"Society Must Be Defended"

MICHEL

FOUCAULT

"Society Must Be

Defended"

L E C T U R E S AT T H E C O L L E G E

DE

FRANCE,

1975-76

Edited b y M a u r o Bertani and Alessandro Fontana General Editors: Francois Ewald and Alessandro Fontana

English Series Editor: Arnold 1. Davidson

TRANSLATED

BY D A V I D

PICADOR NEW

YORK

MACEY

"SOCIETY MUST BE DEFENDED". Copyright © 1 9 9 7 by Editions de Seuil/Gallimard. Edition established, under the direction of Francois Ewald and Alessandro Fontana, by Mauro Bertani. Translation copyright '0 2 0 0 3 by David Macey. Introduction copyright © 2 0 0 3 by Arnold I. Davidson. A l l rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 1 0 0 1 0 .

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ISBN 0 - 3 1 2 - 2 0 3 1 8 - 7

First Edition: J a n u a r y 2 0 0 3

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9

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CONTENTS

Foreword: Francois Ewald and Alessandro

Introduction:

one

Fontana

A r n o l d I. D a v i d s o n

7 JANUARY

1976

What is a lecture? - Subjugated knowledges. of struggles, genealogies, at stake in genealogies.

- Historical

and scientific discourse. - Power, or what is - Juridical and economic conceptions of

power. - Power as repression and power as war. aphorism

two

knowledge

Clausewit^s

inverted.

14 J A N U A R Y

1976

War and power. - Philosophy

and the limits of power. - Law and

royal power. - Law, domination,

and subjugation.

- Analytics of

power: questions of method. - Theory of sovereignty. -

Disciplinary

power. - Rule and norm.

three

21 J A N U A R Y

1976

Theory of sovereignty and operators of domination.

- War as

analyser of power relations. - The binary structure of society. - Historico-political

discourse, the discourse of

perpetual

war. - The dialectic and its codifications. - The discourse of race struggle and its transcriptions.

VI

four

Contents 65

28JANUARY 1976 Historical discourse and its supporters. - The counterhistory of race struggle.

five

- Roman history and biblical history. -

Revolutionary

discourse. - Birth and transformations

of racism. - Race purity and

State racism: the Na%i transformation

and the Soviet

transformation. 87

4 FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6 Answer to a question on anti-Semitism. sovereignty.

- Hobbes on war and

- The discourse on the Conquest in England: royalists,

parliamentarians,

and Levellers. - The binary schema and political

historicism. - What Hobbes wanted to eliminate.

six

11 F E B R U A R Y

115

1976

Stories about origins. - The Trojan myth. - France's heredity. - "Franco-Gallia."

- Invasion, history, and public

right. - National dualism. - The knowledge of the prince. - Boulainvilliers's

"Etat de la France." - The clerk, the

intendant, and the knowledge of the aristocracy. - A new subject of history. - History and constitution.

seven

141

1 8 FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6 Nation and nations. - The Roman conquest. - Grandeur and decadence of the Romans. - Boulainvilliers

on the freedom

Germans. - The Soissons vase. - Origins of feudalism. right, and the language of State. - Boulainvilliers: generalisations

three

about war: law of history and law of nature, the

institutions of war, the calculation of forces.

eight

of the

- Church,

- Remarks on war.

167

2 5 FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6 Boulainvilliers

and the constitution of a

hislorico-political

continuum. - Historicism. - Tragedy and public right. - The central administration

of history. - The problematic of the

and the genealogy disciplinary

Enlightenment

of knowledges. - The four operations of

knowledge and their effects. - Philosophy and

science. - Disciplining

knowledges.

Contents nine

vii

3 M A R C H 1976 Tactical generalisation Revolution,

189 of historical knowledge. -

Constitution,

and cyclical history. - The savage and the

barbarian. - Three ways of filtering barbarism: tactics of historical discourse. - Questions of method: the epistemologicalfield antihistoricism of the bourgeoisie. during the Revolution.

ten

10

MARCH

- Reactivation

and the

of historical discourse

- Feudalism and the gothic novel.

1976

215

The political reworking of the idea of the nation during the Revolution: Sieyes. - Theoretical implications and effects on historical discourse. - The new history's grids of intelligibility: domination and totalisation. - Montlosier and Augustin Thierry. - Birth of the dialectic.

e l e v e n 17 M A R C H 1 9 7 6 From the power of sovereignty

2?9 to power over life. - Make live and

let die. - From man as body to man as species: the birth of biopower. - Biopower's fields of application. - Population. death, and of the death of Franco in particular.

- Of

- Articulations of

discipline and regulation: workers' housing, sexuality, and the norm. - Biopower and racism. - Racism: functions and domains. - Nazism. - Socialism.

Course Summary

Situating the Lectures: Alessandro Fontana

265

and

Mauro Bertani

273

Index

295

FOREWORD

T H I S V O L U M E IS T H E first in a series devoted to the lectures g i v e n at the College de France b y M i c h e l Foucault.

M i c h e l Foucault taught at the College de France from J a n u a r y 1 9 7 1 u n ­ til h i s death i n j u n e 1 9 8 4 — w i t h the exception of 1 9 7 7 , w h e n he enjoyed a sabbatical y e a r . H i s chair w a s in the History of S y s t e m s of Thought. The chair w a s established on 3 0 N o v e m b e r 1 9 6 9 at the proposal of J u l e s V u i l l e m i n a n d in the course of a general m e e t i n g of the p r o ­ fessors of the C o l l e g e de France. It replaced the chair in the H i s t o r y of Philosophical Thought, w h i c h w a s held u n t i l h i s death b y J e a n H y p p o l i t e . On 1 2 A p r i l 1 9 7 0 , the g e n e r a l m e e t i n g elected M i c h e l Foucault to the chair.' He w a s forty-three. M i c h e l Foucault gave h i s inaugural l e c t u r e on 2 December

1970.

2

Professors t e a c h i n g at the C o l l e g e de France w o r k u n d e r specific r u l e s . They are u n d e r an obligation to t e a c h for t w e n t y - s i x hours a y e a r ( u p

1 The candidacy presentation drawn up by Michel Foucault ends with the formula "[I]t would be necessarv to undertake the history of systems of thought." "Titres et travaux," in Dits et e'crits, ed. Daniel Defert and Francois Ewald (Paris: Gallimard), vol. 1, p. 846; trans.. "Candidacv Presentation: College de France," in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, ed. Paul Rabinow, The Essential Works of Michel Foucault, 7954-1984 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1 9 9 4 ) , vol. 1, p. 9. 2 It was published bv Editions Galhmard in March 1971 under the title VOrdre du discours. The English translation bv Rupert Swver, "Orders of Discourse," is appended to the Ll.S. edition of The Archaeology of Knowledge; it does not appear in Ll.K. editions.

Foreword

X

3

to half the hours can t a k e the form of s e m i n a r s ) . Each y e a r , they are r e q u i r e d to give an account of the original research that they have u n d e r t a k e n , w h i c h means that the content of their l e c t u r e s must a l ­ w a y s be new. A n y o n e is free to attend the lectures and seminars; there is no enrollment, a n d no d i p l o m a s are r e q u i r e d . The professors do 1

not a w a r d any diplomas." In the vocabulary of the College de France, its professors do not have students, b u t auditeurs

or listeners.

M i c h e l Foucault gave his lectures on W e d n e s d a y s from the b e g i n ­ ning of J a n u a r y to the end of M a r c h . The very large audience, made u p of students, teachers, researchers, and those w h o attended simply out of curiosity, m a n y of t h e m from abroad, filled two of the College de France's l e c t u r e t h e a t e r s . M i c h e l Foucault often complained a b o u t the distance t h i s could put b e t w e e n h i m a n d his " a u d i e n c e " and a b o u t the 5

w a y the l e c t u r e format left so l i t t l e room for d i a l o g u e . He d r e a m e d of holding a seminar in w h i c h t r u l y collective w o r k could be done. He m a d e v a r i o u s a t t e m p t s to hold s u c h a seminar. In his last y e a r s , he d e ­ v o t e d long p e r i o d s after his l e c t u r e s to a n s w e r i n g questions from his l i s ­ teners. This is h o w G e r a r d Petitjean, a journalist on Le Nouvel

Observateur,

captured the atmosphere:

W h e n Foucault q u i c k l y enters the arena w i t h all the resolution of someone d i v i n g into the w a t e r , he scrambles over b o d i e s to get to his dais, pushes the microphones aside to put his papers down, t a k e s off his jacket, s w i t c h e s on a l a m p and t a k e s off at a h u n d r e d k i l o m e t e r s an hour. His loud, effective voice is r e l a y e d by l o u d s p e a k e r s , w h i c h are the sole concession to m o d e r n i t y i n a room t h a t is only d i m l y lit b y the l i g h t t h a t comes from t h e stucco l a m p - h o l d e r s . There are t h r e e h u n d r e d seats, and five

3 Michel Foucault did so until the earlv 1980s. 4 In the context ot the College de France. 5 In 1976, Michel Foucault changed the time ot his lecture from 5:45 P.M. to 9 : 0 0 A . M . in a vain attempt to reduce the numbers present. Cf. the beginning of the first lecture (7 Januarv 1 9 7 6 ) m the present volume.

Foreword

XI

h u n d r e d people are c r a m m e d into them, t a k i n g u p all the avail­ able space . . . No oratorical effects. It is lucid a n d e x t r e m e l y effective. Not the slightest concession to i m p r o v i s a t i o n . Foucault has t w e l v e h o u r s to e x p l a i n , i n a series of p u b l i c lectures, the m e a n i n g of the r e s e a r c h he has c a r r i e d out over the y e a r t h a t has just ended. So he c r a m s in as much as possible, and fills i n the m a r g i n s l i k e a l e t t e r w r i t e r w h o has too m u c h to say w h e n he has r e a c h e d t h e b o t t o m of the sheet. 19.15. Foucault stops. The s t u d e n t s rush to his desk. Not to t a l k to h i m , but to s w i t c h off t h e i r tape recorders. No questions. Foucault is alone i n the c r u s h . Foucault c o m m e n t s : " W e ought to be a b l e to d i s c u s s w h a t I have p u t f o r w a r d . Sometimes, w h e n the l e c t u r e has not been good, it w o u l d not t a k e a lot, a question, to put e v e r y t h i n g r i g h t . B u t the question never comes. In France, the g r o u p effect m a k e s all real discussion impossible. A n d as there is no feedback c h a n ­ nel, the l e c t u r e becomes a sort of t h e a t r i c a l performance. I relate to the people w h o are there as though I w e r e an actor or an acrobat. A n d w h e n I have finished s p e a k i n g , t h e r e ' s this feeling of total s o l i t u d e . "

6

M i c h e l Foucault a p p r o a c h e d his teaching as a researcher. H e e x ­ p l o r e d p o s s i b i l i t i e s for books in p r e p a r a t i o n , o u t l i n e d fields of p r o b lematization, as though he w e r e h a n d i n g out invitations to potential researchers. That is w h y the lectures given at the C o l l e g e de France do not r e d u p l i c a t e the p u b l i s h e d books. They are not o u t l i n e s for b o o k s , even t h o u g h the books a n d the l e c t u r e s do sometimes have t h e m e s in common. They have a s t a t u s of t h e i r own. They b e l o n g to a specific discursive regime w i t h i n the s u m t o t a l of the "philosophical acts" performed b y M i c h e l Foucault. H e r e he q u i t e specifically out­ lines the p r o g r a m for a genealogy of the relations b e t w e e n p o w e r and k n o w l e d g e . From the early 1 9 7 0 s o n w a r d , it is this, and not the a r -

6 Gerard Petitjean, "Les Grands Pretres de i'universite fran^aise," Le Nouvel 7 April 1975.

Observatetir

t

Foreword

Xll

chaeology of discursive formations t h a t h a d previously b e e n h i s d o m ­ inant concern, that p r o v i d e s the framework for his discussion of his own work.

7

The lectures also h a d a contemporary function. The auditeun

who

followed them w e r e not s i m p l y captivated by the narrative that w a s b e i n g constructed w e e k after w e e k ; they w e r e not s i m p l y seduced by the rigor of the exposition; they found that they w e r e also l i s t e n i n g to a commentary on c u r r e n t events. M i c h e l Foucault k n e w the secret of h o w to use history to cut through current events. He m i g h t w e l l have been s p e a k i n g of Nietzsche or Aristotle, of psychiatric a p p r a i s a l in the n i n e t e e n t h century or of C h r i s t i a n pastoralism, but h i s a u d i e n c e w a s also l e a r n i n g about the present day a n d contemporary events. It is t h i s subtle i n t e r p l a y a m o n g e r u d i t e scholarship, personal c o m m i t ­ ment, a n d w o r k on c u r r e n t events that gives M i c h e l Foucault's l e c ­ t u r e s their great p o w e r .

The 1 9 7 0 s saw the development a n d the refinement of cassette tape recorders. M i c h e l Foucault's lecture theater w a s q u i c k l y invaded by them. It is t h a n k s to t h e m that the lectures ( a n d some of the s e m i ­ n a r s ) have b e e n preserved. This edition is based u p o n the w o r d s pronounced i n p u b l i c b y 8

M i c h e l Foucault. It gives the most literal transcription possible. W e w o u l d h a v e l i k e d to p u b l i s h h i s w o r d s exactly as they w e r e spoken. But the transition from the oral to the w r i t t e n does r e q u i r e some editorial intervention. A t least some p u n c t a t i o n has to b e introduced, a n d p a r a g r a p h b r e a k s have to be a d d e d . The p r i n c i p l e has a l w a y s

7 Cf. in particular "Nietzsche, la genealogie, l'histoire," in Dits et krits, vol. 2, p. 137. English translation by Donald F. Brouchard and Sherry Simon, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History," in James Faubion, ed., Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Volume 11 (London: Allen Lane, 1 9 9 8 ) , pp. 3 6 9 - 9 2 . 8 Particular use has been made of the recordings made by Gilbert Burlet and Jacques La­ grange. These have been deposited at the College de France and in the Fonds Michel Foucault held by Institut Memoires de l'Edition Contemporaine.

Foreword

xm

been to r e m a i n as close as possible to the lecture that w a s actually given. W h e n it seemed absolutely essential, r e p e t i t i o n s have been cut; sentences t h a t b r e a k off have been completed, a n d incorrect construc­ tions have b e e n rectified. Ellipses indicate t h a t the tape recording i s i n a u d i b l e . In the case of obscure phrases, b r a c k e t s indicate a conjectural interpolation or addition. A s t e r i s k s indicate significant v a r i a t i o n s b e t w e e n the notes used b y M i c h e l Foucault a n d w h a t he a c t u a l l y said. Quotations have b e e n checked, a n d references to the texts used have been s u p p l i e d . The critical a p p a r a t u s is restricted to the e l u c i ­ dation of obscure points, the e x p l a n a t i o n of c e r t a i n allusions, a n d the clarification of c r i t i c a l p o i n t s . For the r e a d e r ' s benefit, each l e c t u r e is p r e c e d e d b y a b r i e f s u m ­ m a r y i n d i c a t i n g its m a i n a r t i c u l a t i o n s .

The t e x t of the lectures is followed b y the course s u m m a r y p u b l i s h e d in the Annuaire

du College

de France.

M i c h e l Foucault u s u a l l y w r o t e h i s

course s u m m a r i e s in the m o n t h of J u n e , or in o t h e r w o r d s some t i m e after the end of h i s lecture course. He saw t h e m as an

opportunity

to use the benefit of h i n d s i g h t to clarify his o w n intentions a n d ob­ jectives. They are the best introduction to the lectures. Each v o l u m e ends w i t h a " s i t u a t i o n " w r i t t e n b y the editor: this is designed to provide the reader w i t h contextual, biographical, i d e o ­ logical, a n d p o l i t i c a l information t h a t s i t u a t e s the l e c t u r e s i n r e l a t i o n to M i c h e l F o u c a u l t ' s p u b l i s h e d w o r k s . It s i t u a t e s the l e c t u r e s in r e ­ lation to the corpus used b y M i c h e l Foucault so as to facilitate a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g of it, to avoid m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g s , a n d to preserve the memory of the circumstances in w h i c h e a c h lecture w a s p r e p a r e d a n d delivered.

Forewo

XIV

rd

This edition of t h e lectures given at t h e College de France m a r k s a new stage in the publication of the " w o r k s " of M i c h e l Foucault. These are not u n p u b l i s h e d t e x t s i n the strict sense of the w o r d , as this edition r e p r o d u c e s words that were spoken in public by M i c h e l Foucault, b u t not the w r i t t e n — a n d often very sophisticated—support he used. Daniel Defert, w h o o w n s M i c h e l Foucault's notes, has al­ lowed the editors to consult t h e m . They are e x t r e m e l y grateful to him. This edition of the lectures given at the College de France has been a u t h o r i z e d b y M i c h e l Foucault's heirs, w h o w i s h e d to meet the great d e m a n d for t h e i r p u b l i c a t i o n both in France and abroad. They w i s h e d t h i s to be a serious u n d e r t a k i n g . The editors have a t t e m p t e d to prove themselves w o r t h y of the trust that has been placed in them. FRANCOIS EWALD A N D ALESSANDRO

FONTANA

INTRODUCTION

A r n o l d I. Davidson

T H I S V O L U M E I N A U G U R A T E S T H E E n g l i s h - l a n g u a g e p u b l i c a t i o n of

M i c h e l Foucault's e x t r a o r d i n a r y courses at t h e College de France. C l a u d e Levi-Strauss recounts that after he w a s elected to the C o l ­ lege de France, an usher, w h o h a d g r o w n o l d in h i s job, t o o k h i m from room to room so that he could choose the room in w h i c h he w o u l d give h i s y e a r l y course. After L e v i - S t r a u s s h a d chosen a room the usher b l u n t l y w a r n e d h i m : " N o t that one!" to w h i c h L e v i - S t r a u s s expressed surprise:

"You see," [ t h e u s h e r ] e x p l a i n e d , " i t is laid out in such a w a y that in order to reach the rostrum y o u have to m a k e vour w a y t h r o u g h t h e entire audience, a n d , y o u have to do l i k e w i s e w h i l e leaving." "Does it really m a t t e r ? " I said. W h e r e u p o n he shot b a c k this response w i t h a p e r e m p t o r y

look: "Someone could

s p e a k to you." I stood b y m y choice, b u t , in the t r a d i t i o n of t h e College, it is i n d e e d a m a t t e r of t h e professor dispensing h i s w o r d s , a n d not r e c e i v i n g t h e m or even e x c h a n g i n g them.'

A n d Levi-Strauss goes on to talk about t h e "mental concentration a n d nervous tension" involved in giving a course at the College de France.

2

In a 1975 i n t e r v i e w Foucault himself noted the strange p a r t i c u l a r i t y of "teaching" at the College de France, r e m a r k i n g that he l i k e d not having " t h e impression of teaching, that is, of exercising a relationship of p o w e r w i t h respect to an a u d i e n c e . " ' The traditional teacher

first

m a k e s h i s audience feel g u i l t y for not k n o w i n g a certain n u m b e r of

XV)

Introduction;

Arnold

I.

Davidson

things they should k n o w ; then h e places the audience u n d e r the ob­ ligation to learn the things that he, the professor, k n o w s ; and,

finally,

w h e n he has taught these things, he w i l l verify that the audience has i n d e e d l e a r n e d them. C u l p a b i h z a t i o n , obligation, a n d verification are the series of p o w e r relations exercised b y the t y p i c a l professor.'

1

But,

as Foucault points out, at the College de France, courses a r e open to anyone w h o w i s h e s to attend: "If it i n t e r e s t s him, he comes; if it doesn't interest him, he doesn't come."* A t the College a professor is p a i d to present his w o r k , and "it is u p to the a u d i e n c e to say or to show w h e t h e r or not it is interested":

In any case w h e n I am going to give m y courses at the College, I have stage fright (trac),

absolutely, l i k e w h e n I took e x a m s ,

because I have the feeling that, really, people, the p u b l i c , come to verify my w o r k , to show that they are interested or not; if t h e y don't have an interested look, I a m v e r y sad, y o u k n o w .

6

N o w h e r e w e r e culpabihzation, obligation, a n d verification less present than in Foucault's lectures at the College de France, a n d the interested p u b l i c often gave w a y to an e x c i t e d , enthusiastic p u b l i c that made the v e r y idea of presenting lectures a difficult task. Rather than an a t m o s p h e r e of sadness, Foucault's courses p r o d u c e d a k i n d of frenzy, a frenzy of k n o w l e d g e , that w a s i n t e l l e c t u a l l y a n d socially electrifying. In an exceptional essay on Foucault, Gilles Deleuze has d i s t i n ­ guished two dimensions of Foucault's w r i t i n g s : on the one hand, the lines of history, the a r c h i v e , Foucault's a n a l y t i c ; on the other, the l i n e s of the present, of w h a t is h a p p e n i n g now, F o u c a u l t ' s diagnostic: "In e v e r y a p p a r a t u s , w e have to disentangle the lines of the r e c e n t past 7

a n d those of the future at h a n d . " A c c o r d i n g to Deleuze, the majority of Foucault's books establish " a precise archive w i t h e x c e e d i n g l y new historical m e a n s , " w h i l e in h i s i n t e r v i e w s and conversations, Foucault e x p l i c i t l y confronts

the other half of his task, tracing lines of a c t u ­

alization that " p u l l us t o w a r d a future, t o w a r d a b e c o m i n g . "

8

Ana­

lytical strata a n d diagnostic contemporaneity are t w o essential poles of Foucault's entire w o r k . Perhaps nowhere more clearly than in Fou-

Introduction:

Arnold

I.

Davidson

xvn

cault's l e c t u r e s at the College de France do w e see the balancing, the alternation, a n d the o v e r l a p p i n g of these two poles. A t one and the same time, these lectures e x h i b i t Foucault's relentless erudition and his explosive force, g i v i n g further shape to that distinctive history of the present that so changed our t w e n t i e t h - c e n t u r y landscape.

One of the most emblematic, a n d often cited, lines of the first volume of Foucault's history of s e x u a l i t y , La Volonte

de savoir,

p u b l i s h e d in

1976, the year of this course, is the trenchant r e m a r k "In thought and political analysis w e have still not cut off the head of the k i n g . "

9

In

s t u d y i n g the historico-political discourse of w a r in this course, Fou­ cault s h o w s us one w a y to detach ourselves from the philosophicoj u n d i c a l discourse of sovereignty and the l a w that has so dominated our thought and political a n a l y s i s . In an i m p o r t a n t lecture g i v e n i n Brazil in 1 9 7 6 , and unfortunately still not translated into English, Foucault underscores his claim that "the West has never h a d another s y s t e m of representation, of formulation, and of a n a l y s i s of p o w e r t h a n that of the l a w , the s y s t e m of the l a w . "

1 0

M a n y of F o u c a u l t ' s w r i t i n g s ,

lectures, and i n t e r v i e w s of the m i d - to late 1 9 7 0 s are responses to this conceptual impasse, are a t t e m p t s to a r t i c u l a t e alternative w a y s of a n a l y z i n g power. Foucault's concern d u r i n g this period w a s both w i t h the r e p r e s e n ­ tation of power and w i t h the actual functioning of power. The focus of this 1 9 7 6 course is on one a l t e r n a t i v e c o n c e p t u a l i z a t i o n of power, a mode of thought that a n a l y z e s p o w e r r e l a t i o n s in t e r m s of the model of w a r , that looks for the p r i n c i p l e of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y of politics in the general form of w a r . Foucault himself, discussing the use of the notion of " s t r u g g l e " in c e r t a i n political discourses, posed the following q u e s ­ tion:

[ S j h o u l d one, or should one not, analyze these " s t r u g g l e s " as the vicissitudes of a w a r , should one d e c i p h e r them according to a g r i d w h i c h w o u l d be one of strategy and tactics? Is the

Introduction:

XVI1]

Arnold

I.

Davidson

relation of forces i n t h e order of p o l i t i c s a relation of w a r ? Personally, I do not feel myself ready for the moment to respond in a definitive w a y w i t h a y e s or no."

"Society

Must Be Defended"

i s Foucault's most concentrated a n d d e t a i l e d

historical e x a m i n a t i o n of the model of w a r as a g r i d for a n a l y z i n g politics. If t h i s course is an answer to t h e question of w h o first thought of politics as w a r c o n t i n u e d by other m e a n s , w e must p u t it in the context of the d e v e l o p m e n t of F o u c a u l t ' s o w n thought w i t h respect to this s u b s t a n t i v e c l a i m . If i n 1975, just before the l e c t u r e s p u b l i s h e d here, Foucault seemed himself to t a k e u p the c l a i m that p o l i t i c s is the continuation of w a r b y other m e a n s ,

12

by 1 9 7 6 , just after t h i s course,

Foucault h a d subtly b u t significantly modified his o w n a t t i t u d e :

Should one then t u r n around the formula a n d say that p o l i t i c s is w a r p u r s u e d b y other m e a n s ? Perhaps if one w i s h e s a l w a y s to m a i n t a i n a difference b e t w e e n w a r a n d politics, one s h o u l d suggest rather that this m u l t i p l i c i t y of force-relations can be coded—in p a r t a n d never t o t a l l y — e i t h e r in the form of " w a r " or i n the form of " p o l i t i c s " ; there w o u l d be here t w o different strategies ( b u t r e a d y to tip over into one another ^ for i n t e g r a t ­ ing

these

unbalanced,

heterogeneous,

unstable, tense

force-

1

relations. '

As

this quotation m a k e s clear, Foucault's preoccupation w i t h the

schema of w a r w a s central to h i s formulation of the strategic model of p o w e r , of force-relations, a s t r a t e g i c model that w o u l d a l l o w u s to reorient our conception of p o w e r . A l t h o u g h it is w i d e l y recognized that the articulation of this s t r a ­ tegic m o d e l — w i t h its notions of force, struggle, w a r , tactics, strategy, et cetera—is one of the major achievements of Foucault's thought d u r ­ ing t h i s time, the full scope a n d significance of this model has not b e e n fully appreciated. A l t h o u g h a full s t u d y of the e m e r g e n c e of t h i s

Introduction:

Arnold

1.

Davidson

xix

strategic model in Foucault's w o r k w o u l d have to begin w i t h t e x t s H

w r i t t e n no later t h a n 1 9 7 1 , his course s u m m a r y p u b l i s h e d here leaves no doubt that the e x a m i n a t i o n of the historico-political discourse of war w a s an essential stage i n the formulation of a model of analysis that is presented at greatest l e n g t h i n part h of La Volonte de

savoir.

Rather than trace the c h a n g i n g forms of this model, I want at least to outline a few aspects of it that deserve further attention i n the study of Foucault's w r i t i n g s d u r i n g t h i s period. In La Volonte de savoir,

Foucault's strategic model t a k e s as its most

central field of a p p l i c a t i o n p o w e r r e l a t i o n s ( a n d resistances}, that is to say, nondiscursive practices or the social field g e n e r a l l y . It p r o v i d e s a model of strategic coherence, i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y , rationality that a n s w e r s to w h a t Foucault s o m e t i m e s called the logic of s t r a t e g i e s .

15

Arrange­

ments of relations of forces have a strategic i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y , a n d their rationality, as w e l l as the transformation of these a r r a n g e m e n t s into other coherent a r r a n g e m e n t s , obeys a logic distinct both from the logic of e p i s t e m i c coherence and transformations s t u d i e d b y Foucault i n h i s archaeological w o r k s , and from the logic of the model of sovereignty and the l a w that is the direct object of Foucault's c r i t i c i s m s here. A l t h o u g h this strategic model is, first of a l l , i n t e n d e d to p r o v i d e an a l t e r n a t i v e system of representation of the nondiscursive social field, a mode of representation that does not derive from the j u r i d i c a l conception of power, in order to assess its significance w e must not forget that as early as 1 9 6 7 Foucault r e c o g n i z e d that the form of strategic i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y could also b e a p p l i e d to d i s c u r s i v e p r a c t i c e s . In an u n p u b l i s h e d l e c t u r e , " S t r u c t u r a l i s m e et a n a l y s e l i t t e r a i r e , " given in T u n i s i a i n 1 9 6 7 , Foucault, i n v o k i n g among others the name of J . L. A u s t i n , a r g u e d that the description of a statement w a s not c o m p l e t e w h e n one had defined the l i n g u i s t i c s t r u c t u r e of the statement, that the a n a l y s i s of discourse could not b e r e d u c e d to the c o m b i n a t i o n of e l e m e n t s a c c o r d i n g to l i n g u i s t i c r u l e s , that therefore " d i s c o u r s e is 6

something that necessarily extends beyond l a n g u a g e . ' " A s he put it in a 1 9 6 7 letter to Daniel Defert, again a p p e a l i n g to "les anglaises,"

analystes

"they a l l o w me i n d e e d to see h o w one can do nonlinguistic

Introduction:

XX

Arnold

I.

Davidson

analyses of statements. Treat statements in t h e i r

functioning."

17

nonlinguistic level of the analysis of discourse is in fact the level of strategic i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y . T h i s model of analysis i s developed further in Foucault's 1974 l e c ­ tures at the C a t h o l i c Pontifical U n i v e r s i t y of Rio de J a n e i r o , "La V e r i t e et les formes j u r i d i q u e s , " w h e r e Foucault urges us to consider t h e facts of discourse a s strategic g a m e s .

18

single-page text, "Le Discours ne doit pas etre p r i s comme . . . , " a text that appears in Dits et ecrits just before the course s u m m a r y of "Society

Must Be Defended,"

Foucault describes this level of analysis as

the political analysis of discourse in w h i c h "it is a matter of e x h i b i t i n g 9

discourse as a strategic field.'" H e r e discourse is c h a r a c t e r i z e d as a battle, a struggle, a place a n d an instrument

of confrontation,

"a

w e a p o n of p o w e r , of control, of subjection, of qualification a n d of disqualification.''

20

Discourse does not s i m p l y e x p r e s s or

reproduce

a l r e a d y constituted social relations:

Discourse battle a n d not discourse reflection . . . Discourse—the mere fact of s p e a k i n g , of employing w o r d s , of using the w o r d s of others ( e v e n if it means returning

t h e m ) , w o r d s t h a t the

others u n d e r s t a n d a n d accept ( a n d , possibly, r e t u r n from t h e i r s i d e ) — t h i s fact is in itself a force. Discourse is, w i t h respect to the relation of forces, not m e r e l y a surface of inscription, b u t something t h a t brings a b o u t effects.

21

The strategic model of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y , w i t h a vocabulary one of w h o s e p r i m a r y sources is the schema of w a r , a p p l i e s to the forces of discourse as w e l l as to nondiscursive force-relations.

22

In La Volonte

de

savoir,

this form of analysis of discourse is e m p l o y e d in p a r t 4, chapter 2, w h e n Foucault discusses the "rule of the tactical polyvalence of d i s ­ course," insisting that discourses s h o u l d be e x a m i n e d at the two levels of t h e i r tactical p r o d u c t i v i t y a n d of t h e i r strategic i n t e g r a t i o n .

25

In­

deed, s p e a k i n g of the perspectival character of k n o w l e d g e in a d i s ­ cussion of Nietzsche, Foucault recurs to this same terminology in

Introduction:

Arnold

I.

Davidson

xxi

order to a r t i c u l a t e the N i e t z s c h e a n claim that " k n o w l e d g e is a l w a y s a c e r t a i n s t r a t e g i c relation in w h i c h man finds himself placed":

The perspectival character of k n o w l e d g e does not derive from h u m a n n a t u r e , b u t a l w a y s from the polemical a n d strategic char­ acter of k n o w l e d g e . One can speak of the perspectival character of k n o w l e d g e because there is a battle a n d k n o w l e d g e is the 2

effect of this battle. "

1

A n d in h i s course a n d his s u m m a r y of "Society

Must Be

Defended"

Foucault d e s c r i b e s the historico-political discourse of w a r as p u t t i n g forward a t r u t h that "functions as a w e a p o n , " as s p e a k i n g of a " p e r ­ spectival a n d strategic t r u t h . " Discourse, k n o w l e d g e , a n d t r u t h , as well as relations of p o w e r , can be understood from w i t h i n the strategic model. H e n c e the i m p o r t a n c e of seeing h o w this model functions at all of i t s levels of a p p l i c a t i o n . Finally, I w a n t to indicate that this course can be r e a d w i t h i n the framework of w h a t Foucault called h i s " c i r c u l a r " project, a project t h a t involves t w o endeavors that refer back to each other.

