Re-cognising Power: A Discourse Analysis of Power Relations

Anna Bennett, BA Hons. (University of Newcastle, NSW)

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

The University of New South Wales, 2000. Abstract

Power is a relational dynamic which produces a disparity of effects that cannot be reduced to an exclusive morality, good or bad, or a particular consciousness, nor can it be considered the synonym for control. It is not something that works according to a single causality, positive or negative. This is not generally acknowledged, rather in both academic and popular discourse power is primarily thought to be an exclusive possession of a particular subject or social agent with a specific intent. In these discourses, power is dominated by a metaphoric sense of property, as something which belongs to the state, government, capital, or technology. It is thus conceptualised in terms of a possession/dispossession opposition. Discourse about power is preoccupied with identifying its locus and with indicating a particular type of relation which is repressive. This obscures the fact that power is in fact a feature or ontological property (in the primary sense i.e: the quality, substance or nature) of all people in relation to one another, and is active within all interaction and discourse.

Although his early works were concerned with other issues, Michel Foucault dedicated his attention mid-career to the study of power. His preeminent studies questioned the location of power in relation to the state, arguing that power is not an exclusive commodity but an interactive relational dynamic. This thesis maintains that Foucault's critique remains significant because the metaphoric equation of power with repression is still deeply entrenched in contemporary discourse on power. Unfortunately, at the end of his life Foucault moves away from his insights about power and in volumes II and III of The History of Sexuality he changes his approach, overlooking power's ubiquity and again preferring to anchor it in the

1 prevailing rhetoric of repression. He does this by privileging the notion that modem sexuality is governed by institutional powers which most significantly promote austerity and repression.

Many foucauldians have collapsed Foucault's theory of power with a simple notion of authority. This undermines his earlier warning that "power is not an institution.. .let us not look for the headquarters that presides over its rationality" (Foucault, 1990a:95). This thesis refines and develops Foucault's more neglected insights into the peculiar ontology of power, emphasising the central point that power is not the referent for a single relation but is a dynamic active within all relations, both social, interpersonal and even intrapersonal. It is ever present and is a dynamic that manifests in many different ways. It can be repressive, enabling, and considered differentially to be negative and/or positive at the same time. One cannot control its effects as it can be inadvertent or unconscious, self-defeating, self-producing, perverse and/or ambiguous. It is therefore composed of a generalised and indeterminate efficacy, rather than an intentional will or direction.

The common attempt to disassociate oneself from power, to identify it as the property of the state or of another, and as producing a single effect of good or evil, I argue, is in itself one of the empirical facts of power at work relationally. The case studies examined in this thesis illustrate the fact that power manifests in many different ways. It is the moving substrate of all interests: that of "the revolutionary", "the theorist", "the apathetic" and also "the model citizen". Therefore because all discourses of power produce multiple and indeterminate effects, and because this fact is not recognised, their ontology demands further attention.

ii Acknowledgements

Through this doctoral journey I have had the privilege of meeting many interesting people and have enjoyed the support of dear friends and family, all of whom have assisted the development of my ideas and skills. In particular I am grateful for the excellent supervision which Dr.Vicki Kirby has provided me. Her perceptive insight has been invaluable in facilitating the development of this thesis. She has always expressed a keen interest in my topic and has paid great attention to facilitating the development of it, instilling in me a respect and care in developing its articulation.

To my family and friends who have inspired and supported me through the PhD journey: John Bennett, lmbi Martin, Isla Lonie and Lenore Neath. Thank you. I am grateful for the encouragement which Dr. Kathryn Owler and Dr. Ralph Robinson have given me in reading and editing drafts. I have also been fortunate in establishing the support and friendship of Anita Lundberg and many others through postgraduate seminars and conferences. I thank Assoc. Prof. Kerry Carrington, a mentor whose interesting work, research, courses and generous support are the source of inspiration which has encouraged me to further study.

I dedicate this thesis to my mother Dr. Jeanette Martin who has read endless drafts and has shared many discussions. Thank you!

