I thought about the definition of Focault about power, and I felt as well as the physics concept of heat, "heat is the thermal energy transferred between systems due to a temperature difference", heat modifies bodies, etc It's just a thought.
Ah yea I could see that view of "power" but Foucault would probably choke on that analogy. The thermodynamic equations allow us to understand that "thought" about the observed world and apply it. Pushing electrons through an electric cooktop will fry an egg, transferring heat energy to the yolk via power, and do it each time. Foucault is saying we were taught physics by those of social power over us, and its not objective. The idea or thought of power in thermodynamics isn't an observation of the world but just a manifestation of a socially constructed ideas. It could change; the idea isn't the same each time. Maybe pushing electrons around could change the weather, if those in social power just constructed that thought. In other words, the power described by thermodynamics doesn't really exist and could be anything. It's unconvincing because: why gain social power to indoctrinate people into thinking the world operates on science? To manipulate us ... for what purpose? Because scientific thought enables those in power to stay in power, and having power of others is the best we can achieve? His ideas become pessimistic and nihilistic. I think Foucault never got out of believing monsters were under his bed.
Power in social relations and society at large, is simply the capacity to impose suffering, or offer reward. "The most effective way to exercise power is to make people suffer", Winston Churchill.
An extremely undevalued video on RUclips. Thank your for your clear summarization. I would like to see a little bit on the concepts of subject, discipline and knowledge as well yet this is a great place to start.
The best way to understand Foucault is to understand his personal life. From there it is pretty easy to see that his project is a continuous critique (attack) on every healthy part of society from which he was shunned. The reason he is famous is that the people who grabbed power from the hands of the old elite in the 60s empowered a new intelectual class that served their project, hence critical theory, hence Foucault. Foucault is part of the same project as the Marquis de Sade. He critiques power to get power to fulfil their desires. Foucault seems deep because his project is poor and crude and the only way he has to sell it to the upper middle class university midwit mass is to appear deep. I have read most of Foucault and this is the process I went through: First 10%; oh god this is dumb pretending to be smart. Next 20%; ok there might be some good ideas here but oh my is it complicated. Next 30%; I have to keep going on, there must be something I am missing here. Last 20%; yeah this guy is a hack and probably a sexual criminal, let me check his record... oh yeah, he is. Case closed.
Not 'probably' a sex criminal - he absolutely was. He was witnessed (by close friends who agreed with his ideas, so it's not his enemies accusing him) having s3x with prepubescent boys while he was teaching in Tunisia. What little I've read about him as a person outside of his work (work like, y'know, trying to get the age of consent completely abolished down to infants) is that he was generally terrible person, maybe a high-functioning sociopath. But you're the only person other than myself to correctly pick up on what Foucault really was: a cunningly self-justifying pervert of the worst kind.
I agree with you about Foucault. He seems to have thought that everything is a power play, a form of manipulation and exploitation, which is ironic given that that's exactly how he lived. We know that he sexually abused Tunisian children. The dimwits who read him admire his work because it gives them a pretext to teardown western civilisation, which they appear to despise. But it never occurs to such people to apply the hermeneutic of suspicion to Faucault's work!
I find Foucault's approach to power to be very convincing. He considered power to be decentralized and within social networks. This explains why collective power exists and why power is not contained within institutions. The fact that we can always draw on collective power, but also the fact that institutions use power, both evidence his ideas about power. Sociologically speaking, it seems pretty valid to identify power as being identifiable through outward behavior and actions effecting actions. Power being possessable isn't true because you can't really possess anything abstract.
The solution to Foucault's mystifications and obfuscations is Galbraith's Anatomy of Power which defines POWER simply as the ability to get others to do what YOU want: by reward or punishment or conditioning (including argument and emotional appeal and philosophical commitment)
I am pretty sure that Foucault used his power when he visited Algeria. There were certain actions taking place impacting other actions. If you guys know what I mean?!?!?
Yes you can go through life and allow circumstances to make you a subject. But what it means to be human is to think for yourself and make yourself into a moral being.
He was akin to junk fast food. Highly marketed but severely lacking in value, substance, nutrients, while full of salt and sweeteners, He was a fashion not a philosopher.
Thank you for the non-threatening discussion of Foucault. He's controversial and I think even a lot of people who promote his work don't understand it. It seems to me that, if you establish personal goals and values worthy of your mind and if you work toward them every day, even if only for a short time every day, you'll have power over yourself. Having power over oneself is much more important and satisfying than having power over others.
1:40 Your a human. A human being in reality is a human being. Receiving lessons in human being doesn't change the reality of being a human being. It's not more complicated than that is someone pretending they don't understand something right in front of them that all can see.
There are many things assumed about being human in one era that are not assumed in another. Or one culture that are not assumed in another culture. I can list off a multitude of differences, but I will rely on a classical example. Plato believed a human being had a daimon which existed within a person from their birth, and that each individual was obtained by a singular daimon prior to their birth by way of lot. This classical view believes the daimon acts independently of the human being and is responsible for prophetic dreams, a sort of guiding spirit that is other than oneself and yet constitutes their real character and has often more agency than one’s awareness. This basic idea is a very different understanding of the human subject than what we have today.
@@matthewkopp2391 Yes, Plato and Foucault do a lot of pretending. Human beings are not pretend, everyone can see what human beings are. Foucault can pretend human beings are unicorns, and that pretending would be just as pointless as the rest of Foucault's fictional writing. I imagine Foucault's father was a wealthy sociopath, and Foucault was a masochist who felt undervalued by society, which led him to pursue a career in the arts. It's not surprising that someone with these experiences might write about personal issues and project those pretend problems onto societal systems.