25

On the

one h a n d , Foucault w a n t e d to r i d us of a j u r i d i c a l representation of p o w e r , conceived of i n t e r m s of l a w , p r o h i b i t i o n , a n d sovereignty, a clearing a w a y that raises the question of h o w w e are to analyze w h a t has t a k e n place i n h i s t o r y w i t h o u t the use of t h i s s y s t e m of r e p r e s e n ­ tation. On the other h a n d , Foucault w a n t e d to c a r r y out a more m e ­ ticulous historical e x a m i n a t i o n in o r d e r to show that

in

modern

societies p o w e r has not in fact functioned in the form of l a w a n d sovereignty, a historical a n a l y s i s that forces one to find another form of r e p r e s e n t a t i o n that does not depend on the j u r i d i c a l system.

Therefore, one must, at one a n d the same t i m e , w h i l e g i v i n g oneself another theory of power, form another g r i d of historical d e c i p h e r m e n t , a n d , w h i l e l o o k i n g more closely at an e n t i r e h i s ­ torical m a t e r i a l , advance little by l i t t l e t o w a r d another concep­ tion of p o w e r .

26

Introduction:

XXI!

"Society

Must

Be

Defended"

Arnold

I.

Davidson

participates

fully

in

this

histonco-

theoretical project; it r e m i n d s us once again of Foucault's unrivaled conjunction

of philosophical and historical analysis. A n d these lec­

t u r e s , as in the courses to follow, show us the unfolding of Foucault's thought in all of its vivacity, intensity, clarity, a n d precision.

I a m d e e p l y i n d e b t e d to Daniel Defert for his help and encourage­ ment, to M i c h a e l Denneny a n d C h r i s t i n a Prestia, w h o i n i t i a t e d t h i s project at St. M a r t i n ' s Press, a n d to Tim Bent and J u l i a Pastore, w h o have followed it t h r o u g h .

Introduction:

Arnold

I.

Davidson

xxi n

1. Claude Levi-Strauss, Paroles donnees ( Pans: Plon, 1984), p. 9. 2. Ibid., p. 1 0 . 3. Michel Foucault, "Radioscopie de Michel Foucault," in Dits et ecrits (Pans: Galhmard, 1 9 9 4 ) , vol. 2, p. 7 8 6 . 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Gilles Deleuze, "Qu'est-ce qu'un dispositif?" in Michel Foucault,philosophe (Pans: Editions du Seuil, 1 9 8 9 ) , p. 191. 8. Ibid, pp. 192-93. 9. Michel Foucault, Hitfoire de la sexualite. vol. 1, La Volonte' de savoir (Pans: Gallimard, 1 9 7 6 ) , u

10. Michel Foucault, Les Mailles du pouvoir," in Dits et ecrits, vol. 4, p. 186. 11. Michel Foucault, "L'Oeil du pouvoir," in Dits et ecrits, vol. ), p. 2 0 6 . 12. Michel Foucault, "La Politique est la continuation de la guerre par d'autres moyens," in Dits et ecrits, vol. 2, p. 704. 1 ) . Michel Foucault, La Volonte de savoir, p. 12). 14. See, for example, Michel Foucault, "Nietzsche, la genealogie, l'histoire," in Dits el ecrits, vol. 2. A complete study of this issue must await the publication of Foucault's 1971 course at the College de France, also entitled "La Volonte de savoir." The course summarv can be found in Dits et ecrits, vol. 2. See also Daniel Defert, "Le 'dispositif de guerre' comme analyseur des rapports de pouvoir," in Lectures de Michel Foucault: A propos de "II faut defend?? la soct'e'te," ed. Jean-Claude Zancanni (Lyon: ENS Editions, n.d.). 15. See, among other texts, Michel Foucault, "Des Supplices aux cellules," in Dits el e'crits, vol. ) , pp. 426-27. 16. A tape recording of this lecture can be found in the Centre Michel Foucault. 17. Cited in the "Chronologic" Dits el ecrits, vol. 1, p. 3l. For further discussion see my essay, "Structures and Strategies of Discourse: Remarks Towards a History of Foucault's Phi­ losophy of Language," in Foucault and His Interlocutors, ed. Arnold I. Davidson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1 9 9 7 ) . 18. Michel Foucault, "La Vente et les formes jundiques," in Dits et ecrits, vol. 2, p. 5)9. 19. Michel Foucault, "Le Discours ne doit pas etre pns comme . . . , " in Dits et ecrits, vol. ), p. 12). 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., p. 124. 22. See also Michel Foucault, "Dialogue sur le pouvoir," in Dits et ecrits, vol. ), p. 465. 2). Michel Foucault, La Volonte de savoir, pp. 1)2-)5. 24. Michel Foucault, "La Verite et les (ormes jundiques," in Dits et ecrits, vol. 2, p. 55125. Michel Foucauit, La Volonte de savoir, pp. 1 1 9 - 2 0 . 26. Ibid., p. 1 2 0 .

"Society

Must Be

Defended"

one

7 JANUARY 1 9 7 6

What is a lecture? knowledge discourse.

- Subjugated

of struggles,

knowledges.

genealogies,

- Historical

and scientific

- Power, or what is at stake in genealogies.

and economic power

conceptions

of power.

as war. - Clausewit^s

-

- Power as repression aphorism

inverted.

J S

Juridical and

:[ >

•-

I W O U L D L I K E U S to b e a b i t clearer about w h a t is going on here, in these lectures. You k n o w that the institution w h e r e y o u are, a n d w h e r e I a m , is not exactly a t e a c h i n g institution. W e l l , w h a t e v e r meaning it w a s i n t e n d e d to have w h e n it w a s founded long ago, the College de France now functions essentially as a sort of research i n ­ stitute: w e are p a i d to do research. A n d I b e l i e v e that, u l t i m a t e l y , the activity of teaching w o u l d be m e a n i n g l e s s unless w e gave it, or at least lent it, t h i s meaning, or at least the m e a n i n g I suggest: Given that w e are p a i d to do research, w h a t is there to monitor t h e research w e a r e doing? H o w can w e k e e p informed p e o p l e w h o m i g h t be i n t e r e s t e d in it, or w h o m i g h t have some reason for t a k i n g this research as a s t a r t i n g p o i n t ? How can w e keep t h e m informed on a fairly r e g u l a r basis about the w o r k w e are doing, except b y teaching, or in other w o r d s by m a k i n g a p u b l i c s t a t e m e n t ? So I do not regard our W e d n e s ­ day m e e t i n g s as a t e a c h i n g a c t i v i t y , b u t r a t h e r as p u b l i c r e p o r t s on the w o r k I am, in o t h e r respects, left to get on w i t h m o r e or less as I see fit. To t h a t extent, I a c t u a l l y c o n s i d e r myself to be u n d e r a n absolute obligation to t e l l y o u roughly w h a t I am doing, w h a t point

2

"SOCIETY

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

I've reached, in w h a t direction [ . . . ] the w o r k is going; a n d to that extent, I t h i n k that you are c o m p l e t e l y free to do w h a t y o u like w i t h w h a t I am saying. These are suggestions for research, ideas, schemata, outlines, i n s t r u m e n t s ; do w h a t you l i k e w i t h them. U l t i m a t e l y , w h a t you do w i t h t h e m both concerns me a n d is none of m y business. It is none of my business to the extent that it is not u p to me to lay down the l a w about the use y o u m a k e of it. A n d it does concern me to the extent that, one w a y or another, w h a t you do w i t h it is con­ nected, related to w h a t I a m doing. H a v i n g said that, you k n o w w h a t has happened over the last few y e a r s . A s a result of a sort of inflation that is h a r d to u n d e r s t a n d , w e ' v e reached the point w h e r e , I t h i n k , something has just about come to a s t a n d s t i l l . You've been having to get here at half past four [ . . . ] a n d I've been finding myself faced w i t h an audience m a d e u p of p e o p l e w i t h w h o m I h a d strictly no contact because p a r t of t h e audience, if not half of it, h a d to go into a n o t h e r room a n d listen to w h a t I w a s s a y i n g o v e r a m i k e . It w a s t u r n i n g into something t h a t w a s n ' t even a spectacle, b e c a u s e w e couldn't see each other. But t h e r e w a s another reason w h y i t ' s come to a standstill. The problem for m e w a s — I ' l l b e q u i t e b l u n t about it—the fact t h a t I h a d to go through this sort of circus every W e d n e s d a y w a s r e a l l y — h o w can I put i t ? — torture is p u t t i n g it too strongly, boredom is p u t t i n g it too m i l d l y , so I suppose it w a s s o m e w h e r e b e t w e e n the t w o . The result w a s t h a t I w a s r e a l l y p r e p a r i n g these l e c t u r e s , p u t t i n g a lot of care a n d a t t e n ­ tion into it, a n d I w a s s p e n d i n g a lot less t i m e on research m the real sense of the w o r d if you like, on the interesting but somewhat inco­ herent t h i n g s I could have been saying, than on asking myself the question: H o w , in the space of an hour, an hour and a half, can I p u t something across in such a w a y that I don't bore p e o p l e too m u c h , a n d t h a t they get some r e w a r d for being k i n d enough to get here so early to hear w h a t I have to say in such a short space of time. It got to the point w h e r e I w a s s p e n d i n g m o n t h s on it, and I t h i n k that the reason for m y presence here, a n d the reason for your presence here, is to do research, to slog a w a y , to b l o w the dust off certain things, to have ideas, a n d t h a t all t h a t i s the r e w a r d for t h e w o r k t h a t has been

7 January

79 7 6

3

done. So I s a i d to myself: It w o u l d n ' t be such a b a d idea if t h i r t y or forty of us co I've been doing, a n d at the same t i m e have some contact w i t h you, t a l k to you, answer y o u r questions a n d so on, a n d try to rediscover the possibility of the e x c h a n g e and contact that are part of the normal practice of research or teaching. So w h a t should I d o ? In legal t e r m s , I cannot l a y d o w n any formal conditions as to w h o has access to this room. I've therefore a d o p t e d the g u e r r i l l a method of moving the l e c ­ ture to n i n e - t h i r t y in the morning in the belief that, as my corre­ spondent w a s t e l l i n g me y e s t e r d a y , students are no longer capable of getting u p at n i n e - t h i r t y . You m i g h t say that it's not a very fair selection c r i t e r i o n : those w h o get u p , a n d those w h o don't get u p . It's as good as any. In any case, there are a l w a y s the l i t t l e m i k e s t h e r e , and the t a p e m a c h i n e s , a n d w o r d gets a r o u n d

afterward—sometimes

it r e m a i n s on tape, sometimes it is t r a n s c r i b e d , a n d sometimes it t u r n s up in t h e bookshops—so I said to myself, w o r d a l w a y s gets out. So I w i l l t r y [ . . . ] so I'm s o r r y if I've got you out of bed early, a n d m y apologies to those w h o can't be w i t h us; it w a s a w a y of getting our W e d n e s d a y conversations a n d meetings b a c k into the normal p a t t e r n of research, of ongoing w o r k , and that means r e p o r t i n g on it at r e g u l a r institutional intervals. So w h a t w a s I going to say to you this y e a r ? That I've just about h a d enough; in other w o r d s , I'd l i k e to b r i n g to a close, to put an end to, u p to a point, the series of research projects—well, ves, " r e ­ s e a r c h " — w e all t a l k about it, b u t w h a t does it a c t u a l l y m e a n ? — t h a t we've been w o r k i n g on for four or five y e a r s , or practically ever since I've been here, a n d I realize that there w e r e more a n d more d r a w ­ backs, for both you a n d me. Lines of research that w e r e verv closely interrelated but that never a d d e d u p to a coherent body of w o r k , that had no continuity. Fragments of research, none of w h i c h w a s com­ pleted, a n d none of w h i c h w a s followed through; bits a n d pieces of research, and at the same t i m e it w a s getting very repetitive, a l w a y s falling into the same rut, the same themes, the same concepts. A few r e m a r k s on the history of penal procedure; a few chapters on

the

evolution, the institutionalization of p s y c h i a t r y m the nineteenth cen-

"SOCIETY

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

t u r y ; considerations on sophistry or G r e e k coins; an outline history of sexuality, or at least a history of k n o w l e d g e about s e x u a l i t y based upon seventeenth-century confessional practices, or controls on infan­ tile s e x u a l i t y in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; p i n p o i n t i n g the genesis of a theory and k n o w l e d g e of anomalies, a n d of all the r e l a t e d t e c h n i q u e s . W e a r e m a k i n g no progress, and i t ' s all l e a d i n g nowhere. It's all repetitive, and it doesn't a d d u p . Basically, w e k e e p saying the same thing, and there again, p e r h a p s w e ' r e not saying a n y ­ t h i n g at all. It's all getting into something of an i n e x t r i c a b l e tangle, a n d i t ' s g e t t i n g us nowhere, as they say. I could tell y o u that these things w e r e t r a i l s to b e followed, that it d i d n ' t m a t t e r w h e r e they led, or even that t h e one thing that d i d matter w a s that they d i d n ' t l e a d a n y w h e r e , or at least not in some p r e d e t e r m i n e d direction. I could say they w e r e l i k e an outline for something. It's u p to y o u to go on w i t h them or to go off on a tangent; a n d i t ' s u p to me to p u r s u e them or give them a different configu­ ration. A n d then, w e — y o u or I—could see w h a t could b e done w i t h these fragments. I felt a bit l i k e a s p e r m w h a l e that b r e a k s the surface of the w a t e r , m a k e s a l i t t l e splash, a n d l e t s y o u believe, m a k e s you believe, or w a n t to believe, that d o w n there w h e r e it can't be seen, d o w n there w h e r e it i s neither seen nor monitored by anyone, it is following a deep, coherent, a n d premeditated trajectory. That i s more or less the position w e w e r e in, as I see it: I don't k n o w w h a t it looked l i k e from w h e r e y o u are sitting. After all, the fact that t h e w o r k I described to y o u looked b o t h fragmented, repet­ itive, a n d discontinuous w a s quite in k e e p i n g w i t h w h a t might be called a "feverish l a z i n e s s . " It's a character trait of people w h o love libraries, documents, references, dusty manuscripts, texts that have never been read, b o o k s w h i c h , no sooner p r i n t e d , w e r e closed a n d then slept on the shelves and w e r e only t a k e n d o w n centuries later. A l l t h i s q u i t e suits the b u s y i n e r t i a of those w h o profess useless k n o w l e d g e , a sort of s u m p t u a r y k n o w l e d g e , the w e a l t h of a parvenu— and, as y o u well know, its external signs are found at the foot of the page. It should appeal to all those w h o feel sympathetic to one of

7 January

1976

5

those secret societies, no doubt the oldest and the most characteristic in t h e W e s t , one of those strangely i n d e s t r u c t i b l e secret societies that w e r e , I t h i n k , u n k n o w n i n a n t i q u i t y and w h i c h w e r e formed in the early C h r i s t i a n era, p r o b a b l y at the t i m e of the first monasteries, on the fringes of invasions, fires, a n d forests. I a m t a l k i n g about the great, tender, a n d w a r m freemasonry of useless e r u d i t i o n . Except that it w a s not just a l i k i n g for t h i s freemasonry that led me to do w h a t I've been doing. It seems to m e that w e could justify the w o r k w e ' v e been doing, in a somewhat e m p i r i c a l a n d h a p h a z a r d w a y on b o t h m y p a r t and yours, b y saying that it w a s q u i t e in k e e p i n g w i t h a c e r t a i n period; w i t h the v e r y l i m i t e d p e r i o d w e have been living through for the last ten or fifteen years, t w e n t y at the most. I am t a l k i n g about a period in w h i c h w e can observe two phenomena w h i c h w e r e , if not really important, r a t h e r interesting. On the one hand, this h a s been a period c h a r a c t e r i z e d b y w h a t w e might call the efficacy of dispersed a n d discontinuous offensives. I am t h i n k i n g of many things, of, for instance, the strange efficacy, w h e n it c a m e to j a m m i n g the w o r k i n g s of the p s y c h i a t r i c institution, of the discourse, the discourses—and they really w e r e v e r y localized—of a n t i p s y c h i a t r y . And y o u k n o w perfectly w e l l that they w e r e not supported, a r e not supported, b y any overall systematization, no m a t t e r w h a t t h e i r points of reference w e r e and are. I a m t h i n k i n g of the original reference to existential analysis,' and of contemporary references to, b r o a d l y s p e a k ­ 2

ing, M a r x i s m or Reich's theories. I a m also t h i n k i n g of the strange efficacy of the a t t a c k s that have been m a d e on, say, m o r a l i t y a n d the traditional s e x u a l h i e r a r c h y ; t h e y too referred in only v a g u e a n d d i s ­ 3

tant t e r m s to Reich or M a r c u s e . I a m also t h i n k i n g of the efficacy of the a t t a c k s on t h e j u d i c i a r y a n d penal a p p a r a t u s , some of w h i c h w e r e very d i s t a n t l y related to the g e n e r a l — a n d fairly dubious—notion of "class justice," w h i l e others w e r e basically related, albeit almost as distantly, to an anarchist thematic. I am also t h i n k i n g much

more

specifically of the efficacy of something—I hesitate to call it a book— like Anti-Oedipus?

w h i c h referred to, w h i c h refers to n o t h i n g but i t s

o w n p r o d i g i o u s theoretical c r e a t i v i t y — t h a t book, t h a t event, or t h a t

6

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thing that succeeded, at the level of d a y - t o - d a y practice, in i n t r o d u c ­ ing a note of hoarseness into the w h i s p e r that had been passing from couch to a r m c h a i r w i t h o u t a n y i n t e r r u p t i o n for such a long time. So I w o u l d say: for the last ten or fifteen y e a r s , the immense and proliferating c r i t i c i z a b i l i t y of things, institutions, practices, and dis­ courses; a sort of general feeling that the ground w a s crumbling b e ­ neath our feet, especially in places w h e r e it seemed most familiar, most solid, a n d closest [ n e a r e s t ] to u s , to our bodies, to our e v e r y d a y gestures. But alongside this c r u m b l i n g a n d the astonishing efficacy of discontinuous, particular, and local c r i t i q u e s , the facts w e r e also re­ vealing something that could not, perhaps, have been foreseen from the outset: w h a t might be c a l l e d the i n h i b i t i n g effect specific to t o ­ talitarian theories, or at least—what I m e a n is—all-encompassing and global theories. Not that all-encompassing and global theories haven't, in fairly constant fashion, provided—and don't continue to provide— tools that can be used at the local level; M a r x i s m a n d psychoanalysis are living proof that they can. But they have, I think, provided tools that can be used at the local level only when, and this is the real point, the theoretical u n i t y of their discourse is, so to speak, s u s ­ pended, or at least cut up, r i p p e d up, torn to shreds, turned inside out, displaced, caricatured, d r a m a t i z e d , theatricalized, and so on. Or at least that the totalizing approach a l w a y s has the effect of putting the b r a k e s on. So that, if vou like, is my first point, the first char­ acteristic of w h a t has been happening over the last fifteen y e a r s or so: the local character of the critique; this does not, I think, mean soft eclecticism, opportunism, or openness to a n y old theoretical u n d e r ­ t a k i n g , nor does it mean a sort of deliberate asceticism that boils d o w n to losing as much theoretical w e i g h t as possible. I think that

the

essentially local character of the c r i t i q u e in fact indicates something resembling a sort of autonomous a n d noncentralized theoretical p r o ­ duction, or in other w o r d s a theoretical production t h a t does not need a visa from some common regime to establish i t s v a l i d i t y . This b r i n g s us to a second feature of w h a t has been happening for some t i m e now. The point is this: It is what might be called " r e t u r n s of k n o w l e d g e " that m a k e s this local c r i t i q u e possible. W h a t I mean

7 January

J 9 76

7

by " r e t u r n s of k n o w l e d g e " is this: W h i l e it is true that in recent years we have often encountered, at least at the superficial level, a w h o l e thematic: "life, not k n o w l e d g e , " "the real, not e r u d i t i o n , " "money, not books,"* it a p p e a r s to me that b e n e a t h this w h o l e t h e m a t i c , t h r o u g h it and even w i t h i n it, w e h a v e seen w h a t m i g h t be called the i n s u r ­ rection of subjugated k n o w l e d g e s . W h e n I say "subjugated e d g e s , " I m e a n t w o t h i n g s . On

knowl­

the one hand, I am referring

historical contents that have been buried or masked in

to

functional

coherences or formal systematizations. To put it in concrete t e r m s if you l i k e , it w a s certainly not a semiology of life in the a s y l u m or a sociology of d e h n q u e n c e that made an effective c r i t i q u e of the a s y l u m or the prison possible; it really w a s the appearance of historical con­ t e n t s . Q u i t e s i m p l y because historical contents alone a l l o w us to see the d i v i d i n g lines in the confrontations and s t r u g g l e s t h a t functional a r r a n g e m e n t s or systematic organizations are d e s i g n e d to mask. S u b ­ jugated k n o w l e d g e s are, then, blocks of historical k n o w l e d g e s t h a t w e r e present in the functional and systematic ensembles, but w h i c h w e r e masked, and the c r i t i q u e w a s able to reveal t h e i r existence by using, obviously enough, the tools of scholarship. Second, I t h i n k subjugated k n o w l e d g e s s h o u l d be understood meaning something else and, in a sense, something quite

as

different.

W h e n I say "subjugated k n o w l e d g e s " I am also referring to a w h o l e series of k n o w l e d g e s t h a t have been d i s q u a l i f i e d as

nonconceptual

knowledges, as insufficiently elaborated k n o w l e d g e s : naive k n o w l ­ edges, hierarchically inferior k n o w l e d g e s , k n o w l e d g e s that a r e b e l o w t h e r e q u i r e d level of erudition or scientificity. A n d it is t h a n k s to t h e reappearance of these k n o w l e d g e s from b e l o w , of these unqualified or even disqualified knowledges, it is t h a n k s to the reappearance of these k n o w l e d g e s : the k n o w l e d g e of the p s y c h i a t r i z e d , the patient,

the

nurse, the doctor, that is parallel to, marginal to, m e d i c a l k n o w l e d g e , the k n o w l e d g e of the d e l i n q u e n t , w h a t I w o u l d call, if you like, w h a t people k n o w ( a n d this i s by no m e a n s the same thing a s comon k n o w l e d g e or common sense but, on the contrary, a p a r t i c u l a r k n o w l -

*In the manuscript, "travel" replaces "money."

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edge, a k n o w l e d g e that is local, regional, or differential, incapable of u n a n i m i t y and w h i c h derives its power solely from the fact that it is different from all the k n o w l e d g e s that s u r r o u n d i t ) , it is the r e a p ­ pearance of w h a t people k n o w at a local level, of these disqualified k n o w l e d g e s , that made the c r i t i q u e possible. You m i g h t object that there is something v e r y paradoxical about grouping together and p u t t i n g into the same category of "subjugated knowledges," on the one hand, historical, meticulous, precise, tech­ nical e x p e r t i s e and, on the other, these s i n g u l a r , local k n o w l e d g e s , the noncommonsensical k n o w l e d g e s t h a t people h a v e , a n d w h i c h have in a w a y been left to lie fallow, or even k e p t in t h e margins. W e l l , I t h i n k it is the coupling together of the b u r i e d scholarly k n o w l e d g e and k n o w l e d g e s that were disqualified by the hierarchy of e r u d i t i o n and sciences that a c t u a l l y gave the discursive c r i t i q u e of the last fifteen years its essential strength. W h a t w a s at s t a k e in both cases, in both this s c h o l a r l y k n o w l e d g e and these disqualified k n o w l e d g e s , in these t w o forms of k n o w l e d g e — t h e buried and the disqualified? A histor­ ical k n o w l e d g e of struggles. Both the specialized domain of scholar­ ship

and

the

disqualified k n o w l e d g e

people

have

contained

the

memory of combats, the v e r y m e m o r y that had u n t i l then been con­ fined to the m a r g i n s . A n d so w e have the outline of w h a t might b e called a genealogy, or of m u l t i p l e genealogical investigations. W e have both a meticulous rediscovery of struggles and the r a w memory of fights. These genealogies are a combination of e r u d i t e k n o w l e d g e and what people k n o w . They w o u l d not have been possible—they could not even have been a t t e m p t e d — w e r e it not for one thing: the removal of the tyranny of overall discourses, w i t h their hierarchies and all the privileges enjoyed b y theoretical v a n g u a r d s . If y o u l i k e , w e c a n give the name "genealogy" to this coupling together of scholarly e r u d i t i o n and local memories, which a l l o w s us to constitute a historical k n o w l ­ edge of struggles and to m a k e use of that k n o w l e d g e in contemporary tactics. That can, then, serve as a provisional definition of the g e n e ­ alogies I have been t r y i n g to trace w i t h you over the last few years. You can see that this activity, w h i c h w e can describe as genealog­ ical, is c e r t a i n l y not a matter of contrasting the abstract u n i t y of

7 January

1976

9

theory w i t h the concrete m u l t i p l i c i t y of the facts. It is certainly not a matter of some form or other of scientism that disqualifies specu­ lation b y contrasting it w i t h the r i g o r of w e l l - e s t a b l i s h e d bodies of k n o w l e d g e . It is therefore not an e m p i r i c i s m that runs through

the

genealogical project, nor does it lead to a positivism, in the normal sense of the w o r d . It is a w a y of p l a y i n g local, discontinuous, d i s ­ qualified, or nonlegitimized k n o w l e d g e s off against the u n i t a r y t h e o ­ retical instance t h a t c l a i m s to be able to filter them, organize them into a h i e r a r c h y , o r g a n i z e them in the name of a true body of k n o w l ­ edge, in the name of the r i g h t s of a science that is in the h a n d s of the few. Genealogies a r e therefore not positivistic returns to a form of science that is more attentive or more accurate. Genealogies are, quite specifically, antisciences. It is not that they d e m a n d the l y r i c a l r i g h t to be i g n o r a n t , and not that they reject k n o w l e d g e , or invoke or celebrate some i m m e d i a t e experience that has yet to be c a p t u r e d b y k n o w l e d g e . That is not w h a t they are about. They are about the insurrection of k n o w l e d g e s . Not so m u c h against the contents, m e t h ­ ods, or concepts of a science; this is a b o v e all, p r i m a r i l y , an i n s u r r e c ­ tion against the c e n t r a l i z i n g power-effects that are bound up w i t h the institutionalization a n d w o r k i n g s of any scientific discourse o r g a n i z e d in a society s u c h as ours. That t h i s i n s t i t u t i o n a l i z a t i o n of scientific discourse is e m b o d i e d in a u n i v e r s i t y or, in general t e r m s , a p e d a ­ gogical a p p a r a t u s , t h a t t h i s i n s t i t u t i o n a l i z a t i o n of scientific discourses is embodied in a theoretico-commercial n e t w o r k such as p s y c h o a n a l ­ ysis, or in a political a p p a r a t u s — w i t h e v e r y t h i n g that i m p l i e s — i s largely irrelevant. Genealogy has to fight the power-effects c h a r a c t e r ­ istic of a n y discourse that is r e g a r d e d as scientific. To put it in more specific t e r m s , or at least in t e r m s t h a t m i g h t mean more to you, let me say this: you k n o w how m a n y people have been a s k i n g t h e m s e l v e s w h e t h e r or not M a r x i s m is a science for m a n y y e a r s now, p r o b a b l y for more than a century. One might say that the same question has been asked, and is still b e i n g asked, of psycho­ a n a l y s i s or, worse still, of the semiology of l i t e r a r y texts. Genealogies' or g e n e a l o g i s t s ' a n s w e r to the question "Is it a science or n o t ? " is: " T u r n i n g M a r x i s m , or psychoanalysis, or w h a t e v e r else it is, into a

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science is precisely w h a t w e are c r i t i c i z i n g you for. A n d if there is one objection to be m a d e against M a r x i s m , i t ' s that it m i g h t well be a science." To p u t it in more—if not more sophisticated t e r m s — [ a t l e a s t ] m i l d e r t e r m s , let m e say this: even before w e k n o w to w h a t e x t e n t s o m e t h i n g l i k e M a r x i s m or psychoanalysis is analogous to a scientific p r a c t i c e in its day-to-day operations, in its rules of construc­ tion, in the concepts it uses, w e should b e a s k i n g the question, a s k i n g ourselves about the aspiration to power that is inherent in the c l a i m to being a science. The q u e s t i o n or q u e s t i o n s that h a v e to b e a s k e d are: " W h a t t y p e s of k n o w l e d g e a r e y o u t r y i n g to disqualify w h e n you say that you are a science? W h a t s p e a k i n g subject, w h a t discursive subject, w h a t subject of experience a n d k n o w l e d g e are you t r y i n g to minorize w h e n you begin to say: 'I speak t h i s discourse, I a m s p e a k i n g a scientific discourse, a n d I am a scientist.' W h a t theoretico-political v a n g u a r d are you t r y i n g to put on the throne in order to detach it from all the massive, circulating, a n d discontinuous forms t h a t k n o w l ­ e d g e can t a k e ? " A n d I w o u l d say: " W h e n I see you t r y i n g to prove that M a r x i s m is a science, to tell the truth, I do not really see you trying to demonstrate once and for all that M a r x i s m has a rational s t r u c t u r e a n d that its propositions a r e therefore the products of v e r ­ ification procedures. I see you, first a n d foremost, doing

something

different. I see you connecting to M a r x i s t discourse, a n d I see you assigning to those w h o s p e a k that discourse the power-effects that t h e W e s t h a s , ever since the M i d d l e A g e s , ascribed to a science a n d r e ­ served for those w h o s p e a k a scientific discourse." C o m p a r e d to the a t t e m p t to inscribe k n o w l e d g e s in the p o w e r h i e r a r c h y t y p i c a l of science, genealogy is, then, a sort of a t t e m p t to desubjugate historical k n o w l e d g e s , to set them free, or in other w o r d s to enable them to oppose and struggle against the coercion of a u n i ­ tary, formal, a n d scientific theoretical discourse. The project of these disorderly and tattered genealogies is to reactivate local k n o w l e d g e s — 5

Deleuze w o u l d no doubt call them " m i n o r " — a g a i n s t t h e scientific hierarchicahzation of k n o w l e d g e and its intrinsic power-effects. To put it in a nutshell: Archaeology is the m e t h o d specific to the analysis of local discursivities, and genealogy is the tactic which, once it has

7 January

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11

described these local discursivities, b r i n g s into play the desubjugated k n o w l e d g e s that have b e e n released from them. That just about s u m s u p the overall project. So you can see t h a t all the fragments of research, all the intercon­ nected and i n t e r r u p t e d things I have been r e p e a t i n g so s t u b b o r n l y for four or five years now, m i g h t be r e g a r d e d as e l e m e n t s of these g e ­ nealogies, a n d that I a m not the only one to have been doing this over the last fifteen years. Far from it. Question: So w h y not go on w i t h such a theory of discontinuity, w h e n it is so pretty a n d p r o b a b l y so hard to v e r i f y ?

