>According to Leftist Philosopher Michel Foucault, power and knowledge are inherently linked, and any attempt to disrupt power will inevitably just lead it to shifting to another body. We can take the example of Tsarist Russia falling in October of 1917. An Anarcho-Communist society was not achieved as the revolutionaries hoped; instead, power was merely transferred from Tsar Nicholas II to Vladimir Lenin.
Well, Sup Forums? Was he right? Is it futile to resist power, especially in politics?
Also, general opinions thread on Foucault and his works.
Well, knowledge always follows power, and vice-versa.
An individual who has knowledge has an intellectual 'power' over the individual lacking the knowledge until that knowledge is imparted to said individual.
Similarly, the more power an individual holds the more knowledge of certain things that individual has. For example, Hillary Clinton had vast quantities of knowledge that she had on her private servers that are not available to the public. Stalin had the most knowledge of anyone in the Soviet Union.
Kayden Peterson
I know I just got excited because I just finished writing and the first thread I saw was on this guy.
Nicholas Cooper
Calm down, user. He's pretty well known, as said.
Christian Allen
It wasn't originally. Theoretical Marxism advocates an Anarchistic society.
Easton Peterson
>Is it futile to resist power, especially in politics? Yes. Seize power and hang your enemies, everything else is just ancap memes.
Ayden Rogers
This guy is one of the worst when it comes to the widespread relativism of post structuralism we see today.
>American feminists have built on Foucault's critiques of the historical construction of gender roles and sexuality >Foucault's approach to sexuality, in which he understands sexualities as socially constructed concepts that are ascribed onto bodies has become widely influential >Foucault is sometimes criticized for his prominent formulation of principles of social constructionism >Foucault argued against the possibility of any fixed human nature
and so on and so on; you get the idea
Adrian Hughes
I don't like associating Foucault with SJWism. I feel he was above that, and he would have hated the modern Left due to its authoritarian tactics.
Logan Howard
Isn't that gif just an illustration of what Foucault was talking about?
Jacob Perez
...
Gabriel Campbell
but the "knowledge" of marxist utopia can't be part of that, because in terms of inherent "intellectual power" or effectiveness, it wasn't knowledge at all. Is convincing or compelling people with a simplistic idea, a function of knowledge?
Luke Garcia
>no Judith Butler in shit-tier
She's literally the cornerstone of modern Tumblr Feminism.
Joshua Sanders
No, it's not about the ideology itself. It's just the fact that the supreme leader of the U.S.S.R., Josef Stalin, had the most knowledge of anyone in the U.S.S.R., thereby reinforcing the Philosophical concept of power-knowledge.
Brayden Thomas
But I enjoy reading J.S. Mill and Kierkegaard.
Aaron James
>he doesn't like Quine
Get the fuck away from me then kill yourself
Landon Perez
Even if true, how did knowledge make him supreme leader? You would say that Hillary is going to be made president because of her knowledge in specific areas? Knowledge can help manage power, for example the famous Soviet propaganda style was deliberately engineered. Without intellectuals, certain forms of power would be impossible. However, intellectuals are people: knowledge must be practiced through a body.
What is knowledge without power? What is the source of intellectual power? It's said that ancient knowledge exists only in fragments. Where has their power gone, was it lost?
Jaxson Gonzalez
Didn't he die of AIDS because he liked to have man orgies?
Jeremiah Cook
it seems like you're saying that some words and thoughts exist only in particular strata of society, all the way up to emperor. Stalin would probably have had access to more personal data on enemies of the state, for example, than any academic. That knowledge caused him to use his powers differently, but especially with Stalin it's difficult to say where his knowledge ended and his psyche began. Much of what he "knew" was incorrect, and he didn't always act on sure knowledge anyway. Much of his knowledge was damaging instead of helpful, even on a personal level. If knowledge were hierarchical. all kings would be either wise or insane from profound inspirations.
Chase Nelson
>no Mad Max triggered.jpg
Jose Morales
and by "knowledge being hierarchical" I mean, more knowledge corresponding to more power, and vice-versa. If you say that a drunken genius has power (or potential for power) and wastes it on a poor, solitary, short life, you must acknowledge that it doesn't take a genius to succeed, or to have that potential. A wise man doesn't lose wisdom for being poor, and a rich man doesn't necessarily have more.
