Foucault: Bodies and Biopower

This blog will briefly examine and discuss the merits and differences of Foucault’s ‘Middle’ and ‘Later’ works.

Foucault’s middle phase (as represented in Discipline and Punish) is characterized by a focus on the physical body and the various dispositifs that exert a power over a physical body. To this end there were detailed analyses of the transition from the Bloody Code of the 18th Century to the increasingly ‘scientistic’ microscopic control of the body in the Victorian Era. Although Foucault says much on the nature of the reinscription into society of what constitutes punishment in this phase from the Bloody Code to the Scientific code, underlying all of this there is the hard thought put into how these theoretical constructs actually manifest themselves in the training and manipulation of physical bodies in a physical space.

One example of this is the Panopticon in which the prisoners are constantly visible to a central guard tower, of which a light shines out, thereby blinding the prisoners from viewing who is inside the guard tower. Now although Foucault speaks of this system as exerting power in such a way as to force the inmates to internalize the codes and moralities of the institution itself, what Foucault hopes to highlight is the physicality inherent within thought itself, and that the mind can be controlled via the exertion of power onto the physical body, a bodily training that he sees as evolving from the French military.

However this phase was eclipsed by his later phase and his turn to a concept known as Biopower. The concept of Biopower is characterized by its ‘master signifier’ nature and its overarching, epochal nature, as opposed to Foucault’s earlier works which examined specific examples of power. Some theorists have found this change from specific dispositifs to overarching conceptualization problematic, both for Foucault’s work and for Foucault himself. Manuel DeLanda raises such criticism when he states that he does not understand what Biopower really means. DeLanda believes that Foucault’s middle phase was characterized by strong, forceful accounts of physical actualities, whereas he finds ‘Biopower’ as a term vague, weak and slightly lazy. This blog wants to ask whether DeLanda’s criticism is a valid one? Does the turn to an ontological ‘Biopolitics’ clarify analysis, or does it highlight a turn to fashionable, conceptually vague terminology? Is DeLanda highlighting an important shallow-thought in Foucault’s work, or is DeLanda succumbing to One-Dimensional Thinking? At the moment all this entry can suggest is that this may be nothing more than the difference between idealists and materialists.

Thoughts?

DeLanda, M: Materialism, Experience and Philosophy (Lecture at EGS, 2008, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX2GcqFn3cI&feature=channel))
Foucault, M: Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Pantheon Books: New York, 1977)
Foucault, M: The History Of Sexuality: Volume I, An Introduction (Pantheon Books, New York, 1978)
Toscano, Alberto: Always Already Only Now, Negri and the Biopolitical (Pluto Press: London & Ann Arbor MI, 2007) The Philosophy of Antonio Negri: Revolution in Theory pg. 109-127

Dominic Teflise

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My post is really a follow on from Pauls about the Panoptical society. Foucault's use's the panopticon as 'a diagram of a mechanism of power reduced to it ideal form', Bentham's prison architecture was never really built. It was as theoretical as the Nietzchean Ubermensch, but the reason why Foucualt use's it is because it should be understood as a generalized archetype of modern Power's functioning, it is a way of defining discipline power in the terms of everyday life, that is what is so important. 

For Foucault power is never possesses, it is only exercised. It is this 'exercising' of power that is so integral, not whether or not the panoptical society catch’s a wrong doer or criminal out. The point is that this wrong doer knows that they are doing something bad, that they could at any moment be caught and so there is this constant self surveillance. I suppose everybody is guilty of breaking the law, but what the Panopticon does is evades the social conscious, and in still’s a sense of guilt. Bentham’s Panopticon was a reaction to the dilemma of enlightenment thinking, through this simple architecture Bentham wanted to expound social thought. Bentham believed the Panoptical society ‘would mean the greatest happiness to the greatest number’ but it is also can control a greater population. Foucault’s panopticon is an allogary of the modern soul, the prison of the mind. I believe Foucault philosophy of modern power is Nietzsche's nightmare come true.

In Foucault's view the abstract idea of the panoptican illustrated a collection of real institutions that were in the practice of transforming the modern individual, to tame and shape them. 

You can see the panoptian at work in culture and the occulant power of television. The body for Foucault is the emblem of disciplinary power. We live in a society where body image and body perfection pervades the media. Self-survaliance of the body is very much at work in the west, for both men and women. All it takes is a quick ‘gaze’ and one can be distinguished as a ‘docile body’ or not. The gaze is very much at work.

