Love the channel? Love supporting things? Check out the Patreon page: 💸 Patreon: patreon.com/thelivingphilosophy ⌛ Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 0:59 Empirical vs Theoretical 1:57 What Power Isn't 3:32 What is Power? 4:12 Traits of Power: Immanence 5:04 Traits of Power: Intentional and Non-Subjective 6:19 Traits of Power: Resistance 7:35 Force Relations 9:23 Dynamism of Force Relations 11:52 The Alliance of Force Relations
@@ivankomadanvonrakovac8415 You can ask but I'm afraid I don't have a particularly short answer to offer. I guess it is simple since I don't follow any religion but as for my views about the transcendental and the metaphysical it's really not easy to answer. I don't know I guess would be the easiest way to put it
Yes! I've always felt that the idea that power is purely top-down is not quite right. Taken to its logical extreme it inevitably leads to paranoid ideas that our lives are entirely controlled by the whims of a few powerful people (insert your favourite conspiracy theory here). I've always felt that in reality it is a much more complex dynamic system which cannot be controlled by any individual, but I have never been able to put it into words. It seems Foucault did exactly that, this video inspires me to dive into his work. Thanks again for the fantastic content, best channel on youtube.
Exactly Bram! It's a way of approaching power without descending into disempowered conspiracy theorising. Thanks for the kind words and glad the video inspired something in you!
@@TheLivingPhilosophy I find Foucault the man to be distasteful, at best. (Honestly, that is the kindest I can be about him as a person.) But I am aware that it would be fallacious to say that his message should be discounted because of that. Even to me, some of what he said fits and is true. Still, I have to wonder how much of what he says comes from who he is.
Isn't it being controlled?... Chomsky and zizek who are like to poles of left wing .. came to same ground on this however it was not power it was the idea of "manufacturing consent"
@Bram de Jong POWER is always TOP-DOWN . You’re confused about the huge number of USEFUL IDIOTS at the bottom , who will insist on doing the bidding of the Power-Structure
the joy on your face in exploring connections in Jung and Foucault is gold. I love how much this interests you, because it's exactly the sort of thing that brought me here. That underlying feeling of interconnection within different schools of thought feels like uncovering ancient knowledge. I love it. Thanks for another great video. Looking forward to you exploring Jung/Foucault. It'll be awesome to see how someone who was so driven to concrete explanations like Foucault will mesh with someone like Jung who tried to realate/sciencify (not sure of the word to use there) mysticism and spirituality.
Haha yeah I got very excited there. That's the real nectar for me - the cross-pollination between great systems of thought that usually aren't cross-pollinated. It's very exciting to see what new combinations of insight they can bring together. I'm delighted to have found people who share that joy in exploring these thoughts
Have you seen much of John Vervaeke's Awakening from the Meaning Crisis? I'd be interested in your thoughts relating to his attempt to bring together realms of cognitive science, as I think one area he could explore further is the impact on power politics
Notes - Our “free” decisions are influenced by thousands of societal factors. - These factors are forces that can counteract or supplement each other - These forces can cluster together to form institutions - Social relations often function autonomously and bottom-up - Social power isn’t always wield by a specific state, class, organisation, leader etc. who make deliberate decisions to subordinate others, they’re often emergently complex, organic and unintentional. - Although events are comprised of deliberate decisions that constitute or influence it, no one person makes all those decisions and has the knowledge that those decisions will be made so no one person controls nor knows what will happen in the future
This theory is central to my coursework and it has been confusing me so much. This video is so good, it has alleviated so much of my stress. The analogies were so good.
When post-modernism is treated as a critique of modernism (which was the goal of the post-modernists) it works and can be tremendously helpful. However, when what it critiques suddenly becomes obscure and it takes over as *dominant* ideology, it does not work anymore.
I think there is definitely something in this. Postmodernism was primarily a critique of modernism. Thats true. It only emerges in cultures where modernity has developed to a high degree.. However, those who came later and used it as a platform for radicalism were themselves critical of postmodernisms relativistic lack of certainty, especially in earlier versions of postmodernism. So I think that's why you get these phases in the development of postmodernism over the years, some more helpful than others. Wilber apparently said the problem with postmodernism is it can transcend, but it can't include. It's always negating and attempting to transcend, but it seems unaware of what it has emerged from (modernity) and it has no developmental model.