Aiden Thomas
Yes, he died of AIDS. AIDS wasn't really well known back then.
Well, what would you then say about the constant leaks of information to the public that we end up finding out the elites knew about for ages? Is that not knowledge that they possess that the lower classes don't?
And would you then argue against the idea that Kings generally knew way more than the lower classes, generally?
Or what of the fact that the nobility during the Medieval Era had access to education whereas the lower classes were generally illiterate?
Zachary James
This looks like that one nigga who spoke at amren
Logan Price
No, that's the end-goal. According to Marx, Lenin did nothing wrong.
Ian Ross
Ireland is the land of tormented intellectuals, don't you know that poor people have knowledge of different things? Things the wealthy cannot comprehend? As a whole most societies have decided to value education and knowledge, making the elite more likely to possess it. (like other valuable items) However, imagine if I proposed that gold was directly correlated with power. Kings invariably hoard it, elites secret it away, gold is universal. Therefore, say I, you can't have power without gold. There are many things in this world that ONLY gold can buy. The richest man inevitably possesses the biggest hoard. Therefore, gold is power!
Alexander Powell
>According to Marx
Marx was dead by that point, user.
Jordan Williams
chomsky has him and people like him pegged
just a bunch of posturing and obfuscation and stuff, when you put what he says in simple language it's just a bunch of obvious things and tautologies
Elijah Nguyen
>aquinas
>not relevant
Aiden Morales
t. someone who doesn't read philosophy
Luke Evans
Well, you're not wrong. A large amount of wealth is associated with a large amount of power. Just look at Bill Gates or Goldmann Sachs.
Lincoln Rivera
I have done 3 or 4 in the last 3 semesters
If i have to read Foucault or Susan Sontag again I will kill myself
Austin Brown
>Chomsky
Chomsky is an idiot. He honestly thinks Anarcho-Communism could work, despite the fact that the guy is in his 90's. At least Foucault had the humility not to offer any solutions to the problems he perceived.
Brayden Johnson
Associated. There are many exceptions, such as occurred during the Russian revolution, proving that the ruthless arithmetic of power is more constant than society- or the individual's favorite means of succeeding in it.
I'm saying that knowledge and wealth can both fail you. If they corresponded to power, they would not fail. Power is never simple to chart or acquire, and it exists solely in the relations of humans to each other and to the world.
Aaron White
I think a lot of you are misunderstanding Foucault's argument about power/knowledge. He wasn't talking about Truth or what is, he was talking about perception, or the technology of social interaction and morality and how those perceptions perpetuate and reinforce themselves.
An excellent example of this working in modern times is the evolving view of homosexuality. It wasn't too long ago that homosexuals were viewed as immoral deviants or, as we moved to a secular society, sick/mad. Then an idea started to get spread: sexuality isn't a matter of nature or morality, its just a matter of personal preference. At first, the idea is seen as extreme, repellent, but as it spreads the sheer weight of that knowledge begins to have power. It becomes a sizable, vocal minority. Then it becomes fashionable. A generation later its the norm, everyone either sees homosexuality as not a big deal or knows the society well enough to keep their mouthes shut, so the idea entrenches itself. Laws get changed, protections come into play, society begins to enforce the idea. Then, with all this power, the knowledge starts to look to the average person like Truth. To challenge the idea is to challenge society, its to challenge all the other assumptions of the culture, its to be an outsider. At this power knowledge and power are so intertwined that other pieces of power start coming in to protect the idea because they, too see it as part of the state. To attack this deeply held assumption is to attack all of them, so all the ideas with skin in the game pool their power.
Of course, viruses don't stop. At the margins of the idea there are always new ideas, ways of making the old one even more mainstream, even more deeply entrenched. Didn't you ever wonder where all the transexuals came from in the last decade?
Robert Baker
Are opinions knowledge?
Mason Johnson
>literally died from aids
Easton Rogers
I'm not arguing that the common man doesn't know things that the elites don't; of course not. I wouldn't be on Sup Forums if I thought that.
