This volume inaugurates the English-Language
publication of Michel Foucault’s extraordinary courses at the Collège de
France.
Claude Lévi-Strauss recounts that after he was
elected to the Collège de France, an usher, who had grown old in his job, took
him from room to room so that he could choose the room in which he would give
his yearly course. After Lévi-Strauss had chosen a room the usher bluntly
warned him: “Not that one!” to which Lévi-Strauss expressed surprise:
“You see,” [the usher] explained, “it is laid out in
such a way that in order to reach the rostrum you have to make your way through
the entire audience, and, you have to do likewise while leaving.” “Does it
really matter?” I said. Whereupon he shot back this response with a peremptory
look: “Someone could speak to you.” I stood by my
choice, but, in the tradition of the Collège, it is indeed a matter of the
professor dispensing his words, and not receiving them or even exchanging them.
(1)
And Lévi-Strauss goes on to talk about the “mental
concentration and nervous tension” involved in giving a course at the Collège
de France. (2)
In a 1975 interview Foucault
himself noted the strange particularity of “teaching” at the Collège de France,
remarking that he liked not having “the impression of teaching, that is, of
exercising a relationship of Power with respect to an audience.” (3) The
traditional teacher first makes his audience feel guilty for not knowing a
certain number of things they should know; [Accurate.] then he places the
audience under the obligation to learn the things that he, the professor,
knows; [Accurate.] and, finally, when he has taught these things, he will
verify that the audience has indeed learned them. [Accurate.] Culpabilisation,
obligation, and verification are the series of
Power relations exercised by the typical professor. (4) But, as Foucault
points out, at the Collège de France, courses are open to anyone who wishes to
attend: “If it interests them, he comes; if it doesn’t interest them, he
doesn’t come.” (5) At the Collège a professor is
paid to present his work, and “it is up to the audience to say or to show
whether or not it is interested”:
In any case when I am going to give my courses at the
Collège, I have stage fright (trac), absolutely, like when I took exams,
because I have the feeling that, really, people, the public, come to verify my
work, to show that they are interested or not; if they don’t have an interested
look, I am very sad, you know. (6)
Nowhere were culpabilisation, obligation, and
verification less present than in Foucault’s lectures at the Collège de France,
and the interested public often gave way to an excited, enthousiastic public
that made the very idea of presenting lectures a difficult task. Rather than an
atmosphere of sadness, Foucault’s courses produced a kind of frenzy, a frenzy
of Knowledge, that was intellectually and socially electrifying.
In an exceptional essay on Foucault, Gilles Deleuze
has distinguished two dimensions of Foucault’s writings: on the one hand, the
lines of History, the archive, Foucault’s analytic; on the other, the lines of
the present, of what is happening now, Foucault’s diagnostic: “In every
apparatus, we have to disentangle the lines of the recent past and those of the
future at hand.” (7) According to Deleuze, the majority of Foucault’s books
establish “a precise archive with exceedingly new historical means,” while in
his interviews and conversations, Foucault explicitly confronts the other half
of his task, tracing lines of actualisation that “pull us toward a future,
toward a becoming.” (8) Analytical strata and diagnostic contemporaneity are
two essential poles of Foucault’s entire work. Perhaps nowhere more clearly
than in Foucault’s lectures at the Collège de France do we see the balancing,
the alternation, and the overlapping of these two poles. At one and the same
time, these lectures exhibit Foucault’s relentless erudition and his explosive
force, giving further shape to that distinctive History of the present that so
changed our twentieth-century landscape.
One of the most emblematic, and often cited, lines of the first
volume of Foucault’s History of Sexuality, La Volonté de savoir, published in
1976, the year of this course, is the trenchant remark “In thought and
politicalanalysis we have still not cut off the head of the king.” (9)
[Accurate. e.g. PhilipMudd. ChrisCuomo. JamesGray. Soderbergh&Clooney.
RobertSMcNamara. CharlieRose.] In studying the historico-political
discourse of War in this course, Foucault shows us one way to detach ourselves
from the philosophico-juridical discourse of Sovereignty and the Law that has
so dominated our thought and political analysis. In an important lecture given
in Brasil in 1976, and unfortunately still not translated into English,
Foucault underscores his claim that “the West has never had another system of
Representation, of Formulation, and of analysis of Power than that of the Law,
the system of the Law.” (10) Many of Foucault’s writings, lectures, and
interviews of the mid- to late-1970s are responses to this conceptual impasse,
are attempts to articulate alternative ways of analysing Power.
Foucault’s concern during this period was both with
the Representation of Power and with the actual functioning of Power. The focus
of this 1976 course is on one alternative conceptualisation of Power, a mode of
thought that analyses Power relations in terms of the model of War, that looks
for the principle of intelligibility of Politics in the general form of War.
Foucault himsef, discussing the use of the notion of “struggle” in certain
political discourse, posed the following question:
[S]hould one, or should one not, analyse these “struggles”
as the vicissitudes of a War, should one decipher them according to a grid
which would be one of strategy and tactics? Is the relation of forces in the
order of Politics a relation of War? Personally, I do not feel myself ready for
the moment to respond in a definitive way with a yes or no. (11)
“Society must be defended” is Foucault’s most
concentrated and detailed historical examination of the model of War as a grid
for analysing Politics.