I hope that my new baby Heath finds a richness in life similar to that which I have experienced in the years of exploring this thesis.

Ill Contents

ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii CONTENTS iv INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER ONE: The Subject Is Power 9

1. Foucault's Critique of "State Theory" 12 2. Foucault's Critique of Marxist Structuralist Theories of Power 18 3. Foucault's Genealogical Method 20 4. Foucault's Genealogy of the Governmental State 23 5. The Governmental State 28 6. Governmentality 29 7. The State 31

CHAPTER TWO: The Foucault Effect 33

1. Foucault's Founding Empirical Projects: Early Career 34 a) Madness & Civilisation b) The Birth of the Qinic c) The Order of Things d) The Archaeology of Knowledge e) I, Pierre Riviere 2. Strengthening the Theory of Power: Mid-Career 46 a) Discipline & Punish b) Governmentality c) Power d) The History of Sexuality, Volume I 3. A Change In Direction: Late Career 57 4. Conclusions 59

iv CHAPTER THREE: The Ontology of Power 61

1. The Epistemological Study of Power 63 2. Epistemology Reconsidered 69 3. The Ontology of Power 71 4. An Ontological Method: Discourse Analysis 74 5. Foucault's Return to Ideology Critique 75

CHAPTER FOUR: The Foucauldian Effect 77

1. Changes in Foucault's Account of Power 79 2. The Foucauldians: Embracing the Early Foucault 82 a) The Institutionalisation of Power? b) Power* Discipline c) Power* Capacity d) The Rationalisation of Power? e) Power* Restriction

CHAPTER FIVE: "A Society of Government": The Tyranny of "the Weak" 119

1. TheAmericanMilitias 123 a) The Organisation b) Ruby Ridge c) "Militia Day" d) A Position of Powerlessness? The Oklahoma City Bombing e) Power & Productivity 2. Discourses about Waco 136 a) The Analyses 3. Hansonism 144 a) Hanson b) The Power of Everyday Observation c) Power As Commodity d) Power & Interest e) Contra-Hanson & The Socialist Worker f) Complicity g) The Politics of Power: Eristic Negotiation h) Governmentality

v 4. The Unabomber 161 a) The Crimes b) The Manifesto c) The Ideology of Return d) Power e) Leftism f) Freedom g) Revolution 5. The Power of Denial 174

CONCLUSION 176 BIBLIOGRAPHY 180 APPENDICES: 192

Appendix 1: Pauline Hanson's Maiden Speech 192 Appendix 2: The Truth 195 Appendix 3: The Unabomber's Manifesto 198

vi Introduction

We all know the fascination which the love, or horror, of the state exercises today; we know how much attention is paid to the genesis of the state, its history, its advance, its power and abuses, etc. The excessive value attributed to the problem of the state is expressed, basically, in two ways: the one form, immediate, affective and tragic, is the lyricism of the monstre froid we see confronting us; but there is a second way of overvaluing the problem of the state, one which is paradoxical because apparently reductionist: it is the form of analysis that consists in reducing the state to a certain number of functions, such as the development of productive forces and the reproduction of relations of production, and yet this reductionist vision of the relative importance of the state's role nevertheless invariably renders it absolutely essential as a target needing to be attacked and a privileged position needing to be occupied. Foucault, 1991a: 103.

1 When one approaches the issue of power the general assumption made is that it is an exclusive possession, owned and exerted by a specific group. Power is thought to have a singular locus and a specific point of operation from where it works to repress others. Power is considered to be held by authority. In fact, power is generally assumed to be synonymous with authority. It is thought to be a position to be acquired, that it is something whose possession exists in potentia. Power is aspired to through the exercise of resistance and its final realisation in revolution. This style of thought invariably renders power active in the form of the state "as a target needing to be attacked and a privileged position needing to be occupied" (Foucault, 1991a: 103). As will be explained in the opening chapters, the fact of state power is not refuted by Foucault. It is with the abstracted practice of investing the state with all power whilst overlooking the complex of powers which flow throughout the population, and which make possible what the population comes to recognise as "the state", that Foucault took issue. Foucault attempted to challenge the dominant assumption that power is an exclusive possession and his work on power remains timely as discourses on power have changed little since the inception of his critique in the mid 1970's. This thesis further develops Foucault's recognition of the fact that power is relational and is active within all relations with the self and with others.