6

W h y don't I go on, a n d w h y don't I take a q u i c k

look at s o m e t h i n g to do w i t h p s y c h i a t r y , w i t h the t h e o r y of s e x u a l i t y ? It's t r u e that one c o u l d g o on—and I w i l l t r y to g o on u p to a point—were it not, p e r h a p s , for a certain n u m b e r of changes, a n d changes in the conjuncture. W h a t I mean is that compared to the situation w e had five, ten, or even fifteen y e a r s ago, things have, p e r ­ haps, changed; perhaps the battle no longer looks quite the same. W e l l , a r e w e really still in the same relationship of force, a n d does i t allow u s t o e x p l o i t the k n o w l e d g e s w e have d u g out of t h e sand, to e x p l o i t them as they s t a n d , w i t h o u t t h e i r b e c o m i n g subjugated once m o r e ? W h a t strength do they h a v e in t h e m s e l v e s ? A n d after all, once w e h a v e excavated our genealogical fragments, once w e begin to e x ­ ploit t h e m a n d to put in circulation these elements of k n o w l e d g e that w e have been t r y i n g to dig out of the sand, isn't there a d a n g e r that they w i l l be recoded, recolonized by these u n i t a r y discourses w h i c h , having first disqualified them a n d having then ignored them w h e n t h e y r e a p p e a r e d , m a y n o w b e ready to r e a n n e x them a n d i n c l u d e t h e m in their o w n discourses a n d t h e i r o w n p o w e r - k n o w l e d g e effects? A n d if w e t r y to protect the fragments w e have d u g u p , don't w e r u n the risk of b u i l d i n g , w i t h our own hands, a u n i t a r y discourse? That is w h a t w e are b e i n g invited to do, that is the t r a p that is being set for us by all those w h o say, "It's all very w e l l , b u t where does it get u s ? W h e r e does it l e a d u s ? W h a t u n i t y does it g i v e u s ? " The temptation is, u p to a point, to say: Right, let's continue, let's accumulate. After all, t h e r e is no d a n g e r at the moment that w e w i l l be colonized. I w a s s a y i n g a moment a g o that these genealogical fragments m i g h t b e in

12

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danger of being recoded, but we could t h r o w down a challenge and say, "Just t r y it!" W e could, for instance, say, Look: ever since the very b e g i n n i n g s of a n t i p s y c h i a t r y or of the genealogies of p s y c h i a t r i c institutions—and it has been going on for a good fifteen y e a r s now— has a single M a r x i s t , psychoanalyst, or psychiatrist ever a t t e m p t e d to redo it in their own t e r m s or demonstrated that these genealogies were wrong, badly elaborated, badly articulated, or i l l - f o u n d e d ? The w a y things stand, the fragments of genealogy that have been done are in fact still there, s u r r o u n d e d by a w a r y silence. The only a r g u m e n t s that have been put forward against them are—at the very best— propositions like the one w e recently h e a r d from, I t h i n k it w a s M. Juquin:

7

" A l l t h i s is very well. But the fact r e m a i n s t h a t Soviet

p s y c h i a t r y is the best in the world." M y a n s w e r to t h a t is: "Yes, of course, you're right. Soviet p s y c h i a t r y is the best in the w o r l d . T h a t ' s just w h a t I hold against it." The silence, or rather the caution w i t h which

unitary theories avoid the genealogy of k n o w l e d g e s might

therefore be one reason for going on. One could at any rate u n e a r t h more a n d more genealogical fragments, like so many traps, questions, challenges, or w h a t e v e r you w a n t to call them. Given that w e are t a l k ­ ing about a battle—the battle k n o w l e d g e s are w a g i n g a g a i n s t the power-effects of scientific discourse—it is probably o v e r o p t i m i s t i c to assume t h a t our a d v e r s a r y ' s silence p r o v e s t h a t he is afraid of u s . The s i ­ lence of an a d v e r s a r y — a n d t h i s is a methodological p r i n c i p l e or a t a c ­ tical principle that must a l w a y s be kept in mind—could just as easily be a sign that he is not afraid of us at all. A n d w e must, I think, behave a s t h o u g h he really is not frightened of u s . A n d I am not suggesting t h a t w e g i v e all these s c a t t e r e d genealogies a continuous, solid theoretical basis—the last t h i n g I w a n t to do is g i v e them, s u p e r i m p o s e on them, a sort of theoretical crown that w o u l d unify t h e m — b u t that we should try, in future lectures, probably b e g i n n i n g this year, to specify or iden­ tify w h a t is at s t a k e w h e n k n o w l e d g e s b e g i n to challenge, struggle against, a n d

rise u p against the instutition and the

power-

and

k n o w l e d g e - effects of scientific discourse. A s y o u k n o w , and as I scarcely need point out, w h a t is at s t a k e in all these genealogies is this: W h a t is t h i s p o w e r w h o s e irruption, force,

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impact, a n d a b s u r d i t y have become p a l p a b l y obvious over the last forty y e a r s , as a result of both the collapse of N a z i s m and the retreat of S t a l i n i s m ? W h a t is p o w e r ? Or rather—given that the

question

" W h a t i s p o w e r ? " i s obviously a theoretical question that would p r o ­ vide an a n s w e r to everything, w h i c h is just w h a t I don't want to do— the issue i s to d e t e r m i n e w h a t are, in t h e i r mechanisms, effects, t h e i r relations, the v a r i o u s p o w e r - a p p a r a t u s e s t h a t operate at v a r i o u s levels of society, in such v e r y different d o m a i n s a n d w i t h so m a n y different extensions? R o u g h l y speaking, I think that w h a t i s at stake in all t h i s is this: C a n the analysis of power, or the a n a l y s i s of p o w e r s , be in one w a y or a n o t h e r d e d u c e d from the e c o n o m y ? T h i s i s w h y I a s k the question, a n d t h i s is w h a t I m e a n b y it. I certainly do not wish to erase the countless differences or huge dif­ ferences, but, despite a n d because of these differences, it seems to me that the j u r i d i c a l conception and, l e t ' s say, the liberal conception of political p o w e r — w h i c h w e find in the p h i l o s o p h e r s of the eighteenth century—do have certain t h i n g s in common, as does the M a r x i s t con­ ception, or at least a certain c o n t e m p o r a r y conception that passes for the M a r x i s t conception. Their common feature is w h a t I will call "economism" in the theory of p o w e r . W h a t I m e a n to say is this: In the case of the classic j u r i d i c a l theory of power, p o w e r is r e g a r d e d a s a r i g h t w h i c h can be possessed in the w a y one possesses a commodity, a n d w h i c h can therefore be transferred or a l i e n a t e d , e i t h e r completely or p a r t l y , t h r o u g h a j u r i d i c a l act or an act t h a t founds a r i g h t — i t does not m a t t e r w h i c h , for the m o m e n t — t h a n k s to the s u r r e n d e r of something or t h a n k s to a contract. P o w e r i s t h e concrete p o w e r that any i n d i v i d u a l can hold, a n d which he can surrender, either as a w h o l e or in p a r t , so as to constitute a p o w e r or a political sovereignty. In the b o d y of t h e o r y to w h i c h I a m referring, the constitution of polit­ ical p o w e r is therefore constituted b y this series, or is modeled on a juridical operation

s i m i l a r to an exchange of contracts. There

is

therefore an obvious analogy, a n d it r u n s through all these theories, b e t w e e n p o w e r a n d commodities, b e t w e e n p o w e r a n d w e a l t h . In the other case, a n d I a m obviously t h i n k i n g here of the general M a r x i s t conception of p o w e r , there is obviously none of this. In this

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M a r x i s t conception, you have something else that m i g h t be called the "economic functionality" of power. "Economic functionality" to the e x t e n t that the role of p o w e r is essentially both to p e r p e t u a t e the relations of production a n d to r e p r o d u c e a class domination that is made possible by the development of the productive forces a n d the w a y s they are a p p r o p r i a t e d . In this case, political power finds its historical raison d'etre in the economy. Broadly speaking, w e have, if you like, in one case a political p o w e r w h i c h finds its formal model in the process of exchange, in the economy of the c i r c u l a t i o n of goods; and in the other case, political power finds its historical raison d'etre, the p r i n c i p l e of its concrete form a n d of its a c t u a l w o r k i n g s in the economy. The problem that is at issue in the research I am t a l k i n g about can, I t h i n k , be broken d o w n as follows. First: Is p o w e r

always

secondary to the e c o n o m y ? A r e its finality a n d function a l w a y s de­ t e r m i n e d by the economy? Is p o w e r ' s raison d'etre and purpose es­ sentially to serve the e c o n o m y ? Is it designed to establish, solidify, p e r p e t u a t e , a n d reproduce relations that are characteristic of the econ­ omy a n d essential to its w o r k i n g s ? Second question: Is p o w e r modeled on the c o m m o d i t y ? Is p o w e r something that can be possessed and acquired, that can be surrendered t h r o u g h a contract or by force, that can be a l i e n a t e d or recuperated, that circulates a n d fertilizes one r e ­ gion but avoids others? Or if w e w i s h to analyze it, do w e have to operate—on the c o n t r a r y — w i t h different instruments, even if p o w e r relations a r e d e e p l y involved in a n d w i t h economic relations, even if p o w e r relations a n d economic relations a l w a y s constitute a sort of n e t w o r k or l o o p ? If t h a t is the case, the i n d i s s o c i a b i l i t y of the econ­ omy a n d politics is not a matter of functional s u b o r d i n a t i o n , nor of formal isomorphism. It is of a different order, a n d it is precisely that order that w e have to isolate. W h a t tools are currently available for a noneconomic analysis of p o w e r ? I t h i n k that we can say that w e really do not have a lot. W e have, first of all, the assertion that p o w e r is not something that is given, exchanged, or taken back, that it is something that is exercised and that it exists only in action. W e also have the other assertion,

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that p o w e r is not p r i m a r i l y the p e r p e t u a t i o n a n d r e n e w a l of economic relations, but that it is p r i m a r i l y , in itself, a relationship of force. W h i c h raises some q u e s t i o n s , or r a t h e r t w o q u e s t i o n s . If p o w e r is exercised, w h a t is the exercise of p o w e r ? W h a t does it consist of? W h a t is its m e c h a n i s m ? W e have here w h a t I w o u l d call an off-thecuff a n s w e r , or at least an i m m e d i a t e response, a n d it seems to me that this i s , u l t i m a t e l y , the a n s w e r g i v e n b y the concrete reality of many contemporary

analyses: P o w e r is essentially that w h i c h r e ­

presses. Power is t h a t w h i c h represses n a t u r e , instincts, a class, or i n d i v i d u a l s . A n d w h e n w e find contemporary discourse trotting out the definition that p o w e r is that w h i c h represses, contemporary d i s ­ course is not r e a l l y s a y i n g a n y t h i n g new. H e g e l w a s the first to say 8

this, and then F r e u d and then R e i c h . In a n y case, in t o d a y ' s v o c a b ­ u l a r y , b e i n g an o r g a n of repression is almost p o w e r ' s H o m e r i c epithet. So, m u s t the analysis of p o w e r be p r i m a r i l y , essentially even, an a n a l ­ ysis of the mechanisms of r e p r e s s i o n ? Second—second off-the-cuff a n s w e r , if you like—if p o w e r is i n d e e d the i m p l e m e n t a t i o n a n d d e p l o y m e n t of a r e l a t i o n s h i p of force, rather than a n a l y z i n g it in t e r m s of s u r r e n d e r , contract, a n d alienation, or rather t h a n a n a l y z i n g it in functional t e r m s a s the reproduction of the relations of production, shouldn't w e be a n a l y z i n g it first and foremost in terms of conflict, confrontation, a n d w a r ? That w o u l d g i v e us a n alternative to the first h y p o t h e s i s — w h i c h is t h a t the mechanism of power is basically or essentially repression—or a second h y p o t h e s i s : P o w e r is w a r , the c o n t i n u a t i o n of w a r by other means. A t this point, w e can invert C l a u s e w i t z ' s p r o p o s i t i o n

9

a n d say that politics is the

continuation of w a r by other means. This w o u l d i m p l y three things. First, that power relations, as they function in a society like ours, are essentially anchored in a certain r e l a t i o n s h i p of force that w a s e s t a b ­ lished in a n d t h r o u g h w a r at a g i v e n historical moment that can be historically specified. A n d w h i l e it is t r u e that political p o w e r p u t s an end to w a r a n d e s t a b l i s h e s or a t t e m p t s to establish the reign of peace in civil society, it certainly does not do so in o r d e r to s u s p e n d the effects of power or to n e u t r a l i z e the d i s e q u i l i b r i u m r e v e a l e d by the last b a t t l e of the w a r . A c c o r d i n g to this h y p o t h e s i s , the role of

16

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political p o w e r is p e r p e t u a l l y to use a sort of silent w a r to r e i n s c n b e that relationship of force, and to reinscribe it in institutions, economic inequalities, language, and even the bodies of i n d i v i d u a l s . This is the initial meaning of our inversion of C l a u s e w i t z ' s aphorism—politics is the continuation of w a r by other means. Politics, in other w o r d s , sanctions a n d reproduces the d i s e q u i l i b r i u m of forces manifested in w a r . Inverting the proposition also means something else, namely that within this "civil peace," these political struggles, these clashes over or w i t h power, these modifications of relations of force—the shifting balance, the reversals—in a political system, all these things must be interpreted a s a continuation of w a r . A n d t h e y are i n t e r p r e t e d a s so many episodes, fragmentations, a n d displacements of the w a r itself. W e are a l w a y s w r i t i n g the history of the same w a r , even w h e n w e are w r i t i n g the history of peace and its institutions. Inverting C l a u s e w i t z ' s a p h o r i s m also has a t h i r d meaning: The final decision can come only from war, or in other words a trial by strength in which weapons are the final judges. It means that the last battle would put an end to politics, or in other w o r d s , that the last battle w o u l d at last—and I mean "at l a s t " — s u s p e n d the exercise of p o w e r a s continuous warfare. So you see, once w e try to get a w a y from economistic schemata in our a t t e m p t to a n a l y z e power, w e i m m e d i a t e l y find ourselves faced w i t h t w o g r a n d hypotheses; according to one, the mechanism of p o w e r is repression—for

the s a k e of convenience, I w i l l call this Reich's

hypothesis, if you l i k e — a n d according to the second, the basis of the p o w e r - r e l a t i o n s h i p lies in a w a r l i k e clash b e t w e e n forces—for the sake of convenience, I w i l l call this N i e t z s c h e ' s hypothesis. The t w o h y ­ potheses a r e not irreconcilable; on the contrary, there seems to be a fairly logical connection b e t w e e n the two. After all, isn't repression the political outcome of w a r , just a s oppression w a s , in the classical theory of political right, the result of the abuse of sovereignty w i t h i n the j u r i d i c a l d o m a i n ? W e can, then, contrast t w o g r e a t s y s t e m s for a n a l y z i n g power. The first, w h i c h is the old theory you find in the philosophers of the seventeenth century, is articulated around power as a p r i m a l right

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that is s u r r e n d e r e d , a n d w h i c h constitutes sovereignty, with the con­ tract a s the m a t r i x of political power. A n d w h e n the p o w e r t h a t has been so constituted oversteps the limit, or oversteps the limits of the contract, there is a danger that it will become oppression.

Power-

contract, w i t h oppression as the limit, or rather the transgression of the l i m i t . A n d then w e have the other system, which tries to a n a l y z e power not in terms of the contract-oppression schema, but in terms of the w a r - r e p r e s s i o n schema. At this point, repression is not w h a t oppression w a s in relation to the contract, namely an abuse, but, on the contrary, s i m p l y the effect a n d the continuation of a relationship of domination. Repression is no more than the i m p l e m e n t a t i o n , w i t h i n a pseudopeace t h a t is being u n d e r m i n e d by a continuous w a r , of a perpetual relationship of force. So, t w o schemata for the analysis of power: the contract-oppression schema, w h i c h is, if you like, the j u ­ ridical schema,

and

the

war-repression

or

domination-repression

schema, in which the pertinent opposition is not, as in the previous schema, that b e t w e e n the l e g i t i m a t e and the i l l e g i t i m a t e , but

that

b e t w e e n struggle a n d submission. It is obvious that e v e r y t h i n g I have said to you in previous y e a r s is inscribed w i t h i n the struggle-repression schema. T h a t is indeed the schema I w a s t r y i n g to apply. Now, as I tried to a p p l y it, I w a s eventually forced to reconsider it; both because, in many respects, it is still insufficiently elaborated—I w o u l d even go so far as to s a y t h a t it is not elaborated at a l l — a n d also because I t h i n k t h a t the t w i n notions of " r e p r e s s i o n " a n d " w a r " have to be considerably modified and u l t i m a t e l y , perhaps, abandoned. A t all events, we have to look very closely at these t w o notions of "repression" a n d " w a r " ; if y o u like, w e have to look a little more closely at the hypothesis t h a t the mechanisms of p o w e r a r e essentially mechanisms of repression, a n d at the a l t e r n a t i v e hypothesis that w h a t is r u m b l i n g away and w h a t is at w o r k beneath political p o w e r is essentially a n d above all a w a r l i k e relation. Without w i s h i n g to boast, I think that I have in fact long been suspicious of this notion of "repression," a n d I have a t t e m p t e d

to

show you, in relation to the g e n e a l o g i e s I w a s t a l k i n g about just now,

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in relation to the history of penal law, p s y c h i a t r i c power, controls on infantile sexuahtv, a n d so on, that the mechanisms at w o r k in these power formations were something very different from—or

at least

much more than—repression. I cannot go any further without re­ peating some of this analysis of repression, w i t h o u t p u l l i n g together everything I have said about it, no doubt in a r a m b l i n g sort of w a y . The next lecture, perhaps the next t w o lectures, w i l l therefore be devoted t o a critical r e e x a m i n a t i o n of t h e notion of "repression," to t r y i n g to show h o w and why what is now the w i d e s p r e a d notion of repression cannot provide an a d e q u a t e description of the m e c h a n i s m s and effects of power, cannot define t h e m .

10

M o s t of the n e x t lecture w i l l , however, be devoted to the other side of the question, or in other w o r d s the problem of w a r . I w o u l d like to t r y to see the extent to w h i c h the b i n a r y s c h e m a of w a r a n d struggle, of the clash b e t w e e n forces, can really be identified a s the basis of civil society, a s both the p r i n c i p l e and motor of the exercise of political power. A r e w e really t a l k i n g about w a r w h e n w e a n a l y z e the w o r k i n g s of p o w e r ? A r e the notions of "tactics," " s t r a t e g y , " a n d "relations of force" v a l i d ? To w h a t extent are they v a l i d ? Is power quite s i m p l y a continuation of w a r b y means other than w e a p o n s a n d battles? Does w h a t has now become the commonplace theme, though it is a relatively recent theme, that power is responsible for defending civil society imply, yes or no, that the political structure of society i s so organized t h a t some can defend t h e m s e l v e s against others, or can defend t h e i r domination against the rebellion of others, or q u i t e s i m ­ ply defend t h e i r victory and p e r p e t u a t e it by subjugating o t h e r s ? The o u t l i n e for t h i s y e a r ' s course w i l l , then, be a s follows: one or two lectures devoted to a r e e x a m i n a t i o n of the notion of repression; then I will begin [to look atj—I m a y go on in the y e a r s to come, I've no idea—this problem of the w a r in civil society. I w i l l begin by e l i m i n a t i n g the very people w h o are s a i d to be the theorists of the w a r in civil society, a n d who are in m y v i e w no such thing, namely M a c h i a v e l h and Hobbes. Then I w i l l t r y to look again at the theory that w a r is the historical p r i n c i p l e behind the w o r k i n g s of power, in the context of the r a c e problem, as it w a s r a c i a l b i n a r i s m t h a t led the

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West to see for the first time that it w a s possible to analyze political power as w a r . A n d I will t r y to trace t h i s d o w n to the moment w h e n race s t r u g g l e and class struggle became, at the end of the nineteenth century, the t w o g r e a t schemata that w e r e used to identify the p h e ­ nomenon of w a r and the relationship of force w i t h i n political society.

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1. Michel Foucault is referring to the psvchiatnc movement (defined either as "anthropophenomenology" or Daseinanalyse) which derived new conceptual instruments from the philosophy of Husserl and Heidegger. Foucault examines this in his earliest writings. Cf. chapter 4 of Maladie mentale etpersonalitt(Pans: PUF, 1954)("La Maladie etl'existence"); the introduction to Ludwig Binswanger, Le Reve et /'existence (Pans: Desclee de Brouwer) (reprinted in Dits et ecrits vol. 1, pp. 65-119; English translation bv Forrest Williams, "Dream, Imagination, and Existence," in Michel Foucault and Ludwig Binswanger, Dream and Existence, ed. Keith Holler [Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press]; "La Psvchologie de 1 8 5 0 a 1950," in A. Weber and D. Husiman, Tableau de la philosophic contemporaine (Paris: Fischbacher, 1 9 5 4 ) (reprinted in Dits et ecrits vol. 1, pp. 120-37); "La Recherche en psvchologie," in J . E. Morrere, ed., Des Cheixheurs s'intenvgent (Paris: PUF, 1957) (reprinted in Dits et ecrits vol. 1, pp. 137-58). Foucault returned to these topics in his last years; cf. Colloqui con Foucault (Salerno: 1 0 / 1 7 Cooperativa editrice, 1 9 8 1 ) ( French translation: "Entretien avec Michel Foucault," Dits et ecrits vol. 4, pp. 41-95; English trans­ lation by James Goldstein and James Cascaito, Remarks on Marx [New York: Semiotext(e), 1 9 9 1 ] ) . 2.See Wilhelm Reich, Die Funktion des Orgasmus; Qir Psychopathologie und %ur Sociologie des Geschlechtslebens (Vienna: I n t e r n a t i o n a l psychanalytischer Verlag, 1 9 2 7 ) (French trans­ lation: La Fonction de I'orgasme [Paris: L'Arche, 1971]; English translation: The Function of the Orgasm [New York: Condor Books, 1983]); Der Einbrach des Sexualmoral (Berlin: Verlag fur Sexualpolitik, 1932) (French translation: L'lrruptxon del a morale sexuelle [Paris: Payot, 1972]; English translation: The Invasion of Compulsory Sex Morality [New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1971 J); Charakteranalyse (Vienna: Selbstverlag des Verfassers* ' 9 3 3 ) (French translation: VAnalyse caracte'riel/e [Paris: Payot, 1971 ]; English translation: Character Analysis [New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1972]); Massenpsychologie des Faschismus: %ur Sexualonomie der politischen Reaktion und %ur proletarischen Sexualpolitik (Co­ penhagen, Paris, and Zurich: Verlag fur Sexualpolitik, 1933) (French translation: La Psychologie de masse du fascisme [Pans: Payot, 1974]; English translation: The Mass Psychology of Fascism [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1 9 7 0 ] ) ; Die Sexualitdt im Kulturkampf ( C o ­ penhagen: Sexpol Verlag, 1 9 3 6 ) (English translation: The Sexual Revolution [London: Vi sion Press, 1 9 7 2 ] ) . t

3. Michel Foucault is obviously referring here to Herbert Marcuse, Etvs and Civilisation: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (Boston: Beacon Press, 1 9 5 5 ) (French translation: Etvs et civilisation [Paris: Seuil, 1971 ] ) and One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1 9 6 6 ) ( French translation: L'Homme unidimensionnel |Pans: Seuil, 1 9 7 0 ] ) . •i. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattan, Anti-Oedipe (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1972). It will be recalled that Foucault develops this interpretation of Anti-Oedipe as livre evenement in hispreiaceto the English translation ( English translation bv Robert Hurlev, Mark Seem, and Helen R, Lane. Anti-Oedipus [New York: Viking, 1 9 8 3 ] ) . For the French version see Dits et ecrits vol. 3, pp. 133-36. 5. The concepts ol "minor'' and "minority"—singular events rather than individual essences, individuation through "ecceity" rather than substantiality—were elaborated by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattan in their Kafka,pour une /literature mineure (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 197S) ( English translation by Reda Bensmaia, Kafka: For a Minor Literature [Min­ neapolis: Universitv of Minnesota Press, 1 9 8 6 ] ), reworked bv Deleuze in his article "Philosophie et minorite" ( Critique, February 1 9 7 8 ) and then further developed, notably in Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattan, Mille Plateaux; capitalisms et schisophrenic (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1 9 8 0 ) (English translation bv Brian Massumi, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press]). "Minority" also relates to the concept oi "molecular" elaborated by Felix Guattan in Psychanahic tt

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transversalite, Essai d'analyse institutionnelle (Pans: Maspero, 1972). Its logic is that of "be­ coming" and "intensities." 6. Michel Foucault is referring to the debate about the concept of the episteme and the status of discontinuity that was opened up bv the publication of Les Mots et les choses: une archaeologie des sciences humaines (Pans: Galhmard, 1 9 6 6 ) (English translation: The Order of Things [London: Tavistock, 1 9 7 0 ] ) . He replied to criticisms in a series oi the oretical and methodological mt'ses au point. See in particular "Reponse a une question," Esprit, May 1 9 6 8 , repnnted in Dits et ecrits vol. 1, pp. 673-95; "Reponse au Cercle d*epistemologie," CaJiiers pour /'analyse 9 ( 1 9 6 8 ) , pp. 9 - 4 0 , repnnted m Dits et ecrits vol. 1, pp. 694-731; English translation: "On the Archaeology of the Science: Response to the Epistemology Circle," Essential Works vol. 2, pp. 297-353. 7. A t that time, a depute' in the Parti Communiste Frangais. 8.Cf. G. W. F. Hegel, Grundimien der Philosophic des Rechtes (Berlin, 1821), pp. 182-340 (French translation: Principesde la philosophic du droit [Pans: V n n , 1975]); Hegel's Philosophy of Right, translated with notes by T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952); Sigmund Freud, "Das Unbewussten," in Internationale Zjitschrifte fur drt^iche Psychoanalyse, vol. 3 ( 1 9 1 5 ) (English translation: "The Unconscious," in Pelican Freud Library, Vol. 11: On Metapsychology: The Theory of Psychoanalysis [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 19&4J); and Die Zxkunft emer Illusion (Leipzig/Vienna/Zurich: Internationaler Psychoanalvtischer Verlag, 1927) (French translation: VAvenir d'une illusion [Paris: Denoel, 1932], reprinted Pans: PUF, 1 9 9 5 ; English translation: The Future of an Illusion, in The Pelican Freud Library, Vol. 12: Civilisation, Society and Religion, Group Psychology, Civilisation and Its Discontents and Other Works [Harmondsworth: Penguin, I 9 8 5 J ) ; on Reich, cf. note 2 above. 9. Foucault alludes to the well-known formulation of Carl von Clausewitz's principle {Vom Knege book 1, chap. 1, xxiv, in Hinterlassene Werke, bd. 1-2-3 [Berlin, 1832] ): "War is a mere continuation of policy by other means.. . . War is not merely a political act. but also a truly political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means." On War, edited with an introduction by Anatol Rapoport (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1 9 8 2 ) (French translation: De la guerre [Pans: Editions de Minuit, 1 9 5 5 ] ) . 10. This promise was not kept. A lecture on "repression" is, however, intercalated in the manuscript; it was presumably given at a foreign university. Foucault returns to this question in La Volonte de savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1 9 7 6 ) (English translation by Robert Hurley: The Histoty of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981]).

two

14 J A N U A R Y 1 9 7 6

S

War and power.

%

- Philosophy

and royal power.

f

subjugation.

i t ...

- Analytics

of sovereignty.

and the limits of power. - Law, domination,

of power:

- Disciplinary

questions power.

- Law

% f

and

of method.

- Theory

- Rule and norm.

\ I

THIS Y E A R , I W O U L D like to begin—and to do no more than b e g i n — a s e r i e s of investigations into w h e t h e r or not w a r can possibly p r o v i d e a principle for the a n a l y s i s of p o w e r relations: can w e find in bellicose relations, in the m o d e l of w a r , in the s c h e m a of struggle or s t r u g g l e s , a p r i n c i p l e that can h e l p us understand and analyze political p o w e r , to interpret political p o w e r in t e r m s of w a r , struggles, and confron­ tations? I w o u l d l i k e to begin, obviously, w i t h a contrapuntal a n a l y s i s of the m i l i t a r y institution, of the real, a c t u a l , and historical w a y in w h i c h m i l i t a r y i n s t i t u t i o n s have functioned in our societies from the seventeenth century until the present d a y . U n t i l now, or for roughly the last five y e a r s , it h a s been d i s c i p l i n e s ; for the n e x t five years, it w i l l be w a r , struggle, the army. At the same time, I w o u l d like to sum up w h a t I have been t r y i n g to say in previous y e a r s , because doing so w i l l g i v e me more t i m e for my re search on w a r , which has not got very far, and also because doing so might provide a framework of reference for those of you w h o w e r e not here in previous y e a r s . In any case, I'd like to s u m up w h a t I have been trying to cover for my o w n benefit.

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W h a t I have been trying to look at since 1970-1971 is the " h o w " of power. S t u d y i n g the "how of p o w e r , " or in other w o r d s t r y i n g to u n d e r s t a n d its mechanisms by establishing two markers, or limits; on the one hand, the rules of right that formally delineate power, and on the other hand, at the opposite extreme, the other l i m i t might be the truth-effects that p o w e r produces, that this p o w e r conducts a n d which, in their turn, reproduce that power. So w e have the triangle: power, right, t r u t h . In schematic t e r m s , let us say that t h e r e is a traditional question, w h i c h is, I think, that of political philosophy. It can be formulated thus: How does the discourse of truth or, quite s i m p l y , p h i l o s o p h y — i n the sense that philosophy is the discourse of t r u t h par excellence—establish the l i m i t s of p o w e r ' s r i g h t ? That is the traditional question. N o w the question I w o u l d l i k e to ask is a question from below, and it is a very factual question compared to that t r a d i t i o n a l , noble, a n d philosophical question. M y p r o b l e m is roughly this: W h a t are the rules of r i g h t t h a t power i m p l e m e n t s to produce discourses of t r u t h ? Or: W h a t t y p e of p o w e r is it that is capable of p r o d u c i n g discourses of power that have, in a society l i k e ours, s u c h powerful effects? W h a t I m e a n is t h i s : In a society s u c h a s ours—or in any society, come to t h a t — m u l i t i p l e relations of power traverse, characterize, a n d constitute the social body; they are indissociable from a discourse of t r u t h , a n d they can neither be established nor function unless a t r u e discourse is produced, a c c u m u l a t e d , p u t into circulation, a n d set to w o r k . P o w e r cannot be exercised unless a certain economy of d i s ­ courses of t r u t h functions in, on the basis of, a n d t h a n k s to, that power. This is true of all societies, but I think that in our society, this relationship among power, right, a n d t r u t h is o r g a n i z e d in a very particular w a y . In order to characterize not just the mechanism of the relationship between power, right, and t r u t h itself but its intensity and constancy, let us say that w e are obliged to produce the t r u t h by the power that demands truth and needs it in order to function: w e are forced to tell the t r u t h , w e a r e constrained, w e a r e c o n d e m n e d to a d m i t the t r u t h

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or to discover it. Power constantly asks questions a n d questions us; it constantly investigates and records; it institutionalizes the search for the truth, professionalizes it, and r e w a r d s it. W e have to produce the t r u t h in the same w a y , really, that w e have to produce w e a l t h , and w e have to produce the t r u t h in order to be able to produce w e a l t h . In a different sense, w e a r e also subject to the t r u t h in the sense that t r u t h lays d o w n the l a w : it is the discourse of t r u t h t h a t decides, at least in part; it conveys and propels truth-effects.

After

all, w e are j u d g e d , condemned, forced to perform tasks, a n d d e s t i n e d to live a n d die in c e r t a i n w a y s by d i s c o u r s e s t h a t are true, a n d w h i c h b r i n g w i t h t h e m specific power-effects. So: r u l e s of right, m e c h a n i s m s of power, truth-effects.