Bergson on time and duration

Duration is the most important aspect of time for Bergson. Duration implies that everything must always be in a constant process of change. For example, human history, culture and consciousness arise from experienced duration. Duration is linked with emotions, as well as consciousness and history, and it is only through emotions that we can experience any sense of time. Time itself should not be broken down into parts, for Bergson. It is constantly flowing, without pause or break, and this is how we should experience time. But for humans to be productive in any sense, time must be broken down. For if time is not split down into comprehendible parts, we would never know how long something lasted, or how much time we had before the next event starts. This is how humans must live and deal with time in everyday life. This is what Bergson describes as spatial time. There are ethical issues surrounding this for Bergson. For if time is linked with consciousness, and time can be broken down, so can ones consciousness, meaning it could easily be manipulated and distorted.

Bergson hates the idea that time is broken down. He says that quantitative time is only used to manipulate and measure the world. Each unit of time used by humans, be it seconds or years, are without links to the past or future, for to split time down into these subunits it to ignore the real essence of time, that which is indivisible and linked to all past history and all future possibilities.

While Bergson’s ideas about duration and time seem at first glance to be very true, but also impractical. If humans are not able to split down and measure time, society would not function. Since the beginning of intelligent civilizations, time has always been measured, even if only by the rising and setting of the sun, and the changes in the seasons, time has been measured and split down into usable and useful parts.

John Marley N0216498

Chomsky-Foucault Discussion II

Foucault-Chomsky Discussion

Can Michel Foucault's Panopticon be used in the outside world? Should it?

Having the notion that the Panopticon is a prison by which all prioners are possibly viewed under the 'gaze' from the guard I want to discuss the possibility that in todays society; the cameras and police, are in some form a Panopticon themselves. From the line of thought we must concede the point that in todays society observation is everywhere; be it security cameras or police. However, the key difference between the two ideas is that of the staging area. As the Prison Panopticon is within an enclosed space and prisoners are kept on their own, communcation is dramatically reduced. On the other side, communication is paramount on the outside world. Other differences are that within the prison the inmates are made aware of the 'gaze' at all times, whereas in the outside, everyone knows about the surveillance, but they do not believe it matters, or they do not comprehend the Power that surveillance has.

People on the outside believe that privacy and freedom are their right and that such observation the government already has is an abuse of their power. But who are we to say so? If the Panopticon is to work and re-affirm self control within the prison walls, why would it not be a good idea to do so everywhere else? The answer is a tough one but moreover, it is not 'practical' in everyday because people do not want to be watched at all times. For the Panopticon to work, surveillance would have to be total! As in all homes, all rooms, all countrys: everywhere. This would then become a Big Brother World and then questions crop us such as; who watches the guards? And, where does the chain end? These questions would not be able to be answered.

I believe that the Panopticon is an ingenious conception and that should be seen in the highest esteem, but that it would not work in society because society is simply too vast. But I leave you know with one last thought. Do you think that if the Panopticon were to be implemented into the world as a whole, that the world would still go on as it does? The example used by a fellow student was that of downloading illegally. With the Panopticon in place, they would all be caught and punished. Would Society want to see the harsh reality of their illegal actions on a daily basis?


Foucault, M. Discipline and Punish. London Penguin 1991

Barker, P. Michel Foucault, Subversion of the subject. Simon & Schuster Internation Group 1993


Paul Geddes,
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Michel Foucault

When Foucault’s theory of power and its possible omniscient presence in everyday life is evaluated, the issue of morality, in my opinion, has to be considered. Foucault argues strongly that power is the present throughout society. He suggests that whilst it may not be seen, it is always there. Foucault uses Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon as an example as to how power can control and manipulate, ‘Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power’. (Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison, Part 3 Chapter 3). However, is it the case that power controls in such an overarching way? Could it be that morality plays a more fundamental role than power?

Foucault believes that we, as a society, are controlled by a government through power. He states that the highest form of power is where we, as members of the society, self-regulate. Essentially, we control ourselves because of our constant exposure to power, ‘the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary’. (Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison, Part 3 Chapter 3). However, it could be argued that Foucault mistakes self-regulated power for morality and each individual’s morals. It is possible that an individual within society does not commit a murder, not because of the punishment or because of the control of power, but more because of each individual’s moral knowledge that that is wrong. I believe that individuals do not commit a crime because they view it as morally wrong. For example, the majority of individuals will download music illegally, simply because they do not view it as morally wrong. The punishment or the control of power does not deter people from downloading illegally, thus demonstrating how power is not quite the controlling entity that Foucault argues that it is. Power may be present, however, each individuals morals is the aspect that controls. We self-regulate ourselves because of morals, not because of power.