The common attempt to isolate power from its relational context is to misconceive its nature, as it is not an isolated activity but an operational dynamic. I argue, with Foucault, that the ways in which we understand power do not accurately articulate the ways in which it is at work. Because power is a relational dynamic no one can claim exemption from power: everyone exercises and experiences it. I build upon aspects of Foucault's underdeveloped argument that discourses on power, rather than merely escaping or aspiring to power, are in fact expressions of power. In other words, any attempt to theorise, locate or condemn it is part of the dynamics which constitute power. This thesis explores the ways in which discourses about 2 power illustrate certain complexities about the nature of power relations. Therefore, conceptions of power which seek to reify it as "something'' that belongs to someone else, or as "something'' which is transferred from one person repressively onto another, are themselves instantiations of power in relation. In order to explain this I take as case studies academic, popular and political discourses on power, including expressions representative of both Left - and Right - wing politics. It becomes clear that the apparently specific and individual discourses about power, regardless of contextual origin and particular political commitments, are nevertheless a complicit illustration of power at work.

Thus, in this thesis I critique dominant understandings of power that are based upon a repressive model which assumes that power is exercised by an exclusive group for the purposes of repression. I argue that Foucault's rigorous critique of the repressive hypothesis can be read as a comprehensive account of power's complex ontology. Despite this, however, his work has been read in a way which takes it back to an elaboration of conventional views rather than as a challenge to them. I explore the significance of Foucault's work on power, particularly mid-career, which, I explain, allows recognition of its diverse and complex nature as a mechanism that is present within all interpersonal, social, political, economic and governmental relations.

This thesis explores the space of politics, in particular, discourses of power within contemporary forms of populism. It is composed of five chapters and attempts to do five central things: 1) Argue that Foucault's work on power provides rich insight into the relational nature of power. 2) Establish that Foucault's work on power is principally misrepresented as an elaboration of, rather than a challenge to, the repressive hypothesis. 3) Show that the current discourses on power are inadequate in accounting for what power is and how it works. 4) Bring attention to and evaluate theories of power in selected cases. Show that despite varying political positions, power is usually understood as a synonym for

3 control, leaving many forms of power unrecognised, and the total scenario only selectively analysed. 5) Introduce and develop the thesis that repressive theories of power, both academic and popular, liberal and conservative, are all themselves instantiations of the dynamic of power which is at work relationally.

Chapter One provides an introductory outline of Foucault's challenge to theories of power which assert that its locus is with the state, government and its proxies. I introduce Foucault's theory of governmentality which challenges the thesis that the state has an exclusive hold on power. Foucault challenges the understanding that one must occupy the position of authority in order to possess power and questions notions which overstate the dichotomy between the state and the population. He reveals that, if anything, one can only be precise about the workings of governmental power if one recognises that the state is inextricable from the population at large. Governmental power is something that is continually exercised and negotiated within both formal as well as everyday relations and practices.

Running throughout chapters one and two is an analysis of Foucault's critique of structuralist, in particular marxist, thought, and his challenge to some of its central assumptions regarding truth, subjectivity, history and power. Foucault found it impossible to accept the prevailing notion that the truth is something which can only be uncovered through academic analysis. He argued that the truth or logic of the academy is as much a product of contextual factors as are the ideas and phenomena that it studies. Foucault ascertained that theory is subject to the same rules of discourse which govern all interaction. Foucault's attention to the relational nature of all discourse is developed during his early exploration of issues of truth, knowledge and subjectivity. His interest in genealogy is also an extension of his insight into the relational nature of discourse. Foucault understood history to be a complex of relationships and not one linear experience or journey. It is important to consider such elements of Foucault's philosophical development because his theory of power (which is introduced in chapter one but not expounded until chapter three) was developed as part of his overall reaction to structuralist conceptions of power

4 which attempt to reify power as a particular type of structure, usually repressive and controlling, rather than as a relational dynamic of structuration itself.