@@matthewkopp2391 Believing that humans have daimons does not equate to "humans are defined by having daimons". Plato had a wrong idea of how humans work, not a different definition of who is considered to be human...
In a way, during social change, there is power in the collective actions of the people, but populist movements can also lead to fascism. How people interact with each other, has a bearing on how their movement turns out. Power is in the interactions. I think that's part of what he's getting at.
Hello! Some of your videos are very well done! Can I repost them on China’s bilibili? I want more people to see it. The original author and website will be marked clearly! Thanks
Heidegger was a Nazi, so were Schmidt and Jünger. De Sade was pervert, and Nietzsche inspired Nazism (albeit unintentionally through his sister). Character assassination is something the left does, leave it to them. You want to cancel a thinker because they have a bad past? Go ahead. But don’t expect to be educated and intelligent if you’re only willing to read people whom you find amicable. P.S. the pdf file allegations against Foucault in Tunisia have largely been disproven. The guy who started the rumour admitted he was jealous of Foucault’s University position and tried to get him fired so he could take it. Although Foucault was definitely a hedonist and weirdo, the pdf file allegations have largely been discredited.
His later work focused on ethics and the self. A collective is power relations otherwise it is merely a rabble. Also foucault uses the duad power-knowledge or even the triad power-knowledge-pleasure.
As you present ir, sir, it is a clear thesis, but Focault's idea appear to be a fuzzy copy of the theories on symetric ir assymetric relacions between social identities, socialization and strategies to solve conflicts between the individual and the group. I think I'll keep with sociologists and psychologists.
he totally missed it with one word: secrecy. without acknowledging how people rule governments and institutions through secrecy, without acknowledging how control is a very serious game, he's just part of the problem. he perpetuates his own brand of illusions.
Maybe Foucault sees “institutions” as simply a conglomeration of subjects with their own “subjectivities”engaged in a common cause, as opposed to entities in and of themselves? I believe this is the case, and there exists no contradiction.
Can you do a video on Foucault and neoliberalism please as I’m doing a dissertation on how socially harmful neoliberalism is so in my lit review i am writing on foucaults views on neoliberalism
I gotta say - present company excluded, but the college professors I had absolutely ZERO respect for were all Foucault disciples. To a person. They were constantly pushing him and his particular brand of postmodernism.
I am aware that the purpose of this video is to explain Foucault "simply"; that having been said, it seems very simple indeed, to the point where I am wondering, Where is the content? So power, though it does not exist per se (whatever that means), consists of a consequence of social interaction exhibited not only in political domination and economic exploitation but also through social subjection? Is that it? If so, what is Foucault saying here that we did not know already?
@@Primitarian That the subject is a product of power is still to this day a controversial position in the social sciences. It was and still is a revolution. I think you confuse it with the marxist concept of false consciousness.
Make friends with an old rich guy, put a proposal together with a talented team. You may not have much power, but it's rewarding to build a business and help people. There are a lot of lonely old rich guys who would love a pet project. Power is less calcified than you might think. That said, don't expect a free lunch.
“Subjects” are not “people” and “objects” are not “things” in Foucault’s system of thought, as you incorrectly stated at the start of this video. Foucault is using the language of existentialism in a social context, but he is using words like “subject” with fidelity to the sense in which the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre used the term. The subject is the separate self, or even more to the point, the illusion of the separate self. Foucault argues that subject-making institutions oppress us precisely to the degree that they indoctrinate us to accept the notion that each of us is reducible to an individual subject. At that scale, each individual subject by itself lacks the power to resist the objects or institutions that define each of us down to a single, isolated point. Against the existential threat posed by anonymous institutions and their seemingly vast resources, subjects surrender their subjectivity, without so much as a single philosophical shot having been fired. And that’s how an individual is effectively oppressed by the state or the corporation. We volunteer for it, because we have been trained to be afraid of ghosts.
It's hard to believe that millennia old, simple concept of "divide et impera" needs to be transformed into 3-paragraph explanation. That is, until you realize that somebody transformed it into his life's work.
Faucoults third type of power gives an explanation why collective power isnt really a thing: The collective is already "subjectified" towards certain believes and this can ge controlled by, lets call it "narrative complexes" ...so the will of these groups is not free. This is imo very obvious in the ideological clashes groups in the US currently have.
OK, Industrial Revolution; The Power is the fossil fuel machines: Consumerism for Leisure/Pleasure is the Program. Very few object, The Majority Rules.
Ok thats not related to this video. I was wondering if Foucault was a dude that did weird sex in graveyards with children? Thats not part of my practice. But i meed to know who these children were, where they went, and how to combine all their experiences into one HUGE SPIDERLADY WITH A BILLION LASERS TO DESTROY ALL HUMANS... jkjk not a robot, im a human like you guys
As a parent of a 4yr old that's really coming into her own as a person, every single day is full of power struggles! And I think it's important we stay firm to teach where lines are
While trying to justify his sexual deviance and claim power himself… to again justify his proclivities that he was shunned for by healthy society. Being born moderately intelligent doesn’t mean you get to rewrite reality to how you see fit. Philosophers/thinkers etc are gifts because they reveal/solidy truth. He does the opposite, attempts to redefine truth to his purpose.