If this course is an answer to the question of who
first thought of Politics as War continued by other means, we must put it in
the context of the development of Foucault’s own thought with respect to this
substantive claim. If in 1975, just before the lectures published here,
Foucault seemed himself to take up the claim that Politics is the continuation
of War by other means, (12) by 1976, just after this course, Foucault had
subtly but significantly modified his own attitude:
Should one then turn around the formula and say that
Politics is War pursued by other means? Perhaps if one wishes always to
maintain a difference between War and Politics, one should suggest rather that
this multiplicity of force-relations can be coded – in part and never totally –
either in the form of “War” or in the form of “Politics”; there would be here
two different strategies (but ready to tip over into one another) for
integrating these unbalanced, heterogeneous, unstable, tense force-relations.
(13)
As this quotation makes clear, Foucault’s
preoccupation with the schema of War was central to his formulation of the
strategic model of Power, of force-relations, a strategic model that would
allow us to reorient our conception of Power.
Although it is widely recognised that the
articulation of this strategic model – with its notions of Force, struggle,
War, tactics, strategy, et cetera – is one of the major achievements of
Foucault’s thought during this time, the full scope and significance of this
model has not been fully appreciated. Although a full study of the emergence of
this strategic model in Foucault’s work would have to begin with texts written
no later than 1971, (14) his course summary published here leaves no doubt that
the examination of the historico-political discourse of War was an essential
stage in the formulation of a model of analysis that is presented at greatest
length in part 4 of La Volonté de savoir. Rather than trace the changing forms
of this model, I want at least to outline a few aspects of it that deserve
further attention in the study of Foucault’s writings during this period.
In La Volonté de savoir, Foucault’s strategic model
takes as its most central field of application Power relations (and
resistances), that is to say, nondiscursive practices or the social field
generally. It provides a model of strategic coherence, intelligibility,
rationality that answers to what Foucault sometimes called the Logic of
strategies. (15) Arrangements of relations of Forces have a strategic intelligibility,
and their rationality, as well as the transformation of these arrangements into
other coherent arrangements, obeys a Logic distinct both from the Logic of
epistemic coherence, obeys a Logic distinct from the Logic of epistemic
coherence and transformations studied by Foucault in his archaeological works,
and from the Logic of the model of Sovereignty and the law that is the direct
object of Foucault’s criticism here.
Although this strategic model is, first of all,
intended to provide an alternative system of Representation of the
nondiscursive social field, a mode of Representation that does not derive from
the juridical conception of Power, in order to assess its significance we must
not forget that as early as 1967 Foucault recognised that the form of strategic
intelligibility could also be applied to discursive practices. In an
unpublished lecture, “Structuralisme et analyse littéraire,” given in Tunisia
in 1967, Foucault, invoking among others the name of J.L. Austin, argued that
the description of a statement was not complete when one had defined the
linguistic structure of the statement, that the analysis of discourse could not
be reduced to the combination of elements according to linguistic rules, that
therefore “discourse is something that necessarily extends beyond Language.”
(16) As he put it in a 1967 letter to Daniel Defert, again appealing to “les
analystes anglaises,” “they allow me indeed to see how one can do nonlinguistic
analyses of statements. Treat statements in their functioning.” (17)
nonlinguistic level of the analysis of discourse is in fact the level of
strategic intelligibility.
This model of analysis is developed further in
Foucault’s 1974 lectures at the Catholic Pontifical University of Rio de
Janeiro, “La Vérité et les formes juridiques,” where Foucault urges us to
consider the facts of discourse as strategic games.” (18)
Single-page text, “Le Discours ne doit pas être pris
comme...,” a text that appears in Dits et écrits just before the course summary
of “Society must be defended,” Foucault describes this level of analysis as the
political analysis of discourse in which “it is a matter of exhibiting
discourse as a strategic field.” (19) Here discourse is characterised as a
battle, a struggle, a place and an instrument of confrontation, “a
disqualification.” (20) Discourse does not simply express or reproduce already
constituted social relations:
Discourse battle and not discourse reflexion ...
