Foucault and the Theories of Power and Identity
Foucault believed that power is never in any one person?s hands, it does not show itself in any obvious manner but rather as something that works its way into our imaginations and serves to constrain how we act. For example in the setting of a workplace the power does not pass from the top down; instead it circulates through their organizational practices. Such practices act like a grid, provoking and inciting certain courses of action and denying others. Foucault considers this as no straightforward matter and believes that it rests on how far individuals interpret what is being laid down as 'obvious' or 'self evident', institutional power works best when all parties accept it willingly. Foucault's notion of power is a difficult notion to grasp principally because it is never entirely clear on who has the power in the first place, once the idea is removed that power must be vested in someone at the top of the ladder e.g. the company director, it becomes much more difficult to identify what power is or where and whom it lies with. Foucault believes that we are so used to thinking about power as an identifiable and overt force and that this view is simply not the case, because it is taken for granted that the above statement is true then it is much more complicated to comprehend power as a guiding force that does not show itself in an obvious manner.
According to Foucault we take it upon ourselves to regulate our own conduct, even though we are free to do and say as we please we choose to constrain our behaviour and the reason for us doing so it that we know what is expected of us, we do not need someone in a position of ?authority? to do this for us, we all take responsibility for our own lives. It is in this sense that power works as an anonymous force, provoking free agents to act in ways that make it difficult for them to do otherwise. Foucault?s theory of power ?revolves around indirect techniques of self-regulation which induce appropriate forms of behaviour.?1, we are free to govern ourselves. In the absence of an authority figure we will automatically restrain our behaviour, there is no ?hand? of power that pushes us all into line, only an acknowledgement that we all work within a framework of choices, that are ultimately subjected to influence and direction, but that we ourselves have the fina...
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...ogist Kathy Woodward, she also points out that our identity would need to change depending on whom it is we were interacting with and the situation that we were in, ?subtle and not so subtle variations of identity may well be called upon for each of these roles.?8
Butler describes modern notions of identity as ?being made up of regulatory ideals?9, these regulatory ideals provide ?idealised and reified norms which people are expected to live up to.?10 These types of regulatory ideals are sustained or undermined through performance. Performativity is not a singular act, ?it is always the reiteration of a norm or a set of norms, and to the extent that it acquires an act like status in the present, it conceals or dissimulates the conventions of which it is a repitition.?11It is through this repeated action that that these norms are created and lived up to. This idea can also be related to discourse; Butler argues that performative acts are statements that also produce that which they say. Discourse promotes specific kinds of power relations, in other words to know is to participate in complicated webs of power. Thus perfomative acts are a domain in which discourse acts as power.
In the short story, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, each soldier carries many items during times of war and strife, but each necessity differs. This short story depicts what each soldier carries mentally, physically, and emotionally on his shoulders as long, fatiguing weeks wain on during the Vietnam War. The author Tim O’Brien is a Vietnam War veteran, an author, the narrator, and a teacher. The main character, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross is a Vietnam War soldier who is away at war fighting a mind battle about a woman he left behind in New Jersey because he is sick with love while trying to fulfill his duties as a soldier to keep America free. Tim O’Brien depicts in “The Things They Carried” a troubled man who also shoulders the
I believe that the authors of these texts are putting forward the message that true power is something that is innate in people, not something that can be achieved in the ways that the General, and Lucas Carle did. Where the power lies in a certain situation is not always where it first seems most obvious.
In the philosophical novel The Fall by Albert Camus power is a major theme that comprises the novel and guides the life of the main character, Jean-Baptiste Clamence. To Jean-Baptiste having power over others is a necessity and key component to how he leads his life. The main way that Jean-Baptiste feels that power over others is when he is judging them. He also ties power to physically being above someone, such as on top of a mountain, and by taking a God-like position of authority over others.
Power is a strong ability that can influence the behavior of people or current events. Those who have power in their everyday life have an advantage over those who don’t. In Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men his message is that characters who have power demonstrate an advantage over other characters.
