Date: Mon, 08 Jul 96 10:54:11 EST From: "Joe Cronin" <croninj-AT-thomasmore.edu> Subject: Re[6]: what is bio-power? To Michael Donnelly: I agree, we have been talking past each other, but I'm not quite satisfied with yoyur response. In your article "On Foucault's Use of the Notion of 'Biopower'" (cited from Michel Foucault: Philosopher), you make a distinction between the genealogical level of analysis, and what you call an 'epochal' analysis: To put the distinction in other terms: certaqin formulations in Foucault's texts refer to PARTICULAR (my emphasis) targets of biopower in delimited time periods; these can be called 'genealogical'. Other formulations summarise long periods and refer to effects of biopower on 'society' - to orderly, enduring, 'programmed' consequences which follow from the application, according to strategic calculations, of biopower; these can be called 'epochal'. What is unwarranted, according to the article, is a kind of inference from the 'genalogical' (defined as a kind of particularity, I still hold), and the 'epochal' - an example of which is the 'carceral society' in D&P. Follwing form this unwarranted inference, is an 'elision' of the two descriptions - one genealogical, and one epochal. The virtue of genealogy, you argue, is its particularism: "as a result the accounts are burdened with historical detail and necessarily localised in character." The unwarranted aspect, ("the contrast,") is his general desiptions: "the disciplinary techniques whose historical constitution he has tried to document are formalised into a general 'diagram' ('panopticism'), emptied of specific contents or contexts." You then claim that "What is striking here is the suspension of those patient and nominalist procedures..." According to your account, there are two histories Foucault is writing, mixing them together at certain points: the first is "particular" "Localised" and "nominalist," the se4cond is "general" "programmtic," and "formalised." Here is where the problems begin. First of all, where does Foucault ever give a "grey, meticulous, patiently documentary" account? As early as Madness and Civ., he chose "pivotal" figures such as Tuke and Pinel, Freud, Bentham, etc. - all of whom exerted a "general" influence. In Discipline and Punish, the description of Damiens is quoted out of a few manuals, as are the timetables from the 1830's. Foucault cites these texts to demonstrate a "general" shift in peneal technolgoeies, procedures, etc. You seem to suggest that one should dispense with this general level of analysis, which you call 'epochal'. First of all, I don't see Foucault's generalties as being constituted along periodal lines, as you suggest in your article when you say that "The weakness of the 'epochal' approach is that it lapses into a crude periodisation...flattening our historical developments in the mean time." I suggest that Foucault's treatment of "generalities," and his inclusion of generalities in his "grey meticulous" accounts is not periodical, but archeological. The "carcel society" stenms from certain rationalities. The first step of genealogy, as I have been suggesting, is archeological, as he claims in "Two Lectures": "What I mean is this: In a society such as ours, but basically in any society, there are manifold relations of power whcih permeate, characterize, and constitute the social body, and these relations of power cannot themselves be established, consolidated nor implemented without the production, accumulation, circulation, and fucntioning of a discourse."(P/K, 93) Why does Foucault refer to a "carceral society"? Because that's what he finds in nineteenth century disciplinary-architectural manuals which make an invariable reference to Bentham. What can be said is that a discourse on penal technologies has been produced, distributed, and accumulated at a general level. This is consistent with a Marxian analysis. One respects what one finds at teh local, empirical level - but there are general phenomenon - otherwise capital could not be distributed and appropriated on a general level. In other words, not all empirical accounts have to remain at the local and particualr level; there are general phenomenon, and Focualt is trying to grap these phenomenon in their 'specificity,' just as Marx attempted to grasp the concept of labour ion its material, historical specificity without resorted to idealist "mystifications." The local level of analysis is necessary for criticval purposes as well as methodological ones - but that does not mean that the phenomena under investigation have no generality. I will close with a quote from REMARKS ON MARX (152): "Localizing problems in indispensable for theoretical and political reasons. But that doesn't mean that they are not, however, general problems. After all, what is more general in a society than the way in which it defines its realtion ot madness? Or the way in which society is recognized as "rationality" personified?...It is quite true that I localize problems, but I believe that this permits me to make others emerge from them that are very general..."(RM, 152).
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