is still a character trope used today. In fact, the romantic entanglements that the main characters find themselves in are the results of the power structure established by the go-between Pandarus. From the first instance where Pandarus witnesses his friend Troilus’s

overarching instead of specic, and can thus serve as a useful tool in study-

Foucault’s work on governmentality begins with the idea of the sovereign ruler. A sovereign ruler’s principality is acquired through inheritance or conquest. Therefore, the prince’s relation to what he owns is external. He seeks only to reinforce, strengthen, and protect his principality. Transitioning away from the prince we have disciplinary power, which can be broken into; the art of self-government, the art of properly governing a family, and the science of ruling the state. A person who wishes to govern the state well must first learn to govern himself. The art of government is determining how to introduce economy. Government in

Foucault wanted academics to think about government and their practices not as a ‘capitalist ruling state’, but to focus on how some form of power and government will always be necessary to control society. It can be argued that Foucault was challenging society, power, knowledge and everything it stood for in this broader sense. Many of Foucault’s ideas were an interdisciplinary form of criticism with reasons to show how, by looking at events with a different kind of knowledge, power is not just a repressive tool of power but a tool of conspiracy - one institution, one individual against another. In turn Foucault (like Bennett) suggests that power is a whole complex of forces which produce what