Sustaining these issues, chapter two outlines the development of Foucault's body of work through a discussion of his most significant publications. It also details his method of discourse analysis which he uses throughout most of his work to explore the ways in which people interact, communicate ideas, and govern themselves and others. Another aim of this chapter is to establish that Foucault's work on power is most vigorous mid-career and it analyses in detail his move into and away from his attention to power's strange ontology. Foucault has left a "Foucault effect": a body of work which is rich and insightful.

Following a more focussed discussion of Foucault's theory of power in chapter three, the subsequent chapters evaluate his theory and its significance to the present context. The discussion moves away from Foucault's challenge to structuralism into a critique of current and, ironically, foucauldian theories of power which I argue do not share or even acknowledge the most significant and momentous aspects of Foucault's insights regarding power. I explore the problems with Foucault's early work and the criticisms he received which, I argue, he successfully rectifies mid­ career. I study his theory of power in greater detail and explore his shift from a preference towards epistemological and archaeological issues (that is, a concern with discovering an underlying truth or power constructing modem discourse and power) to an ontological account in which he adopts a genealogical approach concerned with evaluating the ways in which truth and power are endlessly produced rather than predetermined or causally defined. This much more nuanced account is present within his earlier empirical studies, but is particularly strong in his essay on govemmentality and within specific articles such as ''The Subject and Power'' (1982b), "Body/Power" (1980) and "Power Mfects The Body" (1989a). In effect this work on power serves as an auto-critique of his early tendency, evident in Madness and Civilisation. to treat discourse and power in terms of constriction and repression.

5 In chapters three and four I identify Foucault's theory as an ontology of power and advance this in preparation for the discourse analysis which follows in chapter five. In chapter four I explore foucauldian accounts of power. I argue that rather than elaborate upon Foucault's most illuminating work on power, much foucauldian discourse returns it to the notion that power resides within the sites of an expanding state, conceptually re-assigning and refining power from an analysis in terms of the state onto one about institutions. That is, they explore certain foucauldian themes and adopt Foucault's language, but when power is at issue, Foucault's thesis is mitigated by scholars who insist that power works exclusively within certain authoritative modalities. In effect, many prominent foucauldian scholars reduce Foucault's theory of power into an elaboration of structuralism's repressive hypothesis. They argue that there is a homogenisation of the subject's experience and a strengthening of the hold of externalised power on subjects. Power is still reduced to an exclusive commodity and those who are subjected to power have little or no access to it. The subjected are regarded as those upon whom knowledges or sciences are practised. Many theorists prefer to identify power only in terms of control, which not only refuses to recognise power in its entirety but also the implication of the theorists themselves in power relations.

It is assumed that beyond, or rather, before modem discourse lies a more truthful past. In particular, in this chapter I take issue with key foucauldian writers such as Nikolas Rose, Herbert Dreyfus, Paul Rabinow and Paul Patton who deploy such assumptions in their writings.

The problem with writers such as Dreyfus and Rabinow, for example, is that they argue that social institutions effect the population and not the other way around, still working with a notion of an absolute split between power and the population. This is consistent with many structuralist and liberal notions of emancipation which rest on the assumption that power is located or exercised outside of social or political relations. It assumes that until one decimates other powers, one has no power. Similarly, a prolific writer on Foucault, Paul Patton, argues that Foucault's theory of subjectivity provides for a distinction between dominating or repressive forms of

6 power which work on the population, and interpersonal and social, or non­ dominating, forms in which multiple parties exercise power. This still presumes that power is a structure of control which is exercised by authority because subjects only exert power within relations which are not dominating. Patton overlooks the profound implication between types of power and the fact that they are not autonomous.

Patton wants to devise a theory of power with which he may identify where dominance or repression occurs, a space that will allow him to judge what is repressive power and what is not. But power is much more indeterminate than this. His model of power reiterates a very conventional account which, in the effort to identify power as locatable, inevitably overlooks its ubiquity and complexity.