It does appear that power is not omniscient presence that Foucault has argued that it is. It does play role within social situations and society. However, Foucault does not account for morality within his theory of power. I believe that each individual’s morality is, in actual fact, what controls us.

Any Thoughts?

Ian Millman

Guest Lecturer

Hi everybody,

Do your utmost to come see our guest speaker Dr Ullrich Haase
from the Manchester Metropolitan University, who will
be speaking on a topic that is relevant to us all: "Nietzsche
and the Future of our Educational Institutions". This will take
place next Wednesday, the 9th of February in GE218 at 1.15.

Best,
P

Deleuze and Bergson

Annaliese made a comment below on Piers entry which I thought would be worth taking up. Well Deleuze I suppose has been a bit of an ommission on the module. Even though we don't speak about him, he is never far away. A very complicated thinker, and you are right Annaliese, his thinking of time, difference and repetition is a good spot to think about how the question of the temporal and political might be broached for Bergson's thought. Peter Hallward is interesting here. Although, he is not embraced by many Deleuzians, since he is a bit critical of Deleuze, ultimately characterising him as a bit of a political escapist. Nonetheless, what he says in his text 'Out of this World' is instructive. Hallward situates his thesis within Deleuze's heritage of Bergsonian time. This I think is where the politcal debate resides: between habitualisation and what liberates it. There are for Deleuze, like Bergson, two times: the actual and virtual, which roughly correspond to Bergson's quantitative and qualitative time. Every given moment of actual time expresses variable degrees of 'compression' or 'compartmetalization' and are ultimately a diminishment of virtual time. For Deleuze, being is differing, ontology is differentiation. This all takes place on what he calls a plane of immanence. Immanence means there is no outside, whatever is generated is generated internally. Actualization provides limits and constraints. For Hallward's Deleuze, there is no mediation, no dialectic or intermediary affects. I suppose like Bergson's duree this is the activity which creates. It is an ontology, if there is a being it must be a facet of an indivisible, immaterial creative whole. Now Hallward's problem with this is pure creation must be immaterial and spiritual. (In some senses I think a lot Bergsonians at least would say well yes of course Bergson is a spirtualist. He is a vitalist after all.) For Hallward, differing or creation must necessarily be comprised of a 'spiritual force,' which transcends the constraints and limitations of the material and actual world. Deleuze is thus not a materialist despite his claims to the contrary. Deleuze's philosophy is unworldly rather than committed to the worldly. Again, Deleuzians think this is spurious. Any thoughts?

Is film an Art?

An on-going debate over the last few centuries has been whether we can call film an Art. Some argue that it offers us a way of seeing and understanding things in a way no other art can. For example, we can see something from a bird's eye angle, or we can experience things from an angle or viewpoint in a way Art cannot.

Bergson who we have been studying in class wants to say that Film can never be classed as an Art. He was one of the first philosopher's to analyse cinema and to give philosophical expression to moving images. He looked at the fundamentally important properties of cinema; movement, fragmentation and time.

In creative evolution (1907) Bergson employs what he calls "cinematographical apparatus" as an analogy for how the intellect approaches reality, which appears in his epistemological dualism. Bergson believes that "movement is reality itself" but that cinema is only a reconstituted illusion; real movement broken down mechanically in a series of static single frames and then returned to movement through the projecting appartus.

"Such is the contrivance of the cinematograph. And such is also that of our knowledge. Instead of attaching ourselves to the inner becoming of things, we place ourselves outside them in order to recompose their becoming artificially. We take snapshots, as it were, of the passing reality....We may therefore sum up...that the mechanism of our ordinary knowledge is of a cinematographical kind."

He explains here how intuition is the process used to understand the flux of reality, while the intellect gives us a necessary, pragmatic grasp of reality. Bergson believes that cinema can not articulate any sense of reality and should never be considered as an art in anyway. It seems that because film has a mechanical nature, it cannot be human enough and therefore unlike paintings cannot give an audience a view of reality. He believes that a film, once made, is already given, and so time doesn't play a creative role. It is simular to the mechanistic conception of reality; it only takes snapshots of a passing reality. Movement does not exist in the images but is thrown back into them and therefore film is merely a spatialization of time and reality. However most importantly, duration for Bergson (the essence of reality,) plays no part in the cinematographic process because the process involves a succession and not interpenetration of static images.

Do you agree with Bergson? Do you not think that within the 21st century film has become an Art? Is this where we are going wrong? Does Bergson neglect film's representational power because it "spatialises" reality?

Quotes taken from: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Cx4H9wTF8mkC&pg=PA236&dq=creative+evolution+bergson&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false