Final exam : Foucault and biopolitics

biopolitics

politics of life

Bios in Greek - life

2 main schools of thinking about biopolitics

naturalistic and political.

Naturalistic.

Life - the basis of politics. Necessities of life determine and direct the logic of politics. Bottom-up vector.

political

Life processes - the object of politics. Politics intervenes from above, regulates and controls life processes. Top-down vector.

flaws of naturalistic and political positions

Both based on the idea of a stable hierarchy and an external, instrumental relationship between life and politics.

either biology accounts for politics, or politics regulates biology.

relationship between biology and politics

biology accounts for politics, politics regulates biology

Contra naturalism

life is not a stable ontological and normative point of reference.

Contra politicism

biopolitics marks a significant transformation of politics.

Biopolitics focuses on living beings rather than on legal subjects.

Michel Foucault ( 1926- 1984 )

Formulates an alternative to naturalist and political positions, develops a relational and historical account of biopolitics.

Life is neither the basis nor the object of politics. Instead, it is a border of politics

science as tool of power

it is effectively used in the formation of modern disciplinary power

Discipline

range of detailed, meticulous techniques for the subjection of the individual. "Micro-physics of power".

Discipline makes individuals:

specific technique of power that regards individuals both as objects and as instruments of its exercise.

Individuals are formed through training:

hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment, examination

Normalization

form of power which requires adherence to norms.

the norm

a statistically determined standard of behavior administratively required by disciplinary institutions.

Foucault's theory of biopolitics

object of biopolitics: not singular human beings but their biological features measured and aggregated on the general level of populations.

Central biopolitical term:

population

Population

independent biological corpus: a "social body" defined by its own processes

"nature" of population can be measured

this allows to control and manage it

Two basic forms of biopower:

increase of industrial and agricultural production;

growing medical and scientific knowledge about the human body.

Discipline + security =

Discipline + security = apparatus

global political technology that aims to control the human as individual and the human as species

Apparatus of sexuality

Sexuality links both forms of power: discipline and security

Discipline

Sexuality represents a bodily behavior that gives rise to normative expectations and is open to measures of surveillance and discipline.

Security

Sexuality is also important for reproductive purposes - it is seen as part of the biological process of a population.

Sovereign power → biopower

absolute right of the sovereign is replaced by the relative logic of calculating, measuring, and comparing.

sovereign "right over death" does not disappear: it is subordinated to biopower

Race war

the biological race theory interprets societal conflicts as "struggles for existence and analyzes them in evolutionary terms.

Function of racism:

differentiation of people into good and bad, higher and lower.

Racism becomes a strong weapon in the hands of the modern state

Racism

an expression of a division within society that is provoked by the biopolitical idea of an ongoing and always incomplete cleansing of the social body.

liberalism

a specific art of governing human beings

the general framework of biopolitics"

The rise of modern biology

concepts such as "inner organization" "self preservation", "reproduction", "development" move into social & political discourse of liberalism and become the basis of modern art of government.