In chapter five I move from this focus on academic theory to explore theories of power expressed within selected popular political movements, specifically discourses of the far-Right and Left in both Australian and American contexts. I argue that despite what seems at first to be very different politics, on both sides of these debates power is assumed to be something that is exclusive and repressive. A discourse of blame is expressed which identifies the exclusive location of power in the state and its proxies, namely capital and technology. Power is conceptualised as other and outside the bounds of everyday experience. I argue that such accounts, in attempting to deflect power away from themselves, fail to recognise many important facts and subtle but significant aspects of power. They do not recognise that power does not work to produce a single effect of good or evil.

However, I argue that the general compulsion within both academic and popular discourse to view power as other: something which is held and exercised by others, is the very nature of power at work. Despite their stand against power, such politics illustrates the nature of power, that power is this articulation. Thus, unlike Foucault who focussed on critiquing theories of power as fundamentally mistaken about or disengaged from what power is, I assert that discourses or theories about power, are in fact power at work in its relational context. The common practice of

7 disavowing one's own agency is a strategy which produces effects. Power is the dynamic, interaction, communication or discourse which people engage. I argue that discourses on power are an integral part of the "stuff', or the matter that is power.

The recognition which this thesis offers of the ontological status of discourses of power strengthens the insights expressed by Foucault that power relations are "rooted in the social nexus, and are not reconstituted above society as a supplementary structure whose radical effacement one could perhaps dream of' (Foucault, 1982b: 222). Foucault's point that power is inherently relational reminds us that: one has to recognise the indefiniteness of the struggle [for power]. This is less of a face to face confrontation which paralyses both sides than a permanent provocation... Every power relationship involves a strategy of confrontation in which each adversary leans toward the idea that it may become the winning strategy ...A society without power relations can only be an abstraction (Foucault, 1982b: 222-226).

All discourses about power are points of articulation of power, including the structuralist accounts Foucault critiques and the foucauldian re-appropriations of the property metaphor I critique. All provide evidence that power is a force with a multitude of different manifestations. Current and conventional forms of analysis do not provide us with the best possible understanding of what power is and when, where and how it works. I believe that sociology: the science of the way society works, has much to do in addressing the issue of power. There are many pressing questions concerning the dynamic which is present within all relations with the self and others, namely: power. The aim of this thesis is to re-cognise power.

8 Chapter One The Subject is Power

But the state, no more probably today than at any other time in its history, does not have this unity, this individuality, this rigorous functionality, nor, to speak frankly, this importance; maybe, after all, the state is no more than a composite reality and a mythicised abstraction, whose importance is a lot more limited than many of us think. Maybe what is really important for our modernity - that is, for our present - is not so much the etatisation of society, as the governmentalisation of the state ...We live in the era of a 'governmentality' first discovered in the eighteenth century. This governmentalisation of the state is a singularly paradoxical phenomenon, since if in fact the problems of governmentality and the techniques of government have become the only real political issue, the only real space for political struggle and contestation, this is because the governmentalisation of the state is at the same time what has permitted the state to survive, and it is possible to suppose that if the state is what it is today, this is so precisely thanks to this governmentality, which is at once internal and external to the state, since it is the tactics of government which make possible the continual defmition and redefinition of what is within the competence of the state and what is not, the public versus private, and so on; thus the state can only be understood in its survival and its limits on the basis of the general tactics of governmentality. Michel Foucault, 1991a: 103.

9 Power is generally considered by theorists to be held by government as a possession which it exercises at the expense of its citizenry. Particularly in the middle of his career, Foucault became interested in challenging the notion that the state possesses power and that citizens have only limited access, and only experience subjection to it. Foucault argues that this is an inadequate account of the complex and polymorphous qualities of power in modernity.