To their credit they didn’t even considered a developmental model. For them the criticism was what is all about. Today better look at metamodernity and wilber less the personality proto cult.
@@yooohere well, actually they did look backwards though (in a regressive way) back to totalitarian tribal mobs as their ideal models of social organisation haha
@@yooohere this is especially true in Wilhelm Reich and George Bataille, but carries on to the later derivations. Something about postmodernists, like the hippie movement that glorifies tribal culture, especially its matriarchal forms.
Really loved the video, and your passion for the subject is apparent. I first discovered Foucault myself, and found him fascinating, because he is great at approaching things from a nearly "neutral" point of view. He avoids putting things into boxes of "good" or "bad", and focuses more on exploring and explaining the mechanisms, which feels more complete and honest to me. Learning about his philosophy surrounding power really helped answer a lot of "why" questions that I had about how the world, society, and culture functions the way it does.
Thanks a million Samantha and I totally agree he's someone that was trying to go beyond good and evil and it's something he got a lot of flack for on the Left - not giving clear enough prescriptions and condemnations in his work but instead merely unearthing, reporting and investigating
@@TheLivingPhilosophy such as his penchant for teen boys, why judge that as "good" or "bad" its just a mincing boy hungry bald dandy participating in an act. And he died of aids? What a surprise
I’m a complete amateur but the idea of force relations really reminds me of the Hegel dialectic. Is there any connection? The constant thesis, antithesis, synthesis idea. I’ll refer to the four quadrants video to try and position myself here. These videos are awesome, amazing work man.
Very much looking forward to the Jungian take on this. I'm currently reading Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas, where he makes a really interesting case for astrology as a kind of giant synchronistic map of the archetypical forces shaping global human experience at any given time. Seems like it could have a lot of overlap with the Foucault/ Jung exploration of the Gods.
I love how your channel has grown, congrats, I know it's a lot of work. I'm interested to see if you also dive into discussing the overlap between this theory and that of Dawkin's memetics theory from The Selfish Gene.
Thanks Drew! The Selfish Gene is very high on the reading list and there's a lot to tie it in with so hopefully we'll get to it in the next few months I suspect it'll be one of those cornerstone ideas
I feel like many people want to believe they are powerless because it takes away responsibility. I assume this belief is being subconsciously promoted by well established people. Because if other people can't do what they do, come as far as they came, it means they themselves are very special and talented and hardworking or whatever they want to believe themselves to be. It would make sense if people in positions high up a hierarchy aren't eager to promote the idea that actual power is formed by the opinions and choices of anyone anywhere on that hierarchy... the poorest 50% of people collectively considered money valueless... the power yielded over them would dissappear like snow before sun... Thanks for another great video :)
The problem with Foucault is that it seems to follow from his analysis of power that power and truth are coterminous. The journey of the individual in pursuit of truth is therefore a deconstruction of power relations which is nevertheless, self defeating, unless it constructs a new system of power which can only be done socially. There is no individual liberation. This was the heart of the debate with Chomsky. IMO this view is both depressing and wrong. It is at the heart of so much that is wrong with the modern left, which seems contemptuous of progress that is not collective. And so we get identity politics which contains the core nihilism for which Foucault is criticised. The more affirming approach is that power operates through the manipulation of fear and desire, and liberation is for the individual, an engagement with the world which progressively masters this problem. Only the individual can pursue this within their own psyche. As an individual pursuit, there is a ray of hope that political action cannot provide, valid though such action may be for other reaons.
Good and it comes down to whether the sufferers really believe they have a choice. Otherwise, we would all be living in little Empirical vision quest Capitals of our own gated community personhoods by our own selves interred in almost a mortuary style of disinterested relationships, but who wants it to be that specific?
