Mathias Koch - Entry No 2 (Foucault)

Is war a way of political power? What type of power is it that is capable of producing discourses of power that have, in a society like ours, such powerful effects?

In society the social body is structured by different types of power.  Power is being right, and being right is power. The true discourses have so much power, that most part of the power it’s gained by searching for the truth. 

Juridical power is also one of the most important things that constituted real power. He says: “The reactivation of Roman law in the middle of the Middle ages was one of the instruments that we used to constitute monarchical, authoritarian, administrative, and ultimately, absolute power”. Because of this, we can say that the power of speech generates real power. The power of words is more efficient that the power of force. If you have speech or skills with the discourses, you will gain power more efficiently that by means of force. The speech gains power, buy power doesn’t gain speech. When we speak about the power of words we talked about not if whether or not my words are true, but whether if I can convince the others that my point is the true one.

The truth and speech can give you power to establish the rights of other people as well, you can put limits, which is another kinds of power. The idea of the text is to show the legitimacy of power and the limits that the truth establishes. From the idea of absolute monarchy gained by the power of speech and right, to the previous limitation based in the same powers.  It is really strange how things can change if the powers of words are directed to different aims.

Power change, it’s something that circulates. It depends in how you manage to conquer it, and if you can maintain it: “Power is exercised through networks, and individuals do not simply circulate in those networks; they are in a position to both submit to and exercised this power”. With the pas of time, the power turns into sovereignty rights and turns the focus in the individual taking part in the society and its roll with the state, and vice versa. It creates a cycle of legitimacy and law. It establishes the idea of power unity based in the law. It assumes the idea of “a subject who has to be subjectified, the unity of power that has to be found, and the legitimacy that has to be respected”.

Politics are the continuation of war by other means. It is also known that both politics and military systems are only ruled by them. They have, so, the monopoly of power. This let the violence of war organized the society for tem, and take war only to the frontiers and protect the rights of that society towards other ones. So this means, that politic is a war without fighting. The evolution of a first chaos creates the notion of politic conscience. So this means that war is sometimes a necessary bad in order to become an organized society. It’s also the politics concentrate in the use of powers, and not in the use of speech. We evolved, and found words more suitable than swords.