15041
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Power doesn't just repress, but entices us with pleasure, artefacts, knowledge and discourse [Foucault]
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Full Idea:
If power was only repressive, would we obey it? What makes power accepted is the fact …that it also traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse.
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From:
Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.120)
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A reaction:
Once you present 'power' this way, it permeates so deeply into human activity that it is in danger of becoming a mere triviality of social analysis. Is every conversation that ever took place actually a power struggle?
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7425
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The aim is not to eliminate power relations, but to reduce domination [Foucault]
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Full Idea:
The problem is not to dissolve power relations in a utopia of transparent communications, but to acquire the rules of law, the management techniques, the morality, the practice of the self, that allows games of power with minimum domination.
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From:
Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.298)
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A reaction:
If you are a democrat it is hard to disagree with this, though I am still unclear why being dominated should rank as a total disaster. A healthy personal relationship might involve domination. 'Management techniques' is interesting.
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22236
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The big question of the Renaissance was how to govern everything, from the state to children [Foucault]
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Full Idea:
How to govern was one of the fundamental question of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. ...How to govern children, the poor and beggars, how to govern the family, a house, how to govern armies, different groups, cities, states, and govern one's self.
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From:
Michel Foucault (What is Critique? [1982], p.28), quoted by Johanna Oksala - How to Read Foucault 9
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A reaction:
A nice example of Foucault showing how things we take for granted (techniques of control) have been slowly learned, and then taught as standard. Of course, the Romans knew how to govern an army.
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21947
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Power is localised, so we either have totalitarian centralisation, or local politics [Foucault, by Gutting]
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Full Idea:
Foucault's analysis suggests that meaningful revolution, hence genuine liberation, is impossible: the only alternative to the modern net of micro-centres of power is totalitatian domination. Hence his politics, even when revolutionary, is always local.
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From:
report of Michel Foucault (Discipline and Punish [1977]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 8
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A reaction:
It is hard to disagree with this.
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