I feel like what Foucault is talking about is way more general than that - it’s like calling CERN and standard-model-breaking-physics “woke” compared to the “golden age,” of Newton. You’re mapping your conception of western politics onto something that says nothing of the root of human experience, value, or ethics. It’s just some terms of the human condition that are inescapable. Nothing has been said in this video regarding liberation of the individual or engineering alternate structures of collective power. Those are concepts to be built on top of, and through the constraints of, power as a universal force. If you believe power is secured only through “manipulation of fear and desire,” than you’re missing the point entirely and haven’t changed your internal definition of the word power. The creator here mistakenly calls power akin to a force of nature, which is incorrect. Forces of nature, and human beings, all have power over their environment, it’s an intrinsic property baked into everything that happens. Power can be exercised without fear, without cynical manipulation, without hedonistic desire. Trust, love, fraternity, respect, and friendship are themselves a medium for power. One who trusts their spouse to make financial decisions on their behalf cedes power. One who trusts you in regards to life advice is ceding to you the ability to shape their future. Healthy children ultimately cede power to their parents out of a feeling of safety and fostered ambition. Power is simply a measure of how quickly you can perform a set amount of work, how quickly can you change things. The more someone loves and trusts you, the more people respect you, the more people listen to you, the more you can change in your environment and the faster you can do it. Individuals are liberated from the power in their environment acting on them to a variable extent due to an incomprehensible amount of factors, not all of which come from the individual’s perception and will. What you are describing as an individual pursuit is the drive to godhood, in which one, through their own free will, separates from their environmental influence to such an extreme degree that it is negligible. But that is impossible, everyone will always be dependent upon their upbringing and environment to form their identity and to enjoy life. There is a finite limit to what your will can do, human beings are fundamentally collective, social creatures who use communication to sort roles for each other and create structures larger than anyone human, regardless of the will to power of the strongest individual. Nothing about this is nihilistic. There is a balance to be struck in the mind of each individual, decided at each moment, a decision that impacts everyone around them. This has nothing to do with the left or the right, both of which are incomprehensible and philosophically incoherent. Neither are built out of philosophy, they are social, animalistic constructions like all human power structures. They are organic hodge podges of reactionary rhetoric and emotion. Some ideas are better, some worlds are better to live in than others, but hegemonic politics are incomprehensible if you try to make them internally consistent. If you end up believing something along those lines, you’ve yet to escape personal confirmation bias. The irony, of course, being that most people who believe exclusively in an individualist framework don’t realize how much their beliefs are simply a testament to the incomprehensible power of the hegemonic politics they have been exposed to during their development. Both the left and the right of Western politics, as well as every mass political movement in global history, is deeply nihilistic in this way. We’re all sheep to varying extents, doomed to betray our beliefs within every moment in at least one way with no awareness of doing so. Both the individual and the collective are inseparable. There is no collective unscarred by the strongest individuals, and no individuals yet to be molded by the collective. It is symbiotic. The only true life affirming aspect, is that most human beings will grow to decide what it is that’s important to them by middle age, and exert their power to shape their own individual environment over time, and allow themselves to only be shaped by others whom they love and trust, in so far as all existential threats have been accounted for and placated (pay your taxes, avoid dangerous locations/people/situations in general). You decide upon a framework of ethics, you do your best to abide. You expand and exercise your will at times, you cede willingly to the will of others at other times, yet you act on instinct or at the behest of a larger power structure most of the time. This is to say, human will is ultimately always finite, which is what defines the human individual’s metaphysical condition. We always rest between object and god, zero will and infinite will, no matter how clever or how powerful we grow to become. This is simply an unavoidable reality, not a political statement. Individual focused people will always be blind to the power that compels them, collective focused people will always be blind to the power they possess in the moment to resist their environment. Thus, like a debate between two religious beliefs, nothing about western politics could be called postmodern or relevant to truth itself, in fact there has yet to be a society or political ideology with any substantial cultural hegemony which can be called postmodern. Left vs Right can only be argued on a practical, outcome oriented level, not an ideological one. Both the study of the environment and collective structure as well as the will of the individual are valuable studies and are inseparable.
There is an inherent presumption and arrogance whenever proposing individual solutions to collective problems, though. Why shouldn't I be just as suspicious that you choosing the individual as thd fundamental unit of analysis is an excuse to abdicate your social duty?
I don't get the feeling the application of his manner of thinking fails to entail liberation of the individual at all. See "the lost interview of Foucalt" youtube vid.
Awesome stuff as usual! Thanks for making such great content! Have you ever looked into American pragmatism? Thinkers like John Dewey, Charles Sanders Peirce, and especially William James seem right up your alley.