This chapter forms a general introduction to Foucault's thoughts on the notion that power is exclusive to the state. It outlines Foucault's critique of structuralism and explores the ways in which his research on the production of discourse, truth and power has culminated in a complex account which he presented in his 1978 lecture "Governmentality" (Foucault, 1991a: 104). In "Governmentality" Foucault identifies the intensity of deliberation surrounding the issue of state power, arguing that: we all know the fascination which the love or horror of the state exercises today, we know how much attention is paid to the genesis of the state, its history, its advance, its power and abuses (Foucault, 1991a: 103). In this genealogy, which I argue he outlines most succinctly mid-career (something that will be discussed throughout the course of this thesis), Foucault shows that fascination with state power has been a topic of debate for many centuries. He elaborates in his interview "Power Mfects the Body" that: the idea that an explanation for all the arrangements of power must be gotten from the source, or the point of accumulation of power - the State - seems to me to be without great historical fecundity, or let's say its historical fecundity has been exhausted (Foucault, 1989a: 210).

Foucault believes that the conceptualisation of power that is represented by structuralism and its offshoots, commonly referred to today as "state theory" or

10 "socio-critique'', offers only a partial understanding of the complexity of power relations. He argues that much of the theory of the state of the past few decades has been informed by these views. Alongside his critique of structuralist conceptions of the state is Foucault's challenge to the assumptions of early phenomenology which, he argues, has influenced much of the history of Western thought. The "Western episteme" and its conceptualisation of the "knowing subject", Foucault asserts, works with the presumption that through inquiry one may access an absolute and fixed Truth and Power source. Foucault criticises the associated notion developed by structuralism, particularly the marxist structuralism introduced by Louis Althusser, that the location of the Truth of Power may be found beyond the fabrications of subjectivity, and behind the layers of the structural apparatuses deployed to reinforce the status quo. There is an assumption that the Authority who has seen the Truth and located Power must lead others to see it too. Foucault challenges notions of revelation and the premise that the unknowing masses are "duped" by the structure of power. Rather than follow the logic which seeks to escape the contaminations of discourse in an attempt to isolate The Truth of Power, Foucault's genealogy works to locate the various movements and strategies at work in the production of all discourse about truth and power. To Foucault, the subject is not merely the product of the application of power, but is power, that is, the population is the site of power's complex ontology.

In this exploration of Foucault's intervention into theories of governmental power I consult a diverse group of post-structuralist authors such as Graeme Burchell, Hubert Dreyfus, Colin Gordon, Paul Rabinow, Nikolas Rose, Alan Sheridan, Rob Watts, as well as others who have both translated and explored Foucault's work in English. One issue arising out of this reference to foucauldian theory which I do not approach here but explore in chapter four of this thesis, is the fact that many commentators do not sustain Foucault's attention to the fact that power cannot be understood in singularly negative or positive terms. Instead, in their concern to contribute to theory according to a certain notion of utility, they overlook Foucault's point that power works according to a generalised and indeterminant efficacy and not according to the restricted categories of good and evil. However, in an effort to

11 prevent preempting my argument, this issue will not receive due attention until this later chapter.

This chapter is not intended as an exegesis of "structuralism", its movement, diversity and the many insights which it offers. As Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow argue, when writing about Foucault's intervention one moves into a massive territory. As such, Dreyfus and Rabinow recognise in Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (1982), that it is impossible to claim "comprehensiveness as to the breadth of issues" which Foucault's work touches (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982: xv). They argue that to concentrate on the specific issues he raises "seems fair since it is precisely how Foucault handles the master thinkers of the past" (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982: xv). This thesis follows Foucault's critique of structuralist approaches, and along with the following chapter, aims to introduce Foucault's general intervention into the theory of power and outline the style, language and influence of Foucault's thought. Although this field may be familiar, it is necessary to outline the relevant issues which distinguish theories of power in order to contextualise my argument that discourses about power are in fact of power's very identity. It is therefore necessary to gain a sense of the complicated play of discourses about power before I can develop the significant challenges which this argument offers.

1. Foucault's Critique of"State Theory" Foucault's first aim in his essay "Governmentality" is to disrupt the understanding that power is something which emanates from a centralised, singular and separate source which is then transmitted to its citizens as a repressive force. Foucault insists that the common practice of "anthropomorphizing" power, that is, endowing the state with fixed characteristics of consciousness or purpose is problematic. He argues that understanding power as wholly descendent permeates many analyses of power and "forms the hold of conceptions of the sovereign-subject relation" (Cousins and Hussain,1984:230).

