LET'S READ FOUCAULT: CHAPTER 2 (OUTLINES OF FOUCAULT'S WORK PART 1)

Here, I would like to present a sort of summary of Foucault's work and the questions he deals with throughout his life. The reason I have written Part 1 above is I cannot, may be cover this in one blog. I will need at least 2 to even reduce these ideas in an explainable and yet not dumbed down form. 

Let's begin. 

1. THE PROBLEM OF THE SUBJECT 

Foucault's primary and the central work is in understanding how, over History, Human beings are made subjects to various processes and phenomenon. What do I mean by this? Let's unclutter. 

Subject, in Philosophy, might be defined as someone or something that is conscious, can exercise agency, and experience a reality external to himself. Whereas, the opposite, the object, is that which, first, cannot do these things, and in fact is just a point of observation for the Subject.

For example: Human beings are subjects. A ball is an object. 

But The term subject has a wider connotation in the sense that If a person is turned into a subject, turning into a subject means to either force or manipulate or exercise power on him in such a way that he experiences only things that you want, become conscious of things you want and so on.  

So, when we say, Britishers turned Indians into colonial subjects, we mean that we were made to experience colonialism and that's because we were turned into colonial subjects. 

Foucault's concern is how Humans were turned into subjects of political power over history. 

For this, His theory proposes three stages of subjectification, viz. 

1. Dividing practices.

2. Scientific classification.

3. Subjectification of Self

Let's see what these means. These are basically modes by which a human being, an animal with reason and consciousness, is turned into a sort of machine to be able to sense and detect only certain experiences and things. 

First, dividing practices, are basically modes of manipulation through which individuals are, through the usage of science, excluded from the rest and then labelled as different, especially in the spatial sense.

For example: Ever Studied in a big Coaching Insititute in Kota? What they do is to segregate students into batches of increasing intelligence. The so-called star batch students are those who are consistently performing better than others and while as we go down the batches, bad performing students are collected together, and they are subjected to different kind of experiences of teaching than those of Star batch and so on. 

This is an example of dividing practices. Dividing practices are not just dividing people into groups. It is a rationalized division. Note that rationalized does not mean reasonable. In fact, no division is reasonable. They are made so, they are sort of, forcefully justified for a specific purpose. There is nothing common-sensical about anything. Common sense is that aspect of reason that you have been convinced about by the political power. 

Foucault's earlier works, like the birth of a clinic, Madness and civilization and the birth of a prison, Discipline and Punish are some works where he has done extensive work on these Dividing practices. 

Society's will to divide people into mad, sad and bad and why they cannot live with the common masses is in question here. You understand this experience was just the experience of the newly enlightened Europe. Today Mental Asylums are everywhere. But, when the first Prison was made, the first asylum was made, nowhere in the world were there collectivized attempts and state's attempt to divide people into labelled groups of mad, sad and bad. No prisons in India, China, No Mental asylums in China, Japan or India. The Mad, were not identified as such and even if they did, they lived among masses. 

Second is the Scientific Classification. Here, Foucault asserts that, we are made to believe that Science came first and then using that knowledge, decisions were made to divide people and so on. But He states, any knowledge, be it scientific or otherwise, fights for this scientific status, and this fight is political, and this legitimacy fight or flight of legitimacy coincides with the political changes it wishes to start. That means, trying to make science out of the will to coerce power. What is the ultimate intention? The intention is to objectify the subjects made by dividing practices. To observe through their own biased lens, to forego consent and to practice power on them. This makes Human beings first into subjects of dividing practices and then objects of scientific classification. 

Human, which was capable of so many things, so many multitudes of experiences and freedom, is not merely an object subjected to electric shocks and such just because you rationalized the method and classification, and you classified him into mad. 

This is extensively covered in his work, "The order of things". 

There are other aspects to this as well. When you successfully justify the knowledge as science, now you can coerce the autonomy of the body of humans and treat them as things. The Birth of a clinic mentions this. 

Finally Self-Subjectification. Ever saw someone classifying himself as an introvert? This is sort of an example of self-subjectification. Finally, after scientifically human beings were classified into sad, mad and bad, Now, the knowledge gained the status of common sense and now even the most unaware can use it to label themselves as such and such. 

Your own thoughts are under your own observation, you somewhat objectify yourself to the extent that you play the game that started to rule you, it classified you, it divided you from the masses and made you an object. You are no longer a subject or a human anymore. You become an object in your own eyes. 

It was also a way of the regime or political power to be "Meaning providers". Self-understanding became a subject of study for the European Bourgeoise. These clinics, Schools, prisons, Mental asylums etc. gave meaning to selves of people. New political meanings. Not only mad was identified as mad, but the other was identified as not mad and this was in my opinion, a very dangerous aspect of classification. 

Who is more dangerous? Socially identified mad person or socially identified sane person. I claim the latter is more dangerous because he will now fight for his sanity because this is his meaning of self now and it is considered superior to the mad. 

I think, this work is crucial in understanding, that the hunger for meaning might be an artificial demand created by modern forces of power. 

For example: In schools, the rewards and punishments are organized such that the intelligent is rewarded and the fool is punished. This makes every few so called "Intelligent students" of the class of every school, Neurotics who fight for their so called "Intellectual sanity". The dividing practices of schools into intelligent and fool, then scientific validation through an exam format finally results in when a child, start identifying his self as stupid or intelligent. What he classifies himself is not important. The classification itself is dangerous. Because, all his time, this classification will restrict his freedom to become the other. 

An intelligent fear that he will be considered a fool. A fool stops thinking that he even has the ability of becoming intelligent. 

These were the three stages in which the subjects are formed. Simple, animals whose bodies and mind becomes the testing labs of the social order, the laboratory of society. 

 I wanted to cover the second aspect of his work, that is Power and knowledge here. But may be in part 2 we will see it because I do not want to dumb it down anyway. Next in his areas of work are Power and knowledge, that is how regimes and social order tries to intellectualize the coercion it does through various discipline so that it seems common sense to the man whatever is happening to him. How Power decides knowledge and knowledge just puppets what power dictates. 

Next is the problem of government and finally the location of author. Where he directly deals with modern political power and bio-politics, panopticon and the nuances in which modern forms of power have converted individuals into docile bodies who do not mind any of their freedoms snatched away. 

All this in next blog. With this parting words, someone once told me that one day I will realize that Foucault is not such a great thinker. Then you will be mature. I think, that was political power trying to justify through knowledge so that I do not understand the hidden structures of power. 

Foucault is spooky, unconventional, uncomfortable at times, because he collects all of the discourse in one place, not even leaves, Marx and Hegel and subjects them to the same treatment as his way dictates him. NO political disposition likes when their gods are challenged. But I think if we want to device a third way of organizing and freedom, Foucault will always be important and a great thinker, may be not for a mature mind, but a meta-mature mind, who can see things beyond the lens of juvenile and mature. 

This is just a subtle reply to that person that I am meta-mature, you bitch! BYE! see you guys tomorrow.