Thanks Anders! I did a bit of delving into Peirce during the Semiotics study of Saussure but never went too deep. William James however is someone that I've been wanting to read for well over a decade now. I really think he'll be a big one for me. Seems to have a similar portfolio of interesting and yet I know so little about him
Can you please make a video comparing Nietzsche’s and Foucault’s views on power? You said that unlike Nietzsche Foucault doesn’t make a metaphysical conception of power, which I don’t fully understand. Would love some clarification on that, thanks!
Oh it's just that Nietzsche is explicitly metaphysical when he discusses the "Will to Power" (deriving his system directly from Schopenhauer and Indian philosophy), whereas Foucault tries to apply those basic metaphysical notions in a scientific critique--sort of like how many Physicists still think in terms of Platonic forms, even though modern Physics itself is far more rigorous and empirical,
@@zarearakelyan1539 moreso the other way around. For Nietzche, power just "is", it's just the way things are, and it's different forms modulate in history. Foucault basically transforms this kind of "genealogy" into a more rigorous, historical critique, since (at least in his early and middle periods) he's still a Marxist materialist. See Nietzche's "Genealogy of Morals", esp. the second essay, and cf. Discipline and Punish, which is widely regarded as an expansion.
Great video, you splendidly and succintly presented Foucault's theory of power. I'd like to suggest Bertrand De Jouvenel's "On Power", he focuses more on institutions but it is a masterpiece in the study of power, its genealogy and evolution
Hello there, many thanks for this very nice overview of Foucault's concept of power. It was really liberating for me since I have always been confronted by Jordan Peterson's negative (to put it mildly) view of Foucault's work (thanks also for the video about Jordan's Jungian shadow ;) ). On another note, I see a striking similarity in Foucault's multiplicity bottom-up concept of power with the scientific theory of self-organization. There are numerous concepts that are associated with it: emergence, feedback effect, non-linearity, micro-macro interactions, chaos, etc. If I am not mistaken, these theories were developed in various fields of science (chemistry, physics, informatics, but also in social sciences) during the mid-century, at the same time post-modernist philosophers were at work. Looking at the Wikipedia page of one of the pioneers in the field of self-organization theories (Ilya Prigogine), I found that his work has influenced Gilles Deleuze! I wonder if Foucault was also influenced by the rising of these new scientific theories during his time. I am always fascinated by the connection between "hard" sciences and philosophy, and how they have been influencing each other.
Great Scott!! It's so great to see you here again! I was only replying to a comment on one of the 100 days videos last week and saw your name and was thinking of you. How have you been?
I guess my question, after hearing this, is: so what? Is this philosophy just something that helps us make sense of just what is, or does it have a recommendation for what to do about it? IOW, let's say I know that my choice of what to wear to school one day is dependent on lots of power relations: between what my parents, society, and the school administration demand on the one hand; and what my own tastes, my friends' tastes, and fashion demand. OK, that's all interesting. But how is that helping me make a decision on what to wear?
That's a good question. I think when a lot of people encounter philosophy they wonder what the point is. You might have been expecting some how-to self-help sort of tips which I'm sure could be distilled out of this but the point is more about understanding yourself and the world you're in. Foucault's perspective is a way of perceiving what might be guiding your life without you being aware of it. With this awareness you might choose to rebel or not. If you wanted to frame this in terms of some advice you might see these force relations and ask what you want to do and who you want to be - do you want to search for some sort of authenticity, do you want to be powerful/popular/influential, do you want to be perceived as a bit weird so you can take the extra freedom that comes with that?
So "power" is just any interactions between individuals in a society. We can zoom in or zoom out to see the local or the overall picture. I guess at this point, to investigate power, we should consult sociology people.
Hello! One addendum to your video essay, the part with "Greta Thunberg" lacks a bit of critical information. Her being coming into "the non subjective ocean of Power" from a "local tactical action" is all but organic and neither is the effect, her mother is a famous individual with a lot of "local (influence) power" (local meaning Swedish mainstream media) her name is Malena Ernman. Applying some Marxist thought you can see the causal links on why Gretas protest overshadowed any of the countless other protests about climate change. Her symbolic position isn't by chance, the causal links are clear on "the local level", but the phenomenon mirrors that of the upper class taking advantage of the exploitation of the working class by leveraging their Power (both influence and capital gained) to come into prominence. This is of course not a claim for conspiracy and "climate change denial" rather a pointing out that the phenomenon we view needs dialectic materialism when we're critical of Power. "Gretas cause" most probably is a ultimately good, but her rise to prominence is not innocent or organic, the Swedish medias signal boosting was indeed coordinated. For a good cause, but again shows how institutions of Power (in this case the Swedish media) can dictate whatever narrative they wish in our postmodern neo-liberalist reality. Loved the video as usual!
