Foucault begins his chapter by clearly outlining his
intentions, which is to investigate if war can provide a credible analysis of
relations of power. The reading introduces a focus on right, truth, and power and how they relate to each other
as well as truthful discourse establishing limits of power. These are multiple
levels to the relation of power, where power cannot exist without a level of
truthful discourse. Foucault sets out to determine the relationship of power,
right, and truth in our society and toward the end of our reading, Foucault
reveals the existence of a “partisan discourse” as historical narratives are
only as true as the author believes it to be. Though it may be a discourse of
right, it will be “his” right given from a certain perspective. We have been
basing judgements on the imperfections of human bias.
Foucault intends to interpret political power in terms of
war, struggle, and confrontation. It must be stated, however, that it is more
specific than that. Foucault stresses the importance of analyzing power at the basic
root level of intentions, and where Hobbes saw sovereignty as the “soul,”
Foucault believes it is necessary to study multiperipheral bodies rather than simply
one main idea. One question Foucault asks is how does this multiplicity support
itself? Through interactions, how do different forms of domination relate to
each other, in turn reinforcing or negate the other? According to Foucault, much
of the discourse leading up to the sixteenth century was all discourse of
power. It centered around a king, and the discourse was only to justify the royal
power. Machiavelli focused on narratives concerning the state and Hobbes served
the purpose of legitimizing peace, law, and sovereignty.
Hobbes’s notion of philosophical-juidical discourse and a
pacified university is in question when Foucault raises the idea that was is
constant and ongoing according to the emergence of a new discourse in the 17th
century. Hobbes attempted to legitimize peace, but could peace just be a façade
for a constant and underlying struggle for power. Political power does not
begin where war ends, as political action has still been taken while war was
being waged. Essentially Foucault believes that peace is waging a secret war by
bringing society to one side or another. Choosing one side of an issue inherently
brings adversaries of those on the other side. Hobbes believed that if there
was a clash, it would be substantial and definitive where the strong overtake
the weak, as sovereignty is established by conquest. This goes against Foucault’s
description here of an ongoing war even underneath times of peace. Truth can be
used as a weapon of war, utilized for revenge of a final and definitive battle.
By inverting the dictum of Clausewitz, “politics is war by
any other means” to “war is politics by any other means,” war can be a powerful
tool with which to analyze power. Though it may be decentered, it will go
further and deeper than philosophico-juridical discourses.
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