Governmentality and Foucault's method

Foucault's genealogies of different topics in relation to his overall theory of power as positive are remarkably consistent. Foucault, in each article, and in relation to whatever historical subject he reviews, claims that there is a shift from an older, perhaps simpler, structure of power, to a new, more complex and productive structure. This is evident in his genealogy of "Governmentality," as well as in his concept of Bio-power, and its relation to sex. Of course, none of these topics are independent. In the evolution of power structures from ones that are simple and perhaps negative to ones that employ tactics and norms, the central focus can be seen as the population. The population is the focus and the source of all norms, statistics, and studies. In each of Foucault's critical reviews of historical topics, the transformation of people from subjects to citizens, and accordingly from members of a principality to a population, is the primary means by which power is transformed, or perhaps transforms itself.

This is made explicit in the reading on Governmentality. Foucault's thoughts on punishment as well as his thoughts on sex as structures of power can be encompassed by the transition from the principality to the state. Instead of subjects, people occupying a territory are now citizens, and are able to be controlled, studied, and normalized. The shift in the types of punishment used is concurrent with the shift in the type of government. As sovereignty transitioned towards its positive counterpart, namely, the art of governing, punishment also became institutionalized. As the sovereign's hold on the principality lessened, so did his power over the body, and thus the need for public executions as a symbol of this power. In both situations, there is an abstraction from the simplest level of control, from the body. People were no longer subjects whose lives could be taken away, but now they were citizens who could be controlled through norms, and the sovereign's transition from solely ruling to "administering" called for a different type of punishment. Like I said, the onset of these two phenomena are concurrent, and must be viewed as comprising one overall shift in the technology of power, and Foucault is just addressing two different discourses.

All this is nothing novel. Foucault is aware of this, and is obviously striving for this consistency. In striving quite as much as he does, it seems he may stretch it just a bit. Foucault claims that the end of sovereignty is "internal to itself and possesses its own intrinsic instruments in the shape of its laws." He contrasts this with the end of government, which, he says "resides in the things it manages and in the pursuit of the perfection and intensification of the processes it directs." Foucault comes to this conclusion through his interpretation of what "the common good" refers to for the sovereign. He claims that the common good is internal to sovereignty, specifically, that it consists solely of the citizens obeying the laws, and accomplishing what is set out for them. This interpretation may be valid, but the dissociation Foucault presents between this putative "common good" and the "administration" of government does not seem to be as distinct as he would like. The common good that is the end of sovereignty implies the majority of the ends of government, namely "that the greatest possible quantity of wealth is produced, that the people are provided with sufficient means of subsistence, that the population is enabled to multiply, and so on" (Governmentality, p. 211). These things that La Perrière cites as the ends of Government are already the ends of sovereignty, although the focus may perhaps be different. So, in having this shift in actuality already be implicit, the most Foucault can posit is a change in focus. Government focuses on production whereas sovereignty focused on subjects' obedience to the law. Perhaps this is just a small gripe, but the distinction seems smaller than Foucault would have it. The ends of sovereignty include the ends of government.

The Body of the Condemned

Foucault's inversion of the cause for the transformation of punishment is quite brilliant. Instead of punishment's object progressing from the body to the soul for humanitarian reasons, it is simply due to the nature of punishment as a technology of power. Power produces knowledge, so it is by this method that the soul is invented/created. Foucault calls the punishment of the soul "expansionist." It is so in that the punishment of the soul creates a whole body of knowledge, a "scientia," around which psychoanalysis and other psycho-medical practices can converge. The soul is an object and a creation of science, and has become so through the judicial process.

The means by which science has dissociated punishment from the crime itself is through the crossover from act to intention, and accordingly, from punishment of the body to that of the soul. Punishment no longer has any real connection to crimes as they occur on their own. In judgment, the collective jury treats the man. We extrapolate from his crime and his character what needs to be done for him, not to him. By the collective jury, I here mean what Foucault talked about when he said that there is much outside help in judging an offender. Psychiatrists are called on so that we might understand the criminal's possible insanity, and judge him accordingly. The devolution of the implication of the code of insanity from one of there being no crime to one where there are gradations of guilt according to the degree of madness is the focal point of Foucault's enmeshment of the penal and psychiatric systems. These gradations imply much more than a diagnosis of insanity or non-insanity at the time of the offense. Rather, as Foucault somewhat vaguely claims, the gradations themselves directly imply the judgment of the soul at all times, along with its potential for danger and rehabilitation (p. 20).

This reading is overtly Nietzschean. Nietzsche criticized "punishment" in itself as counter to the individual economy of justice. It was contrary to the power in master morality, and a formation of the power of the slaves. The institutionalization of punishment removed the individual debts that resulted from every "crime," and made offenses inherently wrong. Nietzsche claims that punishment is a contrivance and an inversion, in that it is a method and power structure of slave morality. Here Foucault echoes Nietzsche insofar as he claims that punishment is being removed from the crime itself, and is dealing more and more with the intention, not the act. Intentionality, for Nietzsche, is also a characteristic of the slaves. The masters do not analyze themselves intentionally. They act, and the act is the beginning and end of any "crime" ("offense" is the proper word in Nietzsche's case). Intention is a contrivance of the slaves, and is created/appropriated in order to create bad conscience and guilt. Nietzsche's economy of the body sees debts paid in flesh. This is precisely what Foucault is claiming no longer happens. Debts are now paid by the soul. The soul is an invention/creation of the "psychologico-judicial" system, which can be viewed as analogous to Nietzsche's slaves. Since the creation of the soul by the judicial system is an act of power/knowledge, in order to maintain the analogy between Foucault and Nietzsche, we must look at the transition of power from the masters to the slaves through tools such as intentionality and guilt. Nietzsche does not have the thesis of power/knowledge, so there is a bit of a dissociation, but the basic analogy holds. So Foucault in this case is a reinterpretation of Nietzsche's genealogy applied to the modern psychologico-judicial system.

Foucault's first doubt concerning the "repressive" hypothesis

Foucault makes the point that "repression" (the notion of repression) simply acts as an incitement to creating a discourse on sexuality. But, as he expresses in his first doubt concerning this hypothesis, he is still uncertain whether we are, in fact, repressed. He cites certain "refinements" of language that are made which do not truly repress, but just act as a guise of repression, in order that we might actually speak of sex more easily (?). This seems dismissive. Where are these "refinements" coming from? Are they not perhaps part of the actual, historical repression that he is wondering about? And if so, considering that all power for Foucault is positive and prompts rather than denies, what are the power structures that cause this actual repression? This comment takes nothing away from his hypothesis, really, because his hypothesis can most certainly include these indications of actual, historical repression. But there are, perhaps, more powers at play concerning sexuality than he makes apparent.

Take, for example, the expunging of graphic language from the Catholic confessional. He cites this as certain, and quotes Alfonso de'Liguori in saying that when talking to children, only "roundabout and vague" questions should be asked. This cleansing of language, if it is to be taken as executed by the same powers that are causing this explosion of sexual discourse, must necessarily be tied to the ease and frequency with which we talk about sex. This refinement of language must cause a better, easier way of discussing sex to come about, otherwise it can be considered negative, and we could be considered actually repressed, and the hypothesis that the power is acting to prompt sexual discourse is not as strong. So, this apparent restriction in cleansing language must be considered tied to the extension of the bounds of sexual discourse, and in fact partially causing the increase in the discussion of sex in other areas (e.g. the extension of confessional practices beyond action and into intention and psychology).