Michelle Foucault BioPolitics Study of individuals and power 1.

. His thinking migrated over the course of his life 1. Starts as a conventional structuralist thinker 1.One who believes the subject matter he is pursuing can be described in its entirety by mapping the relationship between its concepts 2.Positivism; makes the claim that knowledge is pre-existing, and the application of the scientific methods means we can progressively discover and understand knowledge. Assumes knowledge is pre-existing, and is not something that we create 3.Do we create meaning? Or do we uncover meaning? Does meaning exist absent from ourselves? 2. Many mischaracterize as him stating that no knowledge exists, etc, but not true, simply says we cannot view things objectively. 2. Fluctuates on his positions a lot. 3. I do not think it is particularly important to know what I mean. 4.The process is more important than the end point, why you do something is at least as important as what you do. 1. Eg; death penalty Foucault hated the death penalty, he thought it was inappropriate for govt to kill people. However, he was less concerned on whether or not you opposed to death penalty v. why you opposed the death penalty. 2. If you hate it because its inefficient and expensive, someone else hates it because its an affront to human life. You both agree, but both parties then expand their motivations toward viewing other portions of life. The other person will continue to protect the intrinsic dignity of life, you will look for a cheaper way to kill people. 3. Oftentimes, people will select portions of Foucaults writing from different times in his life, which makes things difficult for debaters 4. Structuralist periods very adamant and straight forward with his link stories, things that he objects to 5. Later on though, he starts talking about what one might do instead.

6. Finally, fifteen years down the road, he starts writing impact arguments, 5.mostly though, that he states that the bad is self-evident, 7. Finally in the 80s, he starts writing on reconciling a lot of his contradictions, but since he doesnt really care about contradictions, he leaves some loose ends unraveled. 4. Cards will likely seem like gibberish, and it probably is, so force your opponent to make sense of their argument and justify it. 5. Power 8. Power is Fluid, and exercised that exists in relationship 9. Juridical Power (The commonplace understanding of power via law) Primarily Repressive 6.Reacts against this model of power. 7.The Repressive Hypothesis 3. The Juridical model of power is based on the repressive hypothesis 4. The idea that power is held be individuals at the top of the pyramid of control (govt) 5. Power is top-down, employed by people at the top 6. The power that says No and the enforce punishment, consequences are invariantly negative. 1. Used as a form of control with police nad consequences that are determined by the elite. 2. Inscribes the power of the sovereign on the body of the criminal 7. Operates through intense visibility 3. Capital Punishment 10. Disciplinary Power (primarily regulative.administrative) 8.Acts on the body, but doesnt punish in a spectacular way, it is the organization of bodies. 8. School, Military, etc 4. Assigned duties, space, etc 5. Built to reinforce a particular power dynamic

6. Every act is dictated by administrative rules 9.Rather than the state relying upon pure coercion, disciplinary power focuses on situating the individual amongst the group. Rather than punishing dissent, it extinguishes dissent before it forms. Group Mentality 10.Agency/Autonomy, still exists, and are inclusive when the individual who is dominant in the power struggle believes you will make to correct choice. 9. Rewards given to subjects who demonstrate that they can act responsibly. 7. Juridical believes you cant be trusted to act right, Disciplinary says you can be trained to behave correctly to the point where you become an appropriate subject. 8. They are almost always used in combination 11.Foucault never believes that this sort of thing is all bad. 10. Contextual understanding Key. 11. Instances where the disciplinary model is the only way to get things done, and things should be done, just not thoughtlessly 12.The point is not that anything is bad, the point is that everything is dangerous. 11. BioPower 13.Biopower; the concern for life expressed by politics 12. Elections, advertising, interpersonal decisions made about household economics, to global implications of arms control, etc 13. Any number of subjects 9. Economic well-being, Health Care, National Security, Environment, etc. 14.Doesnt operate on the body, it operates on the Soul The internal v the external. 14. Puts you in a mental position, organizing the positions of force, so that you will always make the right choice 15. Choice is the mechanism of control 10. All the choices will be made right, or else. But the knife almost never comes out, and when it does, it is typically very subtle, or enacted upon via neighbors rather than the government.

1.Germany, most rebellion leaders were ratted out by their neighbors. 15.The Question of life 16. Whether or not a life continues 11. Capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, etc 17. Quality of life 12. Suffering, economics subsidence, Living in Poverty 16.Not just issues of human life, but agriculture, animals, genes, etc. 17.Two distinctions 18. BioPower is productive (not repressive like juridical power) 13. Says Yes There are some people who will commit crimes, there are people who will not commit crimes, we will reward those who dont commit crimes in order to convince those who do commit crimes, to not. 14. Encourages people to Act appropriately 15. About building the good citizen 2.But the rewards are coercive, in the sense that they channel behavior and always contain the implied threat of juridical power. 1. Encourages us to discipline ourselves, which is why it is so devastatingly effective 19. Serves to individualize as a member of a population 16. Levels of analysis; Juridical and Disciplinary power execute power on an individual level of analysis. 17. Biopower focuses on the individual only insofar as they are part of a larger population. 3.Doesnt matter if I have an abortion, it only matters if I have an abortion in relation to the bulk of society. 2. Doesnt matter if its legal or illegal, only if its accepted or shunned, 4.Poverty is frequently understood as an individual moral