But what I am arguing is that the more power you have, the larger your 'pool' of knowledge can get because of increased access to education and more access to restricted knowledge.
Ryan Wilson
He was a faggot, a socialist cunt and wrong about everything. Its power and influence that are linked, not knowledge. Its who you know not what you know. Or you can take his word for it.
Samuel Flores
Everything is knowledge. Ideas, techniques, beliefs, systems of government. The only possible exception would be mathematically provable facts, but the basic cultural underpinnings which allow us to recognize them as facts are products of power/knowledge.
Foucault wasn't generally making and argument about what was right, at least not explicitly, but an observation about how things work within groups of people and the relationship between what we think and how we enforce.
Nolan Diaz
that doesn't change the validity of the criticism of the foucault, zizek etc. dudes
also his main political role has been to offer critiques and stuff, he doesn't need to offer any sensible alternatives to how societies should be arranged ultimately. calling out gross immoral acts and systems as such is enough. i think. maybe i should think about that more.
Jose Ortiz
My favourite example is the French Revolution. It's lauded as the emancipation of people with ideals of freedom and democracy when really it was just a shift in power from the feudal kings and lords to the bourgeois.
If you agree with Foucault then the only logical politics that can follow is anarchism. Dismantling power structures unless they can justify themselves, which most can't.
Jeremiah James
>Not sure if Sup Forums, /lit/ or reddit Please go back Foucaults philosophy is worse then shit tier. It's a weak critic on the structuralist paradigm of his neo-marixst Mentor Althuser. At best an interesting perspective on the concept of speech as a structuring variable. Still, just Marxist bs, spiced up with some edgy (((philosophers))) for arguing his concept of discourse as a class structuring element. Imo literally copied from Lucaz.
But still his methodological ideas are quite nice for analysing big text corpses and he is kind of the father of empirical discourse analyses. >Would rate 6/10
Charles Powell
I had a professor once say that Foucault can't ever tell you whats right, only whats fucked. I feel like his philosophy is more useful for critique than for building.
Colton Flores
Oh, I'm not an Anarchist. I'm a Nationalist and a Conservative actually.
I agree with him here, but I embrace it instead of try to critique it like he did.
Evan Butler
>I'm not going to read any of these people myself so I'll just condense my nuanced view into a meme
Jaxon Ortiz
>criticized medics >criticized capitalists and rich people >bad relationship with dad >dad was a rich surgeon >became homo >moved to SA >got his neghole pozed in a restroom of a gay bar >died of AIDS "FUCK YOU DAD I"M GONNA GET FUCKED IN THE ASS AND SHIT ON EVERYTHING YOU LIKE"
Ethan Fisher
According to Marx's fucking gospels, Lenin did nothing wrong.
Kayden Murphy
I think people's assessment Foucault's notion of power is sometimes mislead. I don't think Foucault was "anti power", he just thought people ought to be aware of the power structures that are coercing them
Aiden Brooks
oh I get it now
the left has drifted away from Chomskian values and towards Foucaultian ones
and that's why they're such vindictive, abusive assholes these days. they don't want to end oppression by overthrowing the current crop of oppressors. they want to overthrow the oppressors so that they can be the ones inflicting the oppression instead
because that's what power is for. in their view
Frank Herbert might as well have been describing the Foucaultian left when he wrote, "When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles"
Landon Wood
You forgot that his mentor was literally a crazy person who murdered his wife.
Luis Perez
I'm curious. If you believe in what Foucault was saying, why do you embrace these power structures? Surely, you have nothing to gain from them and are in fact restricted by them in some way (unless you have connections to the elites in power, which I honestly would doubt because you're posting on Sup Forums.)
Jonathan Scott
>his mentor was literally a crazy person who murdered his wife. Damn I didn't know that, all I know about him is from a short basic bitch youtube video. I's sure his biography is full of fucked up shit.
Aaron Hughes
So kind of like Stirner and Spooks?
Jeremiah Bailey
pretty much
Mason Ross
He was a disgusting faggot who was riddled with AIDS.
