Unit 6 - Foucault/Deleuze

Question 1

subjection

Answer 1

Foucault
- 2 meanings of the word subject - subject to someone else by control and dependence, and tied to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge
- both meanings suggest a form of power which subjugated and makes subject to
- he is making a double reference
- on one hand, he refers to the philosophical tradition (particularly the modern philosophical tradition in which the concept of the subject as a center of experience plays a central role)
- on the other hand, he refers to the political subjection as a mode of having power exercised over oneself
- how power-knowledge constructs identity - power-knowledge rules over us even at the level of identity
- example: what does it mean to be a real woman/how we understand psychiatric disease - F says it’s historically constructed

Question 2

power

Answer 2

Foucault
- describes the subtle, ever-shifting circulations of force relations and their continuing inequality (micro-powers)
- doesn’t exist primarily in institutions, as these are only the crystalized end product, the solidified strategies resulting from continuous circulations of power and resistance
- these shifting force relations stem from inequalities in social hierarchy, not only in terms of politics or economics, but also in terms of cultural prestige and respect

Question 3

power-knowledge

Answer 3

Foucault
- not simply “those who know more have more power; knowledge is power”
- “knowing” is itself a creature of power, a manifestation of power relations
- power produces knowledge
- the circulations of power through discourse from our sense of reality, what’s true
- power, which trains and constrains us, also creates truth (our sense of what is normal and good)
- crucial for “subjectivity” - our sense of self as subjects
- in modern disciplinary societies, we become subjects (selves) as we are subjected to discursive regimes of power-knowledge
- force relations
- romantic power, familial power, etc.
- knowledge is created by ower, reciprocal thing

Question 4

“soul”

Answer 4

Foucault
- not your essence or a spiritual thing
- the effect of the subjection of the micropowers that control the body through its subjection to more precise scientific-technological administrative discourse
- a pervasive, invasion control of who we are, our bodies, through discourses
- “dressage”
- our bodies submit to this dressage, and discursive regimes of power-knowledge are the hidden rider that guides us this was or that way
- “soul” = the effects of a precisely controlling power-knowledge over us all

Question 5

society of control

Answer 5

Deleuze
- no longer static, no longer ties to place
- polymorphous and data driven
- corporation - organization that adjusts its systems of control constantly (“modulating principles”) in order to achieve “meta-stability”
- more about networks, the service/gig economy, globalized supply chains, marketing, adjusting to markets, online surveillance, location tracking, debt as a mean to keep populations servile
- who is in control? - multinational corporations that transcend states/corrupt government officials who know how to work the system for gain

Question 6

dividual

Answer 6

Deleuze
- term for highlighting how identity in the society of control is endlessly reproducible (across markets, across cyberspace), replaceable, reducible to data
- the self in now a data set that can be distributed where needed, control
- individual - unique, whole, not able to be divided
- “a physically embodied human subject that is endlessly divisible and reproducible to data”
- used to explain the mechanisms of societies of control
- maybe people aren’t whole self-contained “units”, but may be broken down
- term for how the society of control is much more network/fluid - the individual is breaking the individual into a data set that can be manipulated