Foucault with Deleuze for me are two exceptional modern investigators of the psyche. When I disagree with something they wrote I realise it's a boundary of for ignorance, only to find an opening into another maze. Thinking sight isn't the same as inner sight and society is completely blind.
@@jaylinn416 Friedrich Nietzsche said: "The essential element in the black art of obscurantism is not that it wants to darken individual understanding, but that it wants to blacken our picture of the world, and darken our idea of existence."
@@the_famous_reply_guy Well, if Foucault teaching helps you to lead a better life, there may be some value in it. I remain very skeptical. I would not waste my time trying to understand what he is talking about. I am not sure that even the living philosophy guy can explain.
@@jaylinn416 the debated with Chomsky was the moment I saw Foucault desire to explore all dimensions where Chomsky was fixed in all his linear philosophical positions. Foucault asked difficult questions of himself and gave interesting replies at the least, who amongst us can say this sincerely.
@@the_famous_reply_guy I can agree on the incessant need of insight that Focault and his philosophical theories seem to give off, but, at the same time, I do not understand how one could consider them anything rather than mere poetry. A description of the world which is unverifiable is, to me, nothing more than a narration. Those theories hold no predictive power, they seek some kind of insight over phenomena, and try to give us some "sensation" about the world, but this is all mystical, artistic. In truth, nothing which he says can be considered "true". By studying such matters, I believe, you condition yourself to have a more articulated, complex viewpoint: but, still, it can't be verified.
I struggle to see how it isn't common sense that different players in this game have different levels of influence and different intentions and that what really happens is somehow a crystallised outcome of these forces.
I'm surprised that Foucault's theory of power is seen as 'ground breaking'. In early secondary school in the UK we're taught about the definition of power and energy in physics as Energy = Force multiplied by Distance moved, and Power = how quickly energy changes over time = dE/dt. So in a vague way, power is the name given to that quality that expresses how quickly change takes place in the world we live in, and will be confused with force by some philosophers. Note that the sciences evolved from philosophy.
Machiavellian techniques do not imply power is top down so this makes sense. But to think that power is bottom up seems to be wrong as well. Power seems to be like water in the Taoist sense anyone can use it and anyone can suffer from it but those at the top of the social structures are able to use tidal wave levels of power that the bottom users would not have access to. The Greta Thurnberg example was a great one but the wave she triggered was amplified by those that are at the top of the social structure. Without them exerting and amplifying no one would of ever heard of her. Seems like a unified theory of power that combines Machiavelli Sun Tzu and Foucault would be a fun project.
How would you explain slavery? Victims of human trafficking? If we are free agents who exercise power intentionally and non-subjectively, then how do they factor in when they have no agency over their own lives? Or would they also be considered free agents?
Great stuff! I’ve struggled w a few of Foucault’s books but find his writing style a HUGE challenge. Some of his contemporaries are often easier to understand I feel like. But this helped a LOT.
Foucault said that if he faced death, "the last thing that I would like to study would be the problem of war and the institution of war in what one could call the military dimension of society." I think the idea of war forms perhaps the central idea in western society going back to the Old Testament and YHWH ish milhamah, or the Man of War. From milhamah we get our word military. Modern social ideas like transgenderism come from our military based societies. In a military society, women play a subservient role and in total war a negligent one because they lack strength. Militaries often have transgendered soldiers who play the role of women. James Clavell in his novel King Rat wrote about transgenderism in his prisoner of war camp.
As an american only now discovering that her democracy is in fact an oligarchy, i'd like to know if Foucault ever positied how his theory of power might be used practically. (I'm a first time viewer and new subscriber, btw.) Thank you for this great content.