In his 1971 paper “Personal Identity”, Derek Parfit posits that it is possible and indeed desirable to free important questions from presuppositions about personal identity without losing all that matters. In working out how to do so, Parfit comes to the conclusion that “the question about identity has no importance” (Parfit, 1971, p. 4.2:3). In this essay, I will attempt to show that Parfit’s thesis is a valid one, with positive implications for human behaviour. The first section of the essay will examine the thesis in further detail and the second will assess how Parfit’s claims fare in the face of criticism.
The writings of Foucault, Bartky, Butler, and Bordo are significantly separate from each other in the issues that they grapple with within the body of their texts but their also overlap on major points, as is to be expected when many people write on the same subject. Each of these writers is concerned with different aspects of power and how that power is used and how it operates within our society. Most of these writers are feminist theorists and concerned with the ways that the female body is affected by power used against her while Foucault is less concerned with how power affects female bodies specifically but that can be seen as a result of his lack of connection to feminist thought. If Foucault mentions women and how they are affected
‘We are subjected to the production of truth through power and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth’ (Foucault, Pg. 93).
“A human being’s sense of self is established in the context of their ethics and morals. The concept of identity is related to ‘who I am’. Individuals situate themselves in a contextual environment that may include their relationships with family and friends, and their abilities and the occupations in which they are, or have been. This identifies what is ultimately important to an individual and how that relates to where their identity is in relation to this.” (Thomas, 2013)
Although a college education grows more and more expensive every year. People begin to question whether college is a good idea to invest in or not. “As college costs continue to rise, students and their families are looking more carefully at what they are getting for their money. Increasingly, they are finding that the college experience falls short of their expectations”(Cooper. H Mary). Many people believe that the cost of a college degree has outstripped the value of a degree.Studies show that a college degree will increase your earning power. A lot of people say that a college degree now is worth what a high school diploma was wor...
Power is a central concern amongst many sociologists, with many questions that arise such as; what is power? Who has power? And where is it located? (Stanbridge & Ramos 2010: 2–5). These questions have engaged different sociologists from diverse perspectives and persuasions. Many of the differences of opinion will never be resolved by some unifying theory, as power is an ‘essentially contested concept’ (Lukes 1974, 2005: 137). There is no one-way of understanding power because the meanings of power are diverse and often contentious. This paper will focus on two theorists and their approach to power, politically speaking, from the left of centre, Steven Lukes in comparison to the right of centre, John Locke. The first approach that will be examined
Although the concept of identity is recurrent in our daily lives, it has interpreted in various ways.
They were able to connect their suffering, their personal problems to a greater level. They could link the distal relations of power to their own immediate situations (Naimen, 7). By studying power and the control it can have over people, and by looking into the past, we can see how that type of control can lead to terrible outcomes for both small groups and society as a whole. We have come to know that every individual life, from one generation to the next, in society has lived it out within some historical sequence merely by the fact that people live, they contribute, no matter how minutely, to the shaping of their society and to the course of its history (Mills, N/A). So by making sure power is used in a way that does not interfere with this idea we can see when critical issues, which span throughout time, do not have to continue. They can in fact be stopped before having and wide ranging detrimental effects if we learn to understand how to use power through studying it over time.
From the displays of power that have been shown through out this essay, we see that this story is a story about power. Power is the story is primarily about peoples need for some small amount of power to survive in life and to feel that hey have a purpose within their society which every society it may be whether its is Gilead or Nazi Germany or modern day Britain.
“Power is exercised only over free subjects, and only insofar as they are free. By this we mean individual or collective subjects who are faced with a field of possibilities in which several ways of behaving, several reactions and diverse compartments may be realized.” (Foucault)
Max Weber developed a concept of power explaining 3 sources of it. Relatively to sources he distinguished charismatic, traditional and legal types of authority. Richard Emerson continued to work on the concept of power. He studies power-dependence relation and looks deeper on its nature. Emerson explains that dependency of one subject - B (person or group) from the other subject A (person or group) develops, when there is a desirable goal or need and limitation on its availability and when subject A can facilitate in reaching of this goal. At the same moment subject A develop a power upon subject B. The definition of power suggested in the article is an ability to overcome resistance. Thus subject A can force subject B to overcome resistance to something that he does not want to do in exchange of a desirable goal or reward. The goal in this context could be love or friendship or any other thing that can be a valuable yet unavailable for one and