Foucault undoubtedly makes it very difficult for us to see ourselves as free agents. For us, this is a very scary thing. Not free?? But then, we are just pawns! We have no control! This sense that I have of having a private life and a life completely made up of choices that come from within me is shattered!
But remember when we talked about how scary Sartre's existentialism is? Although that one was scary because of the overwhelming freedom and the consequential overwhelming responsibility, we still found that such responsibility actually meant a huge amount of power--a huge amount of say in how the world takes shape.
Do you think we can find a way in which Foucault's intimidating and seemingly pessimistic philosophy can become a source of hope or inspiration? The thing about Foucault's ideas is that they call to our attention all of the subtle and obvious external causes of our actions that we never really noticed before. So what if we all of a sudden understand ourselves not as free, but as simply the manifestations of our generation's power structures/institution? If, in the process of subjectification, we realize that we are always being subjectified to some sort of power structure but also that those power structures also constitute us as "subjects"--that we are merely vessels through which power structures (like language) manifest themselves. Maybe I am reading too much sociology into this, but basically, aren't those scary structures put in place merely by these people believing themselves to be free to do so? So in a way, don't we have some form of power over how we constitute and act as subjects for that power structure? Of course, it is not the same thing as having freedom--we cannot forget the main point that we cannot conceive of any "episteme" outside of the terms of our own. But...doesn't the realization of this help us become infinitely more invested in our own episteme and looking at concepts critically? Let me know what you think and/or if you can see this or any otehr glimmer of hope in Foucault.
I think I see your point: although we're under a power system, it is a power system that has been put in place by the generation before us, who also think they are free when in fact they are under the power of our grand-generation. We can change this! But, it would be really difficult to change the power system that affects us even when we're doing the opposite of what we think everyone wants us to. So I'm not really sure how we could change the power system, since the power system would still have power over us because it would be the impetus for our trying to change it. And then all we would be doing is putting in a new power system that would be controlling consecutive generations until a new one was so affected by ours that it tried to change it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of the points you made; we never really answered the "Well, what now?" question in class. If we are indeed under the control over the establishment, or the episteme, or whatever, how are we to surmount it or change our situation? I'm still not sure how to answer this question. It seems odd that we are under control of a system made of other "pawns." Don't they have a choice, too? If we all had equal power over each other, would we still be caught in this system? Also, I don't feel like my freedoms of choice have been limited, but now I've begun to wonder if that exact thought is just a product of the manipulation Faulcault expresses...
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