Hello Jayanti and a very good question. It's something that Foucault gets a lot of hassle for since most of his work is descriptive rather than prescriptive (he was a reader of Wittgenstein so I wonder whether that might have been some element of influence in that). But his 1980s work takes a turn towards the care of the self and this is very much a practical application grounded in ancient philosophy and so will definitely be a theme we'll be returning to in future
@@TheLivingPhilosophy I will greately appreciate any of your content on this topic -- theories of power, systems, change. It honestly never occurred to me (until watching your video) to try to conceptualize power itself in "new" and fresh ways -- and to stop letting the powerful themselves to dictate to us where the levers of power are. If we are going to dismantle the entrenched structures at the heart of everything from homelessness to endless war to environmental collapse -- we will have to dismantle our own utterly useless worldview, first and foremost. Thanks again.
while you were telling about the external pressure for decision making I really start feeling that it is mathematically possible to model it, and perhaps it is quite similar to what Facebook and digital marketing does, quite interesting
Lol you conveniently blur Chomsky out of the shot of their debate and Chomsky wiped the floor with Focault. It’s sad people still can’t see clearly. Power is about domination and control and there’a no real power in those concepts whatsoever; the golden rule is more powerful than power.
Hmm I wouldn't say that and actually I'm just thinking of it now and I'm pretty sure Foucault wouldn't either. The thing is there's the historical crystallisations of power but the dynamics of power itself, its nature is something beyond the histocial manifestations of it. Foucault seems to be thinking of power as more like a force of nature than as a historically constructed thing. Now obviously he would admit that his formuation of his theory of power is historicalyl contingent but that's different to saying that power itself is historically determined. Dunno if that made sense but it;s actually quite a novel insight for me!
Why are we still honouring this guy? He dismissed child abuse as "inconsequential bucolic pleasures", "barely furtive pleasures" and rage against it as "petty" ("History of Sexuality", p. 31 (English translation), campaigned in 1977 to allow rape of children, and has been accused of raping children in Tunis. This colours his philosophy I would suggest.
My understanding is there is no evidence for this abuse, but there is evidence he was an abuse apologist and advocated for a reduction for age of consent
@@jonsegerrosSeveral leftists signed petition in France to remove the age of consent. Among them not only Foucault but also prominent feminist Simone de Beauvoir and her simp Jean Paul Sartre.
Real. I was lost on some concepts till he explained it with a boy preparing for school and I was like, "Woah, and there are people who hate Foucault, I think that's a cool way of seeing power".
Evolutionary psychology has done more for the understanding of human nature in the last 20 years, than philosophy in the last 2000. Power is at the very root of Darwinism and Darwinism is almost mathematical (better explained by Game Theory). Still my mind is too small to see what would be revolutionary about the struggle for life and dominance.
Ah, sounds like what Foucault means by asubjective 'power' comes close to meaning if Finnish animistic concept 'väki'. There's also english language wiki page about 'väki'. As asubjective, väki is not agentive, but it's still intentional, directional; väki is not unity, it's mulplicity of perspectival multinature. English has a problem of very limited vocabulary in this area, compared e.g. to Greek, German and Finnish. Among possible translations of 'power' into Finnish are 'väki', 'voima' and 'valta'. 'Voima' is used also for the physical concept of force, and has connotation of strengh, as does 'väki'. 'Valta' associates with mundane top down hierarchies and such. Combination 'väkivalta' means violence. Animistic peace - instead of war - between Maternal deities/spirits ('emuu' in our language) of various species and elements is at least a possibility. World peace does not mean only peace among humans, though that's where we need to start.
Thanks for the video. I always found descriptions fo Foucault's work very confusing, but your summary is very good. I found that the argument about power (given the specific definition given by Foucault) is a interesting argument about certain aspects of social interactions. I am usually a bit biased against Foucault, in the sense of taking his a ideas with a "pinch of salt". Mainly due to some commentaries regarding his ideas about science. It would be nice if you could comment more about Foucault's ideas about science. Disclaimer: I am scientist, and I might fall in scientism sometimes :) . But I genually think science and empirical based fields are the best way to know about the world. Mainly because I think deductive reasoning is flawed as you need to start from general principles or core ideas, that are usually assumed. Most of the issues in human ideologies and sciences are mainly a conflict of different principles or ideas pushed forward by different groups. The power of science is the constant testing of the core principles. We have the test of external reality. Nature decides who is more right. But we know we are never completely right. But we know what ideas are wrong. You don't have that in some fields.
