File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_1996/96-10-21.153, message 147


Date: Fri, 4 Oct 1996 21:07:51 -0500
From: rmbayi-AT-po-box.mcgill.ca (cyuma mbayiha)
Subject: Re: Foucauldian readings on the History and Philosophy of	  Scientific Rationality


Always appealing to see a name as exotic ;-) as mine on this list.
The content? Ummh! That's another story.
Well. Sorry Brother,
how am i gonna put this without hurting your feelings?

what you wrote is simply nonsense. Transpositions of physical
notions to the societal realm are simply unsustainable. Taken
seriously, they are -at most!- evocative of the Presocratics'
cosmological meditations.
[Hesiod's <water> generative element, or  Heraclitus'
(sophisticated) <fire>.]

Besides, where the hell is any connection between that newtonian
notion of power and the one we know from Foucault?

Gone.
and sorry for the tone.
Your posting really bugged my head off.

cyuma

>Help with your views , we need to redifine the whole concept of power
>as linked to politics and the academicia ;
>
>--------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>There is landing on the  conceptual difficults in defining what power is .
>And by so doing we tend, to misinterprete what  power is for real. Power
>can't be force or for that matter a derivative of force. Since power is
>positioned and in that case is grounded.  Force traditionally, is
>directional which means force becomes force when it covers a distance in a
>given direction.  For axample i apply force to break/bend an iron bar but I
>use power (parental ) order children to school .
>
>Here we start questioning the legality of the whole knowledge about things
>and in this case power and how this concept is used in feminist/ gender ,
>political, capitalsitic etc. relationships.
>
>References;-  Force,  power and then work.
>
>Now this is presumably English by I suspect those words might be of
>Latin/Greek origin . Could Latin or greek speakers help with a reason or two
>in understanding the origins of these two concepts and how they were used
>and how they are used today. I will be gretaful.
>
> Anyhow, where does this ambiguity of  the use of these words comes from ? I
>think  there is a categorical error to assume the word " (E ) motion " is
>power. Emotion is the beginning of all forces in both metals and human
>beings and plants. What happens when you heat or hit a metal , what happens
>to the atoms ? Even metals have got ( E )motions . What happens when you put
>a flower in a dark coner, with a small ray of light ? What happens when you
>boil water ?
>
> Emotions are different levels and grades of reactions in different
>substances. Thus creating accumulated force to reaction, for example towards
>boiling/freezing points , anger, joy, excite, breaking point, etc.
>
>Is that power ? Biology and physics give us a differing level/grades and
>explanation of forces . From philosophy, all these experience have been
>derived to ground them in different sense perceptions.
>
>To me it seems, there is no pure distinction between how things react and
>humans react, apart form that humans are rational beings with a huge mind
>store, which helps to calculate risks and danger.
>
> In Physics , Newton ( ? )  observed these two differentiation of forces :-
>a.  Action -at - a distance , gravitational, electric charges (nuclear )
>forces for     example or intellectural force with the unknowledgable ,
>father child,                husband, wife relationship. Emotions once again.
>
>b. Contact forces or physical contacts. Push a wall for example, war fare
>     ownership - property , slave -  master relationship. *Mastered* emotions
>
>-----------
>
>Now, take for example this sentence , " her  * force * of  language
>commanded  and instilled fear and respect into her subjects. Should I
>conclude that we are talking about macroscopic force ? May I conclude too,
>as in the different types of  force above , force in this sense meaning that
>her command of language, (relationality between the speaker and listerner )
>instilled sense of direction to which we link power ? Since the speaker in
>this case covers the distance between her and the listener and in that order
>attaining power ?
>
>When does this force become power , i.e. ideological power i.e. political
>power, money power, capitalistic power ? Since we are talking about Action-
>at - a distance or cantact forces through emotions or master emotions ? Can
>we also say what keeps atoms or molecules in a substance together is this
>force since atoms have to be pulled from a distance to a near to noll
>distance in order for force to assume a power status ?  Is this power in
>case of ideologies pooling individuals of different life experience to one
>idea ?
>
>In normal English, I  think we talk of the " power of....... " not the
>"force of...." .
>
>
>
>One social sciencetist writes , " Power is the ability to determine, or
>influence outcomes. This could be positive or negative.  To the extent that
>force determines direction, I would argue that force is an instrument of
>power."
>
>Why can't power stand  on it's own and force on it's own ?
>The whole concept of democracy is unbelievebly wrong if I am to go by this
>kind of reasoning. First you have to apply force in terms of rational
>capitalism/statism/ideologism and later come to power through macroscopic
>forces of abstract cohesion. Labour party and Conservative party and how
>much money is deposed among these different groups !! I think we are coming
>up to something here. Commando economy and the whole concept of this type of
>democracy. I think Karl Marx saw this problem in moving towards socialism.
>Different groups of people need the force to be together , and it is as
>natural as it is contralaly to the capitalistic and functionalistic ideas.
>
>A naturalscientist (physicist) writes;-  " Work must actually be done for
>power to be mainfest. Power is the product of force, which force must
>neccessarily have direction, accomplish meangful. I think as usual the
>social science, shows its soft side, by alluding to soft elementals like
>emotions and sentiments as a different kind of force. In the physical world
>force must overcome all this, which would be analogous to frictional or
>viscous forces in the physical, to do work, to manifestation of force. Power
>is more accomplished than force. Or force is powerless, until it does work
>regardless of the circumstances; "
>
>
>That move from idealisation to realism (absolute idealism) is very
>interesting. Since in this case, all powers are derivatives of forces !!!
>This is the problem , English has made our understanding of these very
>concept and how we should link them to the real world very very wrong.
>
>In socialscience, we can as well say society i.e. a fragmented society as
>(ethnicity )  has first to apply force a or b to come to power . But we know
>most of the time this has failed. And atoms in a given metal are willingly
>bonded together. What the confusion here : Let you look at the gangs of
>youths in urban American, those small tribes of Africa and Europe.
>
> Besides, I don't dispute the success of physics .
>
>
>Bwanika.
>
>
>An good explanation will be very much welcome.






   

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