A review of foucault
2
If not now, when? A review of Foucault in an age of terror: essays on biopolitics and the defence of society, edited by Stephen Morton and Stephen Bygrave, Palgrave, London, 2010. Hardback, 234 pages. Arianna Bove The introduction suggests that the book's purpose is twofold: to address Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's claim that Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari are needed to update Michel Foucault's analytics of power with their notion of control society; and to question Judith Butler's reading of Foucault's interpretation of the coexistence of governmentality and sovereignty as inadequate to make sense of George W. Bush's reinstating of the paradigm of sovereignty. In 'War, discipline and biopolitics', Reid explains how the problem of war is 'the paradox and crisis of political modernity'. This is, as Reid aptly names it, the moment of strategisation of politics. This is an important insight and useful naming of the problem. After an exegesis of Foucault's war in Discipline and Punish, Reid introduces his lectures on Society must be defended, surprisingly starting from the premise that here Foucault is criticising his own project of resurrecting subjugated knowledges as modes of resistance to the discourse of power. Surprisingly because this is not so evident to the reader of Foucault. According to Reid, in this Foucault finds a polemical encounter with his contemporaries (most notably Deleuze and Guattari) who ontologise war as the condition of possibility for resistance. Reid is keen to point out that Foucault's intervention moves in a direction of problematisation that resituates the war paradigm in its properly discursive field, as a historical and political way of being for power. And yet these subjugated knowledges seem to return from the back door: Foucault in fact does see them as engaged in a war over truth. But this being of power is never defined as such. Reid refuses the ontological framework without really explaining how it is a contestable mode of engagement with Foucault's work. Whilst the openly declared epistemological or methodological programme of the lectures is taken seriously by Reid, the import of language in being seems to be dismissed without explanation. After reinstating Foucault's credential as a postcolonial thinker with a fleeting reference to his commonality with Franz Fanon, Reid interprets Foucault's call to resisting knowledges and powers to disengage from the dominant discourse as a cautionary note. And yet, this interpretation is only possible if one leaves the level of ontology out, because if, on the contrary, this is read as the being of discourse, what Reid reads as a cautionary note arguably becomes the most revolutionary legacy Foucault left behind. Houen's argument in 'Sovereignty, Biopolitics and the Use of Literature' is twofold and self counterpositing. On the one hand he states that because of the groundbreaking developments initiated by the Bush administration, sovereignty is located back into the nationstate. The example of Guantanamo Bay serves the purpose of illustrating the working of biopolitics within a sovereign juridical framework, and from this questionable observation Houen jumps to the somewhat counterintuitive claim that the war on terror is not a war of races, where the unlawful combatant reestablishes the terms of political citizenry. For Houen, indefinite detention is 'a prolongation of sovereignty's resuscitated power'. However, this assumes that Foucault's discussion of the war of races was in some way dependent on the premise of the existence of political rights of individuals, which it really was not. If anything, the indefinite mass of populations mobilised as races, just as much as the construction of the barbarian or foreigner, captures well the very same developments Houen is using as an illustration of the opposite claims. It is also puzzling that Houen then goes on to understand resistance as selfpotentiating practice through the work of literature's 'refusal of what we are', a disjointed appendix to a discussion that was already not leading very far. In 'Biopolitics and Biology', Marks makes for a refreshing contribution, with his genealogy of Foucault�s Index Reference Translations Writing Recent Additions Links About/Contact
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Transcript of A review of foucault
14/04/2015 Generation Online: Writing
http://www.generationonline.org/other/foucaultterrorreview.htm 1/2
If not now, when?A review of Foucault in an age of terror: essays on biopolitics and the defence of society, editedby Stephen Morton and Stephen Bygrave, Palgrave, London, 2010. Hardback, 234 pages.
Arianna Bove
The introduction suggests that the book's purpose is twofold: to address Michael Hardt and AntonioNegri's claim that Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari are needed to update Michel Foucault's analytics ofpower with their notion of control society; and to question Judith Butler's reading of Foucault'sinterpretation of the coexistence of governmentality and sovereignty as inadequate to make sense ofGeorge W. Bush's reinstating of the paradigm of sovereignty.
In 'War, discipline and biopolitics', Reid explains how the problem of war is 'the paradox and crisis ofpolitical modernity'. This is, as Reid aptly names it, the moment of strategisation of politics. This is animportant insight and useful naming of the problem. After an exegesis of Foucault's war in Discipline andPunish, Reid introduces his lectures on Society must be defended, surprisingly starting from the premisethat here Foucault is criticising his own project of resurrecting subjugated knowledges as modes ofresistance to the discourse of power. Surprisingly because this is not so evident to the reader of Foucault.