Power dwells within the Subject(s) Institutions do not have power, only the people that reside within/affiliated with the institution have power. Institutional Power is always in flux because the people and the power that dwells within/associated with it is in flux. The Effect of Power (The Power of Power) is measured by the degree it is concentrated versus diffused. People rioting have power, but it is not usually focused. A baby (Subject) crying has power through the effect its cries have on other Subjects. Inanimate and animate objects both have power. All animate subjects have power but not all inanimate objects have power. Foucault is difficult because the "Subject" is infinite. Impossible for a human being to understand completely. The "Subject" is to large to entirely grasp.
re - the critiques of foucault, you mention that his idea that power is fluid feels untrue, and that for most people power feels concentrated within the hands of the few (hard agree). you also covered how he is skeptical of people having power when they act collectively, but you counter that social movements *have* actually changed things - then isn't that an example of power being fluid? power is imbued into what we collectively choose to believe in, and has moved from institutions of white colonial male power to more democratic and diverse ways forward as seen with suffrage, civil rights and pride. also foucault foucaulted himself with that one, if he thought power was fluid but social movements have none.
Very enlightening summary. Postmodernists wrongly interpreted the situation of capitalism through the lenses of modernism that they were all against in one sense or another. The most famous one, Foucoult, once said that if he had read the Frankfurt School, he would not have written 90% of his works. I say in my book "Digitalism vs. Capitalism" that if he had read McLuhan, he wouldn't bother to write the remaining 10%. The real basis for their wrongness is that technology determines everything. In fact, what they refer to as social determination is nonsense. because without technological infrastructure, society could not survive. Read Harold Innis. To the questions, "Where is capitalism coming and going? Going to its graveyard?" I have a hopeful answer, which is highlighted in my book: Digitalism is killing capitalism. A novel perspective, a suggestion first in the world! “Digitalism vs. Capitalism: The New Ecumenical World Order: The Dimensions of State in Digitalism” by Veysel Batmaz is available for sale on the Internet.
@@themanicmechanics496 Contrary, I am critisizing him. The first person who told what Varoufakis has said was McLuhan. I am talking about, digitalism is a new MODE OF PRODUCTION not a retreat from or a phase of capitalism, and the political structure is ecumenism not feodalismç
You have Foucault’s definition on subjects wrong. Foucault speaks about subjects in the sense of someone who is subject to one in power. The way a King has his subjects. The citizens of his kingdom who subject to him.
A bit cringe no preface Foucault with him liking to pretend things because he feels reality is too burdensome to his imagination. Maybe give people some REAL understanding of where Foucault starts from.
He *removed* the people from the equations, that it is just actions acting on actions.. what a .. peculiar .. way of perceiving it.. That's going to take awhile to adjust-to, that perspective-I'd-never-possibly-have-thought-of.. Power's limbic, btw, if not lower.. Bulls vs cows, that is power-categories, bulls vs bulls is power-degrees. Humans just make human APPEARING renditions of herd-dynamics, & pretend that this is "better" somehow.. No, if you ignore which unconscious-mind-phase a someone is in, Kegan3 ( absorbing-experience, associating with herd-validity ), Kegan4 ( displacing nonvalidity/other from self, establishing one's herd-authority ), or Kegan5 ( outright human potential, understanding systems-of-systems, & intermeshing, complimentary validities ), if you ignore which unconscious-mind-phase a person is in, or a population, then you're ignoring much of the substance that power is made-of, & enacting, & acting-on, to the degree that you've not become incompetent at understanding .. if not perceiving .. the substance that it is made-of & acting-on.. The same act, from a Kegan3 mind, a Kegan4 mind, or a Kegan5 mind, would have different motivations for it, & therefore different standards-for-success.. Same as the same physical-act has different meaning when done by a female sentience vs a male one ( female-sentience is more likely to just enjoy immersion-in-movement, but we guys, with our significantly-less brain devoted to immersion-in-movement-process, would have a different motivation for that particular movement. Different wiring multiplies the number of causes required to be tracked, for a given exact-rendition. I suspect that much male reaction against gays is simply because of the violation of Kegan4 "maleness" of identity, actually ) what a peculiar way of thinking, though.. Oversimplifications can be usefully clarifying, that's for sure, but you need to be careful about the consequences of oversimplification, & to control for them.. I don't think the consequences of that *particular* oversimplification can be controlled for, while still understanding human reality.. I think it guts too much, makes it too "colorless" a view.. Thank you for making this video! Now to watch the rest of it, after that mindbomb..
Those "sites of struggle" look like some artificial division without any point or internal logic; you can reduce "domination" and "exploitation" to the same thing (no domination is being fought for the sake of it being fought...). And the third "struggle" isn't anything new; him giving it a new name ("subjection") is nothing worthy of remembrance. 'Though, it doesn't surprise me that it was his main focus, given his stance regarding a certain taboo... Why is this q-ball still relevant in some heads is beyond me.
Good vid. My feelings are that Foucault is correct and your own thoughts are incorrect. Allow me to elaborate. When we, the subjugated, operate, we operate from given assumptions that mostly have never been tested, I.e we operate within rules without them ever been proved. Most ppl don’t break laws, the small group that does and does so repeatedly may find what those laws are actually about ; the relationships between institutions and subjects and why and how those operate; there is power, a need to control something within those dynamics; Without that interplay you are merely dealing with the idea of power, and one does a poor job of understanding it without the interplay. Foucault is saying that we understand Power only in the interplay; the veil comes away when we resist in the relationship as it were; where we come face to face with the rule, the rule maker etc From afar, with and under all of our assumptions, we don’t really understand power for what it is. We assign an idea of it to institutions generally. But that idea doesn’t exist in a certain reality; meaning an institution isn’t a living real thing , it’s an idea. But in the interplay you see the motivations behind that idea, and that’s the attempt at power and subjugation of its subjects as it were. It’s not easy to explain. As you know. But I suspect you don’t fully dig Foucault, and I don’t mean to say that’s a shortcoming on your part. You simply haven’t rattled against our societal limits enough, which isn’t a bad thing in a way. Survival machines aren’t naturally inclined to hit repeatedly danger zones as it were.
