August 29, 2008
Latour and Foucault
We have been through this before, and I won’t open it up again. But having just written a review of Reassembling the Social – hopefully out soon in Contemporary Sociology – I thought the following was of interest.
As those who have read the book know, Reassembling is a very formal and methodological book. The key idea is that many social scientific concepts posit a reality behind and beyond observed phenomena; that they enable an unwarranted “acceleration” in analysis that does not, therefore, “pay the full price” for tracing associations. I thought, at the time of reading, that this was a pretty good phrase — “pay the full price.”
So lookie here in Birth of Biopolitics: In a discussion of “inflationary” critiques of the state (which he is criticizing), Foucault says the following: “The third factor, the third inflationary mechanism which seems to be characteristic of this type of analysis, is that it enables one to avoid paying the full price of reality and actuality inasmuch as, in the name of this dynamism of the state, something like a kinship or danger, something like the great fantasy of the paranoic and devouring state can always be found. To that extent, ultimately it hardly matters what one’s grasp of reality is or what profile of actuality reality presents. It is enough, through suspicion and, as Francois Ewald would say, ‘denunciation,’ to find something like the fantastical profile of the state and there is no longer any need to analyze actuality. The elision of actuality seems to me [to be] the third inflationary mechanism we find in this critique.”
I highly recommend this entire passage, which is found around pp. 187-189. It is a rippingly satisfying critique of much of what passes for critical theory today. Among other things, I would argue (and am trying to argue in something I am writing at the moment) that it is an implicit critique of Foucault’s own position at the end of Society Must Be Defended when he links biopolitics to the totalitarian experiences of the early 20th century. More on that soon, I hope.
So does this mean we have to reject Society Must Be Defended?
Or is there a way to defend both or must we just choose between identifying with one or the other?
Btw, you really seem to be an ardent fan of The Birth of Biopolitics. I just purchased it and it didn’t actually seem partial or tentative, though perhaps I could say it was a little incomplete, not in the deficiency sens but rather in the sense that Heidegger left his work incomplete focusing on questions he thought were more important towards the end.
In fact, I found The Birth of Biopolitics to be as good if not better than Security, Territory, Population.
What’s your take on all this?
And if anyone wants to understand Foucault’s concept of biopower or governmentality well, a good introduction would be his short pamphlet or introduction to his originally planned tome on sexuality, The History of Sexuality Volume 1. For me, it summed up biopower and queer theory and remains probably my favorite Foucault book, along with Discipline and Punish and The Archaeology of Knowledge.
Michel Foucault was without a doubt one of the greatest political philosophers of the 20th century, along the ranks of Arendt and perhaps Jurgen Habermas (though I like him better than both).
That passage you just posted was a direct slap in the face to hacks like Chomsky who are all about critiquing the government and its illegitimate use of power on a constant basis. I wish Foucault had that debate with Chomsky around this time he gave the “Birth of Biopolitics” lectures. I wonder what old Noam would have to say to that.
Regardless, Foucault won that debate.