Or: rules of power, and the power of t r u e

discourses. That, r o u g h l y , is the v e r y general d o m a i n I w a n t e d to examine, and w h i c h I have been e x a m i n i n g to some extent and w i t h , as I am w e l l a w a r e , m a n y digressions. I w o u l d now l i k e to say a few w o r d s about this domain. W h a t general p r i n c i p l e g u i d e d m e , a n d w h a t w e r e the i m p e r a t i v e com­ m a n d s , or the methodological precautions that I resolved to t a k e ? W h e r e relations b e t w e e n right a n d p o w e r a r e concerned, the g e n e r a l principle i s , it seems to me, that one fact must never be forgotten: In Western societies, the elaboration of j u r i d i c a l thought has essentially centered a r o u n d royal p o w e r ever since the M i d d l e A g e s . The j u r i d ­ ical edifice of our societies w a s elaborated at the d e m a n d of royal power, as w e l l as for its benefit, and in order to serve a s its i n s t r u m e n t or its justification. In the West, right is the r i g h t of the royal com­ mand. Everyone is of course familiar w i t h the famous, celebrated, repeated, a n d repetitive role p l a y e d by j u r i s t s in the organization of royal power. It must not be forgotten that the reactivation of R o m a n law in the middle of the M i d d l e A g e s — a n d this w a s the g r e a t phe­ nomenon that made it possible to reconstruct a juridical edifice that h a d collapsed after the fall of the R o m a n Empire—was one of the i n s t r u m e n t s that w a s used to constitute monarchical, a u t h o r i t a r i a n , a d m i n i s t r a t i v e , and, u l t i m a t e l y , absolute power. The juridical edifice was, then, formed around the r o y a l personage, at the d e m a n d of royal

26

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power, and for the benefit of royal power. When in later centuries this j u r i d i c a l edifice escaped from royal control, w h e n it w a s t u r n e d against royal power, the issue at stake w a s a l w a y s , and a l w a y s w o u l d be, the limits of that power, the question of its prerogatives. In other w o r d s , I believe that the k i n g w a s the central character in the entire W e s t e r n j u r i d i c a l edifice. The g e n e r a l system, or at least the general organization of the W e s t e r n j u r i d i c a l system, w a s all about the king: the king, his r i g h t s , his power, and the possible l i m i t s of h i s power. That, basically, is w h a t the general system, or at least the general organization, of the W e s t e r n j u r i d i c a l system is all about. No matter whether the jurists w e r e the k i n g ' s servants or his adversaries, the great edifices of juridical thought and j u r i d i c a l k n o w l e d g e w e r e a l w a y s about royal power. It w a s all about r o y a l p o w e r in t w o senses. Either it had to be demonstrated that royal p o w e r w a s invested in a juridical a r m a t u r e , that the monarch w a s i n d e e d the l i v i n g body of sovereignty, and that his power, even when absolute, w a s perfectly in keeping w i t h a basic right; or it had to be d e m o n s t r a t e d that the p o w e r of the sovereign had to be l i m i t e d , that it had to submit to certain rules, and that, if that power w e r e to retain i t s legitimacy, it h a d to be exercised w i t h i n certain l i m i t s . From the M i d d l e A g e s o n w a r d , the essential role of the theory of r i g h t has been to establish the l e g i t i m a c y of power; the major or central problem around w h i c h the theory of r i g h t is organized is the problem of sovereignty. To say that the problem of sovereignty is the central problem of right in W e s t e r n societies means that the e s ­ sential function of the technique a n d discourse of right is to dissolve the element of domination in p o w e r a n d to replace that domination, w h i c h has to be reduced or masked, w i t h t w o things: the legitimate rights of the sovereign on the one hand, a n d the legal obligation to obey on the other. The system of right is completely centered on the k i n g ; it is, in other w o r d s , u l t i m a t e l y an elimination of domination and its consequences. In previous y e a r s w h e n w e w e r e t a l k i n g about the various l i t t l e things I have mentioned, the general project w a s , basically, to invert the general direction of the analysis that has, I think, been the entire

74 January

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discourse of r i g h t ever since the M i d d l e A g e s . I have been t r y i n g to do the opposite, or in other w o r d s to stress the fact of domination in all its b r u t a l i t y and its secrecy, a n d then to show not only that right is an instrument of that domination—that

is self-evident—but also

how, to w h a t extent, a n d in w h a t form right ( a n d w h e n I say right, I am not thinking just of the l a w , b u t of all the a p p a r a t u s e s , insti tutions, a n d rules t h a t a p p l y i t ) serves as a vehicle for a n d i m p l e m e n t s relations t h a t are not relations of sovereignty, b u t relations of domi­ nation. A n d b y d o m i n a t i o n I do not m e a n the b r u t e fact of the dom ination of the one over the m a n y , or of one g r o u p over another, b u t the m u l t i p l e forms of d o m i n a t i o n t h a t can be e x e r c i s e d in society; so, not the k i n g in his central position, b u t subjects in their reciprocal relations; not sovereignty in its one edifice, but the m u l t i p l e s u b j u ­ gations t h a t t a k e place a n d function w i t h i n the social body. The system of right and the j u d i c i a r y field a r e permanent vehicles for relations of domination, a n d for p o l y m o r p h o u s techniques of s u b ­ jugation. R i g h t m u s t , I t h i n k , b e v i e w e d not in terms of a l e g i t i m a c y that has to be established, but in t e r m s of the procedures of s u b j u ­ gation it i m p l e m e n t s . A s I see it, w e h a v e to b y p a s s or get a r o u n d the p r o b l e m of s o v e r e i g n t y — w h i c h is central to the theory of right— a n d the obedience of i n d i v i d u a l s w h o s u b m i t to it, and to r e v e a l the p r o b l e m of d o m i n a t i o n a n d subjugation instead of sovereignty a n d subjugation. H a v i n g s a i d that, a certain n u m b e r of methodological precautions had to be t a k e n in order to follow this line, w h i c h w a s an a t t e m p t to b y p a s s or deviate from the general line of the j u r i d i c a l analysis. Methodological

precautions. Our

object

is not to a n a l y z e r u l e -

governed and l e g i t i m a t e forms of p o w e r w h i c h h a v e a single center, or to look at w h a t their general m e c h a n i s m s or its overall effects m i g h t be. O u r object i s , on the contrary, to u n d e r s t a n d power by looking at its e x t r e m i t i e s , at its outer l i m i t s at the point where it becomes capillary; in other w o r d s , to u n d e r s t a n d p o w e r in i t s most regional forms and i n s t i t u t i o n s , and especially at the points w h e r e this p o w e r transgresses the r u l e s of r i g h t t h a t organize and delineate it, oversteps those r u l e s and is invested in institutions, is embodied in t e c h n i q u e s

28

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and a c q u i r e s the material m e a n s to i n t e r v e n e , sometimes in violent w a y s . W e can t a k e an e x a m p l e if you like: rather t h a n t r y i n g to see w h e r e and how the p o w e r to p u n i s h finds its basis in the sovereignty, as described by philosophy, of either monarchical right or democratic right, I tried to look at how the power to punish w a s embodied in a certain n u m b e r of local, regional, and material institutions, such as t o r t u r e or imprisonment, and to look at the simultaneously i n s t i t u ­ tional, p h y s i c a l , regulatory, a n d violent w o r l d of the actual a p p a r a ­ tuses of p u n i s h m e n t . I t r i e d , in other w o r d s , to understand power by looking at its e x t r e m i t i e s , at w h e r e its exercise became less and less j u n d i c i a l . T h a t w a s my first precaution. Second precaution: M y goal w a s not to a n a l y z e power at the level of intentions or decisions, not to t r y to approach it from inside, a n d not to ask the question ( w h i c h l e a d s u s , I t h i n k , into a l a b y r i n t h from w h i c h t h e r e is no w a y o u t ) : So who has p o w e r ? W h a t is going on in his h e a d ? A n d w h a t is he t r y i n g to do, t h i s m a n w h o h a s p o w e r ? The g o a l w a s , on the contrary, to s t u d y p o w e r at the point w h e r e h i s intentions—if, that is, any intention is involved—are completely i n ­ v e s t e d in real and effective p r a c t i c e s ; to s t u d y p o w e r by looking, as it w e r e , at its external face, at the point w h e r e it relates directly and i m m e d i a t e l y to w h a t w e might, very provisionally, call its object, its target, its field of application, or, in other w o r d s , the places w h e r e it i m p l a n t s itself a n d produces its real effects. So the question is not: W h y do some people w a n t to be d o m i n a n t ? W h a t do thev w a n t ? W h a t is t h e i r overall s t r a t e g y ? The q u e s t i o n is this: W h a t happens at the moment of, at the level of the procedure ot subjugation, or in the continuous and u n i n t e r r u p t e d processes t h a t subjugate bodies, direct gestures, and regulate forms of b e h a v i o r ? In other w o r d s , rather t h a n a s k i n g ourselves w h a t the s o v e r e i g n looks l i k e from on high, w e should be t r y i n g to discover how m u l t i p l e bodies, forces, energies, matters, desires, thoughts, and so on are g r a d u a l l y , progressively, ac­ tually a n d m a t e r i a l l y constituted as subjects, or as the subject. To grasp the material agency of subjugation insofar as it constitutes s u b ­ jects w o u l d , if you like, be to do precisely the opposite of w h a t H o b b e s w a s t r y i n g to do in Leviathan.'

U l t i m a t e l y , I t h i n k that all

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jurists try to do the same thing, as t h e i r problem is to discover how a m u l t i p l i c i t y oi i n d i v i d u a l s and w i l l s can be s h a p e d into a single w i l l or e v e n a s i n g l e b o d y that is s u p p o s e d l y a n i m a t e d bv a soul k n o w n 2

as sovereignty. R e m e m b e r the schema of Leviathan.

In this schema,

the Leviathan, being an artificial man, is no more than the coagulation ot a c e r t a i n n u m b e r ot distinct i n d i v i d u a l i t i e s that find themselves united bv a certain number of the S t a t e ' s constituent elements. But at the heart, or rather the head, of the State, there is something that constitutes it as such, and that something

i s sovereignty, w h i c h

Hobbes specifically describes as the soul of the Leviathan. W e l l , rather than r a i s i n g this problem ol the central soul, I think w e should be t r y i n g — a n d t h i s i s w h a t I have been t r y i n g t o do—to study the m u l ­ t i p l e p e r i p h e r a l b o d i e s , the b o d i e s that are c o n s t i t u t e d as subjects by power-effects. Third methodological precaution: Do not r e g a r d p o w e r as a p h e ­ nomenon of mass and homogeneous d o m i n a t i o n — t h e domination ol one i n d i v i d u a l over others, of one g r o u p over others, or of one class over others; k e e p it clearly in m i n d that unless w e are looking at it from a great h e i g h t and from a v e r y great d i s t a n c e , p o w e r i s not something that is d i v i d e d b e t w e e n those w h o have it and hold it exclusively, a n d those who d o not have it a n d a r e sub|ect to it. P o w e r must, I think, be a n a l y z e d as something that c i r c u l a t e s , or r a t h e r as something that functions only w h e n it is part ot a chain. It is never localized here or there, it i s never in the h a n d s of some, a n d it is never a p p r o p r i a t e d in the w a y that w e a l t h or a commodity can be a p p r o p r i a t e d . Power functions. Power is e x e r c i s e d through n e t w o r k s , and i n d i v i d u a l s do not simply circulate in those n e t w o r k s ; they are in a position to both submit to and e x e r c i s e this power. They are never t h e inert or consenting targets ol power; they are a l w a y s its r e l a y s . In other w o r d s , p o w e r passes through i n d i v i d u a l s . It is not applied to them. It is therefore, I think, a m i s t a k e to think of the individual as a sort of e l e m e n t a r y nucleus, a p r i m i t i v e atom or some m u l t i p l e , inert matter to w h i c h p o w e r is applied, or w h i c h is s t r u c k by a p o w e r that s u b o r d i n a t e s or destroys i n d i v i d u a l s . In actual fact, one of the

first

JO

"SOCIETY

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DEFENDED"

effects of power is that it allows bodies, gestures, discourses, and desires to be identified and constituted as something i n d i v i d u a l . The i n d i v i d u a l is not, in other w o r d s , p o w e r ' s opposite number; the in­ dividual is one of p o w e r ' s first effects. The i n d i v i d u a l is in fact a power-effect, and at the same time, and to the extent that he is a power-effect, the i n d i v i d u a l is a relay: power passes through the in­ d i v i d u a l s it has constituted. Fourth i m p l i c a t i o n at the

level of methodological

precautions:

When I say, " P o w e r is exercised, circulates, a n d forms n e t w o r k s , " this m i g h t be true up to a certain point. W e can also say, " W e all have some element of fascism inside our h e a d s , " or, at a more basic level still, " W e all have some element of power in our bodies." A n d power does—at least to some extent—pass or migrate through our bodies. W e can i n d e e d say all that, but I do not t h i n k that w e therefore have to conclude that p o w e r is the b e s t - d i s t r i b u t e d thing, the most w i d e l y d i s t r i b u t e d thing, in the w o r l d , even t h o u g h this is, u p to a point, the case. P o w e r is not d i s t r i b u t e d throughout the body in democratic or a n a r c h i c fashion. W h a t I mean is this: i t seems to me—and this w i l l be our fourth methodological precaution—it is important not to, so to speak, deduce power by b e g i n n i n g at the center a n d trying to see how far d o w n it goes, or to w h a t extent it is reproduced

or

r e n e w e d in the most atomistic elements of society. I t h i n k that, on the c o n t r a r y — a n d this is a methodological precaution that has to be t a k e n — w e s h o u l d m a k e an ascending analysis of power, or in other w o r d s begin w i t h its infinitesimal mechanisms, w h i c h have their own history, their o w n trajectory, their o w n techniques a n d tactics, a n d then look at how these mechanisms of power, which have their so­ l i d i t y a n d , in a sense, their own technology, have been a n d are i n ­ vested, colonized, used, inflected, transformed, d i s p l a c e d , extended, and so on by increasingly general mechanisms a n d forms of overall domination. Overall domination is not something that is p l u r a h z e d a n d then has repercussions d o w n below. I t h i n k w e h a v e to analyze the w a y in w h i c h the phenomena, techniques, and procedures of power come into play at the lowest levels; we have to show, obviously, how these procedures are displaced, extended, and modified

and,

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above all, how they are invested or a n n e x e d b y global phenomena, a n d how more general p o w e r s or economic benefits can slip into the play of t h e s e technologies of p o w e r , w h i c h a r e at once relatively a u ­ tonomous a n d infinitesimal. To m a k e t h i n g s clearer, I w i l l t a k e the e x a m p l e of m a d n e s s . W e c o u l d s a y t h i s , w e c o u l d m a k e the descending analysis we h a v e to distrust. W e could s a y t h a t from the late sixteenth c e n t u r y or the seventeenth century o n w a r d , the bourgeoisie became the r u l i n g class. Having s a i d that, how can w e deduce that the m a d w i l l be confined? Y o u can certainly m a k e t h a t d e d u c t i o n ; it is a l w a y s e a s y , a n d that is precisely w h a t I hold a g a i n s t it. It is in fact easy to show how, because the m a d are obviously of no use to i n d u s t r i a l production, t h e y have to b e got r i d of. W e could, if y o u like, say the same thing, not about the m a d m a n this t i m e , b u t about infantile s e x u a l i t y — a n d a n u m b e r 3

of people h a v e done so: W i l h e l m R e i c h does so up to a point, a n d H

R e i m u t Reich c e r t a i n l y does so. W e could a s k how the rule of the bourgeoisie a l l o w s us to u n d e r s t a n d the repression of infantile s e x u ­ ality. Well, i t ' s q u i t e s i m p l e : from the seventeenth or eighteenth cen­ t u r y o n w a r d , the h u m a n b o d y essentially became a p r o d u c t i v e force, a n d all forms of e x p e n d i t u r e that could not be r e d u c e d to these r e ­ lations, or to the constitution of the productive forces, all forms of e x p e n d i t u r e t h a t could be s h o w n to be u n p r o d u c t i v e , w e r e b a n i s h e d , excluded, a n d repressed. Such d e d u c t i o n s are a l w a y s possible; t h e y a r e both t r u e and false. T h e y a r e essentially too facile, because w e can say precisely the opposite. W e can deduce from the p r i n c i p l e that the bourgeoisie b e c a m e a r u l i n g class t h a t controlling s e x u a l i t y , a n d i n ­ fantile s e x u a l i t y , is not absolutely d e s i r a b l e . W e c a n r e a c h the opposite conclusion a n d s a y t h a t w h a t is n e e d e d is a sexual a p p r e n t i c e s h i p , sexual training, sexual precocity, to the e x t e n t t h a t the goal is to use sexuality to reproduce a labor force, a n d it is w e l l k n o w n that, at least in the early nineteenth c e n t u r y , it w a s b e l i e v e d that the o p t i m a l labor force w a s an infinite labor force: the g r e a t e r the labor force, the greater the capitalist system of production's a b i l i t y to function

fully

and efficiently. I t h i n k that w e can deduce w h a t e v e r we l i k e from the g e n e r a l

"SOCIETY

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

phenomenon of the domination of the bourgeois class. It seems to me that w e s h o u l d be doing q u i t e the opposite, or in other w o r d s looking in historical t e r m s , a n d from below, at how control mechanisms could come into play in t e r m s of the exclusion of madness, or the repression a n d suppression of s e x u a l i t y ; at how these phenomena of repression or exclusion found their i n s t r u m e n t s a n d their logic, a n d met a certain n u m b e r of needs at the actual level of the family a n d its i m m e d i a t e entourage, or in the cells or the lowest levels of society. W e should be s h o w i n g w h a t their agents w e r e , and w e should be looking for those agents not in the bourgeoisie in general, but in the real agents that exist in the i m m e d i a t e entourage: the family, parents, doctors, the lowest levels of the police, a n d so on. A n d w e should be looking at how, at a given moment, in a specific conjuncture and subject to a certain n u m b e r of transformations, these p o w e r - m e c h a n i s m s began to become economically profitable a n d p o l i t i c a l l y useful. A n d I think w e could easily succeed in d e m o n s t r a t i n g — a n d t h i s is, after all, w h a t I have tried to do on a number of occasions in the past—that, basically, w h a t the bourgeoisie needed, and the reason w h y the system u l t i ­ m a t e l y proved to w o r k to its advantage, w a s not that the m a d had to be excluded or that childhood masturbation h a d to be controlled or forbidden—the

bourgeois system can, I repeat, quite easily tolerate

the opposite of this. W h a t did prove to be in its interest, and w h a t it d i d invest, w a s not the fact that they w e r e excluded, but the tech­ nique and procedures of their exclusion. It w a s the mechanisms of exclusion, the surveillance a p p a r a t u s , the m e d i c a h z a t i o n of sexuality, madness, and d e l i n q u e n c y , it w a s all that, or in other w o r d s the m i cromechanics of power that came at a certain moment to represent, to constitute the interest of the bourgeoisie. That is w h a t the b o u r ­ geoisie w a s i n t e r e s t e d in. To put it a n o t h e r w a y : to the extent t h a t these notions of "the bourgeoisie" and "the i n t e r e s t s of the b o u r g e o i s i e " p r o b a b l y have no content, or at least not in t e r m s of the p r o b l e m s w e have just raised, what w e have to realize is precisely that there w a s no such thing as a bourgeoisie that thought that madness should be excluded or that infantile s e x u a l i t y had to be repressed; but there were mechanisms to

14 January

1976

exclude madness and t e c h n i q u e s t o keep infantile s e x u a l i t y u n d e r surveillance. A t a g i v e n moment, a n d for reasons t h a t have to be studied, they generated a certain economic profit, a certain political utility, and they w e r e therefore

colonized and supported by global

m e c h a n i s m s and, finally, by the entire s y s t e m of the State. If w e con­ centrate on the techniques of power a n d show the economic profit or political u t i l i t y that can b e d e r i v e d from t h e m , in a certain context and for certain reasons, then w e can u n d e r s t a n d how these m e c h a ­ n i s m s a c t u a l l y a n d e v e n t u a l l y became p a r t of the w h o l e . In

other

w o r d s , the bourgeoisie doesn't give a d a m n about the m a d , but from the nineteenth c e n t u r y o n w a r d a n d subject to certain transformations, the p r o c e d u r e s used to e x c l u d e the m a d p r o d u c e d or g e n e r a t e d a political profit, or even a certain economic u t i l i t y . They consolidated the system a n d helped it to function as a w h o l e . The bourgeoisie is not interested in the mad, b u t it is interested in p o w e r over the m a d ; the bourgeoisie is not interested in the s e x u a l i t y of children, but it is interested in the system of p o w e r that controls the s e x u a l i t y of c h i l ­ dren. The bourgeoisie does not give a damn about d e l i n q u e n t s , or about how t h e y a r e punished or r e h a b i l i t a t e d , as t h a t is of no great economic interest. On the other hand, the set of m e c h a n i s m s w h e r e b y d e l i n q u e n t s a r e controlled, kept t r a c k of, p u n i s h e d , and reformed does generate a bourgeois interest t h a t functions w i t h i n the

economico-

pohtical s y s t e m a s a w h o l e . T h a t is the fourth precaution, the fourth methodological line I w a n t e d to follow. Fifth precaution: It is q u i t e possible t h a t ideological p r o d u c t i o n d i d coexist w i t h the great m a c h i n e r i e s of p o w e r . T h e r e w a s no d o u b t an ideology of education, an ideology of monarchical p o w e r , an ide­ ology of p a r l i a m e n t a r y democracy, a n d so on. But I do not t h i n k that it i s ideologies that are shaped at the base, at the point w h e r e the n e t w o r k s of power c u l m i n a t e . It is much less and much more than that. It is the actual instruments that form a n d accumulate k n o w l edge, the observational methods, the r e c o r d i n g t e c h n i q u e s , the i n v e s ­ tigative research procedures, the verification m e c h a n i s m s . That i s , the delicate m e c h a n i s m s of p o w e r cannot function unless k n o w l e d g e , or rather k n o w l e d g e apparatuses, are formed, organized, and put

into

"SOCIETY

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

circulation, and those a p p a r a t u s e s are not ideological trimmings or edifices. To sum u p these five methodological precautions, let me say that rather than orienting our research into power t o w a r d the juridical edifice of sovereignty, State apparatuses, a n d the ideologies that ac­ company them, I think we s h o u l d orient our analysis of p o w e r t o w a r d material operations, forms of subjugation, a n d the connections among a n d the uses made of the local systems of subjugation on the one hand, and a p p a r a t u s e s of k n o w l e d g e on the other. In short, w e have to abandon the model of Leviathan, that model of an artificial m a n w h o is at once an automaton, a fabricated man, but also a unitary m a n w h o contains all real i n d i v i d u a l s , whose body is m a d e u p of citizens b u t w h o s e soul i s sovereignty. W e have to study p o w e r outside the model of Leviathan, outside the field delineated by juridical sovereignty and t h e i n s t i t u t i o n of t h e State. W e have to an­ alyze it by beginning w i t h the techniques a n d tactics of domination. That, I t h i n k , is the methodological line w e have to follow, a n d w h i c h I have t r i e d to follow in the different research projects w e have u n ­ d e r t a k e n in previous y e a r s on psychiatric p o w e r , infantile sexuality, the punitive system, a n d so on. Now if w e look at this domain and take these methodological pre­ cautions, I t h i n k that one massive historical fact emerges, and that it will help to p r o v i d e u s w i t h a n introduction to the p r o b l e m I w i s h to t a l k about from now o n w a r d . The massive historical fact is this: The j u r i d i c o - p o l i t i c a l theory of sovereignty—the theory we have to get a w a y from if w e w a n t to a n a l y z e power—-dates from the M i d d l e A g e s . It dates from the reactivation of R o m a n l a w and is constituted around the p r o b l e m of the monarch and the monarchy. A n d I believe that, in historical t e r m s , this theory of s o v e r e i g n t y — w h i c h is the great t r a p w e are in danger of falling into w h e n w e try to a n a l y z e power— p l a y e d tour roles. First, it referred to an actual p o w e r mechanism: that of the feudal monarchy. Second, it w a s used as an instrument to constitute a n d justify the great monarchical administrations. From the sixteenth and especially the seventeenth century onward, or at the time of the W a r s

74 January

1976

15

of R e l i g i o n , the theory of sovereignty then became a w e a p o n that w a s in circulation on both sides, and it w a s used both to restrict a n d to strengthen royal p o w e r . You find it in the hands of Catholic mon­ archists a n d Protestant antimonarchists; you also find it in the h a n d s of more or less l i b e r a l Protestant monarchists; y o u also find it in the h a n d s of C a t h o l i c s w h o advocate regicide or a c h a n g e of d y n a s t y . You find t h i s theory of sovereignty b e i n g b r o u g h t into p l a y by aristocrats a n d parlement

aires?

by the r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s of royal p o w e r a n d by the

last feudalists. It w a s , in a w o r d , the g r e a t i n s t r u m e n t of the political a n d theoretical struggles that took p l a c e a r o u n d systems of p o w e r in the s i x t e e n t h a n d seventeenth c e n t u r i e s . In the eighteenth c e n t u r y , finally,

you find the s a m e t h e o r y of s o v e r e i g n t y , the s a m e reactivation

of R o m a n l a w , in the w o r k of Rousseau and his contemporaries, but it now p l a y e d a fourth and different role; at this point in time, its role w a s to construct an alternative model to a u t h o r i t a r i a n or absolute monarchical administration: that of the p a r l i a m e n t a r y democracies. A n d it w e n t on p l a y i n g t h a t role u n t i l the t i m e of the Revolution. It seems to me that if w e look at these four roles, w e find that, so long as feudal-type societies survived, the p r o b l e m s dealt w i t h by the theory of sovereignty, or to w h i c h it referred, w e r e actually coexten­ sive w i t h the g e n e r a l mechanics of p o w e r , or the w a y p o w e r w a s exercised from the highest to the l o w e s t levels. In other w o r d s , the relationship of sovereignty, u n d e r s t o o d

in both the broad a n d

the

n a r r o w sense, w a s , in short, coextensive w i t h the entire social body. A n d the w a y i n w h i c h p o w e r w a s e x e r c i s e d could indeed be t r a n ­ s c r i b e d , at least in its essentials, in t e r m s of the s o v e r e i g n / s u b j e c t relationship. N o w , an i m p o r t a n t phenomenon occurred in the seventeenth a n d eighteenth centuries: the appearance—one should say the invention— of a n e w m e c h a n i s m of p o w e r w h i c h had very specific procedures, completely n e w i n s t r u m e n t s , and v e r y different e q u i p m e n t . It w a s , I believe, absolutely i n c o m p a t i b l e w i t h relations of sovereignty. T h i s new mechanism of p o w e r a p p l i e s p r i m a r i l y to bodies a n d w h a t they do rather than to the land and w h a t it produces. It w a s a m e c h a n i s m of p o w e r that made it possible to extract time a n d labor, rather than

36

"SOCIETY

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commodities a n d w e a l t h , from bodies. It w a s a type of power that w a s exercised through constant surveillance and not in discontinuous fashion t h r o u g h chronologically defined systems of taxation and ob­ ligation. It w a s a type of power that presupposed a closely meshed g r i d of material coercions rather than the physical existence of a sov­ ereign, and it therefore defined a new economy of power based upon the p r i n c i p l e that there had to be an increase both in the subjugated forces and in the force and efficacy of that w h i c h subjugated them. It seems to me that this t y p e of p o w e r is the exact, point-for-point opposite of the mechanics of p o w e r that the theory of sovereignty described or tried to transcribe. The theory of sovereignty is b o u n d up w i t h a form of p o w e r that is exercised over the l a n d and the produce of the land, much more so than over bodies and what they do. [This t h e o r y ] concerns p o w e r ' s displacement and

appropriation

not of time and labor, but of goods and w e a l t h . This m a k e s it possible to transcribe, into j u r i d i c a l t e r m s , discontinuous obligations and tax records, b u t not to code continuous surveillance; it is a theory that makes it possible to found absolute power around and on the basis of the physical existence of the sovereign, but not continuous

and

permanent systems of surveillance. The theory of sovereignty is, if you like, a theory w h i c h can found absolute p o w e r on the absolute e x ­ p e n d i t u r e of p o w e r , but w h i c h cannot calculate p o w e r with m i n i m u m e x p e n d i t u r e and m a x i m u m efficiency. This new t y p e of power, which can therefore no longer be transcribed in terms of sovereignty, is, I believe, one of bourgeois society's great inventions. It w a s one of the basic tools for the establishment of industrial capitalism and the cor­ responding type of society. This nonsovereign power, w h i c h is foreign to the form of sovereignty, is " d i s c i p l i n a r y " power. This power cannot be described or justified in terms of the theory of sovereignty. It is radically heterogeneous and should logically have led to the complete disappearance of the great juridical edifice of the theory of sovereignty. In fact, the theory of sovereignty not only continued to exist as, if you like, an ideology of right; it also continued to organize the j u r i d ­ ical codes that nineteenth-century

Europe adopted after the N a p o ­

leonic codes.'' W h y did the theory of sovereignty live on in this way

14 January

7 9 76

37

as an ideology and as the organizing p r i n c i p l e b e h i n d the great j u ­ ridical codes? I t h i n k there are t w o reasons. On the one hand, the theory of sovereignty w a s , in the seventeenth century and even the nineteenth century, a p e r m a n e n t critical i n s t r u m e n t to be used against the mon­ a r c h y and all the obstacles t h a t stood in the w a y of the development of the d i s c i p l i n a r y society. On the other h a n d , this theory, a n d the organization of a j u r i d i c a l code c e n t e r e d upon it, m a d e it possible to superimpose on t h e mechanism of d i s c i p l i n e a system of right that concealed its mechanisms and erased the element of domination a n d the t e c h n i q u e s of domination involved in discipline, and w h i c h , fi­ n a l l y , g u a r a n t e e d t h a t everyone could exercise his or her own sover­ eign r i g h t s t h a n k s to the s o v e r e i g n t y of the State. In other w o r d s , juridical systems, no matter w h e t h e r t h e y w e r e theories or codes, allowed the democratization of sovereignty, and the establishment of a p u b l i c right a r t i c u l a t e d w i t h collective sovereignty, at the verv t i m e when, to the extent that, a n d because the democratization of sover­ eignty w a s heavily ballasted by the mechanisms of d i s c i p l i n a r y coer­ cion. To p u t it in more condensed t e r m s , one might say t h a t once disciplinary constraints h a d to both Junction as mechanisms of d o m ­ ination and be concealed to the e x t e n t t h a t they w e r e the mode in which p o w e r w a s actually exercised, the theory of sovereignty had to find expression in t h e j u r i d i c a l a p p a r a t u s a n d had to b e reactivated or complemented b y judicial codes. From the nineteenth c e n t u r y u n t i l the present day, we h a v e then in m o d e r n societies, on the one hand, a legislation, a discourse, a n d an organization of p u b l i c right a r t i c u l a t e d a r o u n d the principle of the sovereignty of the social body and the delegation of i n d i v i d u a l sov­ ereignty to the State; a n d we also have a t i g h t g r i d of d i s c i p l i n a r y coercions that a c t u a l l y g u a r a n t e e s the cohesion of that social body. Now that g r i d cannot in any w a y be transcribed in right, even though the t w o necessarily go together. A right of sovereignty and a m e ­ chanics of d i s c i p l i n e . It i s , I t h i n k , b e t w e e n these t w o l i m i t s that power is exercised. The t w o l i m i t s a r e , however, of such a k i n d a n d so heterogeneous that w e can never reduce one to the other. In mod-