One needs only to watch the debate with Chomsky to see how worthless F was as an intellectual. He had no original ideas. Everything he wrote was a commentary on Freud...and a shallow one
I don't know who this guy is, but I'm a post-modernist philosopher on X. After I post something lengthy, I ask AI to “summarize and analyze key points based on merit and accuracy and elaborate on the philosophy used.” It keeps telling me I am using the same philosophy as this guy and someone named Nietzsche. I always say that religion is a tool of the elite, used to establish culture (the rules we live by) and maintain existing power structures (e.g., Judeo-Christianity). I also tell people that historical truths and narratives are dynamic and serve the interests of ruling factions. I emphasize that morality is relative, and that things we consider "taboo" are only taboo because they harm ruling interests. This logic can lead to many uncomfortable truths and realizations. I always tell people that everything just is; we interpret and give meaning to reality. Additionally, I argue that science is not always absolute and has changed over time to serve the interests of ruling factions. These are just some of the things off the top of my head.
Basically through history there are people with high metacognition that’s what this is. Him and Marx and nietzsche and me lol many more. Anyone who is an anti-Zionist for the right reasons too
You have to go back further, like the bramens did, I will try to give you an example. The way you identify with knowledge and language, becomes the next generations historical inheritance, this has gone on for thousands of years, it has become autonomous, when we are born it creates an identity you call you. It is the entirety of man's thoughts Feelings and experiences past down from generations for the status quo of society, I say this is me, I use knowledge in the form of a language, I have no other way of saying this is me, in the same way I say I am thinking, but when I think all that you see there in your thoughts that is this same knowledge, this knowledge controls every aspect of my life. These thoughts this knowledge, is made of words, that's how I know what those thoughts are, I must use that language to know what I am looking at, these words are not mine, there a copy borrowed from somebody else, and I have to use them to know I exist. There's no end to this type of thing, I tried to put it in context, but it just comes out as gibba jabbo, because it's outside of the experiencing structure.
Next, learn about Foucault's theory of the PANOPTICON 📚👉ruclips.net/video/RbllEmx0WPU/видео.html
Criminally underrated RUclips channel
Lock them up! Lock them up!
This is one of the most explanatory videos on Foucault's theory of power and subjectivity (especially for the uninitiated)
I thought about the definition of Focault about power, and I felt as well as the physics concept of heat, "heat is the thermal energy transferred between systems due to a temperature difference", heat modifies bodies, etc It's just a thought.
Ah yea I could see that view of "power" but Foucault would probably choke on that analogy. The thermodynamic equations allow us to understand that "thought" about the observed world and apply it. Pushing electrons through an electric cooktop will fry an egg, transferring heat energy to the yolk via power, and do it each time. Foucault is saying we were taught physics by those of social power over us, and its not objective. The idea or thought of power in thermodynamics isn't an observation of the world but just a manifestation of a socially constructed ideas. It could change; the idea isn't the same each time. Maybe pushing electrons around could change the weather, if those in social power just constructed that thought. In other words, the power described by thermodynamics doesn't really exist and could be anything. It's unconvincing because: why gain social power to indoctrinate people into thinking the world operates on science? To manipulate us ... for what purpose? Because scientific thought enables those in power to stay in power, and having power of others is the best we can achieve? His ideas become pessimistic and nihilistic. I think Foucault never got out of believing monsters were under his bed.
Power in social relations and society at large, is simply the capacity to impose suffering, or offer reward.
"The most effective way to exercise power is to make people suffer", Winston Churchill.
An extremely undevalued video on RUclips. Thank your for your clear summarization. I would like to see a little bit on the concepts of subject, discipline and knowledge as well yet this is a great place to start.
What a brilliant way of grasping such nuanced ideas of Foucault, wonderful work. Waiting for more videos coming from you ❤
The best way to understand Foucault is to understand his personal life. From there it is pretty easy to see that his project is a continuous critique (attack) on every healthy part of society from which he was shunned.
The reason he is famous is that the people who grabbed power from the hands of the old elite in the 60s empowered a new intelectual class that served their project, hence critical theory, hence Foucault.
Foucault is part of the same project as the Marquis de Sade. He critiques power to get power to fulfil their desires. Foucault seems deep because his project is poor and crude and the only way he has to sell it to the upper middle class university midwit mass is to appear deep.
I have read most of Foucault and this is the process I went through: First 10%; oh god this is dumb pretending to be smart. Next 20%; ok there might be some good ideas here but oh my is it complicated. Next 30%; I have to keep going on, there must be something I am missing here. Last 20%; yeah this guy is a hack and probably a sexual criminal, let me check his record... oh yeah, he is. Case closed.
🎯
Openly pedophile.
LoL 🤣
Not 'probably' a sex criminal - he absolutely was. He was witnessed (by close friends who agreed with his ideas, so it's not his enemies accusing him) having s3x with prepubescent boys while he was teaching in Tunisia.
