Foucault

1
Foucault

• Power and Postmodern?

2
Whats new with Foucault?

• Modernism
• Origin of social phenomena/social development
  Origin answer
• Coherence what holds things together
• Continuity (development over time)

• Foucault
• Rejects originPerpetuate debate Rejects answer
• Incoherence what are the internal
  contradictions
• Discontinuities (ruptures, reversals, multiple
  paths)

3
Decentering the Subject

• What counts as truth is historically and socially
  defined
• Postmodernists want to eliminate the
  authoritative subject
• Analyze what constitutes truth and why

4
How?

• Genealogy
• Of the modern subject as historical and cultural
  reality
• Archeology
• Of institutions and discourses
• A form of history which can account for the
  constitution of knowledges, discourses, domains
  of objects, etc.

5
Panopticon
6
Panopticon
7
Foucault

• Human sciences are techniques of power
• Shape views and behaviors of human subjects
• Humans as objects of study
• Normality is the standard
• Break from Modernism

8
What does this mean for Power?

• Power is NOT
• Institution or forced subservience(origin is not
  in the state)
• In the form of rule (Laws)
• System of domination of one group over another

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Instruments of Observation and Control

• Panopticon
• Heirarchical observation
• Disciplinary society
• Ways of monitoring
• Normalizing judgments(powerful define, everyone
  internalizes)
• Examinations(school, doctor, psychiatrist,
  performance)

10
Capillary system of Power

• 5 Propositions about Power
• Power exercised from innumerable points
• Power relations exist within other relations
• Power comes from below
• Power relations are intentional(not necessarily
  choice of given individual)
• Where there is power, there is resistance