Olivier Lallemant - Entry 2 (Foucault)

Michel Foucauld is one of the greatest philosophers in the second part of XX century. He wrote about a lot of different subjects in the political science field and above all about power and domination trough History. These lectures at the Collège de France are about this topic. He speaks about power and its consequences on War, Peace and society. But he discusses here two main matters about power. The first one is about how the essence of power; its origin, how it is conceived by other essayists… The second one is about the effects of power; it answers the question “what is the point of power?”
First of all, Foucauld is discussing about the origin of power. He says that power cannot be conceived within big overarching theories that have been created during the XIX and the beginning of de XX century. He takes the examples of Marxism (Historical Materialism) and Psychoanalysis. Foucauld has always been a very realistic theorist. He uses History to create his theories, and his essays are only based on actual facts. Once again, he shows how realistic he thinks human sciences should be by criticizing those overarching theories. In fact, their problem is that they try to explain the whole History, the whole Society, on the basis of a certain specific point of view, a starting statement, that is usually ideological, or just a theory itself. Thus, they are considering the whole world according to a fundamental settled principle that may be completely wrong. And, since all those overarching theories cannot be true, Foucauld consider them all false, to be able to move one on his researches. Hence his study of power cannot be biased by economic or theoretical principle that could mislead him. Thus, his researches led him to consider power being two things: it is the way repression can be pursued, and it is “war by other means”, as Clausewitz said. We can see here the main point of view of Foucauld, which is usually relating political power to violence towards individuals. But from this point, a question comes up: How can power be civil repression and military war at the same time? The only thing that links those principles is violence. If the same power is being pursued in the civil circle and during war, we can wonder about the point of using of power. Is political power made to make peace, or is it an instrument of war? Does it keep the society in permanent peace or permanent war? Foucauld speaks about Hobbes’ Leviathan, saying that power is an instrument of social contract, as well as an instrument of violent repression. So did Leviathan save humanity from war, or from peace?
To answer the second matter about power, Foucauld uses once again Thomas Hobbes and his Leviathan. But he uses it to deny it. Indeed, Hobbes wrote that the social contract grants sovereignty to the Leviathan. With this contract, people “lend” him their sovereignty to save their physical security, as long as he respects it. But Foucauld says that with this contract, the Leviathan does not get sovereignty, but the right of using violence and coercion, the right of using true power. And this power has only one aim: Domination. The power enables the King to create laws for one and only one aim: get obeisance, institutionalize domination. According to Foucauld, Individuals are “effects” of power. Power makes individuals; it teaches them subjection and domination. It goes through them and makes them docile. This theory can be explained by another of his theories, developed in his other essays. This theory is the “bio power”. Actually, according to Michel Foucauld, from the beginning of the XIX century, governments are acting in the lives of individuals. According to the principle of “make live and let die”, governments’ violence take much less “practical” ways to express, and go inside the individuals’ lives. They teach them discipline from the earlier age and show them how to obey, through school, civilian education. This is what Pierre Bourdieu calls “symbolical violence”. I think that this is a very realistic way of seeing society and its evolution. But I also think that we shouldn’t take it in a bad way. Actually, this violence is a good thing for society and individuals. It preserves peace and human lives, and discipline is also a way not to use true force and coercion means to make people accept the government’s policy. But this symbolical violence is also a bad thing because it lets individuals hope to get a better social condition while it is impossible. This is what Bourdieu denounces in the symbolical violence. But there is one reproach we could make to Foucauld’s vision. We could say that seeing society like that is having a strange idea of Democracy. Actually, if we follow his point of view, Democracy is as violent as any other regime, but the only good point in it is that it preserves human life. But in the end that may be the only thing we expect from Democracy.