What little I've read about him as a person outside of his work (work like, y'know, trying to get the age of consent completely abolished down to infants) is that he was generally terrible person, maybe a high-functioning sociopath.
But you're the only person other than myself to correctly pick up on what Foucault really was: a cunningly self-justifying pervert of the worst kind.
I agree with you about Foucault. He seems to have thought that everything is a power play, a form of manipulation and exploitation, which is ironic given that that's exactly how he lived. We know that he sexually abused Tunisian children. The dimwits who read him admire his work because it gives them a pretext to teardown western civilisation, which they appear to despise. But it never occurs to such people to apply the hermeneutic of suspicion to Faucault's work!
I find Foucault's approach to power to be very convincing. He considered power to be decentralized and within social networks. This explains why collective power exists and why power is not contained within institutions. The fact that we can always draw on collective power, but also the fact that institutions use power, both evidence his ideas about power. Sociologically speaking, it seems pretty valid to identify power as being identifiable through outward behavior and actions effecting actions. Power being possessable isn't true because you can't really possess anything abstract.
Well put.
Love your video’s. I feel your enthusiasm. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for watching!
Watched for philosophy, subbed for Snorlax. Great work sir!
Gotta catch ‘em all!
Where was this video during my doctoral work?
Thank you! Brilliant work!
Once we develop time travel, I’ll be able to help so many more people! Haha
Exceptionally well done synopsis.
The solution to Foucault's mystifications and obfuscations is Galbraith's Anatomy of Power which defines POWER simply as the ability to get others to do what YOU want: by reward or punishment or conditioning (including argument and emotional appeal and philosophical commitment)
Thank you for this video, helped me a lot for my University class. - Watching from Belgium
Very informative.. Great job! Keep it up dude
Currently studing it in my founding degree in France. Your video came up handy !!
Happy to hear that!
I am pretty sure that Foucault used his power when he visited Algeria. There were certain actions taking place impacting other actions. If you guys know what I mean?!?!?
He'd be having a great time observing what's going on the world right now & especially the last few years.
Perfect!! So helpful, thank you✨️🫶
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!
This is marvelous! Thanx so much!
Fantastic video, thank you!
You’re welcome! Thanks for watching!
Yes you can go through life and allow circumstances to make you a subject. But what it means to be human is to think for yourself and make yourself into a moral being.
Thank you for your informative videos. Very fun to watch. Would you please make some about Friedrich Nietzsche. Thank you.
Thanks for watching. I’ll get to Nietzsche eventually. 😅
Enjoyed how you crystallized this
Thanks!
He was akin to junk fast food. Highly marketed but severely lacking in value, substance, nutrients, while full of salt and sweeteners, He was a fashion not a philosopher.
Love the vid! Keep up the good work!
Thanks!
Thank you for the non-threatening discussion of Foucault. He's controversial and I think even a lot of people who promote his work don't understand it. It seems to me that, if you establish personal goals and values worthy of your mind and if you work toward them every day, even if only for a short time every day, you'll have power over yourself. Having power over oneself is much more important and satisfying than having power over others.
Unless your personal goals are to shag them in graveyards.
Oh you seem to have forgotten to write somewhere in your comment that he was also a pedophile,
Lets not forget about that when discussing.
1:40 Your a human. A human being in reality is a human being. Receiving lessons in human being doesn't change the reality of being a human being. It's not more complicated than that is someone pretending they don't understand something right in front of them that all can see.
There are many things assumed about being human in one era that are not assumed in another. Or one culture that are not assumed in another culture.
I can list off a multitude of differences, but I will rely on a classical example. Plato believed a human being had a daimon which existed within a person from their birth, and that each individual was obtained by a singular daimon prior to their birth by way of lot. This classical view believes the daimon acts independently of the human being and is responsible for prophetic dreams, a sort of guiding spirit that is other than oneself and yet constitutes their real character and has often more agency than one’s awareness.
This basic idea is a very different understanding of the human subject than what we have today.
@@matthewkopp2391 Yes, Plato and Foucault do a lot of pretending. Human beings are not pretend, everyone can see what human beings are. Foucault can pretend human beings are unicorns, and that pretending would be just as pointless as the rest of Foucault's fictional writing.
I imagine Foucault's father was a wealthy sociopath, and Foucault was a masochist who felt undervalued by society, which led him to pursue a career in the arts. It's not surprising that someone with these experiences might write about personal issues and project those pretend problems onto societal systems.
@@matthewkopp2391 Believing that humans have daimons does not equate to "humans are defined by having daimons". Plato had a wrong idea of how humans work, not a different definition of who is considered to be human...
Great stuff, highly appreciated, thanks!
"You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns ... and those who dig. ... You dig." that's power
Thanks for your work.... from Korea.
We are all the panopticon to each other.
Splendid stuff as always - thank you!
Thanks for watching!
So "Power" is almost like "Cold"...
Cold doesn't exist, it's an absence of heat.
Power doesn't exist, it's relative to groups you're discussing
Woulda been interesting to put Foucault in charge of an institution and see how he managed the boss-subordinate power dynamics.
In a way, during social change, there is power in the collective actions of the people, but populist movements can also lead to fascism. How people interact with each other, has a bearing on how their movement turns out. Power is in the interactions. I think that's part of what he's getting at.
Hello! Some of your videos are very well done! Can I repost them on China’s bilibili? I want more people to see it. The original author and website will be marked clearly! Thanks
I don’t think so. Thanks for checking.
@@GreatBooksProf ok，thanks！
Very useful video. Thank you. I am using Foucault to analyse school curriculum design in the UK.