Discourse – the mere fact of speaking, of employing words, of using the words
of others (even if it means returning them), words that the others understand
and accept (and, possibly, returns from their side) – this fact is in itself a
force. Discourse is, with respect to the relation of Forces, not merely a
surface of inscription, but something that brings about effects. (21)
The strategic model of intelligibility, with a
Vocabulary one of whose primary sources is the schema of War, applies to the
Forces of discourse as well as to nondiscursive Force-relations. (22) In La
Volonté de savoir, this form of analysis of discourse is employed in part 4,
chapter 2, when Foucault discusses the “rule of the tactical polyvalence of
discourse,” insisting that discourses should be examined at the two levels of
their tactical productivity and of their strategic integration. (23) Indeed,
speaking of the perspectival character of Knowledge in a discussion of
Nietzsche, Foucault recurs to this same Terminology in order to articulate the
Nietzschean claim that “Knowledge is always a certain strategic relation in
which man finds himself placed”:
The perspectival character of Knowledge does not
derive from Human Nature, but always from the polemical and strategic character
of Knowledge. One can speak of the perspectival character of Knowledge because
there is a battle and Knowledge is the effect of this battle. (24)
And in his course and his summary of “Society must be
defended” Foucault describes the historico-political discourse of War as
putting forward a truth that “functions as a weapon,” as speaking of a “perspectival
and strategic truth.” Discourse, Knowledge, and Truth, as well as relations of
Power, can be understood from within the strategic model. Hence the importance
of seeing how this model functions at all of its level of application.
Finally, I want to indicate that this course can be
read within the framework of what Foucault called his “circular” project, a
project that involves two endeavours that refer back to each other. (25) On the
one hand, Foucault wanted to rid us of a juridical Representation of Power,
conceived of in terms of Law, prohibition, and Sovereignty, a clearing away
that raises the question of how we are to analyse what has taken place in
History without the use of this system of Representation. On the other hand,
Foucault wanted to carry out a more meticulous historical examination in order
to show that in modern Societies, Power has not in fact functioned in the form
of Law and Sovereignty, a historical analysis that forces one to find another
form of Representation that does not depend on the juridical system.
Therefore, one must, at one and the same time, while
giving oneself another theory of Power, form another grid of historical
decipherment, and, while looking more closely at an entire historical material,
advance little by little toward another conception of Power. (26)
“Society must be defended” participates fully in this
historico-theoretical project; it reminds us once again of Foucault’s unrivaled
conjunction of philosophical and historical analysis. And these lectures, as in
the courses to follow, show us the unfolding of Foucault’s thought in all of its
vivacity, intensity, clarity and precision.
I am deeply indebted to Daniel Defert for his help
and encouragement, to Michael Denneny and Christina Prestia, who initiated this
project at St. Martin’s Press, and to Tim Bent and Julia Pastore, who have
followed it through.
1.
Claude Lévi-Strauss, Parole données (Paris:
Plon, 1984), p. 9.
2.
Ibid., p. 10.
3.
Michel Foucault, “Radioscopie de Michel
Foucault,” in Dits et écrits (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), vol. 2, p. 786.
4.
Ibid.
5.
Ibid.
6.
Ibid.
7.
Gilles Deleuze, “Qu’est-ce qu’un dispositif?” in
Michel Foucault, philosophe (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1989), p. 191.
8.
Ibid, pp. 192-93.
9.
Michel Foucault, Histoire de la Sexualité, vol.
1., La Volonté de Savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1976), p. 117.
10.
Michel Foucault, “Les Mailles du Pouvoir,” in
Dits et écrits, vol. 4, p. 186.
11.
Michel Foucault,
“L’Œil du Pouvoir,” in Dits et écrits, vol. 3, p. 206.
12.
Michel Foucault, “La Politique est la
continuation de la Guerre par d’autres moyens,” in Dits et écrits, vol. 2, p.
704.
13.
Michel Foucault, La Volonté de savoir, p. 123.
14.
See, for example, Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche,
la Généalogie, l’Histoire,” in Dits et écrits, vol. 2. A complete study of this
issue must await the publication of Foucault’s 1971 course at the Collège de
France, also entitled “La Volonté de Savoir.” The course summary can be found
in Dits et écrits, vol. 2. See also Daniel Defert, “Le ‘dispositif
de Guerre’ comme analyseur des rapports de Pouvoir,” in Lectures de Michel
Foucault: A propos de “Il faut défendre la Société,” ed. Jean-Claude Zancarini
(Lyons: ENS Éditions, n.d.).
15.
See, among other texts, Michel Foucault, “Des
Supplices aux cellules,” in Dits et écrits, vol. 3, pp. 426-27.
16.
A tape recording of this lecture can be found in
the Centre Michel foucault.
17.
Cited in the “Chronologie,” Dits et écrits, vol.
1, p. 31. For further discussion see my essay, “Structures
and strategies of discourse: Remarks towards a History of Foucault’s Philosophy
of Language,” in Foucault and his interlocutors, ed. Arnold Eye Davidson
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
18.
Michel Foucault, “La Vérité et les formes
juridiques,” in Dits et écrits, vol. 2, p. 539.
19.
Michel Foucault, “Le Discours ne doit pas être
pris comme...,” in Dits et écrits, vol. 3, p. 123.
20.
Ibid.
21.
Ibid., p. 124.
22.
See also Michel Foucault, “Dialogue sur le
Pouvoir,” in Dits et écrits, vol. 3, p. 465.
23.
Michel Foucault, La Volonté de Savoir, pp.
132-35.
24.
Michel Foucault, “La Vérité et les formes
juridiques,” in Dits et écrits, vol. 2, p. 551.
25.
Michel Foucault, La Volonté de Savoir, pp.
119-20.
26.
Ibid., p. 120.
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