Governmentality

These two readings delineate two transformations of society, one, that concerns mainly modes of government of society. The other describes specifically how society is using its institutions, schools, hospitals, prisons, to control its individuals.
In “Governmentality”, Foucault focuses on the transformation of political institutions, from the figure of the sovereign to the establishment of the state, and “the art of government” as the final stage of these transformations. Throughout the passage he compares several works. First he talks about Machiavelli’s The Prince, a work that deals mainly with the arts by which a prince can gain control over his realm. He then deals with an anti-Machiavellain author, La Perriere, and his work Miroir Politique. This author deals with a multiplicity of forms of government, of which the principality only composes one of these. He then mentions La Mothe Le Vayer, who says that the three essential forms of government are self government, the government of the family, and the government of a state. Foucault explains that while the principality and sovereignty in general are concerned with the distinction between their form of power and any other kind of power, the focus of the government is on continuity, which can be upward (when an individual first learns to govern himself, and then all that is around him) or downward (a state is well run when individuals behave as they should, or through the police). Through a further comparison of authors of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, Foucault shows evidence for a movement aiming towards a new finality in the government.
In dealing with Rousseau’s Encyclopedia he begins to explain “economy” as the government of a family, or a state, the surveillance that one has over his goods. La Perriere defines government as the running of a ship; through the control of the shipmen, and externalities such as weather, the captain can properly take charge. Frederick the Great also points out that territory is not as important. On the contrary, Machiavelli deals mostly with the prince’s control of his territory, and its inhabitants.
Therefore, more recent definitions of government have to do with the things that it administers.
He uses Mercantilism as the first example of an application of government of the state. However, it was still centered around the figure of the sovereign.
By the eighteenth century, however, after a demographic expansion and growth of wealth, the notions of “population” and “economy” took place. Population becomes the end of government. The government of state is the final stage of three types of state: the first two are the state of justice, and the administrative state.
Finally, he says that “governmentality” is born of the Christian pastoral model, a diplomatico-military model, and finally, the police.
In “Postscript on Control Societies” Gilles Deleuze describes another transformation of society, from disciplinary, to control-based. While before society was made of separate, closed sites which each had their own law, now society is based on control, which is a molding that constantly changes from one moment to the next. As Kafka puts it, everything in control societies is but an endless postponement. We never finish anything. We can see this with money, with exchange rates, which continue to change each day, with new technologies, and with the transformation of capitalism from a production, to “metaproduction”. It doesn’t sell things, but services, and activities.