I pity the children who will suffer under your pedagogy, then.
Found the midwit!
THANKS!
Are we just ignoring the elephant in the room?
They always do.
Heidegger was a Nazi, so were Schmidt and Jünger. De Sade was pervert, and Nietzsche inspired Nazism (albeit unintentionally through his sister).
Character assassination is something the left does, leave it to them. You want to cancel a thinker because they have a bad past? Go ahead. But don’t expect to be educated and intelligent if you’re only willing to read people whom you find amicable.
P.S. the pdf file allegations against Foucault in Tunisia have largely been disproven. The guy who started the rumour admitted he was jealous of Foucault’s University position and tried to get him fired so he could take it. Although Foucault was definitely a hedonist and weirdo, the pdf file allegations have largely been discredited.
Well, we all know is what pop culture says, power is not very welll distributed.... however under its light, we all shine on....
Crikey, pal - go tell pop culture that if power were equally distributed it would cease to be power.
@@MrHammerkopIt's almost like you purposely misread the comment to find a fault to complain about.
but you missed the link between power and language/discourse that is central in Foucault...
His later work focused on ethics and the self.
A collective is power relations otherwise it is merely a rabble. Also foucault uses the duad power-knowledge or even the triad power-knowledge-pleasure.
thank you SO MUCH
Great video
Thanks!
He was a little hurt boy, screaming at the people who took advantage of him as a boy
And then sexually took advantage of boys himself
As you present ir, sir, it is a clear thesis, but Focault's idea appear to be a fuzzy copy of the theories on symetric ir assymetric relacions between social identities, socialization and strategies to solve conflicts between the individual and the group. I think I'll keep with sociologists and psychologists.
he totally missed it with one word: secrecy.
without acknowledging how people rule governments and institutions through secrecy, without acknowledging how control is a very serious game,
he's just part of the problem. he perpetuates his own brand of illusions.
thank you.
Maybe Foucault sees “institutions” as simply a conglomeration of subjects with their own “subjectivities”engaged in a common cause, as opposed to entities in and of themselves? I believe this is the case, and there exists no contradiction.
THANK YOU
Read the Foucault chapter on the book "Fools, Frauds and Firebrands". It clarifies.
I read that book by Roger Scruton, it’s very good
Kicking in open doors, is what F*ckoult is to me. #redundant
"ok".
Can you do a video on Foucault and neoliberalism please as I’m doing a dissertation on how socially harmful neoliberalism is so in my lit review i am writing on foucaults views on neoliberalism
read The Last Man Does LSD. It’s about Foucault’s political opinions.
I gotta say - present company excluded, but the college professors I had absolutely ZERO respect for were all Foucault disciples. To a person. They were constantly pushing him and his particular brand of postmodernism.
What always gets me about the job lot of em.... somehow they all wiggle free of their own claim of there being no grand narrative.
Great man
He was a Nonce.
I am aware that the purpose of this video is to explain Foucault "simply"; that having been said, it seems very simple indeed, to the point where I am wondering, Where is the content? So power, though it does not exist per se (whatever that means), consists of a consequence of social interaction exhibited not only in political domination and economic exploitation but also through social subjection? Is that it? If so, what is Foucault saying here that we did not know already?
Foucault is saying you are a product of power, and we all are. Power is not only oppressive.
@@TheFate23 Thank you. So didn't we all know that already? What is he saying that we didn't already know?
@@Primitarian That the subject is a product of power is still to this day a controversial position in the social sciences. It was and still is a revolution. I think you confuse it with the marxist concept of false consciousness.
some fights just can't be won
the powerful control the lives of the powerless,
that's just the way the world works
Make friends with an old rich guy, put a proposal together with a talented team. You may not have much power, but it's rewarding to build a business and help people. There are a lot of lonely old rich guys who would love a pet project. Power is less calcified than you might think. That said, don't expect a free lunch.
Isn't a subject a person who is under the power of a sovereign?
Man. Foucault was so interesting. He's mysterious. Like a graveyard. A graveyard full of boys.
What about his pendulum?
and then Habermas asks one simple question and the whole edifice crumbles.
l've been asking myself from the very beginning of What is power when l started to study Foucault core theories till so far l leave no answers ...
I know Foucault about poststructuralism.
“Subjects” are not “people” and “objects” are not “things” in Foucault’s system of thought, as you incorrectly stated at the start of this video. Foucault is using the language of existentialism in a social context, but he is using words like “subject” with fidelity to the sense in which the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre used the term.
The subject is the separate self, or even more to the point, the illusion of the separate self. Foucault argues that subject-making institutions oppress us precisely to the degree that they indoctrinate us to accept the notion that each of us is reducible to an individual subject. At that scale, each individual subject by itself lacks the power to resist the objects or institutions that define each of us down to a single, isolated point.
Against the existential threat posed by anonymous institutions and their seemingly vast resources, subjects surrender their subjectivity, without so much as a single philosophical shot having been fired. And that’s how an individual is effectively oppressed by the state or the corporation. We volunteer for it, because we have been trained to be afraid of ghosts.
@@joyfulmindstudio Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to write this out. I think people will find this helpful.
It's hard to believe that millennia old, simple concept of "divide et impera" needs to be transformed into 3-paragraph explanation. That is, until you realize that somebody transformed it into his life's work.
Faucoults third type of power gives an explanation why collective power isnt really a thing: The collective is already "subjectified" towards certain believes and this can ge controlled by, lets call it "narrative complexes" ...so the will of these groups is not free. This is imo very obvious in the ideological clashes groups in the US currently have.