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ern societies, p o w e r is exercised through, on the basis of, a n d in the very play of the heterogeneity b e t w e e n a public right of sovereignty a n d a p o l y m o r p h o u s mechanics of discipline. This is not to say that y o u have, on the one hand, a g a r r u l o u s a n d explicit system of right, a n d on the other hand, obscure silent disciplines that operate down below, in the shadows, a n d which constitute the silent basement of the great mechanics of power. Disciplines in fact have their o w n d i s ­ course. They do, for the reasons I w a s telling you about a moment ago, create a p p a r a t u s e s of k n o w l e d g e , k n o w l e d g e s and multiple fields of expertise. T h e y are e x t r a o r d i n a r i l y inventive w h e n it comes to cre­ ating a p p a r a t u s e s to shape k n o w l e d g e and expertise, and they do s u p ­ port a discourse, b u t it is a discourse that cannot be the discourse of right or a j u r i d i c a l discourse. The discourse of discipline is alien to t h a t of the l a w ; it is alien to the discourse that makes rules a product of t h e will of the sovereign. The discourse of disciplines is about a rule: not a j u r i d i c a l rule d e r i v e d from sovereignty, but a discourse about a natural rule, or in other w o r d s a norm. Disciplines w i l l define not a code of l a w , but a code of normalization, and t h e y w i l l neces­ s a r i l y refer to a theoretical horizon that is not the edifice of l a w , but the field of the h u m a n sciences. A n d the j u r i s p r u d e n c e of these d i s ­ ciplines w i l l b e that of a clinical k n o w l e d g e . In short, w h a t I h a v e been t r y i n g to show over the last few years is certainly not how, as the front of the exact sciences advances, the uncertain, difficult, and confused domain of h u m a n behavior is g r a d ­ ually a n n e x e d by science: the g r a d u a l constitution of the h u m a n sci­ ences is not the result of an increased rationality on t h e part of the e x a c t sciences. I t h i n k that the process that has m a d e possible the discourse of the human sciences is the juxtaposition of, the confron­ tation between, t w o m e c h a n i s m s and t w o t y p e s of discourse t h a t are absolutely heterogeneous: on the one hand, the organization of right around sovereignty, and on the other, the mechanics of the coercions exercised by disciplines. In our day, it is the fact that p o w e r is e x ­ ercised t h r o u g h both right and disciplines, that the techniques of discipline and discourses born of discipline are invading right, and that normalizing procedures are increasingly colonizing the proce-

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1970

39

d u r e s of the l a w , that might e x p l a i n the overall w o r k i n g s of w h a t I would call a " n o r m a l i z i n g society." To b e m o r e specific, w h a t I mean is t h i s : I t h i n k that normalization, that d i s c i p l i n a r y normalizations, a r e i n c r e a s i n g l y in conflict w i t h the juridical s y s t e m of sovereignty; the i n c o m p a t i b i l i t y of the two is i n ­ creasingly apparent; t h e r e is a greater a n d greater need for a sort of arbitrating discourse, for a sort of power a n d k n o w l e d g e that has been rendered neutral because its scientificity h a s become sacred. A n d it is precisely in the expansion

of m e d i c i n e that w e a r e seeing—I

w o u l d n ' t call it a combination of, a reduction of—but a perpetual exchange or confrontation

between the mechanics of discipline and

the principle of right. The development of medicine, the general m e d lcahzation of behavior, modes of conduct, discourses, d e s i r e s , a n d so on, is t a k i n g place on the front w h e r e the heterogeneous l a y e r s of discipline a n d sovereignty meet. T h a t is w h y w e now find ourselves in a situation w h e r e the only existing a n d a p p a r e n t l y solid recourse w e have against the u s u r p a t i o n s of d i s c i p l i n a r y mechanics a n d a g a i n s t the rise of a p o w e r that is b o u n d up w i t h scientific k n o w l e d g e is precisely a recourse or a r e t u r n to a right that is o r g a n i z e d around sovereignty, or that is a r t i c u l a t e d on that old p r i n c i p l e . Which means in concrete terms that when w e w a n t to make some objection against d i s c i p l i n e s and all the k n o w l e d g e effects and power-effects that are b o u n d u p w i t h t h e m , w h a t do w e do in concrete terms? W h a t do w e do in real life? W h a t do

the

Syndicat de la m a g i s t r a t u r e a n d other institutions like it d o ? W h a t do w e do? W e obviously invoke r i g h t , the famous old formal, b o u r ­ geois right. A n d it is in reality the right of sovereignty. A n d I t h i n k that at t h i s point w e a r e in a sort ol b o t t l e n e c k , t h a t w e cannot go on w o r k i n g l i k e this forever; having recourse to sovereignty against discipline will not e n a b l e us to limit the effects ol disciplinary p o w e r . Sovereignty and d i s c i p l i n e , legislation, the right of sovereignty and disciplinary mechanics are in fact the t w o things that constitute—in an absolute sense—the general mechanisms of p o w e r in our society. Truth to tell, if w e a r e to struggle against d i s c i p l i n e s , or rather against disciplinary power, in our search for a n o n d i s c i p l i n a r y power, w e

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should not be turning to the old right of sovereignty; w e should be looking for a new right that is b o t h a n t i d i s c i p h n a r y and emancipated from the principle of sovereignty. A t this point w e come back to the notion of "repression." I may talk to you about that next time, unless I have had enough of r e ­ peating things that have a l r e a d y been said, and move on immediately to other things to do w i t h w a r . If I feel like it and if I can be bothered to, I will talk to you about the notion of "repression," w h i c h h a s , I t h i n k , the twofold

disadvantage, in the use that is made of it, of

m a k i n g obscure reference to a certain theory of sovereignty—the t h e ­ ory of the sovereign rights of the i n d i v i d u a l — a n d of b r i n g i n g into play, w h e n it is used, a whole set of psychological references b o r r o w e d from the h u m a n sciences, or in other w o r d s from discourses and p r a c ­ tices that relate to the d i s c i p l i n a r y domain. I think that the notion of " r e p r e s s i o n " is still, whatever critical use w e t r y to m a k e of it, a ( u r i d i c o - d i s c i p h n a r y notion; and to that extent the critical use of the notion of "repression" is t a i n t e d , spoiled, and rotten from the outset because it implies both a juridical reference to sovereignty and a d i s ­ c i p l i n a r y reference to normalization. N e x t time, I will either talk to you about repression or move on to the problem of w a r .

14 January

7976

41

1. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Common-Wealth Eidesiasticai/ and Civill { London, 1651). The I-a tin translation of the text, which was in fact a new version, was published in Amsterdam in 1 6 6 8 . 2. Foucault is alluding to the famous frontispiece to the "Head" edition of Leviathan pub­ lished by Andrew Crooke. It depicts the bodv of a state constituted bv its subjects, with the head representing the sovereign, who holds a sword in one hand and a crosier in the other. The basic attributes of civil and ecclesiastical power are depicted below it. 3- Wilhelm Reich, Der Einbruch der Sexua/moraL 4. Reimut Reich, Sexualitdt und Klassenkampf: %ur Abwehr rtpressiver Ensublimierung ( Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Neue Kntik, 1 9 6 8 ) (French translation: Sexualiteet lutte de classe [Pans: Maspero, 1 9 6 9 ] ) . 5. The thirteen parlements of the Ancien Regime were high courts of appeal and had no legislative powers, though the parlement de Paris did attempt to usurp such powers. [Trans. ] 6. The reference is to the "Napoleonic codes," or in other words the Code civil of 1804, the Code d e s t r u c t i o n criminelle of 1808, and the Code penal of 1810.

three

21 J A N U A R Y 1 9 7 6

Theory

of sovereignty

analyzer |

society.

and operators

of power

relations.

- Historico-political

of domination.

- The binary

discourse,

- War as

structure

the discourse

of

J. ¥

of perpetual

\

is..

war. - The dialectic

and its codifications.

struggle

and its

- The discourse

of race

!•

transcriptions.

L A S T T I M E , W E S A I D a sort of farewell to the theory of s o v e r e i g n t y

insofar as it could—and can—be described as a method for a n a l y z i n g p o w e r relations. I w o u l d l i k e to show you that the j u r i d i c a l model of sovereignty w a s not, I believe, a b l e to provide a concrete a n a l y s i s of t h e m u l t i p l i c i t y of p o w e r relations. In fact, it seems to me—to s u m it all u p in a few w o r d s , in t h r e e w o r d s to be precise—that the t h e o r y of sovereignty necessarily tries to establish w h a t I w o u l d c a l l a c y c l e — the subject-to-subject c y c l e — a n d to show h o w a subject—understood as m e a n i n g an i n d i v i d u a l who is n a t u r a l l y e n d o w e d ( o r e n d o w e d by n a t u r e ) w i t h rights, capabilities, and so on—can and m u s t become a subject, this time in the sense of an element that is subjectified in a power relationship. Sovereignty is the theory that goes from subject to subject, that e s t a b l i s h e s the political relationship b e t w e e n subject and subject. Second, it seems to me that the theory of sovereignty assumes from the outset the existence of a m u l t i p l i c i t y of p o w e r s that are not p o w e r s in the political sense of the term; they are capacities, possibilities, potentials, and it can constitute them as p o w e r s in the political sense of the t e r m only if it h a s in the meantime established

44

"SOCIETY

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

a moment of fundamental and foundational unity between possibilities a n d p o w e r s , n a m e l y the u n i t y of power. W h e t h e r this u n i t y of power t a k e s on the face of the monarch or the form of the State is irrelevant; the various forms, aspects, mechanisms, and institutions ol p o w e r will be derived from this u n i t a r y power. T h e m u l t i p l i c i t y of powers, in the sense of political p o w e r s , can be established a n d can function only on the b a s i s of this u n i t a r y p o w e r , w h i c h is founded by the theory of sovereignty. Third and finally, it seems to me that the theory of sovereignty shows, or attempts to show, how a power can be consti­ tuted, not e x a c t l y in accordance w i t h the law, but in accordance w i t h a certain basic legitimacy that is more basic than any law and that allows l a w s to function as such. The theory of sovereignty is, in other w o r d s , the subject-to-subject

cycle, the cycle of power and powers,

and the cycle of legitimacy and l a w . So we can say that in one w a y or another—and depending, obviously, upon the different theoretical schemata in which it is deployed—the theory of sovereignty p r e s u p ­ poses the subject; its goal is to establish the essential u n i t y of power, and it is a l w a y s deployed w i t h i n the preexisting element of the l a w . It therefore

assumes the existence of three " p r i m i t i v e " elements: a

subject who has to be subjectified, the unity of the p o w e r that has to be founded, and the legitimacy that has to be respected. Subject, u n i ­ t a r y p o w e r , and l a w : the theory of sovereignty comes into play, I think, among these elements, and it both takes them as given and tries to found them. M y project—which I i m m e d i a t e l y abandoned— w a s to show you how the instrument that politico-psychological anal­ ysis a c q u i r e d almost three or four h u n d r e d y e a r s a g o , or in other w o r d s the notion of repression—which does look, rather, as though it w a s b o r r o w e d from Freudianism or F r e u d o - M a r x i s m — w a s in fact inscribed in an interpretation

of p o w e r as sovereignty. To do that

would, however, take us back over things that have already been said, so I w i l l move on, though I m a y come back to this at the end of the y e a r if w e have enough time left. The general project, both in previous vears and this vear, is to trv to release or emancipate this a n a l v s i s of power from three assump-

21 January

1976

45

tions—of subject, unity, and l a w — a n d to b r i n g out, r a t h e r than these basic elements of sovereignty, what I w o u l d call relations or operators of domination. R a t h e r than d e r i v i n g p o w e r s from sovereignty, we should be e x t r a c t i n g operators of domination from relations of power, both historically a n d e m p i r i c a l l y . A theory of domination, of domi­ n a t i o n s , r a t h e r than a theory of sovereignty: this means t h a t rather than starting w i t h the subject ( o r even s u b j e c t s ) a n d elements that exist prior to the relationship a n d that can be localized, we begin w i t h the power relationship itself, w i t h the a c t u a l or effective rela­ tionship of domination, and see how that relationship itself d e t e r ­ mines the e l e m e n t s to w h i c h it is a p p l i e d . W e should not, therefore, be a s k i n g subjects how, w h y , and by w h a t right they can agree to being subjugated, b u t showing how actual relations of subjugation manufacture subjects. Our second task should be to reveal relations of domination, a n d to allow them to assert themselves in their m u l ­ tiplicity, their differences, their specificity, or their r e v e r s i b i l i t y ; w e s h o u l d not be l o o k i n g for a sort of sovereignty from w h i c h p o w e r s spring, but showing how the v a r i o u s operators of d o m i n a t i o n s u p p o r t one another, r e l a t e to one another, at how they converge a n d reinforce one another in some cases, and negate or strive to annul one another in other cases. I am obviously not saying that great a p p a r a t u s e s of p o w e r do not exist, or t h a t we can neither g e t at them nor d e s c r i b e them. But I do t h i n k that they a l w a y s function on the basis of these a p p a r a t u s e s of domination. To put it in more concrete terms, we can obviously describe a given society's school a p p a r a t u s or its set of ed­ ucational a p p a r a t u s e s , b u t I think that w e can analyze them effectively only if w e do not see them as an overall u n i t y , onlv if w e do not try to derive t h e m from s o m e t h i n g like the S t a t i s t unity of sovereignty. W e can analyze them only if w e try to see how they interact, how they support one another, a n d how t h i s a p p a r a t u s defines a certain n u m b e r of global strategies on the basis of multiple subjugations ( of child to a d u l t , progeny to parents, ignorance to k n o w l e d g e , apprentice to master, family to a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , a n d so o n ) . All these mechanisms a n d operators of domination are the actual plinth of the global a p -

"SOCIETY

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

p a r a t u s that is the school a p p a r a t u s . So, if you like, w e have to see the structures of power as global strategies that traverse and use local tactics ol domination. Third a n d finally, revealing relations of domination rather than the source of sovereignty m e a n s this: W e do not t r y to trace their origins back to that w h i c h gives them t h e i r basic legitimacy. W e have to try, on the contrary, to identify the technical i n s t r u m e n t s t h a t guarantee that they function. So to s u m up and to, if not settle the issue for the moment, at least clarify it somewhat: Rather than looking at the three p r e r e q u i s i t e s of l a w , u n i t y , a n d subject—which m a k e s o v e r e i g n t y both the source of p o w e r and the basis of institutions—I t h i n k t h a t w e have to adopt the threefold point of v i e w of the techniques, the het­ erogeneity of t e c h n i q u e s , and the subjugation-effects that m a k e tech­ nologies of domination the real fabric of both power relations and the g r e a t a p p a r a t u s e s of power. The manufacture of subjects r a t h e r than the genesis of the sovereign: that is our general theme. But w h i l e it is q u i t e clear that relations of domination provide the access road that leads to the analysis of power, how can we analyze these relations of d o m i n a t i o n ? W h i l e it is true that w e should be studying domination a n d not sovereignty, or rather that w e should be s t u d y i n g d o m i n a t i o n s a n d operators of domination, how can w e pursue our analysis of r e ­ l a t i o n s of d o m i n a t i o n ? To w h a t e x t e n t can a relationship of domi­ nation boil d o w n to or be r e d u c e d to the notion of a relationship of force? To w h a t extent a n d h o w can the r e l a t i o n s h i p of force be r e ­ d u c e d to a relationship of w a r ? That i s , so to speak, the p r e l i m i n a r y question I w o u l d like to look at a bit t h i s year: C a n w a r r e a l l y provide a v a l i d analysis of power relations, and can it act as a m a t r i x for techniques of d o m i n a t i o n ? You m i g h t say to me that we cannot, from the outset, confuse power relations w i t h relations of w a r . Of course not. I am s i m p l y t a k i n g an e x t r e m e [ c a s e ] to the e x t e n t that w a r can be r e g a r d e d as the point ol m a x i m u m tension, or a s force-relations laid bare. Is the p o w e r relationship basically a relationship of confrontation, a struggle to the death, or a w a r ? If we look beneath peace, order, w e a l t h , and a u ­ thority, beneath the calm order of subordinations, beneath the State

2 J January

79/6

and State apparatuses, beneath the l a w s , and so on, will w e hear and discover a sort of p r i m i t i v e and permanent w a r ? I would like to begin by a s k i n g t h i s question, not forgetting that we will also have to raise a w h o l e series of other questions. I w i l l t r y to deal w i t h them in vears to come. A s a first a p p r o x i m a t i o n , w e can simplv say that they include the following questions. C a n the p h e n o m e n o n of w a r be regarded a s p r i m a r y w i t h respect to other r e l a t i o n s ( r e l a t i o n s of i n e q u a l i t y , d i s ­ s y m m e t r i e s , divisions of labor, relations of exploitation, et c e t e r a ) ? M u s t i t be r e g a r d e d as p r i m a r y ? C a n w e and must w e group together in the general mechanism, the general form, k n o w n a s w a r , p h e n o m ­ ena such as antagonism, r i v a l r y , confrontation, and struggles b e t w e e n i n d i v i d u a l s , g r o u p s , or classes? W e m i g h t also ask w h e t h e r

notions

derived from w h a t w a s k n o w n in the eighteenth c e n t u r y and even the nineteenth century as the art of w a r ( s t r a t e g y , tactics, et c e t e r a ) constitute in themselves a v a l i d and a d e q u a t e i n s t r u m e n t for the a n a l ­ ysis of p o w e r r e l a t i o n s . W e could, and must, also ask ourselves if m i l i t a r y institutions, a n d the practices that s u r r o u n d t h e m — a n d in more general t e r m s all the t e c h n i q u e s that are used to fight a w a r — are, whichever w a y w e look at them, directly or indirectly, the nucleus of political institutions. A n d finally, the first question I w o u l d like to s t u d y this year is this: H o w , w h e n , and w h y w a s it noticed or i m a g ­ ined that w h a t is going on beneath and in power relations is a w a r ? W h e n , how, and w h y d i d someone come u p w i t h the idea that it is a sort of u n i n t e r r u p t e d

battle that shapes peace, and that the civil

o r d e r — i t s b a s i s , its essence, its essential mechanisms—is basically a n o r d e r of b a t t l e ? W h o came u p w i t h the i d e a that the civil order is an order of b a t t l e ? [ . . . ] Who s a w w a r just beneath the surface of peace; w h o sought in t h e noise and confusion of w a r , in t h e m u d of battles, t h e principle that a l l o w s u s to u n d e r s t a n d order, t h e State, its institutions, and its h i s t o r y ? That, then, i s the question I am g o i n g to p u r s u e a bit in coming lectures, a n d p e r h a p s for the rest of the year. Basically, the question can be put very simply, a n d that is how I b e g a n to put it mvself: Who, basically, had the idea of i n v e r t i n g C l a u s e w i t z ' s principle, and who thought of saying: "It is quite possible that w a r is the continu-

SOCIETY

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

ation of politics by other means, b u t isn't politics itself a continuation of w a r by other m e a n s ? " N o w I think that the problem is not so much w h o inverted C l a u s e w i t z ' s p r i n c i p l e as it is the question of the p r i n c i p l e C l a u s e w i t z inverted, or rather of w h o formulated the p r i n ­ ciple C l a u s e w i t z i n v e r t e d w h e n he s a i d : "But, after all, w a r is no more than a continuation of politics." I in fact t h i n k — a n d will a t t e m p t to prove—that

the p r i n c i p l e that w a r is a continuation of politics by

other means w a s a p r i n c i p l e that existed long before C l a u s e w i t z , w h o simply inverted a sort of thesis that had been in circulation since the seventeenth a n d eighteenth centuries and w h i c h w a s both diffuse and specific. So: Politics is the continuation of w a r by other m e a n s . T h i s thesis— and the very existence of this thesis, which predates C l a u s e w i t z — contains a sort of historical p a r a d o x . W e can indeed say, schematically and s o m e w h a t crudely, that w i t h the g r o w t h and development of States t h r o u g h o u t the M i d d l e A g e s and u p to the threshold of the modern era, w e see the practices and institutions of w a r undergoing a m a r k e d , very visible change, which can be characterized thus: The practices and institutions of w a r were initially concentrated

in the

hand of a central power; it g r a d u a l l y t r a n s p i r e d that in both de facto and de jure terms, only State powers could wage w a r s and manipulate the instruments of war. The State acquired a monopoly on w a r . The i m m e d i a t e effect of this State monopoly w a s that w h a t might be called d a y - t o day warfare, and w h a t w a s actually called "private warfare," w a s eradicated from the social body, and from relations among men a n d relations among groups. Increasingly, w a r s , the practices of w a r , and the institutions of w a r tended to exist, so to speak, only on the frontiers, on the outer limits of the g r e a t State units, and only as a violent relationship—that

actually existed or threatened to exist—

between States. But g r a d u a l l y , the entire social body w a s cleansed of the bellicose relations that had permeated it through and

through

during the M i d d l e Ages. So, t h a n k s to the establishment of this State monopoly and to the fact that w a r w a s now, so to speak, a practice that functioned only at the outer l i m i t s of the State, it tended to become the technical and

21 January

7976

49

professional prerogative of a carefully defined a n d controlled m i l i t a r y a p p a r a t u s . This led, broadly speaking, to the emergence of something that d i d not exist as such in the M i d d l e A g e s : the army as institution. It is only at the end of the M i d d l e A g e s t h a t w e see the emergence of a State e n d o w e d w i t h m i l i t a r y institutions that replace both the d a y - t o - d a y and g e n e r a l i z e d practice of w a r f a r e , and a society that w a s perpetually traversed by relations of w a r . W e w i l l have to come back to this development, but I think w e can accept it as at least a first historical hypothesis. So w h e r e is the p a r a d o x ? The p a r a d o x arises at the very moment w h e n this transformation occurs ( o r p e r h a p s i m m e d i a t e l y a f t e r w a r d ) . W h e n w a r w a s expelled to the l i m i t s of the State, or w a s b o t h cen­ t r a l i z e d in practice a n d confined to the frontier, a certain discourse a p p e a r e d . A new discourse, a strange discourse. It w a s new, because it w a s , I think,

the

first

historico-political discourse

first, on

society, and it w a s very different from t h e philosophico-juridical d i s ­ course that had been habitually spoken u n t i l then. A n d the historicopolitical discourse t h a t a p p e a r e d at this m o m e n t w a s also a discourse on w a r , w h i c h w a s understood to be a p e r m a n e n t social relationship, the ineradicable b a s i s of all relations a n d institutions of p o w e r . A n d w h a t is the date of b i r t h of this historico-political discourse that m a k e s w a r the basis of social relations? S y m p t o m a t i c a l l y , it seems, I t h i n k — a n d I w i l l try to prove this to you—to be after the end of t h e civil a n d religious w a r s of t h e s i x t e e n t h century. T h e a p p e a r a n c e of this discourse i s , then, by no means the product of a history or a n analysis of t h e c i v i l w a r s of t h e s i x t e e n t h century. On t h e contrary, it w a s already, if not constituted, at least clearly formulated at the beginning of the g r e a t political s t r u g g l e s of seventeenth-century

En

gland, at the time of the English bourgeois revolution. W e then see it reappear in France at the end of the seventeenth century, at the end of the reign of Louis XIV, and in other political struggles—let us say, the r e a r g u a r d struggle w a g e d by the French aristocracy against the establishment of the great a b s o l u t e - a d m i n i s t r a t i v e monarchy. So you see, the discourse was i m m e d i a t e l y a m b i g u o u s . In England it w a s one of the instruments used in bourgeois, p e t i t bourgeois—and s o m e -

"SOCIETY

50

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

times p o p u l a r — s t r u g g l e s a n d polemics against the absolute monarchy, a n d it w a s a tool for political organization. It w a s also an aristocratic discourse directed against that same monarchy. Those w h o spoke this discourse often bore names t h a t w e r e at once obscure and heteroge­ neous. In England w e find people such a s E d w a r d Coke

1

or J o h n

2

L i l b u r n e , w h o r e p r e s e n t e d p o p u l a r movements; in France, too, w e find names such a s those of B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s , ' Freret,'' a n d a gentleman from the Massif C e n t r a l called the Comte d'Estaing. course w a s then t a k e n up b y Sieyes, gustus Thierry," a n d C o u r t e t .

9

And,

6

5

The same d i s ­

but also by Buonarroti, finally,

7

Au­

y o u w i l l find it in the

racist biologists a n d eugenicists of the late nineteenth c e n t u r y . It is a sophisticated discourse, a scientific discourse, an erudite discourse spoken by people w i t h dust in t h e i r eyes a n d dust on their

fingers,

b u t it is also—as y o u w i l l see—a discourse that certainly h a d an i m ­ mense n u m b e r of p o p u l a r a n d a n o n y m o u s s p e a k e r s . W h a t is this d i s ­ course s a y i n g ? W e l l , I t h i n k it is saying this: N o

matter

what

p h i l o s o p h i c o - j u r i d i c a l theory may say, political p o w e r does not begin w h e n t h e w a r ends. The organization a n d j u r i d i c a l structure of power, of States, monarchies, a n d societies, does not emerge w h e n the clash of a r m s ceases. W a r has not been averted. W a r obviously p r e s i d e d over the b i r t h of States: right, peace, a n d l a w s w e r e born in the blood a n d m u d of battles. This should not be t a k e n to mean the ideal b a t t l e s a n d r i v a l r i e s d r e a m e d u p by philosophers or jurists: w e are not t a l k i n g about some theoretical savagery. The l a w is not born of n a t u r e , a n d it w a s not born n e a r the fountains that the first shepherds frequented: the l a w is born of real b a t t l e s , victories, massacres, a n d conquests w h i c h can b e d a t e d a n d w h i c h have their horrific heroes; the l a w w a s born in b u r n i n g towns and ravaged fields. It w a s born together w i t h the famous innocents w h o d i e d at b r e a k of d a y . This does not, h o w e v e r , m e a n that society, the l a w , a n d t h e State are l i k e a r m i s t i c e s that p u t a n end to w a r s , or that they are the products of definitive victories. L a w is not pacification, for b e n e a t h the l a w , w a r continues to rage in all the mechanisms of power, even in the most r e g u l a r . W a r is t h e motor b e h i n d i n s t i t u t i o n s a n d order. In the smallest of its cogs, peace is w a g i n g a secret w a r . To p u t it

21 January

1976

51

another w a y , w e have to i n t e r p r e t the w a r that i s going on b e n e a t h peace; peace itself is a coded w a r . W e are therefore at w a r w i t h one another; a battlefront r u n s through the w h o l e of society, continuously a n d permanently, a n d it is this battlefront that p u t s us all on one side or the other. There is no such t h i n g as a neutral subject. W e are all inevitably someone's adversary. A binary structure r u n s t h r o u g h society. A n d h e r e you see the emergence of s o m e t h i n g I w i l l t r y to come back to, as it is very i m ­ portant. The great p y r a m i d a l description t h a t the M i d d l e A g e s or philosophico-pohtical

t h e o r i e s gave of the social b o d y , the

great

image of the organism or the h u m a n b o d y p a i n t e d by H o b b e s , or even the t e r n a r y organization ( t h e three orders} t h a t prevailed in France ( a n d to a certain e x t e n t a n u m b e r of other countries in Eu­ rope} a n d w h i c h continued to a r t i c u l a t e a certain n u m b e r of d i s ­ courses, or in a n y case m o s t i n s t i t u t i o n s , is b e i n g challenged b y a b i n a r y conception of society. This had h a p p e n e d before, but this is the first t i m e the b i n a r y conception

has been a r t i c u l a t e d w i t h a

specific history. T h e r e are t w o g r o u p s , t w o categories of i n d i v i d u a l s , or t w o a r m i e s , a n d they are opposed to each other. A n d

beneath

the l a p s e s of m e m o r y , t h e i l l u s i o n s , a n d t h e l i e s t h a t w o u l d h a v e us believe that there is a t e r n a r y order, a p y r a m i d of s u b o r d i n a t i o n s , beneath the lies that w o u l d have us b e l i e v e that the social body is governed by either natural necessities or functional

demands, w e

must rediscover the w a r that is still g o i n g on, w a r w i t h all i t s a c ­ cidents a n d i n c i d e n t s . W h y do w e h a v e to r e d i s c o v e r w a r ? W e l l , because t h i s ancient w a r i s a [ . . . ] p e r m a n e n t w a r . W e really d o have to become e x p e r t s on b a t t l e s , because t h e w a r h a s not e n d e d , because p r e p a r a t i o n s a r e still b e i n g m a d e for the decisive b a t t l e s , a n d because w e h a v e to w i n the decisive b a t t l e . In other w o r d s , t h e enemies w h o face us s t i l l pose a t h r e a t to u s , and it is not

some

reconciliation or pacification t h a t w i l l a l l o w us to b r i n g the w a r to an end. It w i l l end only to the e x t e n t that w e really a r e the victors. That is a first, a n d obviously v e r y v a g u e , characterization of t h i s t y p e of discourse. I t h i n k that, even on this b a s i s , w e can b e g a n to understand w h y it is important. It i s , I t h i n k , i m p o r t a n t b e c a u s e it is

52

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DEFENDED"

the first discourse in postmedieval Western society that can be strictly described as being historico-political. First because the subject who speaks in this discourse, who says "I" or "we," cannot, and is in fact not trying to, occupy the position of the jurist or the philosopher, or in other words the position of a universal, totalizing, or neutral sub­ ject. In the general struggle he is talking about, the person who is speaking, telling the truth, recounting the story, rediscovering mem­ ories and trying not to forget anything, well, that person is inevitably on one side or the other: he is involved in the battle, has adversaries, and is working toward a particular victory. Of course, he speaks the discourse of right, asserts a right and demands a right. But what he is demanding and asserting is "his" rights—he says: "We have a right." These are singular rights, and they are strongly marked by a rela­ tionship of property, conquest, victory, or nature. It might be the right of his family or race, the right of superiority or seniority, the right of triumphal invasions, or the right of recent or ancient occu­ pations. In all cases, it is a right that is both grounded in history and decentered from a juridical universality. And if this subject

who

speaks of right (or rather, rights} is speaking the truth, that t r u t h is no longer the universal truth of the philosopher. It is true that this discourse about the general war, this discourse that tries to interpret the war beneath peace, is indeed an attempt to describe the battle as a whole and to reconstruct the general course of the war. But that does not make it a totalizing or neutral discourse; it is always a perspectival discourse. It is interested in the totality only to the extent that it can see it in one-sided terms, distort it and see it from its own point of view. The truth is, in other words, a truth that can be de­ ployed only from its combat position, from the perspective of the sought for victory and ultimately, so to speak, of the survival of the speaking subject himself. This discourse established a basic link between relations of force and relations oi truth. This also means that the identification of truth with peace or neutrality, or with the median position which, as JeanPierre Vernant has clearly demonstrated, was, at least from a certain point onward, a constituent element of Greek philosophy, is being

21 January

19 76

0

dissolved.' In a discourse such as this, being on one side and not the other means that you are in a better position to speak the truth. It is the fact of being on one side—the decentered position—that makes it possible to interpret the truth, to denounce the illusions and errors that are being used—by your adversaries—to make you believe we are living in a world in which order and peace have been restored. "The more I decenter myself, the better I can see the truth; the more I accentuate the relationship of force, and the harder I fight, the more effectively I can deploy the truth ahead of me and use it to fight, survive, and win." And conversely, if the relationship of force sets truth free, the truth in its turn will come into play—and will, ulti­ mately, be sought—only insofar as it can indeed become a weapon within the relationship of force. Either the truth makes you stronger, or the truth shifts the balance, accentuates the dissymmetries, and finally gives the victory to one side rather than the other. Truth is an additional force, and it can be deployed only on the basis of a rela­ tionship of force. The fact that the truth is essentially part of a re­ lationship of force, of dissymmetry, decentering, combat, and war, is inscribed in this type of discourse. Ever since Greek

philosophy,

philosophico-juridical discourse has a l w a y s worked with the assump tion of a pacified universality, but it is now being seriously called into question or, quite simply, cynically ignored. We have a historical and political discourse—and it is in that sense that it is historically anchored and politically decentered—that lays a claim to truth and legitimate right on the basis of a relationship of force, and in order to develop that very relationship of force by therefore excluding the speaking subject—the subject who speaks of right and seeks the truth—from

juridico-philosophical universality.