bio-power

This week’s readings all relate to each other through one important theme: bio-power, which can be explained as the power through the investment and subjugation of the body and human life. The three readings all explain the transformations in institutions which allowed for a better care of life. Each passage has a very different approach, starting with Right of Death and Power over Life, where Foucault analyses the various transformations of power to decide life and death. In ancient Rome, it was the father of the Roman family who decided, through the right of patria potestas, whether to dispose or not of the lives of his children and slaves. Later on, it was the right of the sovereign to execute those who posed a threat to his life. War was declared against those nations which posed a threat to the sovereign and to the population under his power. Wars were legitimized no longer in the name of the only sovereign, but in the name of the biological existence of an entire population. We notice a change from a power that was defined by one’s right to kill, to a powerthat instead of ending life, fosters and protects it, and declares wars in the name of life. This form of “bio-power”, or in other words a power that defends life, is essential in modern capitalism. Keeping a nation’s citizens “alive” and strong, through discipline, medicine, makes the nation more powerful and productive. The second passage, Body of the Condemned, focuses particularly on the death penalty. First Foucault describes the horrible tortures involved in the death sentence in European countries and the US, focusing particularly on the French example. He then goes on to show how gradually the theatrical element of execution was eliminated. Now execution occurs behind prison walls, and has the criminal’s close family as the only witnesses. The atrocity of the punishing execution also decreased. Before, executions would last for many hours, and involved several forms of torture. By the mid-nineteenth century, the guillotine and the noose became the dominant instruments for death sentence. Nowadays, there is no physical torture involved with death penalty, and no spectacle for the public. The punishment is not supposed to be equal or greater than the crime itself. It is meant to be corrective. Imprisonment and death penalty are meant to cure society, and keep criminality out of it. They are meant for positive purposes. Today a doctor supervises the execution, and injects the criminal with tranquilizers to make the moment of his death easier for him to handle. And the time of imprisonment or mental hospitalization depends on the criminal’s intentions, his psychological health and mental stability. Through this passage we note another change from a brutal institution founded on “death”, to an institution founded on the betterment of society and its citizens’ lives.The last passage, Birth of Social Medicine, explains how strong medical interventions in the past have lead to a standard, institutionalized form of medicine available to the public.Foucault goes through the birth of social medicine in three different countries. In Germany we have the birth of state medicine, which involved the overall improvement of public health. An bureaucratic organization that gathered information from hospitals and doctors made observations on sicknesses within the state. This organization appointed officers to every region, who could control such data. Medical degrees were also standardized. The second example, urban medicine, saw its birth in Paris, France. Here an urban plan was created to guarantee that water and air were free of elements that might cause illnesses. All places that were considered insalubrious were to be relocated, such as slaughterhouses, cemeteries. Anything constricting the passage of clean air was to be destroyed. Daily reports on the purity of the water were made, to make sure citizens were drinking, washing and cooking in clean water. In England we have the birth of our third example of social medicine, also known as labor force medicine. This was the origin of welfare medicine. In fact, starting in the nineteenth century, it was common belief that poor people were a danger to public health, for they lacked in hygiene and couldn’t protect themselves from epidemics. Therefore a plan was made to offer them medical care free of charge or for a very small compensation. This system guaranteed the control of epidemics, and of locations that posed a threat to public health.
These mechanisms guaranteed the safeguarding of public health, therefore, human life, and allowed for most of today's western nations to become the well oiled machines they are.

Discourse and knowledge/History of Sexuality

Foucault's focus on the first readings is mainly on the use and purpose of discourse. He describes a discursive practice as the "delimitation of a field of objects", and as a "definition of a perspective of knowledge". In my words, in order to produce a discourse one must first define the area of notions, or more simply a subject, to base the discourse on. There is always a certain perspective tied to it as well. He believes that the will to knowledge is always in the process of transformation, and it is always linked to specific circumstances. The same discourse can change sides, as it is, like knowledge itself, polymorphous. Knowledge and truth are the foundations of institutions. Knowledge and power are related, and discourse is intrinsic of power relations. Anyone can appropriate a discourse, it is not tied to the subject.
In"discourse on language" Foucault specifies that discourse relies heavily on rules of exclusion, we are not free to say anything. We rely on institutions in our society, because they are based on the will to truth, and on our cultural system. In this reading he also mentions man's fear of breaking barriers of discourse. There are many taboos, thresholds, and limits, that man fears because putting these "unmentionable" aspects into discourse would cause a disorderly activity.
In "History of Sexuality", he talks specifically about the censorship and confinement of the subject of sexuality. He finds that today's society is very repressive towards sex. He says the only places that deal with it in a tolerant way are the brothel and the mental hospital. He also relates such repression with the need to put it into discourse. We have created a will to knowledge known as a science of sexuality, or scientia sexualis. In the third chapter of History of Sexuality, called Scientia Sexualis, he divides man's approach towards sex in two spheres. The first one, which he relates to the societies in China, Japan, Rome, India, and the Arabo-Moslem, is called ars erotica. In ars erotica, truth is drawn from the pleasure itself, therefore the knowledge of it must be deflected back to the practice of sex. The knowledge of it must remain secret. In our society, scientia sexualis is the dominant practice. It relies on confession, as the main practice for producing truth. Confession frees us, because by sharing the truth, with a friend, or a doctor, or therapist, we can break those bonds of constriction and censorship. Confession is considered scientific, medicinal, and a rational way of dealing with those subjects that are considered obscure, such as sex.