How to be a domesticated human: Rewards, difficulties and what you can expect if you go wild.
OK,
Industrial Revolution;
The Power is the fossil fuel machines:
Consumerism for Leisure/Pleasure is the Program.
Very few object,
The Majority Rules.
Power, swings....
Zach Woods plays Jared on Silicon Valley and trust me when I say: I WOOD.
Edit: he has to stay in character as Jared though, thats the deal.
Ok thats not related to this video. I was wondering if Foucault was a dude that did weird sex in graveyards with children? Thats not part of my practice. But i meed to know who these children were, where they went, and how to combine all their experiences into one HUGE SPIDERLADY WITH A BILLION LASERS TO DESTROY ALL HUMANS... jkjk not a robot, im a human like you guys
Panopticon, Skilletopticon
I DO NOT MIND. JUST TELEPATHICALLY PUT IT IN MY BRAIN IM HAVING A HARD TIME LISTENING OOH THAT DID GET BETTER YUM
Aristotle said that Power has real being, but stands between nothingness and being-in-act, so like Foucault.
As a parent of a 4yr old that's really coming into her own as a person, every single day is full of power struggles!
And I think it's important we stay firm to teach where lines are
Foucault doesn't need to be explained. Just read his works. It's all bullshit, which is why all bullshitters love him.
Establishment royalty love Foucault. His work is a howto abuse.
just a lot of words blabla
Subject as in, person subject to state power.
I think that Foucault was pretty much spot on. No one gets it 100%, but guy nailed a lot of it
While trying to justify his sexual deviance and claim power himself… to again justify his proclivities that he was shunned for by healthy society. Being born moderately intelligent doesn’t mean you get to rewrite reality to how you see fit. Philosophers/thinkers etc are gifts because they reveal/solidy truth. He does the opposite, attempts to redefine truth to his purpose.
He certainly nailed a lot of boys. Even when he knew he had AIDS.
Power dwells within the Subject(s) Institutions do not have power, only the people that reside within/affiliated with the institution have power. Institutional Power is always in flux because the people and the power that dwells within/associated with it is in flux. The Effect of Power (The Power of Power) is measured by the degree it is concentrated versus diffused. People rioting have power, but it is not usually focused. A baby (Subject) crying has power through the effect its cries have on other Subjects. Inanimate and animate objects both have power. All animate subjects have power but not all inanimate objects have power. Foucault is difficult because the "Subject" is infinite. Impossible for a human being to understand completely. The "Subject" is to large to entirely grasp.
I understand Foucault as being a sex offender defending himself with the Chewbacca defence.
Power feels fluid WHEN A SOCIETY IS THRIVING... Give that one a - scary - thought lol
my brain hurts, the mind f*****ERY
wait wait wait. I'm like 6 king cans deep. ok. go ahead. spacebar
I am not impressed at all--.
Weren't his ideas used as a basis for closing the state hospitals in CA when Reagan was governor? Yeah, that worked out well.
He was a Nonce.
lol with excrement for blood
re - the critiques of foucault, you mention that his idea that power is fluid feels untrue, and that for most people power feels concentrated within the hands of the few (hard agree). you also covered how he is skeptical of people having power when they act collectively, but you counter that social movements *have* actually changed things - then isn't that an example of power being fluid? power is imbued into what we collectively choose to believe in, and has moved from institutions of white colonial male power to more democratic and diverse ways forward as seen with suffrage, civil rights and pride. also foucault foucaulted himself with that one, if he thought power was fluid but social movements have none.
Very enlightening summary. Postmodernists wrongly interpreted the situation of capitalism through the lenses of modernism that they were all against in one sense or another. The most famous one, Foucoult, once said that if he had read the Frankfurt School, he would not have written 90% of his works. I say in my book "Digitalism vs. Capitalism" that if he had read McLuhan, he wouldn't bother to write the remaining 10%. The real basis for their wrongness is that technology determines everything. In fact, what they refer to as social determination is nonsense. because without technological infrastructure, society could not survive. Read Harold Innis. To the questions, "Where is capitalism coming and going? Going to its graveyard?" I have a hopeful answer, which is highlighted in my book: Digitalism is killing capitalism. A novel perspective, a suggestion first in the world! “Digitalism vs. Capitalism: The New Ecumenical World Order: The Dimensions of State in Digitalism” by Veysel Batmaz is available for sale on the Internet.
You're talking about what Yanis Varoufakis calls Technofeudalism.
@@themanicmechanics496 Contrary, I am critisizing him. The first person who told what Varoufakis has said was McLuhan. I am talking about, digitalism is a new MODE OF PRODUCTION not a retreat from or a phase of capitalism, and the political structure is ecumenism not feodalismç
You have Foucault’s definition on subjects wrong. Foucault speaks about subjects in the sense of someone who is subject to one in power. The way a King has his subjects. The citizens of his kingdom who subject to him.
thanks for saying that
A bit cringe no preface Foucault with him liking to pretend things because he feels reality is too burdensome to his imagination. Maybe give people some REAL understanding of where Foucault starts from.
He *removed* the people from the equations,
that it is just actions acting on actions..
what a .. peculiar .. way of perceiving it..
That's going to take awhile to adjust-to, that perspective-I'd-never-possibly-have-thought-of..
Power's limbic, btw, if not lower..
Bulls vs cows, that is power-categories, bulls vs bulls is power-degrees.