The role of the person who is speaking is therefore not the role of the legislator or the philosopher who belongs to neither side, a figure of peace and armistices who occupies the position dreamed of by Solon and that Kant was still dreaming of." Establishing oneself be­ tween the adversaries, in the center and above them, imposing one general law on all and founding a reconcihatory order: that is precisely what this is not about. It is, rather, about establishing a right marked

54

"SOCIETY MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

by d i s s y m m e t r y , establishing a t r u t h bound u p w i t h a relationship of force, a t r u t h - w e a p o n a n d a singular right. The subject w h o i s speak ing is—1 w o u l d n ' t

even say a polemical subject—a subject w h o is

fighting a w a r . This is one of the first points that makes a discourse of this type important,

and it certainly introduced a rift into

the

discourse of truth and l a w that had been spoken for thousands of years, for over a thousand y e a r s . Second, t h i s is a discourse t h a t inverts the v a l u e s , the e q u i l i b r i u m , and the traditional polarities of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y , a n d w h i c h posits, d e ­ m a n d s , an explanation from b e l o w . But in this explanation, the " b e ­ low" is not necessarily w h a t is clearest and simplest. Explaining things from below also means e x p l a i n i n g them in terms of what is most confused, most obscure, most disorderly a n d most subject to chance, because what is b e i n g put forward as a p r i n c i p l e for the interpretation of society and its visible order is the confusion of violence, passions, hatreds, r a g e s , resentments, a n d bitterness; a n d it is the obscurity of contingencies and all the minor incidents that b r i n g about defeats a n d ensure victories. This discourse is essentially a s k i n g the elliptical god of battles to e x p l a i n the long d a y s of order, labor, peace, and justice. Fury is being asked to e x p l a i n calm and order. So w h a t is the principle t h a t e x p l a i n s h i s t o r y ? * First, a series of b r u t e facts, w h i c h might a l r e a d y be d e s c r i b e d as physico-biological facts: physical strength, force, energy, the proliferation of one race, the w e a k n e s s of the other, a n d so on. A series of accidents, or at least contingencies: defeats, victories, the failure or success of rebellions, the failure or success of conspiracies or alliances; and finally, a b u n d l e of psychological and moral elements ( c o u r a g e , fear, scorn, hatred, forgetfulness, et c e t e r a ) . I n t e r t w i n i n g

bodies, passions, and accidents:

according to this discourse, that is w h a t constitutes the

permanent

w e b of historv and societies. A n d something fragile and superficial will be b u i l t on top ol this w e b of bodies, accidents, and passions, this seething mass which is sometimes murky a n d sometimes bloody: a growing rationality. The rationality of calculations, strategies, and

*The manuscript has "and right."

21 January

1976

55

ruses; the r a t i o n a l i t y of technical procedures that are used to perpet­ uate the victory, to silence, or so it w o u l d seem, the w a r , a n d to preserve or invert the r e l a t i o n s h i p of force. This i s , then, a r a t i o n a l i t y w h i c h , as w e move u p w a r d a n d as it develops, w i l l basically be more and more abstract, more a n d more b o u n d u p w i t h fragility a n d i l ­ l u s i o n s , a n d also more closely b o u n d u p w i t h the c u n n i n g a n d w i c k ­ edness of those w h o have won a t e m p o r a r y victory. A n d g i v e n that the r e l a t i o n s h i p of domination w o r k s to their a d v a n t a g e , it is c e r t a i n l y not in their interest to call any of t h i s into question. In this schema, w e have, then, an ascending a x i s w h i c h is, I b e l i e v e , v e r y different, in t e r m s of the v a l u e s it d i s t r i b u t e s , from the t r a d i t i o n a l a x i s . W e h a v e an axis based u p o n a fundamental a n d p e r m a n e n t i r ­ rationality, a crude a n d n a k e d i r r a t i o n a l i t y , b u t w h i c h proclaims t h e t r u t h ; and, higher u p , w e have a fragile r a t i o n a l i t y , a t r a n s i t o r y r a ­ tionality w h i c h is a l w a y s c o m p r o m i s e d a n d b o u n d u p w i t h i l l u s i o n a n d w i c k e d n e s s . Reason is on the side of w i l d d r e a m s , cunning, a n d the w i c k e d . A t the opposite end of the a x i s , y o u have an e l e m e n t a r y b r u t a l i t y : a collection of d e e d s , acts, and passions, a n d cynical rage in a l l its n u d i t y . T r u t h i s therefore on the side of unreason a n d b r u t a l i t y ; reason, on the other h a n d , is on the side of w i l d d r e a m s a n d w i c k ­ edness. Q u i t e the opposite, then, of the d i s c o u r s e t h a t h a d u n t i l n o w been u s e d to e x p l a i n right a n d history. That d i s c o u r s e ' s a t t e m p t s at e x p l a n a t i o n consisted in e x t r a c t i n g from all these superficial a n d v i ­ olent accidents, w h i c h are l i n k e d to e r r o r , a basic a n d

permanent

rationality w h i c h is, by its v e r y essence, b o u n d u p w i t h fairness a n d the good. The e x p l a n a t o r y a x i s of the l a w a n d history has, I believe, been inverted. The t h i r d reason w h y the t y p e of discourse I w o u l d l i k e to a n a l y z e a bit this y e a r is i m p o r t a n t i s , y o u see, t h a t it is a discourse t h a t d e v e l o p s completely w i t h i n the h i s t o r i c a l dimension. It is d e p l o y e d w i t h i n a h i s t o r y t h a t h a s no b o u n d a r i e s , no end, a n d no l i m i t s . In a discourse like this, the drabness of history cannot be regarded as a superficial given that has to be r e o r d e r e d about a few basic, stable p r i n c i p l e s . It is not i n t e r e s t e d in p a s s i n g j u d g m e n t on unjust govern­ ments, or on crimes a n d acts of violence, by referring them to a certain

56

"SOCIETY

MUST

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DEFENDED

ideal schema ( t h a t of natural law, the w i l l of God, basic p r i n c i p l e s , a n d so o n ) . On the contrary, it is interested in defining and discov­ ering, beneath the forms of justice that have been instituted, the order that h a s been imposed, the forgotten

past of real struggles, actual

victories, and defeats which may have been disguised but w h i c h r e ­ main profoundly inscribed. It is interested in rediscovering the blood that h a s d r i e d in the codes, a n d not, therefore, the absolute right that lies beneath the transience of history; it is interested not in referring the relativity of history to the absolute of the l a w , but in discovering, beneath the s t a b i l i t y of the law or the t r u t h , the indefiniteness of history. It is interested in the battle cries that can be heard beneath the formulas of r i g h t , in the d i s s y m m e t r y of forces that lies beneath the e q u i l i b r i u m of justice. W i t h i n a historical field that cannot even be said to be a relative field, as it does not relate to any absolute, it is the indefiniteness of history that is in a sense being " i r r e l a t i v i z e d . " It is the indefiniteness of its eternal, the eternal dissolution into the m e c h a n i s m s and e v e n t s k n o w n as force, power, and w a r . You might t h i n k — a n d this is, I t h i n k , another reason w h y this discourse is important—that

this must be a sad, gloomy discourse, a

discourse for nostalgic aristocrats or scholars in a l i b r a r y . It is in fact a discourse w h i c h has, ever since it began and until very late in the nineteenth century, and even the t w e n t i e t h , also been supported by very t r a d i t i o n a l m y t h i c a l forms, and it is often invested in those forms. This

discourse

twins

subtle

knowledge

and

myths

that

are—I

w o u l d n ' t say crude, but they are basic, clumsy, and overloaded. W e can, after all, easily see how a discourse of this type can be articulated ( a n d , as you will see, w a s actually a r t i c u l a t e d ) w i t h a whole m y ­ thology: [the lost age of great ancestors, the imminence of n e w times and a m i l l e n a r y revenge, the coming of the new k i n g d o m that w i l l w i p e out the defeats of o l d ] . ' ' T h i s mythology t e l l s of how the v i c ­ tories of g i a n t s h a v e g r a d u a l l y been forgotten and b u r i e d , of the t w i ­ l i g h t of the g o d s , of how heroes w e r e w o u n d e d or died, and of how k i n g s fell asleep in inaccessible caves. W e also have the theme of the rights and privileges of the earliest race, w h i c h w e r e flouted by cun­ ning invaders, the theme of the w a r that is still going on in secret, of

21 January

1976

57

the plot that has to be r e v i v e d so a s to r e k i n d l e t h a t w a r a n d to d r i v e out the invaders or enemies; the t h e m e of the famous battle that w i l l t a k e place t o m o r r o w , t h a t w i l l at last i n v e r t the relationship of force, a n d transform the v a n q u i s h e d into v i c t o r s w h o will k n o w a n d show no mercy. Throughout the whole of the M i d d l e A g e s , a n d even l a t e r , the theme of perpetual w a r will be related to the g r e a t , u n d y i n g hope that the d a y of revenge is at hand, to the expectation of the emperor of the last vears, the dux novus,

the n e w leader, the new g u i d e , the

n e w Ftihrer; the idea of the fifth m o n a r c h y , the t h i r d e m p i r e or the T h i r d Reich, the man w h o w i l l be both the beast of the A p o c a l y p s e a n d the savior of the poor. It's the r e t u r n of A l e x a n d e r , w h o got lost in India; the r e t u r n , e x p e c t e d for so long in England, of E d w a r d the Confessor;

i t ' s the t w o Fredericks—Barbarossa a n d F r e d e r i c k

II—

w a i t i n g in their caves for their people a n d t h e i r e m p i r e s to r e a w a k e n ; it's C h a r l e m a g n e sleeping in his tomb, and w h o will w a k e u p to revive the just w a r ; it's the k i n g of Portugal, lost in the sands of Africa, returning for a new battle a n d a n e w w a r w h i c h , this t i m e , w i l l lead to a final, definitive v i c t o r y . This discourse of perpetual w a r is therefore not just the sad b r a i n ­ c h i l d of a few i n t e l l e c t u a l s w h o w e r e i n d e e d m a r g i n a l i z e d long ago. It seems to me that, because it b y p a s s e s the great

philosophico-

j u r i d i c a l systems, this discourse is in fact t i e d u p w i t h a k n o w l e d g e which is sometimes in the possession of a d e c l i n i n g aristocracy, w i t h great m y t h i c a l i m p u l s e s , a n d w i t h the a r d o r of the revenge of the people. In short, this may w e l l be the

first

e x c l u s i v e l y historico-

political discourse—as opposed to a philosophico-juridical discourse— to emerge in the West; it is a discourse in w h i c h t r u t h

functions

e x c l u s i v e l y a s a w e a p o n t h a t is used to w i n an e x c l u s i v e l y p a r t i s a n victory. It is a somber, critical discourse, but it is also an intensely mythical discourse; it is a discourse of bitterness [ . . . ] but also of the most insane hopes. For philosophers a n d j u r i s t s , it is obviously an e x t e r n a l , foreign discourse. It is not even the discourse of their adversary, as they are not in dialogue w i t h it. It is a discourse that is i n e v i t a b l y disqualified, t h a t can and must be kept in the m a r g i n s , precisely because its negation is the precondition for a true and just

"SOCIETY

58

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

discourse that can at last b e g i n to function—in the m i d d l e , b e t w e e n the adversaries, above their heads—as a l a w . The discourse I am t a l k ­ ing about, this p a r t i s a n discourse, this discourse of w a r and history, can therefore p e r h a p s t a k e the form of the cunning sophist of the G r e e k era. W h a t e v e r form it t a k e s , it w i l l be denounced as the d i s ­ course of a biased and n a i v e historian, a b i t t e r politician, a dispos­ sessed aristocracy, or as an uncouth

discourse that puts

forward

inarticulate demands. N o w this discourse, w h i c h w a s basically or s t r u c t u r a l l y k e p t in the margins by that of the philosophers a n d j u r i s t s , b e g a n its career—or perhaps its new career in the W e s t — i n very specific conditions be­ t w e e n the end of the s i x t e e n t h a n d the b e g i n n i n g of the seventeenth centuries a n d represented a twofold—aristocratic and p o p u l a r — c h a l ­ l e n g e to royal p o w e r . From this point o n w a r d , I t h i n k , it proliferated considerably, a n d its surface of extension extended rapidly and con­ s i d e r a b l y until the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the t w e n t i e t h . It w o u l d , however, be a m i s t a k e to think that the dialectic can function as the great reconversion of this discourse, or that it can

finally

convert it into philosophy. The dialectic may at

first sight seem to be the discourse of the universal and historical movement of contradiction and w a r , but I t h i n k that it does not in fact v a l i d a t e this discourse in philosophical terms. On the contrary, it seems to me that it h a d the effect of t a k i n g it over a n d displacing it into the old form of p h i l o s o p h i c o - j u r i d i c a l discourse. Basically, the dialectic codifies struggle, w a r , and confrontations into a logic, or socalled logic, of contradiction; it t u r n s them into the twofold process of the totalization and revelation of a rationality that is at once final but also basic, and in any case irreversible. The dialectic, finally, en­ sures the historical constitution of a universal subject, a reconciled t r u t h , a n d a r i g h t in w h i c h all p a r t i c u l a r i t i e s have their o r d a i n e d place. The H e g e l i a n dialectic and all those that came after it must, I t h i n k a n d as I will try to demonstrate to you, be understood as p h i ­ losophy a n d r i g h t ' s colonization a n d a u t h o r i t a r i a n colonization of a histonco-pohtical

discourse that w a s both a statement

of fact, a

proclamation, and a practice of social warfare. The dialectic colonized

21 J anuary a histonco-pohtical often

1976

59

discourse w h i c h , sometimes conspicuously a n d

in the s h a d o w s , sometimes in scholarship and sometimes in

blood, had been g a i n i n g g r o u n d for centuries in Europe. The d i a l e c t i c is the philosophical order's, a n d p e r h a p s the political order's, w a y of colonizing t h i s bitter a n d partisan discourse of basic warfare. There you have the general frame w i t h i n w h i c h I w o u l d l i k e to try this y e a r to retrace the history of this discourse. I w o u l d now like to tell you how w e should study this, a n d w h a t our s t a r t i n g point should be. First of a l l , w e have to get r i d of a number of false paternities that are u s u a l l y mentioned in connection w i t h t h i s h i s t o n c o - p o h t i c a l discourse. A s soon a s w e b e g i n to t h i n k about the p o w e r / w a r r e l a t i o n s h i p or about p o w e r / r e l a t i o n s of force, two names i m m e d i a t e l y s p r i n g to mind: w e t h i n k of M a c h i a v e l l i a n d w e t h i n k of Hobbes. I w o u l d l i k e to show that they have n o t h i n g to do w i t h it, t h a t this h i s t o n c o - p o h t i c a l discourse is not, and cannot be, that of the Prince's politics" or, obviously, that of absolute p o w e r . It is in fact a discourse that i n e v i t a b l y r e g a r d s the P r i n c e as an i l l u s i o n , an i n s t r u m e n t , or, at best, a n e n e m y . T h i s is, basically, a discourse that cuts off the k i n g ' s head, or w h i c h at least does w i t h o u t a sov­ ereign and denounces him. H a v i n g e l i m i n a t e d these false p a t e r n i t i e s , I w o u l d then l i k e to show y o u this discourse's point of e m e r g e n c e . A n d it seems to me that w e have to t r y to s i t u a t e it in the s e v e n t e e n t h century, w h i c h has a n u m b e r of i m p o r t a n t characteristics. First, this d i s c o u r s e w a s b o r n t w i c e . On the one h a n d , w e see it e m e r g i n g roughly in the 1 6 3 0 s , and in the context of the p o p u l a r or

petit

bourgeois d e m a n d s t h a t w e r e b e i n g put forward in p r e r e v o l u t i o n a r y a n d revolutionary England. It is the discourse of the P u r i t a n s , the discourse of the Levellers. A n d then fifty years later, in France at the end of the r e i g n of Louis X I V , you find it on the opposite s i d e , b u t it is still the discourse of a struggle against the king, a discourse of aristocratic bitterness. A n d t h e n , a n d t h i s is the important p o i n t , w e find even at this early stage, or in o t h e r w o r d s from the seventeenth c e n t u r y o n w a r d , that the idea that w a r is the u n i n t e r r u p t e d frame of history t a k e s a specific form: The w a r that is going on beneath order and peace, the w a r that u n d e r m i n e s our society and d i v i d e s it in a

60

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DEFENDED"

binary mode is, basically, a race w a r . A t a very early stage, we rind the basic elements that make the w a r possible, and then ensure its continuation, pursuit, and development: ethnic differences, differences b e t w e e n languages, different d e g r e e s of force, vigor, e n e r g y , and vio­ lence; the differences b e t w e e n savagery and b a r b a r i s m ; the conquest and s u b j u g a t i o n of one race by another. The social body is basically a r t i c u l a t e d a r o u n d t w o races. It is t h i s i d e a that this clash b e t w e e n t w o races r u n s t h r o u g h society from top to bottom w h i c h we see being formulated as early as the seventeenth century. A n d it forms the m a t r i x for all the forms beneath w h i c h w e can find the face a n d mechanisms of social warfare. I would l i k e to trace the history of this theory of races, or rather of race w a r , during the French Revolution and especially in the early nineteenth c e n t u r y w i t h A u g u s t i n a n d A m e d e e Thierry," a n d to show how it u n d e r w e n t t w o transcriptions. On the one hand, there w a s an openly biological transcription, w h i c h occurred long before

Darwin

a n d which b o r r o w e d i t s discourse, together w i t h all its elements, con­ cepts, a n d vocabulary, from a materialist anatomo-physiology. It also has the s u p p o r t of philology, and t h u s gives b i r t h to the theory of races in the historico-biological sense of the term. Once again a n d almost as i n the seventeenth century, t h i s is a very a m b i g u o u s theory, a n d it is a r t i c u l a t e d w i t h , on the one hand, nationalist m o v e m e n t s in Europe and w i t h n a t i o n a l i t i e s ' struggles against the g r e a t State a p ­ paratuses ( e s s e n t i a l l y the R u s s i a n a n d the A u s t r i a n ) ; y o u w i l l then see it a r t i c u l a t e d w i t h European policies of colonization. That is the first—biological—transcription

of the theory of permanent

struggle

and race struggle. A n d then you find a second transcription

based

upon the great theme a n d theory of social w a r , w h i c h emerges in the v e r y first y e a r s of the nineteenth century, and w h i c h tends to erase every trace of racial conflict in order to define itself a s class struggle. We have, then, a sort of major parting of the w a v s , which I w i l l try to reconstruct. It corresponds to a recasting of the theme of the anal­ ysis of these struggles in the form of the dialectic, and to a recasting of the theme of racial confrontations

in terms ol the theory of evo­

lutionism a n d the struggle for existence. Having established this, a n d

2 1 January

1976

61

placing special emphasis on the latter argument—the biological t r a n ­ scription—I w i l l try to trace the full development of a biologico-social racism. By this, I mean the idea—which is absolutely n e w a n d w h i c h w i l l m a k e the discourse function very differently—that the other race is basically not the race that came from elsewhere or that w a s , for a time, t r i u m p h a n t a n d dominant, but that it is a race that is p e r m a nently, ceaselessly infiltrating the social body, or w h i c h is, rather, constantly b e i n g re-created in a n d b y the social fabric. In other w o r d s , w h a t w e see as a polarity, as a b i n a r y rift w i t h i n society, is not a clash b e t w e e n t w o distinct r a c e s . It is the s p l i t t i n g of a single race into a superrace a n d a subrace. To put it a different w a y , it is the r e a p ­ pearance, w i t h i n a single race, of the past of that race. In a w o r d , the obverse a n d the u n d e r s i d e of the race r e a p p e a r s w i t h i n it. T h i s has one fundamental i m p l i c a t i o n : The discourse of race strug g l e — w h i c h , w h e n it first a p p e a r e d and b e g a n to function in the sev­ enteenth century, w a s essentially an i n s t r u m e n t used in the s t r u g g l e s w a g e d by decentered c a m p s — w i l l be r e c e n t e r e d a n d will become the discourse of p o w e r itself. It w i l l become the discourse of a centered, c e n t r a l i z e d , a n d c e n t r a l i z i n g p o w e r . It w i l l become the discourse of a battle that has to be w a g e d not b e t w e e n races, but by a race that is p o r t r a y e d as the one true race, the race that h o l d s power a n d is entitled to define the norm, a n d against those w h o deviate from that norm, against those w h o pose a threat to the biological heritage. A t this point, w e have all those biological-racist discourses of degeneracy, but also all those institutions w i t h i n the social body which m a k e the discourse of race struggle function a s a p r i n c i p l e of exclusion a n d segregation a n d , u l t i m a t e l y , a s a w a y of n o r m a l i z i n g society. A t t h i s point, the discourse w h o s e history I w o u l d l i k e to trace abandons the initial basic formulation, w h i c h w a s " W e have to defend ourselves against our enemies because the State a p p a r a t u s e s , the l a w , a n d the p o w e r structures not only do not defend us against our enemies; they are the i n s t r u m e n t s our enemies are u s i n g to pursue a n d subjugate us." That discourse now disappears. It is no longer: " W e have to defend ourselves against society," but

"We have to defend society

against all the biological t h r e a t s posed b y the other race, the subrace,

62

"SOCIETY

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BE

DEFENDED"

the counterrace that w e are, despite ourselves, b r i n g i n g into e x i s ­ tence." A t this point, the racist thematic is no longer a moment in the struggle b e t w e e n one social g r o u p a n d another; it w i l l promote the global strategy of social conservatisms. At this point—and this is a paradox, g i v e n the goals a n d the first form of the discourse I have been t a l k i n g a b o u t — w e see the appearance of a State racism: a racism that society w i l l direct against itself, against its own elements a n d its o w n products. This is the internal racism of permanent purification, a n d it w i l l become one of the basic dimensions of social normalization. This year, I w o u l d like to look a little at the history of this discourse of race s t r u g g l e a n d w a r from the seventeenth century to the e m e r ­ gence of State racism in the e a r l y nineteenth century.

21 January

1976

6)

1. Edward Coke's most important works are A Book of Entries ( London, 1614); Commentaries on Littleton (London, 1628); A Treatise of Bail and Mainprise (London, 16)5); Institutes of the Laws of England (London, vol. 1, 1628; vol. 2, 1642; vols. )-4, 1644); Reports ( London, vols. 1-11, 1600-1615; vol. 12, 1656; vol. 1), 1659). On Coke, see the lecture of 4 February in the present volume. 2. On Lilburne, see the lecture of 4 February in the present volume. ). On H. de Boulainvilhers, see the lectures of 11 February, 18 February, and 25 February in the present volume. 4. Most of Freret's works were first published in the Memoircs de VAcademic des Sciences. They were subsequently collected in his Oeuvres completes, 20 vols. (Pans, 1 7 9 6 - 1 7 9 9 ) . See, inter alia, De I'origine des Francois etde leur etablissement dans I a Gaule (vol. 5 ), Recherches historiques sur les moeurs et le gouvemement des Francois, dans les divers temps de la monarchic (vol. 6), Reflexions sur I'etude des anciennes histoires et sur le degre de certitude de leurspreuves (vol. 7), Vues generates sur I'origine et le melange des anciennes nations et sur la maniere d'en etudier I'histoire (vol. 18), and Observations sur les Meivvingiens (vol. 20). On Freret, see the lecture of 18 February in the present volume. 5. Joachim, comte d'Estaing, Dissertation sur la noblesse d'extraction et sur les origines des fiefs, des surnoms et des atmoiries (Pans, 1690). 6. Foucault's lecture on 10 March, and now in the present volume, is based mainly on E.-J. Sieves, Qu'estavs of the Saxons that ''their [udiciai were verv suitable to the Athenian, but their nnluarv more like the Lacr domiman" ( p . fS; cf. chapters V ii)- See also Seidell's Analccton anglobrilanniom libri duo ( Francoturn, 1 6 1 S ) and Jani An­ glo rum in Opera omnia latina et angfica (London. F 2 6 ), vol. 2. ;

2 6 . AJI Hisioriuil

Discourse,

pp. 112-M.

27. J o h n W a r r . The Corruption and Deficiency id tht Laws of England ( London. 1 6 H 9 ) , p. I- "The laws of England are lull of tricks, doubts and t o n i r a r v 10 themselves; lor thev were

114

"SOCIETY

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DEFENDED"

invented and established by the Normans, which were oi all nations the most quarrel­ some and most fallacious in contriving of controversies and suits." Cf. ibid., chaps. 2 and \ See also Administration Civil and spiritual in Two Treatises (London, 1648), I, xxxvn. It should be noted that Warr's phrase is cited in part in Christopher Hill, Puritanism and Revolution (London: Seeker & Warburg, 1 9 5 8 ) , p. 78. 28. See in particular John Lilburne, The Just Man's Justification (London, 1 6 4 6 ) , pp. 11-13; A Discourse betwixt John Lilburne, close prisoner in the tower of London, and Mr. Hugfi Peters (London, 1649); England's Birth-right Justified against all arbitrary usurpation (London, 1645); Regail tyrannic Discovered (London, 1647); England's New Chains Discovered (London, 1648). Most of the Levellers' tracts are collected in W. Haller and G. Davies, ed., The levellers Tracts, 1647-1653 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1944). 29. Regail tyrranie, p. 8 6 . The attribution of this tract to Lilburne is uncertain; R. Overton probably collaborated on it. 30. The best known of the Digger texts, to which Foucault may be referring here, are the anonymous manifesto Light Shining in Buckinghamshire ( 1 6 4 8 ) and More Light Shining in Buckinghamshire ( 1 6 4 9 ) . Cf. G Winstanley et ah, To his Excellency the Lord Fairfax and the Counsell of Warre the brotherly request of thos that are called diggers sheweth (London, 1 6 5 0 ) ; G. Winstanley, Fire in the Bush (London, 1 6 5 0 ) ; The Law of Freedom in a Platform, or True Magistracy Restored (London, 1 6 5 2 ) . See also G. H. Sabine, ed., The Works of Gerrard Winstanley, with an Appendix of Documents Relating to the Digger Movement (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1941).

1

SIX

11

Stories heredity.

FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6

about origins.

- The Trojan myth.

- "Franco-Gallia."

- Invasion,

right. - National dualism. prince.

- Boulainvilliers's

intendant,

"Etatde

and the knowledge of history.

history,

- The knowledge la France."

of the aristocracy.

- History

- France's and public of the

- The clerk, the

1

• 1

\


So the Franks w h o i n v a d e d Gaul in the fourth a n d fifth centuries* w e r e simply the offspring a sort of p r i m i t i v e Gaul; they were simply Gauls w h o w e r e eager to see their own country once more. For them, l i b e r a t i n g a Gaul that h a d been enslaved or l i b e r a t i n g their defeated b r o t h e r s w a s not the issue. W h a t w a s at issue w a s a deep nostalgia, a n d also a desire to enjoy a flourishing G a l l o - R o m a n civilization. The cousins, or the prodigal sons, w e r e going home. But when they w e n t home, the certainty d i d not s w e e p a w a y the R o m a n r i g h t that h a d been i m p l a n t e d in Gaul; on the contrary, they reabsorbed it. They r e a b s o r b e d R o m a n Gaul—or a l l o w e d themselves to be reabsorbed into it. The conversion of C l o v i s proves that the ancient Gauls, w h o had become G e r m a n s a n d F r a n k s , readopted the values a n d the political a n d r e l i g i o u s s y s t e m of the R o m a n Empire. A n d if, at the t i m e of their return, the F r a n k s did h a v e to fight, it w a s not against the Gauls or even the Romans ( w h o s e v a l u e s they w e r e a b s o r b i n g ) ; it w a s against the B u r g u n d i a n s a n d the Goths ( w h o , being A r y a n s , w e r e h e r e t i c s ) , or against the Saracen infidels. That is w h o m they w a g e d w a r on. A n d in order to r e w a r d the w a r r i o r s w h o h a d fought

the

Goths, B u r g u n d i a n s , and Saracens, their k i n g s g r a n t e d them fiefs. The origins of w h a t , at this time, h a d yet to be called feudalism can t h u s b e traced b a c k to a w a r . This fable m a d e it possible to assert the native character of t h e G a u l i s h population. It also made it possible to assert that Gaul had 1

natural frontiers—those described by Caesar. " Establishing those same frontiers w a s also the political objective of the foreign policy of R i ­ chelieu and Louis XIV. The purpose of this tale w a s also not only to erase all racial differences, but above all to erase any heterogeneity b e t w e e n G e r m a n i c right and R o m a n right. It had to be demonstrated that the G e r m a n s had renounced their own r i g h t in order to adopt

*The manuscr.pt has -fifth and s.xth centuries," wh>ch corresponds to the actual date of the conquest.

"SOCIETY

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

the j u n d i c o - p o h t i c a l system of the Romans. A n d finally, the fiefs and prerogatives of the nobility h a d to be shown to derive not from the basic or a r c h a i c rights of that same nobility, but simply from the will of a k i n g w h o s e p o w e r a n d absolutism p r e d a t e d the organization of feudalism itself. The point of all this w a s , a n d this is my last point, to lay a French claim to the universal monarchy. If G a u l w a s what Tacitus c a l l e d the vagina Germany ) ,

1 8

nationum

( h e w a s in fact referring mainly to

and if Gaul w a s i n d e e d the womb of all nations, then to

w h o m s h o u l d the universal monarchy revert, if not to the monarch w h o h a d i n h e r i t e d the l a n d of France? There are obviously many v a r i a t i o n s on this schema, but I will not go into them. The reason w h y I have told this rather long story is that I w a n t e d to relate it to w h a t w a s happening in England at the same t i m e . There is at least one point in common, and one basic difference, b e t w e e n w h a t w a s being s a i d in E n g l a n d about the origins a n d foundations of the English monarchy, a n d w h a t w a s being said in the m i d - s e v e n t e e n t h century about the foundations of the French monarchy. The common feature—and I t h i n k it is important—is that invasion, w i t h its forms, motifs, a n d effects, became a historical prob­ lem to the e x t e n t that it involved an important politico-juridical issue. It is u p to the invasion to define the nature, rights, and limits of monarchical power, it is up to the history of the invasion to define the role of royal councils, assemblies, a n d sovereign courts. It is up to the invasion to define the respective roles of the nobility, the rights of the n o b i l i t y , royal councils, a n d the people, as opposed to the king. In short, the invasion is being asked to define the very p r i n c i p l e s of p u b l i c right. At the very t i m e w h e n Grotius, Pufendorf, and Hobbes were trying to g r o u n d the r u l e s that constitute the just State in natural law, a w i d e - r a n g i n g contrapuntal historical investigation w a s getting under w a y into the origins a n d v a l i d i t y of the rights that were actually being e x e r c i s e d — a n d it w a s looking at a historical event or, if you like, at a slice of history that w a s , m both juridical and political terms, the most sensitive region in the entire history of France. I refer, roughly speaking, to the period b e t w e e n M e r o v i u s a n d C h a r l e m a g n e , or be-

77 February

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t w e e n t h e fifth a n d t h e ninth centuries. It has a l w a y s b e e n said ( e v e r s i n c e the seventeenth c e n t u r y ) t h a t t h i s is the l e a s t - k n o w n p e r i o d . Least k n o w n ? Perhaps. But definitely the most w i d e l y studied. Be t h a t a s it m a y , n e w figures, n e w t e x t s , a n d n e w p r o b l e m s now—and, I think, for the first t i m e — b e g i n to a p p e a r on the horizon of the history of France, whose purpose h a d u n t i l now been to establish the r o y a l i m p e r i u m ' s c o n t i n u i t y of p o w e r , a n d w h i c h spoke only of Tro­ jans and Franks. The new figures were M e r o v i u s , C l o v i s , C h a r l e s M a r tel, C h a r l e m a g n e , a n d Pipin; the n e w t e x t s were by Gregory of T o u r s '

9

a n d C h a r l e m a g n e ' s c a r t u l a r i e s . N e w customs appear: the C h a m p d e M a r s , t h e M a y g a t h e r i n g s , the r i t u a l of c a r r y i n g k i n g s s h o u l d e r - h i g h , and so on. Events occur: the b a p t i s m of C l o v i s , the B a t t l e of Poitiers, the coronation of C h a r l e m a g n e ; w e also have symbolic anecdotes such as the story of the vase of Soissons, in w h i c h w e see King C l o v i s renouncing his c l a i m , a c k n o w l e d g i n g t h e r i g h t s of h i s w a r r i o r s , a n d t h e n taking his revenge later. All this gives us a new historical landscape, and a new s y s t e m of reference w h i c h c a n be understood only to t h e extent that there is a very close correlation b e t w e e n this new material and political d i s c u s ­ sions about public right. History a n d public right in fact go h a n d in hand. There is a strict correlation between the problems posed by p u b l i c right a n d the delineation of t h e historical

field—and

"history

a n d public r i g h t " will in fact r e m a i n a set phrase u n t i l the end of the eighteenth century. If you look at h o w history, a n d the pedagogy of history, w a s a c t u a l l y taught until w e l l after the eighteenth c e n t u r y a n d even in the t w e n t i e t h , you w i l l find that it is public r i g h t that you are being told about. I don't k n o w w h a t school textbooks look like t h e s e d a y s , but it is not so long ago t h a t the history of France began w i t h the history of the G a u l s . A n d the expression "our a n c e s ­ tors the G a u l s " ( w h i c h m a k e s us laugh because it w a s taught

to

A l g e r i a n s a n d A f r i c a n s ) h a d a very specific meaning. To say "our ancestors the G a u l s " w a s , basically, to formulate a proposition that meant something in the theory of constitutional l a w a n d in the p r o b ­ lems raised by public right. Detailed accounts of the Battle of Poitiers also h a d a very specific m e a n i n g to the e x t e n t that it w a s precisely

126

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not t h e w a r b e t w e e n the Franks a n d t h e Gauls, but the w a r b e t w e e n the Franks and the Gauls a n d i n v a d e r s of a different race a n d religion that a l l o w e d the origins of feudalism to b e traced b a c k to something other than an internal conflict b e t w e e n Franks a n d Gauls. A n d the story of the Soissons vase—which, I think, crops u p in all the history books a n d w h i c h is still taught today—was certainly studied very seriously throughout the w h o l e of the seventeenth century. The story of the Soissons vase tells the story of a p r o b l e m in constitutional law: w h e n w e a l t h w a s first d i s t r i b u t e d , w h a t w e r e the rights of the king, and w h a t w e r e the rights of h i s w a r r i o r s , and possibly of the nobility ( i n the sense that the nobility were originally w a r r i o r s ) ? W e thought that w e were l e a r n i n g history; but in the nineteenth century, and even the t w e n t i e t h , history books w e r e in fact textbooks on public right. W e w e r e learning about public right and constitutional l a w by looking at pictures from history. So, first point: the a p p e a r a n c e in France of this n e w historical field, w h i c h is q u i t e s i m i l a r ( i n t e r m s of its m a t e r i a l ) to w h a t w a s hap­ p e n i n g in England at the time w h e n the theme of the invasion was b e i n g reactivated in discussions of the p r o b l e m of the

monarchy.

