Social Philosophy Essay
Michel Foucault, a master-mind behind the social philosophy, is considered to be
one of the most deceptive philosophers of all time. His main focus on social
philosophy is its affect on the economical power. Foucault’s ideas about bio-power
have changed the way society views the world. Bio-power is the idea of power
over life which means that the source of power emerged from all levels of society.
In earlier times rulers and different forms of government have controlled all aspects
of its citizens and gave them no leeways on how to lead their own lives. Then in
the beginning of the nineteenth century things changed and people fought back
against the controlling governments and gave themselves power. This means that
the society started to have more control and direction over their own lives instead
of being controlled by a ruler or by some form of a government.
Bio-power is a new form of power that gives us a place in social structure. It
unconsciously tries to control the whole population. Bio-power makes us mark
ourselves according to what normalization is. It forces us to use self-surveillance
in order to see how others see you as.
According to Foucault there are two subdivisions of bio-power,
administration of the social body in activities such as human reproduction and the
manipulation of human bodies. The state wants to exploit the human body for their
own purposes. During the seventeenth century, the states exercised their power
by visually marking the bodies through torture as well as using other types of
visible punishment. By the nineteenth century though the states have changed
their ways of exerting their power over its people by techniques of surveillance.
This technique contains a lot of power over people and makes them think twice
before acting on their own instincts because they know in their head that their
actions and words are being watched and followed. This gives a person the sense
of self-surveillance, which denies him of any freedoms that he had before.
Over time the state changed its ways of torture to behavioral control by
discipline. Foucault wanted to show us how the effects of modern power
relationships on the body have changed over time. He finds the origin of
disciplinary technology to be in the penal systems eventhough many other
establishments of society like schools or hospitals have used it in different
proportions. The way that disciplinary technology works is that the criminals in
those penal systems are classified according to crime, and will be forced to
recuperate from thinking about repeating its crimes. The goal of disciplinary
technology is to have control of a person’s behavior through systems of
normalization and self-surveillance. How this goal is trying to be reached is that
the penal system creates the workday for all its prisoners and surveillance
procedures are used to show them how their every day behaviors are different
from the social norms. The authorities of prisons try to indoctrinate the prisoners
and turn them into docile bodies who will then be ready to become useful members
of society. The prisoner’s body is dominated behind closed doors until
brainwashed completely and changed so that they could be let out and used by the
society for economic production and growth. Nietzsche, who I find to be very
perplexed, is also a philosopher who has many ideas on the social philosophy
based on the individuals not as a group. Foucault’s idea of bio-power does help
understand Nietzsche’s social theory. His social theory was that there are two
types of humans, the master-type and the slave-type. The master type is good at
getting what he wants, doesn’t bother to judge others because he’s not insecure
about himself, always goes for it when he sees an opportunity, never holds back, is
not afraid of pain and knows that you will have to endure it at some point, and
always has that drive for will to power. The slave-type can’t get what he wants,
blames others for not being able to do so, creates a new system of valuation, uses
concepts like humble and honest, uses self-deception by deciding in his mind that
the master-types are evil and that they themselves are good, and has no drive for
will to power. Nietzsche believes that these two types of humans exists in each
and one of us but that it varies in the amounts of each for everyone. The more of
one type you contain the more it controls a part of you. He believes that there is
always a self-battle within ourselves between the two types. If you contain more of
the master-type in you than you will not be subjective to the self-surveillance that
bio-power forces you to do. A predominant slave-type will end up being controlled
by a form of government or by a master-type because of his self-punishment and
lack of drive for a will to power.
Nietzsche and Foucault are both concerned with the dangers of conformity.
They both want the society to vary in morals and not be so narrow minded about
the ethics. They believe that what contributes to conformity is that we are
rewarded form early in our lives when inside the boundaries of morals and
normalization. We do have moral duties for future generations to not introduce
them to normalization but to make their own standards. The two philosophers are
very concerned with the impact that the present will have on the future.
Nietzsche criticizes democracy because he believes that it is a form of
death for man as well as the death of political organizations. He believes it makes
man mediocre and lowers his value. He clarifies democracy as an unnecessary
system, a system that borders with the socialist formula. Democracy is based on
protecting the right of those who are not equal to others. Its goal is to create a
world where everybody’s equal yet once all are equal there will be no more need
for protection of rights that are the basis of a democratic system. This is why
democracy won’t let that happen. Another reason why Nietzsche dislikes the
democratic system is because he himself believes that there are weak people and
that there are strong people, therefore the concept of all being equal is impossible
to grasp for him.
Both Nietzsche and Foucault go in depth on the concept of truth and the
search for truth. Nietzsche has his idea of the will to truth, which is a psychological
faculty, and Foucault has the regime of truth, which is an intersubjective concept of
truth. Foucault believes that when a regime creates its own truth it hides the
power reality behind it that makes the people believe that truth and start following it
giving the regime immense power over them. Its almost as the regime said, this is
the way it is, this is how you have to act, and don’t question us. If you were to
substitute the truth of one regime to the truth of another regime no freedom would
be gained from that because you would still be under the power of a different
regime-based truth. Nietzsche and Foucault believe that we need to revisit our
nature of thinking. This means that everything we’ve been taught is wrong and
should be changed. They both agree on the fact that traditional ethnics have been
based on the will to truth, which doesn’t say much about the ethics since the truth
is based on personal gains and will to power. How than can we find the real truth?
