RE: What is Power? - Introduction
Do take competence into account when considering power dynamics and hierarchies. In the sense that the authority can also stem from being good at the game, so to say. The postmodern philosophy, on the other hand, seems to be aiming at self-destruction.
Foucault, I hope, was not particularly good at expressing himself. His use of language, whether in English or his native French, lacked structure. Surely a person with a high IQ can do better? But then, if what he claimed was his honest and best view of reality; that there is nothing but top-down power (evil oppressors and innocent victims), how is one supposed to maintain their sanity? I always got the feeling he did not quite accept himself and chose to remain in chaos to avoid judgment.
The postmodern thinking of Foucault, Derrida, and the other French philosophists, has, almost as a side-product, produced some interesting questions about existence and reality. Their attempts to provide answers, as far as I am concerned, were clumsy and misguided. Perhaps we can still learn from them.
I found Chomsky's thoughts on the subject of power and the human nature more cohesive already in the 1970s. That is when Chomsky debated Foucault, who spontaneously refused to have the conversation in English (as was originally agreed upon). I frown upon such tactics. Especially since the switch to French did not seem to make his speech any more coherent. Even the moderator of the debate got confused. Foucault would dismiss any questions he considered too personal - even when they were not.
I am glad others, after the 1970s, have been able to articulate these matters more clearly. Some, of course, already managed to do that ages ago in the form of prose and poetry. Revision may be painful, but it is necessary. Have you by any chance come across Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist?
About competence, there are references in the next post about the Foundations of Power.
I've seen the debate between them several years ago but I remember, i was shocked by the unfair move of Foucault changing the rules of the game when it starts, in a way to diminish Chomsky thought and intervention.(But anyway he could understand French very well.
Most of the French sociologists and utopists have always embedded the French way of thinking everything in the light of the bureaucratic influence of their culture, based in the power of signature and paper rules consolidating a Power that only wants to revive the death of France's influence in the destinies of the world.
Chomsky is more concerned with how to change and act against power, while Foucault is focused on the metaphysical analysis of power as a voyeur that do not interfere.
Chomsky for me was always a more consistent view with the frame of intervention in the social order.
But I'll be back to the panopticon of Foucault to show the concept of surveillance and control of the masses.
Macron is using again the language of violence to be seen as an ally in US/UK monks of war and to restore a deceased and moribund empire.
Thank you for the reply and the original article as well. This part was the first text of yours I came across. I'm glad people are digging around this topic.
Your comparison of Foucault and Chomsky sounds fair and accurate. Voyeur is an excellent word choice here.
I have not been hearing any recent political news from France, but what you are describing is rather worrying. Similar political ideologies seem to be in operation right about everywhere. Lately, my particular focus has been on Burma/Myanmar, following George Orwell and Edward R. Murrow. Monks of war is an interesting expression.
Thanks a lot for the comments of a connoisseur.
I would like people to be more aware of this subject because it has never been so important to understand and deal with the growing centralization of Power.
And thanks for the motivation and cumpliments