Power is in many forms.... There is horse power. Watts, which is electrical power, and strength, which is human power. Physical and mental. Ahhh.Then there is natural power. As gravity is...
Foucault’s “force relations”, all of us at war interiorly with one another in power plays, aware or not (beginning with Jacob wrestling with God all night) have been biblically understood as every human seeking to will JUST TO WILL, the ultimate expression of freedom after the Death of God in their consciences and moral imaginations, a freedom Dostoevsky explores in Underground Man as a mocking refutation of Kant's ethical universe, the latter a palliative for those still suffering the trauma of God's death. And only a submersion into the will of the Father, a LETTING GO in the River of Providence with no flotation device, unable to swim, can bring about true freedom.
When you use the terms 'oceanic' and 'ocean' which are used twice in the presentation, you are not referring to the five personality types in psychology? OCEAN is an acronym for Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism. Outside of psychology, these are social constructs or aggregates. Also, 'Killing me Softly with His Song' is a Roberta Flack song from 1973.
Mmmm, any thoughts a propos of F.'s own personal experiences in having payed under-aged teen boys for sex in Tunisia? Was that also about power? French intellectuals, like American plutocrats, of which Trump is the pre-eminent example, see themselves as somehow above the law, and are often treated accordingly by their sycophants, and large groups of society. F. along with other of his kind, I mean so-called 'intellectuals', Sartre, de Beauvoir et al., campaigned to reduce the age of consent to just 13. Paedophilia is about power. One final axiom for good measure, stemming from those very heady years - 'The personal is political.'
6:36 "Where there is power there is resistance and resistance is never in the position of exteriority in relation to power" also according to foucault resistance is internal to power. (1)Does that mean to stay in power, resistance is important?and resistance only makes Power grow instead of weakening it,as in "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger"? (2)Can those in power grow more powerful by creating (faking)resistance on purpose? I don't know if I constructed those questions accurately since English is not my first language.Looking forward to the next video.
I wonder also what Foucault’s position would be. In response to your second point, it certainly seems in everyday life as though systems of power construct formal opposition to themselves as a way of channeling resistance into manageable forms. The opposition political party performs the valuable function of keeping most resistance within the political system where it can be contained.
@@MrStevemur Thankyou for the response.Yes,and I wonder if we are seeing the same with modern day activism as well;If the Activism is Corporate sponsored,and controlled and contained ,doesn't that make the corporations more powerful?In short,power exists with those who have the power to corrupt.
@@finpro942sometimes I'm sure that does happen. We even have a word for it, "astroturfing," meaning something which looks like a "grass roots" movement but which is actually fake. Personally though, I try to assume good faith on the part of activist groups, unless there's a compelling reason not to. The danger of being immobilised by suspicion seems greater to me than the danger of being deceived.
@@MrStevemur I never knew there was a word for it!Astroturfing is definitely bad.I think the only way to figure it out is by observing whether the Activists actions match with their words consistently regardless of circumstances.But why should Suspicion be the reason to be immobilised,rather it should make one more mobile in pursuit of truth without fear.?
5:30 “we have intentions but these intentions are steered by non subjective forces”. Repeatedly in the examples you talk about the “opinions” of friends and family. Are those “opinions” intentional or non subjective? If everything is power then are the actions of individuals like the motion of matter in physics, being the net result of all the underlying forces involved. The notion of “intentionality” and “free agents” seems incoherent within Foucault’s framework, especially given “resistance” is contained within power. Is “free choice” an expression of “self power”? What is the “self”? It has never made sense to me and this video just reconfirms the contradictions that had struck me before.
Ah, the subjective notion of irony. It would be much more empirically powerful to boldly play Roberta Flack's original than the derivative Fugees ticky-tacky version, only theoretically better.
I wish I knew more abut this. But for as long as I study this stuff, it sounds like commonplace observations dressed up with hyperbole and exaggeration. 'Force relations' are just what we all know as influences, competing expectations and demands. I just don't see how conceptiualizing it this way provides an elevated understanding that advances our understanding and abliity to explain, predict, or react. I think Karl Marx screwed an entire generation of intellectuals by convincing them that they could subsume all of the human transactions they saw around them under a grand theory. Once you reject historical materialism, what's your excuse for thinking that every human transaction around you is describable from a single framework? You've made videos claiming Foucault isn't a Marxist. But the intellectual infuence is obvious. Foucault wasn't an economist, so if he wanted to come up with a grand explanation of how human social relations were regulated, as Marx did, what could he turn to? The commonplace observation that we all act under restraint? He's not a Marxist because he recognizes the failure of Marx's ideas to sweep the world and create the revolution. But he is a Marxist because his seeks to patch the holes in the same type of theory with 'power' instead of 'materialism'.