Owen Reyes
I haven't read his full body of work yet (still working my way through Madness and Civilisation), but from what I've gathered from other sources and his debate with Chomsky, he seems extremely anti-power, even going so far as to criticise the medical sector, despite all the good it does for society.
Evan Ramirez
>Foucaultians take Foucaults critic as a manual >Nailed it Have one internet sir.
Hudson Collins
> Power and opression not always bad things. For example telling yourself "I'm going to work out and eat right" is exerting power over yourself, limiting your freedom to do what you want to achieve certain ends.
Power that can be justified - e.g a teacher in school dictating to students or the cops protecting us - isn't wrong in Foucault's view
Alexander Rivera
Jewgle Louis Althuser, a structural marixst of the worst kind.
Alexander Morales
Get out, commie faggot.
Lincoln Williams
You're describing the differences between Anarchism and Marxism, the two broader camps of leftism. It's not a new division at all, but most of the assholes you're talking about are just liberals, who are not actually leftists because they believe in some type of ideal, ethical capitalism (i.e. diversity in the boardroom)
Nolan Mitchell
>foucault
Chase Baker
>You act like that's some amazing coincidence. >He's a very well known radical leftist hero
sage
Austin Scott
I like the idea of order in society, even if I'm no where near the top of the hierarchy. It gives a sense of stability. I'm not anti-power like Foucault was, I just agree with his critique of it. But that doesn't mean that I'm now anti-power too.
Like, you might agree with your opposition on a small number of points, but that doesn't suddenly make you a member of your opposition.
Andrew Ross
Whoops. Meant for:
Kayden Martin
Foucault as a real deconstructionist as was the fashion of his time, his criticism of Medicine is quite bullshit. Discipline and Punish is a good book of his
I see. This may sound strange, but are you by chance a practicing Christian?
Jackson Hill
No. I am an Agnostic.
Nicholas Lewis
You could argue that he wasn't really against power, but what he percieved as power. It is quiet clear that he never fully believed, in a world without power.
Wyatt Ross
He wasn't against medicine he claimed and tried to open another perspecrive at medicine.
Jason King
I agree that he was a bit extreme in his deconstruction of power. He saw every institution that had the power to influence or make humans do things as power structures to critique. As I said, even the medical sector wasn't safe. I bet he regretted shitting all over Medicine when he got AIDS, though.
Luke Fisher
... So has every single person who has taken first year philosophy in the last 30 years.
Oliver Diaz
He deconstructed the paradigm of medicine at the time. If you look at what doctors are taught these days in a more Homeric way I think Foucault would feel vindicated.
[spoiler] I'm trying to appeal to Sup Forums's sensitivities here man [/spoiler]
Hudson Gray
he's literally babby's first leftist philosopher
Jace Nguyen
Futile but natural. There will always be the strong and driven and the weak and oppressed. But there's no reason the weak SHOULDN'T band together to become the strong to start the cycle over again. Or attempts at other, less strong individuals from hamstringing their competitors.
Aaron Russell
Might is everything and nothing for him, because his premise is, that under every interaction in society, is another layer which is constiuted, by power. So if a Person is not, looking imedatly, if you enter the room, he Shows his power by highlighting, that he is not only, bot afraid of you soecificaly coming through the door, but not by any Person, who comes through the door.
Benjamin Cooper
He is influences by Nietzsche, who clamied, all knowlege to be, driven by interpreting the world in a certian way the Interpreter preferences. Your knowlege is like a net you lay above the would and deepending on the size of the holes you will find different things >spoiler i already know and agree with the principal premises and conclusion of Most polacks, but still take a scholarly approach when ever possible.
Nathan Foster
>schopenhauer >oh shit nigger what are you doing-tier made me reply cuck
Matthew Bennett
Influence^^ World^^ I would like to meantion, in my opinion he is a thinker, which could be, if you read and Interpret him in a certain way, a useful tool for the right. Since SOME of his theorys are somewhat accurate and he agrees at least implictly in some topics with the right.
Lincoln Lewis
all the "oh shit nigger" part is pretty based actually confirmed for retard Marx is still right about tons of stuff Beauvoir, Sartre, Derrida and Fucko are the real cancer