There is, however, one basic difference between England and France. In England, the Conquest a n d the N o r m a n / S a x o n racial d u a l i t y was h i s t o r y ' s essential point of articulation, w h e r e a s in France there was, u n t i l t h e end of t h e seventeenth century, no heterogeneity w i t h i n the body of t h e nation. T h e w h o l e system of a fabled k i n s h i p between the G a u l s a n d the Trojans, the Gauls a n d the Germans, a n d then the G a u l s and the Romans, a n d so on, made it possible to guarantee both a continuous transmission of p o w e r a n d the unproblematic homoge­ neity of the body of the nation. Now it is precisely that homogeneity that w a s shattered at the end of the seventeenth century, not by the s u p p l e m e n t a r y or differential theoretical, or theoretico- mythological, edifice I w a s t a l k i n g about just now, but by a discourse w h i c h is, I believe, absolutely new in terms of its functions, its objects, and its effects. The introduction of the t h e m e of national dualism w a s not a re­ flection or expression of either the civil or social wars, the religious

11 February

1976

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struggles of the Renaissance, or the conflicts of the Fronde. It w a s a conflict, an a p p a r e n t l y lateral p r o b l e m or something that has usually— and, I think, w r o n g l y , as you w i l l see—been described as a r e a r g u a r d action, and it m a d e it possible to c o n c e p t u a l i z e t w o things that had not previously been i n s c r i b e d in either history or p u b l i c right. One w a s the p r o b l e m of w h e t h e r or not the w a r b e t w e e n hostile g r o u p s really does constitute the s u b s t r u c t u r e of the State; the other w a s the problem of w h e t h e r political p o w e r can be r e g a r d e d both as a product of that w a r and, u p to a point, its referee, or whether it is u s u a l l y a tool, the beneficiary of, and the d e s t a b i l i z i n g , partisan element in that war. T h i s is a specific a n d l i m i t e d p r o b l e m , but it is, I t h i n k , also an essential problem because it l e a d s to t h e refutation of the i m p l i c i t thesis t h a t the social body is homogeneous ( w h i c h w a s so w i d e l y accepted that it d i d not h a v e to b e f o r m u l a t e d ) . H o w ? W e l l , because it raises w h a t I w o u l d call a p r o b l e m in political pedagogy: W h a t must the prince k n o w , w h e r e and from w h o m must he a c q u i r e his k n o w l e d g e , and w h o is qualified to constitute the k n o w l e d g e of the p r i n c e ? To b e more specific, this w a s q u i t e s i m p l y the i s s u e of how the due d e Bourgogne s h o u l d b e e d u c a t e d . A s you k n o w , this raised i n n u m e r a b l e problems for a w h o l e host of reasons ( I am t h i n k i n g not just of his e l e m e n t a r y education, as he w a s a l r e a d y an a d u l t at the t i m e of the events I w i l l b e t a l k i n g a b o u t ) . W h a t w a s at s t a k e w a s the body of information about the State, the government, a n d the country needed b y the man w h o w o u l d , in a few y e a r s or after t h e death of Louis X I V , b e called u p o n to l e a d t h a t State, t h a t govern­ ment, and that country. W e are therefore 10

maque,

not t a l k i n g about

Tele-

but about the enormous report on t h e state of France that

Louis X I V ordered his a d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d his i n t e n d a n t s or s t e w a r d s to produce for his heir and grandson, the due de Bourgogne. It w a s a survey of France ( a general s t u d y of the situation of the economy, institutions, and customs of F r a n c e ) , and it w a s i n t e n d e d to constitute the k n o w l e d g e of the king, or the k n o w l e d g e that w o u l d a l l o w him to r u l e . So Louis X I V a s k e d his intendants for these reports. W i t h i n a few months, they were assembled and ready. The due de Bourgogne's

128

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entourage—an entourage made u p of the very kernel of the nobiliary opposition, or of nobles w h o w e r e critical of Louis X l V ' s regime b e ­ cause it h a d eroded their economic m i g h t and political p o w e r — r e ­ ceived this report a n d a p p o i n t e d someone called B o u l a i n v i l h e r s to present it to the due de Bourgogne. Because it w a s so enormous, they commissioned him to abridge it, a n d to explain or interpret it: to recode it, if you like. Boulainvilhers filleted or a b r i d g e d these enor­ mous reports, and s u m m a r i z e d t h e m in t w o large volumes. Finally, he w r o t e a preface and a d d e d a n u m b e r of critical comments a n d a discourse: this w a s an essential c o m p l e m e n t to the enormous a d m i n ­ istrative task of providing a description and analysis of the State. The discourse is rather curious, as B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s tried to shed l i g h t on the current state of France by w r i t i n g an essay on the ancient gov­ e r n m e n t s of France down to the t i m e of H u g h C a p e t .

21

Boulainvilliers's t e x t is an a t t e m p t to p u t forward theses favorable to the n o b i l i t y — a n d his later w o r k s also deal w i t h the same p r o b l e m .

22

He c r i t i c i z e s the sale of c r o w n offices, w h i c h w o r k e d to the d i s a d ­ vantage of the impoverished nobility; he protests a g a i n s t the tact that the nobility has been dispossessed of its right of jurisdiction, and of the profits that w e n t w i t h it; he insists that the nobility has a right to sit in the Conseil du roi; he is critical of the role p l a y e d by the intendants in the administration of the provinces. But the most i m ­ portant feature of B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s ' s t e x t , and of this recoding of the reports [ p r e s e n t e d ] to the king, is the protest against the tact that the k n o w l e d g e given to the king, a n d then to the prince, is a k n o w l ­ edge manufactured by the a d m i n i s t r a t i v e machine itself. It is a protest against the fact that the k i n g ' s k n o w l e d g e of his subjects has been completely colonized, occupied, prescribed, and defined by the State's k n o w l e d g e about the State. The problem is as follows: M u s t the k i n g ' s k n o w l e d g e of his k i n g d o m a n d his subjects be isomorphic w i t h the State's k n o w l e d g e of the S t a t e ? M u s t the bureaucratic, fiscal, eco­ nomic, a d m i n i s t r a t i v e , and j u r i d i c a l expertise that is r e q u i r e d to run the monarchy be reinjected into the prince by all the information he is being given, a n d which w i l l allow him to g o v e r n ? Basically, the problem is as follows: Because the prince exercises his arbitrarv and

/ J February unrestricted

(976

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will over an a d m i n i s t r a t i o n that is completely in his

hands a n d completely at his disposal, the administration, or the great a d m i n i s t r a t i v e a p p a r a t u s the king had given the monarchy, is in a sense w e l d e d to to the prince himself: they are one a n d the same. T h a t is w h y it is impossible to resist him. But the prince ( a n d the prince's p o w e r m e a n s t h a t he and the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n are one and the s a m e ) must, w h e t h e r he likes it or not, be persuaded to b e c o m e p a r t of the same body as his a d m i n i s t r a t i o n ; he must be w e l d e d to it by the k n o w l e d g e that the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n r e t r a n s m i t s to him, but this t i m e from above. The a d m i n i s t r a t i o n a l l o w s the k i n g to rule the coun­ try at w i l l , and subject to no restrictions. A n d conversely, the a d ­ ministration rules the king t h a n k s to the q u a l i t y and n a t u r e of the k n o w l e d g e it forces upon him. I t h i n k that the target of B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s a n d those a r o u n d him at this time—and the target of those who came after h i m in the m i d seventeenth century ( l i k e the comte de B u a t - N a n ^ a y " ) or M o n t l o 2

s i e r ' ( w h o s e problem w a s much more complicated because he w a s writing, in the e a r l y Restoration period, against the i m p e r i a l a d m i n ­ i s t r a t i o n ) — t h e real target of all the historians connected to the nob i h a r v reaction is the mechanism of p o w e r - k n o w l e d g e t h a t h a d b o u n d the a d m i n i s t r a t i v e a p p a r a t u s to S t a t e a b s o l u t i s m since the seventeenth century. I t h i n k it is as t h o u g h a nobility that had been impoverished and to some e x t e n t e x c l u d e d from the e x e r c i s e of p o w e r had e s t a b ­ lished as the p r i m e goal of its offensive, of its counteroffensive,

not

so much the d i r e c t a n d i m m e d i a t e r e c o n q u e s t of its p o w e r s , a n d not the recuperation of its w e a l t h ( w h i c h w a s no d o u b t now forever b e vond its r e a c h ) , as an important link in the system of p o w e r that the nobilitv had a l w a y s overlooked, e v e n at the t i m e w h e n it w a s at the height of its might. The strategic position that the nobility overlooked h a d been physically occupied bv the church, by c l e r k s and m a g i s trates, and then by the bourgeoisie, the a d m i n s t r a t o r s , and even the financiers who collected indirect taxes. The position that had to be reoccupied as a priority, or the strategic objective Boulainvilhers now set the nobility, and the precondition for any possible revenge, w a s not what was, in the vocabulary of the court, termed "the

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of the k i n g . " W h a t had to b e r e g a i n e d and occupied w a s now the king's k n o w l e d g e . It w a s the k n o w l e d g e of the king, or a certain k n o w l e d g e shared by k i n g and nobility: an i m p l i c i t l a w , a m u t u a l commitment

between the king and h i s aristocracy. W h a t h a d to be

done w a s to r e a w a k e n b o t h the nobles' memory, w h i c h h a d become carelessly forgetful,

and the monarch's memories, w h i c h h a d been

carefully—and p e r h a p s w i c k e d l y — b u r i e d , so as to reconstitute

the

l e g i t i m a t e k n o w l e d g e of the k i n g , w h i c h w o u l d provide legitimate foundations for a l e g i t i m a t e government. W h a t is r e q u i r e d is therefore a c o u n t e r k n o w l e d g e , a whole p r o g r a m of work that w i l l take the form of absolutely n e w historical research. I say c o u n t e r k n o w l e d g e because B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s and his successors i n i t i a l l y define this new k n o w l e d g e and these new methods in negative terms by contrasting it w i t h two scholarly k n o w l e d g e s , w i t h the two k n o w l e d g e s that are the t w o faces ( a n d p e r h a p s also the two p h a s e s ) of a d m i n i s t r a t i v e k n o w l e d g e . At this t i m e , the great enemy of the new k n o w l e d g e the nobility wishes to use to get a n e w g r i p on the k n o w l e d g e of the king, the knowledge that has to be got r i d of, is j u r i d i c a l k n o w l e d g e . It is the knowledge of the court, of the prosecutor, the jurisconsult, and the c l e r k of the court or grejfier.

For the nobility, t h i s was i n d e e d a hateful knowledge,

for this was the k n o w l e d g e that had t r i c k e d them, that had dispos­ sessed them b y using a r g u m e n t s they d i d not understand, that had s t r i p p e d t h e m , w i t h o u t their b e i n g able to r e a l i z e it, of their rights of jurisdiction and then of their very possessions. But it w a s also a hateful k n o w l e d g e because it w a s in a sense a circular knowledge w h i c h d e r i v e d k n o w l e d g e from k n o w l e d g e . W h e n the k i n g consulted greffiers

and jurisconsults about his rights, w h a t a n s w e r could he ob­

tain, if not a k n o w l e d g e established from the point of v i e w of the judges and prosecutors he himself had c r e a t e d ? The king quite n a t u r a l l y finds

therefore

that it contains eulogies to his own

power

( t h o u g h they may also conceal the subtle w a y s in w h i c h power has been u s u r p e d by the prosecutors and gejjiers).

At all events, a circular

knowledge. A k n o w l e d g e in which the k i n g will encounter only the image of his own absolutism, w h i c h reflects b a c k at h i m , m the form

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of right, a l l the u s u r p a t i o n s the k i n g h a s committed [ a g a i n s t ] his nobility. The n o b i l i t y w a n t s to use another form of k n o w l e d g e against the k n o w l e d g e of the greffier:

history. A history whose n a t u r e will a l l o w

it to get outside r i g h t , to get b e h i n d r i g h t a n d to s l i p into its i n t e r ­ stices. O n l y , t h i s history w i l l be u n l i k e any p r e v i o u s history, a n d it w i l l not be a pictorial or d r a m a t i z e d account of the development of p u b l i c right. O n the contrary, it w i l l a t t e m p t to attack p u b l i c r i g h t at the roots, to reinsert the i n s t i t u t i o n s of p u b l i c r i g h t into an older n e t w o r k of deeper, more solemn, a n d more essential commitments. It w i l l u n d e r m i n e the k n o w l e d g e of the greffier,

in w h i c h the k i n g finds

nothing b u t eulogies to h i s o w n absolutism ( o r in other w o r d s , the praise of Rome a g a i n ) , b y t a p p i n g historic reserves of e q u i t y . W h a t ­ ever the history of right may say, c o m m i t m e n t s that were not w r i t t e n d o w n , fidelities that w e r e never recorded in w o r d s or t e x t s , have to be revived. Theses that have been forgotten have to reactivated, a n d the noble blood that h a s been s p i l l e d on behalf of the k i n g has to b e r e m e m b e r e d . It h a s t o be d e m o n s t r a t e d that t h e v e r y edifice of right— even its most valid institutions, its most explicit a n d w i d e l y recog­ nized ordinances—is the product

of a whole series of i n i q u i t i e s ,

injustices, abuses, dispossessions, b e t r a y a l s , a n d infidelities c o m m i t t e d by r o y a l power, w h i c h reneged on its c o m m i t m e n t to the n o b i l i t y , a n d b y the robins or l e g a l s m a l l fry w h o u s u r p e d both the p o w e r of the n o b i l i t y a n d , p e r h a p s w i t h o u t r e a l l y r e a l i z i n g it, royal p o w e r . The history of r i g h t w i l l therefore be a denunciation of b e t r a y a l s , and of all the b e t r a y a l s that w e r e b o r n of the b e t r a y a l s . The g o a l of this history, whose v e r y form i s a challenge to the k n o w l e d g e of the clerks a n d j u d g e s , is to m a k e the prince see u s u r p a t i o n s of w h i c h he is u n a w a r e and to restore to h i m a s t r e n g t h , a n d the memory of bonds, even though it w a s i n his interest to forget t h e m a n d to let them be forgotten. History w i l l be the w e a p o n of a nobility that has been b e t r a y e d and h u m i l i a t e d , a n d it w i l l use it against the k n o w l e d g e of the c l e r k s , w h i c h a l w a y s e x p l a i n s contemporary events in terms of contemporary events, p o w e r i n t e r m s of p o w e r , a n d the l e t t e r of the

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law in t e r m s of the w i l l of the king and vice versa. The form of this history w i l l be profoundly a n t i j u n d i c a l , and, going beyond w h a t has been w r i t t e n down, it w i l l d e c i p h e r and recall w h a t lies

beneath

e v e r y t h i n g that has fallen into abeyance, and denounce the blatant hostility concealed by this k n o w l e d g e . That is the iirst great adversary of the historical k n o w l e d g e the nobility w a n t s to create so a s to reocc u p y the k n o w l e d g e of the king. The other great adversary is the k n o w l e d g e not of the judge or the clerk, but of the intendant: not le greffe but le bureau

( t h e c l e r k of the court's office)

( t h e office of the i n t e n d a n t ) . This too is hateful k n o w l ­

edge. A n d for symmetrical reasons, as it w a s the k n o w l e d g e of the i n t e n d a n t s that a l l o w e d them to eat into the w e a l t h and p o w e r of the nobles. This too is a k n o w l e d g e that can dazzle the k i n g and hood­ w i n k him, as it is thanks to t h i s k n o w l e d g e that the king can impose his might, c o m m a n d obedience, and ensure that taxes are collected. This is an a d m i n i s t r a t i v e k n o w l e d g e , and above all a q u a n t i t a t i v e eco­ nomic k n o w l e d g e : k n o w l e d g e of actual or potential wealth, k n o w l e d g e of tolerable levels of t a x a t i o n and of useful taxes. The nobility wants to use another form of u n d e r s t a n d i n g against the k n o w l e d g e of the i n t e n d a n t s a n d le bureau:

history. This time, however, it is a history

of wealth and not an economic history. This is a history of the d i s ­ placement of w e a l t h , of exactions, theft, sleight of hand, embezzle­ ment, impoverishment,

a n d ruin. This, then, is a history that digs

beneath the problem of the production of w e a l t h so as to demonstrate that it w a s ruination, debt, and abusive accumulations that created a certain state of w e a l t h that is, u l t i m a t e l y , no more than a combination of crooked deals done by a k i n g w h o was a i d e d and abetted by the bourgeoisie. The analysis of w e a l t h w i l l , then, be challenged by a history of how the nobles w e r e ruined by endless w a r s , a history of how the church t r i c k e d them into giving it gifts of land and money, a history of how the bourgeoisie got the nobility into debt, and a history of how royal t a x - g a t h e r e r s ate into the income of the nobles. The two great discourses that the history of the nobility is trying to challenge—that of the courts and that of le bureau—do

not share

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the same chronology. The struggle against juridical knowledge w a s probably at its height, or more active and more intense, in B o u l a i n vilhers's day, or in other w o r d s , b e t w e e n the late seventeenth a n d the early eighteenth centuries; the s t r u g g l e against economic k n o w l e d g e was probably much more violent in the m i d - e i g h t e e n t h century, or at the time of the Physiocrats ( P h y s i o c r a c y w a s B u a t - N a n c a y ' s great a d v e r s a r y ) . " W h e t h e r it i s the k n o w l e d g e of intendants, of le

bureau,

economic k n o w l e d g e , the k n o w l e d g e of c l e r k s a n d courts, what is at issue is the k n o w l e d g e that is constituted as the State talks to itself, a n d w h i c h has been r e p l a c e d b y a n o t h e r form of k n o w l e d g e . Its g e n ­ eral profile is that of history. The history of w h a t ? U p to this point, history h a d n e v e r been a n y t h i n g more than the history of p o w e r as told by p o w e r itself, or the history of p o w e r t h a t p o w e r h a d m a d e people tell: it w a s the history of power, a s recounted by p o w e r . The history that the n o b i l i t y now b e g i n s to use against the State's discourse about the State, and p o w e r ' s discourse about power, is a discourse that will, 1 believe, destroy the very w o r k i n g s of h i s ­ torical k n o w l e d g e . It is at this point, I think, that w e see the b r e a k ­ down—and this is important—of both the close relationship b e t w e e n the narrative of history on the one h a n d and, on the other hand, the exercise of power, its ritual reinforcement and the picture-book for­ mulation of p u b l i c right. W i t h B o u l a m v i l h e r s a n d t h e reactionary nobility of the late eighteenth century, a new subject of history ap­ pears. This means t w o things. On

the one hand, there is a new

speaking subject: someone else begins to speak in history, to recount history; someone else b e g i n s to say " 1 " a n d " w e " as he recounts his­ tory; someone else begins to tell the story of his o w n history; someone else begins to r e o r g a n i z e the past, events, rights, injustices, defeats, and victories around himself a n d his own destiny. The subject w h o speaks in history is therefore d i s p l a c e d , but the subject of history is also displaced in the sense t h a t the v e r y ob|ect of the narrative is modified: its subject, in the sense of its theme, or object, if vou like. The modification of the first, e a r l i e r or d e e p e r element now a l l o w s rights, institutions, the monarchy, a n d even the land itself to be d e -

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fined in relation to this n e w subject. T h i s subject t a l k s about events that occur b e n e a t h the State, that ignore right, and that are older and more profound than institutions. So w h a t is t h i s n e w subject of history, w h i c h i s b o t h the subject that s p e a k s in the historical n a r r a t i v e a n d w h a t the historical narrative is talking about, this new subject that appears w h e n w e get a w a y from the State's j u r i d i c a l or a d m i n i s t r a t i v e discourse about the State? It i s w h a t a h i s t o r i a n of the period calls a "society." A society, b u t in the sense of an association, g r o u p , or body of i n d i v i d u a l s governed by a statute, a society made u p of a certain number of i n d i v i d u a l s , and w h i c h has its o w n m a n n e r s , customs, a n d even its own l a w . The something that begins to speak in history, that s p e a k s of history, and of w h i c h history w i l l speak, is w h a t the vocabulary of the day called a "nation." A t t h i s t i m e , t h e nation is b y no means something t h a t is defined by its territorial unity, a definite political morphology, or its system­ atic subordination to some i m p e r i u m . The nation has no frontiers, no definite system of p o w e r , and no State. T h e nation circulates b e h i n d frontiers a n d institutions. The nation, or r a t h e r "nations," or in other w o r d s the collections, societies, g r o u p i n g s of i n d i v i d u a l s w h o s h a r e a status, mores, customs, and a certain p a r t i c u l a r l a w — i n the sense of regulatory statutes rather than Statist l a w s . History w i l l be about this, about these elements. A n d it is those elements that w i l l begin to speak: it is the nation that b e g i n s to speak. The nobility i s one nation, as distinct from the many other nations that circulate w i t h i n the State and come into conflict w i t h one another. It is this notion, this concept of the nation, that w i l l give rise to the famous revolutionary problem of the nation; it w i l l , ol course, give rise to the basic concepts of nineteenth-century nationalism. It w i l l also give rise to the notion of race. And, finally, it will g i v e rise to the notion of class. Together w i t h t h i s new subject of history—a subject that speaks in a history a n d a subject of w h i c h history s p e a k s — w e also have the appearance of a new domain of objects, a new frame of reference, a w h o l e field of processes that had previously been not just obscure, but totally neglected. All the obscure processes that go on at the level

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w h e r e g r o u p s come into conflict b e n e a t h the S t a t e a n d through the l a w rise to the surface a n d become h i s t o r y ' s p r i m a r y t h e m a t i c . This is the d a r k history of alliances, of g r o u p r i v a l r i e s a n d of interests that a r e m a s k e d or b e t r a y e d ; the history of the u s u r p a t i o n of rights, of the displacement of fortunes; the history of fidelities and betrayals, the h i s t o r y of e x p e n d i t u r e , exactions, debts, t r i c k e r y , and of t h i n g s t h a t have been forgotten, a n d of s t u p i d i t y . T h i s i s also a k n o w l e d g e w h o s e methodology is not the r i t u a l reactivation of the acts that

founded

power, b u t the systematic i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of i t s evil intentions and the recollection of e v e r y t h i n g t h a t it h a s s y s t e m a t i c a l l y forgotten.

Its

method is the p e r p e t u a l denunciation of t h e evil t h a t h a s b e e n done in h i s t o r y . T h i s is no longer the g l o r i o u s h i s t o r y of p o w e r ; it i s the h i s t o r y of its l o w e r depths, its w i c k e d n e s s , a n d i t s b e t r a y a l s . T h i s n e w discourse ( w h i c h h a s , then, a n e w subject a n d a n e w frame of r e f e r e n c e ) i n e v i t a b l y b r i n g s w i t h it w h a t m i g h t b e called a n e w pathos, a n d it is completely different from t h e g r e a t cere­ monial r i t u a l t h a t still obscurely a c c o m p a n i e d the discourse of h i s t o r y w h e n it w a s t e l l i n g those stories a b o u t Trojans, G e r m a n s , a n d so on. H i s t o r y no l o n g e r h a s the ceremonial character of s o m e t h i n g t h a t reinforces p o w e r , b u t a n e w pathos w i l l m a r k w i t h i t s splendor a school of thought that w i l l , b r o a d l y s p e a k i n g , b e c o m e French r i g h t w i n g thought. W h a t I mean b y this is, first, an almost erotic passion for historical k n o w l e d g e ; second, the s y s t e m a t i c perversion of i n t e r p r e t i v e understanding; t h i r d , relentless denunciations; fourth, the a r t i c u l a t i o n of history a r o u n d something r e s e m b l i n g a plot, an a t t a c k on the State, a coup d'etat or an assault on the State or against the State. W h a t I h a v e been t r y i n g to show y o u is not exactly w h a t is k n o w n as "the history of i d e a s . " I h a v e not so m u c h been t r y i n g to s h o w you h o w the nobility used historical discourse to e x p r e s s either its d e ­ m a n d s or its misfortunes, as to show how a c e r t a i n instrument of struggle w a s a c t u a l l y forged in the s t r u g g l e s that took place around the w o r k i n g s of p o w e r — s t r u g g l e s w i t h i n p o w e r a n d a g a i n s t p o w e r . That instrument

is a k n o w l e d g e , a n e w ( o r at least p a r t l y n e w )

k n o w l e d g e : the n e w form of history. The recall of history in this form is basically, I t h i n k , the w e d g e that the n o b i l i t y w i l l try to d r i v e

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b e t w e e n the k n o w l e d g e of the sovereign a n d the expertise of the administration, and it w i l l do so in order to disconnect the absolute will of the sovereign from the absolute docility of his administration. It is not because they are odes to the freedoms of old that the d i s ­ course of history, the old story about Gauls and G e r m a n s , or the long tale of Clovis a n d C h a r l e m a g n e , become

instruments

in the

struggle against absolutism; it is because they disconnect a d m i n i s t r a ­ tive p o w e r - k n o w l e d g e . That is w h y this type of discourse—which was o r i g i n a l l y n o b i l i a r y and r e a c t i o n a r y — w i l l b e g i n to circulate, w i t h many modifications and many conflicts over its form, precisely w h e n ­ ever a political g r o u p w a n t s , for one reason or another, to attack the hinge that connects power to k n o w l e d g e in the w o r k i n g s of the ab­ solute State of the a d m i n i s t r a t i v e m o n a r c h y . A n d that is w h y you quite n a t u r a l l y find this type of discourse ( a n d even its formulations) on both w h a t m i g h t be called the R i g h t a n d the Left, in both the n o b i l i a r y reaction a n d in texts p r o d u c e d by revolutionaries before or after 1 7 8 9 . Let me just quote you one text about an unjust king, about the king of w i c k e d n e s s and b e t r a y a l s : "What punishment"—at

this

point, the author is addressing Louis X V I — " d o you think befits such a barbarous man, this w r e t c h e d h e i r to a h e a p of p l u n d e r ? Do you t h i n k that God's l a w does not apply to y o u ? Or are you a man for w h o m e v e r y t h i n g must be r e d u c e d to y o u r g l o r y a n d s u b o r d i n a t e d to y o u r satisfaction? A n d w h o are y o u ? For if y o u are not a God, you are a monster!" This w a s not w r i t t e n by M a r a t , but by Buat-Nangay, w h o w a s w r i t i n g to Louis X V I in 1 7 7 8 .

26

Ten y e a r s later, this w o u l d

be r e p e a t e d w o r d for w o r d b y the revolutionaries. You u n d e r s t a n d w h y , a l t h o u g h this n e w type of historical k n o w l ­ edge, t h i s new type of discourse, a c t u a l l y d i d p l a y t h i s

important

political role and did act as the hinge b e t w e e n the administrative m o n a r c h y ' s power and its k n o w l e d g e , royal power had to t r y to b r i n g it u n d e r its control. J u s t as this discourse c i r c u l a t e d from R i g h t to Left, from the n o b i l i a r y reaction to a b o u r g e o i s revolutionary project, so royal p o w e r t r i e d to a p p r o p r i a t e or control it. A n d so, from 1 7 6 0 o n w a r d , we begin to see royal power—and this proves the political value, the vital political issue that is at stake in this historical k n o w l -

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e d g e — t r y i n g to organize this historical k n o w l e d g e by, so to speak, r e i n t r o d u c i n g it into the play b e t w e e n k n o w l e d g e a n d power, b e t w e e n a d m i n i s t r a t i v e p o w e r a n d the e x p e r t i s e to w h i c h it gave rise. From 1 7 6 0 o n w a r d w e see the emergence of i n s t i t u t i o n s t h a t w e r e roughly equivalent to a m i n i s t r y of history. The process began in about 1 7 6 0 , w i t h the establishment of a B i b l i o t h e q u e de finances, w h i c h h a d to s u p p l y H i s M a j e s t y ' s m i n i s t e r s w i t h the reports, information,

and

clarifications t h e y needed. In 1763, a D e p o t de chartes w a s established for those w h o w a n t e d to s t u d y the history a n d public r i g h t of France. In 1781, the t w o i n s t i t u t i o n s w e r e m e r g e d to form a B i b l i o t h e q u e de legislation—note the

terms

c a r e f u l l y — d ' a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , histoire

et

droit p u b l i c . A s l i g h t l y later text states t h a t this l i b r a r y is i n t e n d e d for H i s M a j e s t y ' s m i n i s t e r s , those w h o are responsible for d e p a r t m e n t s of the general a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , and for the scholars a n d jurisconsults w h o h a d been a p p o i n t e d b y the chancellor or keeper of the seals a n d w h o w e r e p a i d at H i s M a j e s t y ' s expense to w r i t e books a n d other w o r k t h a t w e r e of use to legislators, h i s t o r i a n s , a n d the p u b l i c .

27

This m i n i s t r y of history h a d an official in c h a r g e of it. H i s name w a s J a c o b - N i c o l a s M o r e a u , and it w a s he, together w i t h a few col­ l a b o r a t o r s , w h o a s s e m b l e d the h u g e collection of medieval a n d p r e medieval d o c u m e n t s on w h i c h h i s t o r i a n s such as A u g u s t i n T h i e r r y a n d Guizot w o u l d w o r k in the e a r l y n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y .