So, for Foucault, Power is another name, simply, for factors that influence your and mine decisions. Indiscriminately calling them "power", I'd call a clever sales pitch for his private brand of a theory of action and social change. Reifying the forces relations does not help, though. Force relations do NOT act upon each other. Each force relation is a bond between indivduals that becomes salient depending on the beliefs and attitudes of the acting individual including its assessment of the relative importance of the perceived force relations. Humans act upon each other, and in the process re-creating or re-shaping the force relations.
I have trouble with Foucault's use of the word "power" in describing micro-relations. I think it is incorrect, or perhaps incomplete. Most of the relations, norms and behaviors enforced by society are not at their root based on "power", but on "agreed or negotiated rules of engagement". For example, children often create games in the playground, and always end up with a set of rules by which the game will be played. This can represent the ideas or "will" of the oldest or strongest or most respected children at the beginning, but it always evolves into a workable game. It's the same sort of thing as without the rules of soccer you have rugby, and without the rules of rugby you have chaos where the only objective is physical domination by any means necessary. A game like soccer cannot be played without an agreement of the rules and their means of enforcement. There is no "power" involved, as the team that cheats all the time will simply find they eventually have no one willing to compete against them. And there is ultimately no way to force competition. The team forced to compete against the cheaters will act to avoid physical injury and not in an effort to win the game. Thus, something like "though shalt not murder" is not based on power, but on an agreement that that particular rule is preferred by most or all to a state of "kill, or be killed". The only "power" arises when the collective that has agreed to the premise "though shalt not kill" is forced to deal with a murderer. Then the power of the collective becomes real. Before that it is an agreement. The question of government is more complicated. One of the tasks of government is to enforce agreed upon rules such as "thou shalt not murder", but the people who gain the power of government often corrupt it with their own will. It was perhaps one of the most negative consequences of Nietzsche that this became acceptable, or even an ideal. Before Nietzsche the trend was towards limiting the power of government to the will of the people.
Any philosophical reasoning in relation to truth is subject to logic in that it begins with a premise. And that premise must not only be in truth. But every step of the way must continue in conceivable truth. And all this without bias or ulterior motive. The problem with Foucault is that too many assumptions were made from the start. He already has his mind made up about "this" or "that" and he set out to prove it. Well, one can prove anything someway somehow. And they can construct a long line of rhyme or reason get the result they so desire. And many will gladly find appeal and jump aboard. I find Foucault's work "entertaining". But that is all. Why? Because his work on "Power", especially in regards to prisons is one example of misinterpretation on his part. Nevertheless, his motive is to free everyone from the clutches of life while keeping them alive in the end. Foucault was an atheist, which tells me that he didn't see as deeply as one thinks. Life has taught me that all that has been created could not be without an intelligence that humans will likely never fully perceive. A Creator. We cannot characterize or define the Creator(s). But something or someone did it. And Reality itself has proven to be a largely complex mathematical equation running a course. All things have a beginning and an end. Life is the very beginning. And it must continue at any cost. Man was created and inherently given the desire and ability to dominate the world and the women in it. That power has never been taken away. And its not likely to be as we see it. The idea of "freeing all people from power" is another left wing produced naive ideology that is bound for nowhere. Because anything that challenges the process of Reality is going to be utterly destroyed. Feminism is a similar process that will vanish in due time. It does not matter if you recognize something that challenges your own unmitigated freedom, and then label it as something to change or destroy. You have no chance against the power of Reality which controls us all. We are mere variables in a very large equation. And with limited choices or abilities. If we challenge reality, reality will destroy us in any number of possible ways. We are always at the mercy of consequence no matter what we do. We would be wise to see Reality more deeply and align ourselves with it. Respecting the design of all things that the Present demonstrates as Nature. Not what man says or thinks about. But from the forces that are greater than any man or thought. Ever try to stop an earthquake?