According to Reid, in this Foucault finds a polemical encounter with his contemporaries (most notablyDeleuze and Guattari) who ontologise war as the condition of possibility for resistance. Reid is keen topoint out that Foucault's intervention moves in a direction of problematisation that resituates the warparadigm in its properly discursive field, as a historical and political way of being for power. And yet thesesubjugated knowledges seem to return from the back door: Foucault in fact does see them as engaged ina war over truth. But this being of power is never defined as such. Reid refuses the ontological frameworkwithout really explaining how it is a contestable mode of engagement with Foucault's work. Whilst theopenly declared epistemological or methodological programme of the lectures is taken seriously by Reid,the import of language in being seems to be dismissed without explanation. After reinstating Foucault'scredential as a postcolonial thinker with a fleeting reference to his commonality with Franz Fanon, Reidinterprets Foucault's call to resisting knowledges and powers to disengage from the dominant discourseas a cautionary note. And yet, this interpretation is only possible if one leaves the level of ontology out,because if, on the contrary, this is read as the being of discourse, what Reid reads as a cautionary notearguably becomes the most revolutionary legacy Foucault left behind.
Houen's argument in 'Sovereignty, Biopolitics and the Use of Literature' is twofold and selfcounterpositing. On the one hand he states that because of the groundbreaking developments initiated bythe Bush administration, sovereignty is located back into the nationstate. The example of GuantanamoBay serves the purpose of illustrating the working of biopolitics within a sovereign juridical framework, andfrom this questionable observation Houen jumps to the somewhat counterintuitive claim that the war onterror is not a war of races, where the unlawful combatant reestablishes the terms of political citizenry.For Houen, indefinite detention is 'a prolongation of sovereignty's resuscitated power'. However, thisassumes that Foucault's discussion of the war of races was in some way dependent on the premise of theexistence of political rights of individuals, which it really was not. If anything, the indefinite mass ofpopulations mobilised as races, just as much as the construction of the barbarian or foreigner, captureswell the very same developments Houen is using as an illustration of the opposite claims. It is alsopuzzling that Houen then goes on to understand resistance as selfpotentiating practice through the workof literature's 'refusal of what we are', a disjointed appendix to a discussion that was already not leadingvery far.
In 'Biopolitics and Biology', Marks makes for a refreshing contribution, with his genealogy of Foucault�s
Index Reference Translations Writing Recent Additions Links About/Contact
14/04/2015 Generation Online: Writing
http://www.generationonline.org/other/foucaultterrorreview.htm 2/2
interest in biology, his treatment of it in The logic of living systems, and of how eugenics has developedsubsequent to the historical period that Foucault describes in Society must be defended. This is aconstructive discussion of biopolitics, especially for its suggestion that eugenics never managed todevelop a workable biopolitical framework, and the manner in which it has more recently shiftedresponsibility onto the individual and its technologies of selfperfection. In Hanson's chapter on'Biopolitics, biological racism and eugenics', we find an equally interesting discussion of postwar Britain'sdebate on eugenics, and its ramifications at the level of class. Hanson applies Foucault's understandingof biological monism as an upgrade of the war of races convincingly and productively. It is in Marks andHanson's contributions that we can see a clear continuation of Foucault's project both in historicalgenealogy and discourse analysis.
In the inappropriately titled 'Society must be defended and the idea of race', Macey tries to draw thediscussion back to actuality, with a rant on racism and sexism spanning over a very wide ranging set ofexamples from history, literature and personal anecdotes. Journalistic in style, whilst not informing us ofmuch beyond the author's often opinionated take on this range of issues, it is a compelling read and anengaging attempt to reflect on the manner in which some of the devices of power described in Foucault'shistorical genealogies are operative in our present.
In 'Governmentality and the ruins of democracy' Hartley productively uses the encounter of Foucault withHardt and Negri and Butler, to reinstate a political project of resistance that begins with the multitude andthe common, in an exposition of the conjunctures of their respective theoretical contributions. UnlikeHouen, she can see the direct relevance of the notion of biopower to contemporary war paradigms. Theintervention on 'Necropolitics' by Mbembe, in a similar spirit, pushes Foucault's analysis further in anappreciation of how the death paradigm indicates the remit of dispensability of human life in contemporarybiopolitics with an emphasis on suicide.
Overall the book is an interesting albeit idiosyncratic collection of commentaries on Foucault's lectures onSociety must be defended, although some of the contributions significantly move beyond exegesis.Unfortunately, the uncomfortable presumption underlining most contributions is that this set of lecturesmarks a 'radical shift' or 'epistemological break' in Foucault's oeuvre, moving his analysis from disciplineto biopower. But by this premise proves hard to work in practice and turns out to be a forced move. Thatthese paradigms coexist is evidenced by the very illustrations the authors bring forth to prove thecontrary. Moreover, the promise to relate the lectures to contemporary politics is only halfheartedly kept.The commentary does not provide us with significant insights into the development of world politics afterS11. And when it tries to, it does not seem effective. It is better understood as a collection ofcommentaries on Foucault's genealogy of racism than essays on the age of terror, perhaps fittingly so, aswe are still well involved in the experience and paradigm of this war, the tendency is to hypostasise it as aradical departure from the past (paradigms, discourses, and practices) and ironically move in the oppositedirection to Foucault's historical ontology of the present, that is, towards a presentialist analytics of thepast.