28

A t the time

of its c r e a t i o n at l e a s t , the m e a n i n g of t h i s institution—of this m i n i s t r y of h i s t o r y — i s q u i t e clear: A t the t i m e w h e n the political confronta­ tions of the eighteenth century centered on a historical discourse, or, more specifically, at a d e e p e r level, at the t i m e w h e n historical k n o w l ­ e d g e w a s indeed a w e a p o n in the struggle against the absolute mon­ a r c h y ' s a d m i n i s t r a t i v e - s t y l e k n o w l e d g e , the m o n a r c h y w a n t e d , so to speak, to recolonize that k n o w l e d g e . The creation of the ministry of history w a s , if vou like, a concession, a first tacit acceptance on the part of the k i n g that there d i d indeed exist historical material that might, perhaps, reveal the basic l a w s of the k i n g d o m . It w a s the first tacit acceptance of a sort of constitution, ten vears before the Estates General. So, a first concession on the part of royal power, a first tacit acceptance that something might slip b e t w e e n its power a n d its ad-

138

"SOCIETY

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ministration: the constitution, basic l a w s , the representation of the people, a n d so on. But at the same time, historical k n o w l e d g e was reinstalled, in an a u t h o r i t a r i a n way, in the very place w h e r e attempts h a d been made to use it against absolutism. That k n o w l e d g e w a s a weapon in the struggle to reoccupy the k n o w l e d g e of the prince, a n d it w a s placed b e t w e e n his power a n d the e x p e r t i s e a n d w o r k i n g s of the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n . A m i n i s t r y of history was established b e t w e e n the prince a n d the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n as a w a y of reestablishing the link, of m a k i n g history part of the w o r k i n g s of monarchic p o w e r a n d its a d ­ ministration. A m i n i s t r y of history w a s created b e t w e e n the k n o w l ­ edge of the prince a n d the expertise of his administration, a n d in order to establish, b e t w e e n t h e king a n d h i s administration, in a con­ trolled w a y , the u n i n t e r r u p t e d t r a d i t i o n of the monarchy. That is more or less w h a t I w a n t e d to s a y to you about the estab­ lishment of this new t y p e of historical k n o w l e d g e . I w i l l try to look later at the w a y in w h i c h t h i s k n o w l e d g e l e d to the emergence w i t h i n t h i s element of the struggle b e t w e e n nations, or in other w o r d s what w i l l become the race struggle a n d the class struggle.

1 1 February

1976

139

1. There are at least fifty accounts of the Trojan origins of the French, from the PseudoFr£degaire's Historia Francoium (727) to Ronsard's Franciade (1572). It is unclear whether Foucault is referring to this tradition as a whole, or to a specific text. The text in question may be the one referred to bv A. Thierry in his Recti du temps merovingiens, precede de considerations sur I'histoire de France (Paris, 1 8 4 0 ) , or in other words Les Grandes Chroniques de Saint-Denis (which were written in the second half of the twelfth centurv, published by Paulin Paris in 1836, and reprinted by J . Viard in 1 9 2 0 ) . Many of these stones can be consulted in Dom. M. Bouquet, Recueil des historiens de Gaule et de la France (Pans, 1739-1752), vols. 2 and 3. 2. "Know that he is an emperor in his kingdom, and that he can do all and as much as imperial right permits" (J. Boutilher, Somme rurale, oule Grand Coutumier general de pratiques civiles [fourteenth century] [Bruges, 1479]). The 1611 edition of this text is cited by A. Thierry, Considerations sur I'histoire de France. 3. Thierry, p. 41 (1868 ed.). 4. F. Hotman, Franco-Gallia (Geneva, 1573) (French translation: La Gaule franchise [Cologne, 1574], reprinted as La Gaule francaise [Pans: Fayard, 1 9 8 1 ] ) . 5. Cf. Beati Rhenani Rerum Germanicorum lihri tres (Basel, 1531). The edition published in Ulm in 1 6 9 3 should also be consulted; the commentary and notes added by the members of the Imperial Historical College provide a genealogy and eulogy of the "Europa corona" of the Hapsburgs (BeatiRhenani lihri tres Institutionem Rerum Historici Imperialis scopum illustratarum [Ulm, 1 6 9 3 ] , and especially pp. 5 6 9 - 6 0 0 . See also the commentaries appended to the Strasbourg edition: Argentaton, 1 6 1 0 ) . 6. Cf. Hotman, Franco-Gallia, chapter 4, "De ortu Francorum, qui Gallia occupata. eius nomen in Francia, vel Francogalliam mutarunt" ( p p . 40-52 of the 1576 ed.). 7. Etienne Pasquier, Recherxhes de la France, 3 vols. (Pans 1560-1567). Pasquier studied under Hotman. 8. Cf. Hotman, Franco-Gallia, p. 54: "Semper reges Franci h a b u e r u n t . . . non tyrannos, aut camefices: sed liberatis suae custodes, praefectos, tutores sibi constituerunt." 9. Ibid., p. 62. 1 0 . Julius Caesar, Commentariide hello gallico; see especially books 6 , 7, and 8. 11. Hotman, Franco-Gallia, pp. 55-62. 12. Cf. ibid., p. 65i, where Hotman describes "the continuity of the powers of the council" through the various dynasties. 13.Jean du Tillet, Les Manoires et rechenhes (Rouen, 1578); Recueil des Roys de France (Pans, 1 5 8 0 ) ; Remonstrance ou Advertissement a la noblesse tant du parti du Roy que des rebelles (Pans, 1585)- Jean de Serres, Memoires de la troisieme guerre civile, et des dernieis troubles de la France (Pans, 1 5 7 0 ) ; lnventaire general de I'histoire de la France (Pans, 1597). 14. P- Audigier, De torigt'ne des Francois etde leur empire (Pans, 1676). 15.J--E. Tarault, Annales de France, avec les alliances, genealogies, conquetes,fondations e'cclesiasttques et civiles en tune et tautre empire et dans les rvyaumes etrangtrs, depuis Pharamond jusqu'au roi Louis trti^eme (Pans, 1635). 16. P. Audigier, De I'origt'ne des Francois, p. 3. 17. Caesar, De Bella gallico, book 1, p. 1. 18. It was in fact Bishop Ragvaldson who, speaking of the question of the "fabrication of the human race" at the Council of Basel in 1434, described Scandinavia as humanity's original cradle. He based his claim on the fourth-century chronicle of Jordams: "Hac lgitur Scandza insula quasi officina gentium aut certe velut vagina nationum... Gotthi quondam memorantur egressi" (De origine actibusque Getarum in Monumanta Germaniae Historic a, Auctvrum anttquissimorum, vol. 5, part 1 (Berolim, 1882), pp. 53-258 (quotation from p. 6 0 ) . A far-reaching debate on this question began after the rediscovery of Tacitus's De origine et situ Gomaniae, which was published in 1472.

''SOCIETY

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19- Gregoire de Tours, Historia Francorum ( 5 7 5 - 5 9 2 ) (Paris, 1692). 20. Fenelon, Les Aventures de Telemaque (Pans, 1 6 9 5 ) . 21. The reference is to Etat de la Frame dans lequel on vait tout ce que regarde le gouvernement ecclesiastique, le militaire, la justice, les finances, le commerre, les manufactures, le nomb/e des habitants, et en general tout ce qui peut faire comprendre a fond cette monarchic; extrat't des memoires dresses par les intendants du royaume, par ordre du ray Louis XIV a la sollicitation de Monseigneur le due de Bourgpgie, pere de Louis XV a present regnant. Avec des Memoires historiques sur I'ancient gouvemment de cette monarchic jusqu'a Hugues Capet, par M. le comte de Boulainvilliers, 2 vols, in folio (London, 1727). In 1728, a third volume appeared under the title Etatde la France, contenant XIV lettres sur les anciens Parlemens de France, avec I'histoire de ce royaume depuis le commencement de la monarchic jusqu'a Charles VIII. On y a joint des Me oires presented a M le due d'Orle'ans (London, 1728). m

22. Foucault is alluding to those of Boulamvilliers's historical works that deal with French political institutions. The most important are: Me oire sur la noblesse du wiaume de France fait par le comte de Boulainvilliers (1719; extracts are published in A. Devyver, Le Sange'pure. Les prejuges de race che^ les gentilhommes francais de VAntien Regime [Brussels: Editions de 1'Universite, 1973], pp. 5 0 0 - 4 8 ) ; Memoire pour la noblesse de France contre les Dues et Pairs, s.1. (1717); Memoires pre'sente's a Mgr. le due d Orleans, Regent de France (The Hague/Am­ sterdam, 1727); Histoire de I'ancient gouvemment de la France avec quator^e lettres historiques sur les Parlements ou Etats Ge'neraux, 3 vols. (The Hague/Amsterdam, 1727) (this is an abridged and revised edition of the Memoires); Traite sur I'origine et les droits de la noblesse ( 1 7 0 0 ) , in Continuation des memoires de litterature et d'histoire (Pans, 1 7 3 0 ) , vol. 9 , pp. 3 - 1 0 6 ( r e ­ published, with numerous modifications, as Essais sur la noblesse contenant une dissertation sur son origiiie et abaissement, par le feu M. le Comte de Boulainvilliers, avec des notes historiques, critiques et politique s [Amsterdam, 1732]); Abrege chronologique de Vhistorie de France, 3 vols. (Pans, 1733); Histoire des anciens parlemans de France ou Etats Ge'neraux du royaume (London, 1737). m

}

23. The historical writings of L. G. comte de Buat-Nancay include Les Origines ou tAncient Gouvernement de la France, de l* Italic, de I'Al/emagtje (Paris, 1757 ); Histoire ancienne despeuples de I'Europe, 12 vols. (Paris, 1772); Elements de la politique, ou Recerche sur les vrais principes de I'economie sociale (London, 1773); Les Maximes du gpuvernement monarxhique pour servir de suite aux elements de la politique (London, 1778). 24. Of the many works by F. de Reynaud, comte de Montlosier, only those that relate to the problems raised by Foucault in his lecture will be mentioned here: De la monarchic francaise depuis son etablisscment fusqu'd nos jours, 3 vols. (Pans, 1814); Memoires sur la Re­ volution francaise, le Consulat VEmpirc, la Restauration et les principaux evenements qui Vont suivie (Pans, 1 8 3 0 ) . On Montlosier, see the lecture of 10 March below. 25. See L. G. comte de Buat-Nancay, Remarques d'un Franc_ais, ou Examen impartial du litre de M. Necker sur les finances (Geneva, 1785). 26. L. G. comte de Buat-Nanqay, Les Maximes du gpuvernement monarchique, pp. 286-87. 27. On this question, see J . N. Moreau, Plan des travaux littercdres ordonnes par Sa Majeste pour la rechetxhe, la collection et Vemploi des monuments d'histoire et du droit public de la monarchic francaise (Pans, 1782). 28. Cf. J . N. Moreau, Principes de morale, de politique et de droit public puises dans I'histoire de notre monarchic, ou discourse sur I'histoire de France, 21 vols. (Pans, 177^-1789).

seren

18

Nation

and nations.

FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6

- The Roman conquest.

decadence

of the Romans.

- Boulainvilliers

Germans.

- The Soissons

vase. - Origins

right, and the language generalizations institutions

- Grandeur

on the Jreedom offeudalism.

of State. - Boulainvilliers:

about war: law of history of war, the calculation

of forces.

and of the

-

Church,

three

and law of nature, the - Remarks on war.

L A S T T I M E , I T R I E D to show you h o w the n o b i l i a r y reaction w a s

bound up w i t h , not exactly the invention of historical discourse, b u t r a t h e r the shattering of a p r e e x i s t i n g historical discourse w h o s e func­ tion h a d until then been to sing t h e praises of Rome, as Petrarch puts it.

1

U n t i l then, historical discourse h a d been inferior to t h e State's

discourse about itself; i t s function w a s to demonstrate t h e State's r i g h t , to establish its sovereignty, to recount its u n i n t e r r u p t e d g e n e ­ alogy, a n d to use heroes, exploits, a n d d y n a s t i e s to i l l u s t r a t e the l e ­ gitimacy of p u b l i c right. The d i s r u p t i o n of t h e praise of Rome in the late seventeenth a n d early e i g h t e e n t h centuries came a b o u t in t w o w a y s . One the one hand, w e h a v e the recollection, the reactivation, of the fact of t h e invasion, w h i c h , as y o u w i l l remember,

Protestant

historiography h a d already used as a n a r g u m e n t against royal abso­ lutism. The evocation of t h e invasion introduced a major b r e a k in time: the Germanic invasion of the fourth to fifth centuries negates right. This is the moment w h e n p u b l i c right is destroyed, the moment w h e n the hordes flooding out of G e r m a n y put a n end to R o m a n

140

"SOCIETY

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19. Gregoire de Tours, Histona francorum (575-592) (Pans, 1692). 20. Fenelon, Les Aventures de Telemaque (Pans, 1695). 21. The reference is to Etal de la France dans lequel on to it tout ce que regarde le gouvernement e'cclesiastique, le militaire, la justice, les finances, le commerce, les manufactures, I enombre des habitants, et en general tout ce qui peut [aire comprendre a jond cette monarchic; extrait des memoires dresses par les intendants du royaume, par ordre du my Louis XIV a la sollicitation de Monseigneur le due de Bourgpgne, pere de Louis XV a present regpant. Avec des Memoires historiques sur Vancient gouvernment de cette monarchic jusqu'a Hugues Capet, par M. le comte de Boulainvilliers, 2 vols, in folio (London, 1727). In 1728, a third volume appeared under the title Etatde la France, contenant XIV lettres sur les anciens Parlemens de France, avec l histoire de ce royaume depuis le commencement de la monarchic jusqu'a Charles VIII. On y a joint des Memoires presenters a M le due d*Orleans (London, 1728). f

22. Foucault is alluding to those of Boulainvilliers's historical works that deal with French political institutions. The most important are: Memoire sur la noblesse du roiaume de France fait par le comte de Boulainvilliers (1719; extracts are published in A. Devyver, Le Sangepure. Les prejuges de race chevies gentilhommes francais de VAncien Regime [Brussels: Editions de l'Universite, 1973], pp. 500-48); Memoire pour la noblesse de France contre les Dues et Pairs, s. 1. (1717); Memoires presenter a Mgr. le due d Orleans, Regent de France (The Hague/Am­ sterdam, 1727); Histoire de I'ancient gouvernment de la France avec quator%e lettres historiques sur les Parlements ou Etats Gencraux, 3 vols. (The Hague/Amsterdam, 1727) (this is an abridged and revised edition of the Memoires); I'raite sur I'origine et les droits de la noblesse (1700), in Continuation des memoires de litte'rature et d'histoire ( P a n s , 1730), vol. 9, pp. 3-106 ( r e ­ published, with numerous modifications, as Essais sur la noblesse contenant une dissertation sur son on'gine et abaissement, par le feu M. le Comte de Boulainvilliers, avec des notes historiques, critiques et politiques [Amsterdam, 1732]); Abre'ge ch ronologique de Vhistoric de France, 3 vols. (Pans, 1733); Histoire des anciens parlemans de France ou Etats Ge'neraux du royaume (London, f

1737). 23. The historical writings of L. G. comte de Buat-Nancay include Les Origines ou I'Ancient Gouvernement de la France, de I'ltalie, de I'AJlemagne ( Pans, 1757 ); Histoire ancienne despeuples de I'Europe, 12 vols. (Pans, 1772); Elements de la politique, ou Recerche sur les vrais principes de I'economie sociale (London, 177)); Les Maximes du gouvernement munarchique pour servir de suite aux elements de la politique (London, 1778). 24. Of the many works by F. de Reynaud, comte de Montlosier, only those that relate to the problems raised by Foucault m his lecture will be mentioned here: De la monarchic francaise depuis son etablissement jusqu'a nos jours, 3 vols. (Pans, 1814); Memoires sur la Re­ volution francaise, le Consulat l Empire, la Restauration et les principaux evenements qui I'ont suivie (Pans, 1830). On Montlosier, see the lecture of 10 March below. 25. See L. G. comte de Buat Nan 35, 5 0 ,

121, 215 politics biological theory applied to, 256-57 historical study of. See historicopolitical discourse

as war, 15-16, 47-48, 165, 259, 281 population (mass of m e n ) aleatory events within, dealing with,

246 homeostasis in, 246, 249 regulation of demographics of, 242-49 regulation of sexuality of, 251-52 Portugal, k i n g of, 57 power circulation of, among individuals ( n e t w o r k of), 2 9 - 3 0 demand for, by the powerless, 73 economic analysis of ( p o w e r as p r o p e r t y ) , 13-14 escape of mdividuaf from, in death,

248 exercise of, as concealed domination, 37-38

Index

306

exercise of, as repression by force, 15-

psychiatry attacks on, in recent period, 5, 12

18 exercise of, through b o t h right and

connection to racism, 2 8 6 limited usefulness of theory, 6

disciplines, 3 6 - 4 0 as a force, 1 6 8 - 6 9

public hygiene, 244-45, 252

Foucault's researches on, 274-91

public right. See right

historico-political discourse on, from

punishment, history of, 2 8 Puritans, 5 9

ca. 1 6 0 0 o n w a r d , 4 9 - 6 2 inequality in distribution of, 3 0 - 3 1

Pyrrhus, 175

justified b y historical discourse, 6 6 6 9 , 73-74, 141, 171 race

knowledge and, 2 7 9 legitimacy of, 2 6 , 4 4 - 4 6 , 171 mechanisms of, economic utility of, 3233

practice of, in local institutions, 2 8 regional v s . centralized manifestations

defined b y distinct language and history, 77 purity of, maintaining, 8 1 - 8 2 regeneration of one's own, through

of, 2 7 - 2 8 relationship of right and t r u t h w i t h ,

exposure to risk of death and death itself, 2 5 7 - 6 0

24-27

theory of, 6 0

and resistance, 2 8 0 - 8 1 precautions

in, 27-34 surrender of, to sovereignty, 1 6 - 1 7 tactics of using ( M a c h i a v e l l i ) , 1 6 9 theories of, economic and noneconomic, 1 6 - 1 8 and truth, 24-27 two faced image of, in Indo-European system, 6 8 , 73-74 unity of, multiple p o w e r s derived from, 4 4 - 4 6 as w a r , 15-19, 23, 4 6 - 5 1 , 88, 1 6 3 - 6 5 present, role of, v s . the past, 227-28 prisons, critiques of, 7 private war, 4 8 - 4 9 Protestants historiography, Vi1 political theories of, 35, 121 Proyart, L. B„ 211

subrace, 6 1 - 6 2 , 7 0 - 7 4 defined by biology, 8 0 - 8 2

noneconomic analysis of, 1 4 - 1 6

study of, methodological

conflict between superrace and

race w a r biological transcription of, 5 0 , 6 0 - 6 2 as normalization of society, 6 1 - 6 2 primacy of, in social history, 6 0 - 6 2 redefined as class struggle, 6 0 , 7 9 , 80,

82-83, 262

in Soviet state, 2 6 2 race war discourse, 6 5 - 8 4 , 2 3 9 counterhistorical function of, 6 6 - 7 6 in England, 1 0 1 - 1 1 , 126, 143 oppositional function of, to royal and feudal power, 76, 1 2 8 - 2 9 and traditional historical discourse, compared, 73-74, 77-80, 133-35 See also histonco-political Racine, Jean, 175, 176-77 racism functions of, 2 5 4 - 5 6 in M i d d l e Ages, 8 7 - 8 9

discourse

Index S t a t e - s p o n s o r e d , e.g., N a z i s m , 8 1 - 8 2 , 89, 2 3 9 , 2 5 4 - 6 3 , 2 8 3 , 2 8 5 - 8 6 traditional, 258 racist d i s c o u r s e , o r i g i n of, in race w a r discourse, 8 0 - 8 1

307

R h e n a n u s , B e a u t u s , 118 R i c h e l i e u , C a r d i n a l , 122, 123 right a s s e r t i o n of, b y philosophical a d v e r s a r i e s , 52-54

reason, belief i n p r o g r e s s of, 182

of c o n q u e s t , 9 9 - 1 0 0

r eb ell ion

h i s t o r y of, 125-26, 174-78

a n d d o m i n a t i o n , cycle of, 2 8 0 - 8 1

r u l e s of, d e l i n e a t e d b y power, 24-27

fomented b y the k i n g , 2 3 0

and w a r , r e l a t i o n s h i p of, 156-58

historical n e e d for, 110 reformism, 262 r e g u l a r i z a t i o n , p o w e r of, 247, 253 r e g u l a t i o n of p o p u l a t i o n s , 242-52

r i g h t , d i s c o u r s e of, 215, 241, 245 r i g h t s , revival of, historico-political d i s c o u r s e a n d , 131-33 Robin Hood tales, 1 0 0

R e i c h , R e i m u t , 31

R o m a n a n n a l i s t s , 6 6 - 6 9 , 71-72

R e i c h , W i l h e l m , 5, 15

Roman Empire

r e power, 16

defeat of, b y G e r m a n s , 118-21

re s e x u a l i t y , 31

f r e e d o m s in, s u r v i v i n g into M i d d l e

r e l i g i o n , u n i t y v s . freedom of, 119-20 religious racism (e.g., a n t i - S e m i t i s m ) , 88-89 representative government, 93-94 repression

Ages, 204-6 h e i r s of, 115-18, 123-24 o c c u p a t i o n of G a u l , 120-21, 144-47, 2 0 0 , 229 R o m a n G a u l . See G a u l , R o m a n

c r i t i c i s m of notion of, 17-18, 4 0 , 2 7 8

Romanity, 2 0 6

m e c h a n i s m s of, at t h e l o w e s t level,

R o m a n l a w , 153

r e s e a r c h on, 32-33

r e a c t i v a t i o n of, 34, 35

p o w e r a s , 17-18, 44

R o m a n R e p u b l i c , 145

of s e x u a l i t y , 31-33

Rome (ideal of)

r e s i s t a n c e , a n d p o w e r , r e l a t i o n of, 2 8 0 - 8 1

as B a b y l o n , 71, 74

R e s t o r a t i o n p e r i o d , 232

c o n t i n u i n g p r e s e n c e of, in M i d d l e

r e t u r n of defeated a n c e s t o r s , m y t h of, 56-57, 82 r e t u r n s of k n o w l e d g e , 6-12 revolution b a r b a r i a n s ' c o n t r i b u t i o n to, 1 9 7 - 2 0 6 constitution reestablished b y means of, 1 9 2 - 9 3

A g e s , 74-75 g r a n d e u r and d e c a d e n c e of, 147 r e a c t i v a t i o n of, i n F r e n c h R e v o l u t i o n , 210 R o u s s e a u , J e a n J a c q u e s , 35 Rousseauism, 2 0 9 - 1 0 royal power

as h i s t o r i c a l subject, 8 3 - 8 4

j u d i c i a l s y s t e m as benefiting, 2 5 - 2 6

service of h i s t o r i c a l d i s c o u r s e to, 7 8 - 8 0

s o v e r e i g n t y t h e o r y as benefiting, 34-

S t a t e r a c i s m u s e d as a l t e r n a t i v e to, 8182 See also F r e n c h R e v o l u t i o n ; r e b e l l i o n

35, 116-17 r u r a l i n d e b t e d n e s s , 170 R u s s i a , Tsarist, 2 8 5

Index

508

society

SA, 2 5 9

binary structure of, as concept, 51, 74,

safety measures, 244

8 0 , 8 8 , 1 0 9 - 1 0 , 117-18, 134-35

Salazar, Antonio, 2 8 5

explained from the b o t t o m up, 5 4 - 5 6

savage, 1 9 4 - 9 5

history of, 134-35

"noble," 1 9 6 savings, individual, 244

metaphor of, as human body, 51

Saxons, 6 9 , 7 8 , 1 0 0 - 1 0 9

monist structure of, as concept, 8 0 - 8 1 normalization of, 6 1 - 6 2 , 253

Right ( l a w s of), 1 0 5 - 7 , 143, 1 5 6 school systems, p o w e r mechanisms

of,

45-46 science disciplinarization of, 182 exact sciences, relation to human sciences, 3 8 history of, 1 7 8 - 8 2 institutionalized, p o w e r of, 9 - 1 0 , 12 philosophy and, 182 Scott, W a l t e r , 1 0 0 Second Internationa), 2 6 2 Selden, John, 1 0 6 S e r r e s . J e a n de, 121 sexuality disciplining and regulation of, 251-52, 278-79 repression of, 31-33 Shakespearean tragedy, 174 Siberia, 285 Sieyes, E. J . , 5 0 , 142, 211, 2 2 9

power of, as continuation of w a r , 151 6 , 18-19, 1 6 3 - 6 5 p y r a m i d structure of, 51 ternary structure of, 51, 73 Soissons vase, 125, 1 2 6 , 1 5 0 , 152 Solon, 53, 2 8 3 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, 287 sovereignty as defense (a poor one) against power of disciplines,

39-40

democratization of, 37 as derived from a contract, 13, 4 3 - 4 6 domination distinguished from, 27, 37, 45 as enslaving, 6 9 - 7 0 history as justification of, 7 9 - 8 0 , 1 1 0 juridical model of, 1 6 8 - 6 9 life and death power, as attribute of, 240-41 origin of, in contract ( H o b b e s ) , 2 8 -

2 9 , 34, 9 3 - 9 9

on nations, 218-22

representative, 93-94

on T h i r d Estate, 217, 2 2 0 - 2 2

resistance of, to revolution, 8 1 - 8 2

Slavs, 8 2

rights of, 2 6 , 6 7 , 1 0 2 , 116-17

social contract theory, 16-17, 1 9 4 - 9 5 ,

rights derived from, 4 0

2 0 9 , 241, 245 social democracy, 2 6 2 Socialism achievement of, by struggle and elimination of the enemy, 2 6 2 racism inherent in, 2 6 1 - 6 3 social war, 6 0 Societe royale de medecme,

181

succession to, from old to new regimes, 119, 147 surrender of power to, 16-17 theory of, elements of (subject, unitv, law), 43-46 theory of, instrumental in political change, 34 35 theory of, survival into bourgeois era, 35-38

Index Soviet state

surveillance, continuous, and control of

psychiatry in, 12 race w a r interpreted as class w a r in, 82-83, 262 Spain, 2 8 5

309

the b o d y , 3 6 , 242, 251 survival of the fittest, 8 0 , 2 5 6 swamps, draining ot, by State, 245 Syndicat de la magistrature, 3 9

Sparta, 1 0 6 SS, 2 5 9 Stalinism analysis of, 275

Tacitus, 124

r e t r e a t of, 13

Tarault, J . E., 122

similarities to democratic society, 2 7 6 State, the actualization of, from virtual relations of power, 2 2 7 - 2 8 administration of, rationality in, 1 7 0

taxation, 1 4 6 , 151 Telegram 71, 2 6 0 , 2 6 4 n . 5 theoretical systems (global, totalitarian) inhibiting effect of, 6 - 1 2 struggle against, of localized

birth of, from w a r , 5 0 , 8 9 - 9 0 , 9 3 - 9 9

knowledge, 12

death and succession of States, 1 1 9

Thierry, Amedee, 6 0

disciplinary p o w e r of, 2 5 0 - 5 1

Thierry, Augustin, 5 0 , 6 0 , 117, 137, 142,

knowledge of itself, 1 2 8 - 2 9 murderous and suicidal, 2 5 8 - 6 0 nations within and forming, 134, 14243, 223-24 official history of, 1 7 7 - 7 8 , 1 8 5 - 8 6 , 224 p o w e r relationships of, as w a r , 4 6 - 5 1 ,

2 0 7 , 2 2 6 , 233-36, 283 Thiers, A . , 8 0 , 2 2 6 Third Estate history of, 2 0 6 , 2 0 8 - 1 0 as nation, 217-22 nobility's resistance to, 143-44, 1 6 5 ,

88

235

as protector of racial purity, 8 1 - 8 2

Third Reich, 57, 8 2

rise and fall of, 193

totalitarian society, similarities to

struggle to control, 2 2 5 - 2 6 , 2 3 6 unity of, 1 1 9 - 2 0 S t a t e racism, 8 1 - 8 2 , 8 9 , 2 3 9 , 2 5 4 - 6 3 , 283, 2 8 5 - 8 6 struggle. See class struggle; war subjects created from relations of subjugation, 45, 284 history w r i t t e n from the point of view of, 1 6 8 relation to the king, 217, 2 4 0 sovereignty constituted from (Hobbes), 2 8 - 2 9 , 43-46 succession, from old to new regimes, question of legitimacy, 1 1 9 , 147

democratic society, 275-77 towns freedom of, 2 0 I , 2 0 4 - 6 planned, 2 5 0 - 5 1 w a r with feudalism, 234-35 tragedy, 174-76 Shakespearean, 174 Trotsky, Leon, 2 8 2 Trotskyites, 275 Troy, myth of, 75. 115-18, 122, 163-64 truth discourses of, effect of power on, 2427 disinterested search for, by philosophers, 52-54, 283

Index

310

t r u t h (continued)

p e r p e t u a l , to r e v e n g e old w r o n g s ,

m i s t a k e n l y a s s u m e d to be on the s i d e of p e a c e a n d o r d e r , 17}

a p p e a l of to t h e m a s s e s , 5 6 - 5 7 p e r p e t u a l a n d u n e n d i n g , in h i s t o r y ,

n e u t r a l , ideal of, 52-54

111, 172-74, 215-16

o n e - s i d e d , of p h i l o s o p h i c a l

p o l i t i c s a s , 15-16, 4 7 - 4 8 , 1 6 5 , 2 5 9 , 2 8 1

c o m b a t a n t s , 52-54, 57

p o w e r as, 15-19, 23, 4 6 - 5 1 , 8 8 , 1 6 3 - 6 5

p r o d u c t i o n of, d e m a n d e d b y p o w e r , 24-25

p r i m a c y of, i n r e s p e c t to o t h e r r e l a t i o n s , 47, 5 9 - 6 0 , 1 5 5 - 5 8 , 1 6 3 - 6 5 ,

Tudor dynasty, 1 0 0

215-16

T u r k e y , 75

p r i v a t e , a b o l i t i o n of, 4 8 - 4 9

twentieth century (from the 1 9 5 0 s ) , a t t a c k s on conventional

institutions

d u r i n g , 5-6

b e t w e e n r a c e s , l 8 t h - c e n t u r y i d e a of, 239 State monopoly on, 48-49 S t a t e s formed by, 9 4 - 9 5 s t u d y of, 47, 215-16, 2 2 6

ultrareaction, 229

superseded by economic and political

u n i v e r s a l , a g e n t of, in h i s t o r y , 2 3 6 - 3 7 u n i v e r s i t i e s , n o r m a l i z a t i o n of k n o w l e d g e s in, 182-84 u r b a n s o c i e t y , 2}4-}5, 2 4 5 . See alio towns

struggle, in the State, 225-26, 236 t o t a l , t h r e a t to o w n p o p u l a t i o n , 25760 v i c t o r y in, m i l i t a r y o r g a n i z a t i o n as key, 1 5 8 - 6 0 See also c i v i l w a r ; c l a s s s t r u g g l e w a r l o r d , G e r m a n i c , 1 4 8 - 5 0 , 152

V a u b a n , Sebastien le P r e s t r e d e , 1 7 0

Warr, John, 107

Vietnam war, 285

w a r r i o r a r i s t o c r a c y , G e r m a n i c , 148-54,

v i r u s e s , a r t i f i c i a l , 254

160-61

V u i l l e m i n , J u l e s , ix

W a r s of R e l i g i o n , 3 5 , 117-21 w e a p o n s , confiscation of, from c o n q u e r e d Gauls, 1 5 0 , 1 5 8 - 5 9

war

Weber, Max, 287

B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s ' s a n a l y s i s of, 1 5 5 - 6 5 of e v e r y m a n against e v e r y m a n (Hobbes),

power in, 2 7 6 W i l l i a m t h e C o n q u e r o r , 72, 9 9 , 102,

89-93

internal, 216

103-5, 108

peace a s c o n t i n u a t i o n of, 1 5 - 1 6 , 5 0 - 5 1 perpetual, between

W e s t e r n s o c i e t i e s , fear of o v e r u s e of

w o r k e r s h o u s i n g , 251

groups

(Bougainvilliers), 162-63 p e r p e t u a l , of H o b b e s , 8 9 - 9 3 , 162

Yom Kippur War, 285