Humans just make human APPEARING renditions of herd-dynamics, & pretend that this is "better" somehow..
No, if you ignore which unconscious-mind-phase a someone is in,
Kegan3 ( absorbing-experience, associating with herd-validity ), Kegan4 ( displacing nonvalidity/other from self, establishing one's herd-authority ), or Kegan5 ( outright human potential, understanding systems-of-systems, & intermeshing, complimentary validities ),
if you ignore which unconscious-mind-phase a person is in, or a population,
then you're ignoring much of the substance that power is made-of, & enacting, & acting-on,
to the degree that you've not become incompetent at understanding .. if not perceiving .. the substance that it is made-of & acting-on..
The same act, from a Kegan3 mind, a Kegan4 mind, or a Kegan5 mind, would have different motivations for it,
& therefore different standards-for-success..
Same as the same physical-act has different meaning when done by a female sentience vs a male one ( female-sentience is more likely to just enjoy immersion-in-movement,
but we guys, with our significantly-less brain devoted to immersion-in-movement-process, would have a different motivation for that particular movement.
Different wiring multiplies the number of causes required to be tracked, for a given exact-rendition.
I suspect that much male reaction against gays is simply because of the violation of Kegan4 "maleness" of identity, actually )
what a peculiar way of thinking, though..
Oversimplifications can be usefully clarifying, that's for sure,
but you need to be careful about the consequences of oversimplification,
& to control for them..
I don't think the consequences of that *particular* oversimplification can be controlled for,
while still understanding human reality..
I think it guts too much, makes it too "colorless" a view..
Thank you for making this video!
Now to watch the rest of it, after that mindbomb..
Those "sites of struggle" look like some artificial division without any point or internal logic; you can reduce "domination" and "exploitation" to the same thing (no domination is being fought for the sake of it being fought...). And the third "struggle" isn't anything new; him giving it a new name ("subjection") is nothing worthy of remembrance. 'Though, it doesn't surprise me that it was his main focus, given his stance regarding a certain taboo...
Why is this q-ball still relevant in some heads is beyond me.
save me foucault
That is a weberian definition of power.
Good vid. My feelings are that Foucault is correct and your own thoughts are incorrect.
Allow me to elaborate.
When we, the subjugated, operate, we operate from given assumptions that mostly have never been tested, I.e we operate within rules without them ever been proved. Most ppl don’t break laws, the small group that does and does so repeatedly may find what those laws are actually about ; the relationships between institutions and subjects and why and how those operate; there is power, a need to control something within those dynamics;
Without that interplay you are merely dealing with the idea of power, and one does a poor job of understanding it without the interplay.
Foucault is saying that we understand Power only in the interplay; the veil comes away when we resist in the relationship as it were; where we come face to face with the rule, the rule maker etc
From afar, with and under all of our assumptions, we don’t really understand power for what it is. We assign an idea of it to institutions generally. But that idea doesn’t exist in a certain reality; meaning an institution isn’t a living real thing , it’s an idea. But in the interplay you see the motivations behind that idea, and that’s the attempt at power and subjugation of its subjects as it were.
It’s not easy to explain.
As you know.
But I suspect you don’t fully dig Foucault, and I don’t mean to say that’s a shortcoming on your part.
You simply haven’t rattled against our societal limits enough, which isn’t a bad thing in a way.
Survival machines aren’t naturally inclined to hit repeatedly danger zones as it were.
Ok, we start with Aristotle. We are political animals.
I'm with Snorlax. I found his argument very persuasive. He told me not to tell anyone what he told me, sorry...
One needs only to watch the debate with Chomsky to see how worthless F was as an intellectual. He had no original ideas. Everything he wrote was a commentary on Freud...and a shallow one
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I don't know who this guy is, but I'm a post-modernist philosopher on X. After I post something lengthy, I ask AI to “summarize and analyze key points based on merit and accuracy and elaborate on the philosophy used.” It keeps telling me I am using the same philosophy as this guy and someone named Nietzsche.
I always say that religion is a tool of the elite, used to establish culture (the rules we live by) and maintain existing power structures (e.g., Judeo-Christianity). I also tell people that historical truths and narratives are dynamic and serve the interests of ruling factions. I emphasize that morality is relative, and that things we consider "taboo" are only taboo because they harm ruling interests. This logic can lead to many uncomfortable truths and realizations.
I always tell people that everything just is; we interpret and give meaning to reality. Additionally, I argue that science is not always absolute and has changed over time to serve the interests of ruling factions. These are just some of the things off the top of my head.
Basically through history there are people with high metacognition that’s what this is. Him and Marx and nietzsche and me lol many more. Anyone who is an anti-Zionist for the right reasons too
You have to go back further, like the bramens did, I will try to give you an example.
The way you identify with knowledge and language, becomes the next generations historical inheritance, this has gone on for thousands of years, it has become autonomous, when we are born it creates an identity you call you. It is the entirety of man's thoughts Feelings and experiences past down from generations for the status quo of society,
I say this is me, I use knowledge in the form of a language, I have no other way of saying this is me, in the same way I say I am thinking, but when I think all that you see there in your thoughts that is this same knowledge, this knowledge controls every aspect of my life.
These thoughts this knowledge, is made of words, that's how I know what those thoughts are, I must use that language to know what I am looking at, these words are not mine, there a copy borrowed from somebody else, and I have to use them to know I exist.
There's no end to this type of thing, I tried to put it in context, but it just comes out as gibba jabbo, because it's outside of the experiencing structure.