failing (lazy, ignorant, irresponsible, etc) 3. An attempt for biopolitics is to align certain characteristics with how an individual can be classified in relation to the rest of individuals in that society. 1. Its not am I lazy? but am I lazier than everybody else? 4. The smaller the occurrence of a deviant behavior in comparison to the larger population, the worse the offense. 18.Are fluid, power is not held, power is exercised. Cannot possess it via institution or individual, it is relational. 20. There can be no power without resistance. 18. In order for disciplinary power to exist, there has to be a choice within the individual, you either march or not, if youre not marching, then there is nothing to act upon. 19. It is about the way I internalize the lessons of the government in order to operate my life. I either choose to comply, or I choose to resist. 2 20. Knowledge and power are co-productive. The extension of knowledge also extends the reach of p power.

K Knowledge reproduces itself by making claims to authority my expertise in a certain field is expressed via government cooperation, your MD, B BA, etc, yet which college provide for which studies? New studies must be institutionalized so that institution can then provide you with l little letters to give you authority and imbue it with a sense of power. Power also advances the cause of knowledge just as knowledge advances the reach of p power. H History is written by the victorious. what counts as true depends on who says it, and who says it is a function o of authority. Understanding poverty as an individual moral failure means that justifies certain actions to control individuals living in poverty because they dont k know any better. If its because of a structural problem this justifies an entirely different

r range of actions which are not punitive or coercive. Power Mechanisms P Power and resistance always exists, thus liberation can never exist. Resistance only provides a new place for power struggle to exist. Defying the rules does not destroy the power of authority, but resistance becomes an opportunity for an e extension of power. There is no way out of power, and theres no way to decide which form of power is better than another objectively (ie, what is better for you all) but I can chose w which one is best for myself. G Governmentality T The conduct of conduct Not about what the government does, but about the individual governing their o own actions Remember, biopower is meant to encourage us to make the correct decision, this r relies on the notion of governmentality to function. J Jeremy Benthams Panopticon a architectural design of a prison there is a high central tower, and then around the tower is a ring of c cells that are set down into the ground. From the tower you can see into the cells, but from each cell you c can only see the bottom of the tower, you can't see it. the prisoner assumes that the person in the tower is watching them, which it could, but ultimately, the person in the cell doesn't even k know if someone is in the tower. Because there could be someone there, you must act like someone is in there because otherwise you have to deal with the consequences. the deterance of uncertainty d Biopower situates the individual as a member of the population, when you take a hollistic view of society, then the individuals who fall outside of the norms and d deviate from the population pose a threat to the population t the enemy within Looking at the population as a body as something that can be politically healthy, then the individuals who deviate are essentially viruses in the h healthy political body, and thus should be eradicated. i if this is the way that we think, then people have to be killed. In order to maintain the health of the population, it is necessary to e eradicate those who pose a threat to the health of that population. T This necessitates a period 'cleansing and 'purging Hitler characterized 'negative virus groups (Jews, Queers, P Polish, etc) as a threat to the body politik. Spillover, first they came for, but that wasnt me so I was quiet, then they c came for the, but that wasnt me, etc, etc, until youre captured. Its a continuing process of categorical exclusions.

With each crises, there comes another distinction within society that can b be used to enemize some group. T The war on terror. only way we could justify Guantanimo Bay was the threat o of the danger within. Now N What? F Four moves (alternatives) A Archaeology d does not mean searching for pottery fragments its mapping out the structural relationship between words a and meaning. Twist on structuralist thought, wants to map out the m meaning of Discourse and its relation to its specific topic i individualism, security, etc These words and discourses can be related to one another through the connection of words. The same word in two d different specialties eg. Insurgence to a medical professional is the same word, but has different meaning to insurgence for a an army general. However, they are still inherently connected, just w with different meaning. L Like mapping in the fact that its very structural G Genealogy about ideas, the genealogy of biopower means we should go back and study the art of medicine, mental health, public health, the art of government and how it evolved h historically. Interested in how we got to where were at by looking at t the choices that we did not make. D Denaturalization says that we dont find meaning, we make it. Moves away from positivism stating that the things that we believe to be the most obvious are actually the ones that conceal the most q questions what is sex? Not just male/ female, variants of chromosomal combinations, XXY XYY, females w who are chromosomally male and vice versa, etc. What does it mean that there are anthropologists say that there are five or six sexes? Why have we come t to the assumption that there are only two? The idea that we forget that we continually construct how I governments function, and so we comply with the way they function now. Every action you take is an independant

m move toward constructing the state Thus we need to denaturalize our ideas of things like sex and the state in order to challenge the assumptions that created them and take a more active understanding of how t these things are constructed. Problemitization P taking something that we are certain about and turning it i into a question. w we absolutely know that there are two sexes jk, we dont really know that. we should see this as a beginning of study, not an end. C Check the box M/F this makes the assumption that there are only two sexes rather than accepting that there may be other sexes. Its far more productive to question the existence of alternative sexes.