Emphasising the significance of Foucault's argument almost two decades later, Rob 12 Watts, a sociologist who writes extensively about issues of government, also considers that this structuralist discourse is characterised by a heterogeneity of theses of "certain forms" or specific types (Watts,1994:106). Watts explains that: neo-marxists, feminists and other critical theorists since the 1960s have seen the state as an agent or proxy for dominant collective interests in capitalist and/or patriarchal social relations and modes of re/production (Watts, 1994:113). Watts comments further: Too often, state theory has rendered the state a lifeless puppet whose movements are controlled and tugged by the social logics of class, gender or the mode of production. Any understanding of the state is only possible by reference to how the state is constructed in relation to civil society and vice versa. There is no gain in working with ideas of the state as an essential and ahistorical category ... The state and civil society distinction, under the press of discursive and institutional renovation, is becoming increasingly residual (Watts,l994:108). This "socio- critique", as Watts terms it, holds that the origins of knowledge and techniques of power can simply be explained in terms of the functions they serve for the state. Indeed, Foucault's critique is relevant today and his genealogy of state­ theory, or raison d'etat, shows that repressive theories of power reduced to the locality of the state are age-old. The most significant breaks in this popular notion of the exclusionary nature of power, he argues, are with the "utopianism" of the enlightenment period and also with early twentieth century dreams of scientific progress.

It is interesting to note that Max Weber, seventy four years before Foucault's intervention, complains about "a certain 'utopianism' which tends to minimise the significance of authority, coercive power, and physical force in human affairs" (Weber cited in Parsons, 1947: 50). He argued that this "utopianism has been a conspicuous feature of a large part of modem social and perhaps particularly economic thought" (Weber cited in Parsons, 1947: 50). The structuralism of the mid to late twentieth century certainly addresses Weber's argument that more attention

13 needs to be paid to coercive power and domination. What Weber saw as a particular concentration on what he calls an "enlightenment" or singularly positive consideration of governmental power, suggests that in the seven decades which separate Foucault's and Weber's comments, ideas about the state have shifted into a notion of power as authority. With the growing disillusionment in the 1960's, about the notion of political enlightenment and scientific progression, what seems to have resulted is an over-emphasis upon the notion of authority and the repressive and therefore negative nature of power.

Indeed, Foucault's work is a reaction to the prevalence of the structuralist movement and in particular, to the popularity of marxist politics from the 1960's and 1970's which presume that power is a controlling mechanism. The belief that "man is born free and everywhere he is in chains" took on a new meaning (Rousseau, 1948:40). The dominant assumption that power is repressive shows that Weber's complaint is taken up with enthusiasm. In Weber's analysis of the "institutionalisation of authority" he argued that the basic structure of a differentiation of roles within authority is "normal for groups of any size and complexity in all fields of routine human action" (Weber cited in Parsons, 1947: 50). However, this is a frame which Weber himself cautions could be misconstrued. Weber asserts that one should not "overemphasise the coercive aspect of authority and hierarchy in human relations in general, important as it is in particular cases" (Weber cited in Parsons, 1947: 54).

Foucault argues that the rise of structuralist marxism in the 1960's particularly with the work of Louis Althusser marked a stage when the study of power relations became restricted to an over-emphasis on the notion of authority (Smart, 1983:14). Central to Althusser's marxism is his development of a scientific marxism which attempts to reveal the hidden structure of the capitalist mode of production embodied in the state. The state is thought to be synonymous with power, and citizens subjected to its demands. In this sense, subjects comply with or resist power. Only through revolution, however, can power be realised by the citizenry. Indeed, it is thought that the state is the exclusive site of power which needs to be captured. Althusser argues that power and subjectivity are directed and determined by the

14 desires of those in charge of capital, that is, power is concentrated in the dominion of the state. Citizens are considered social actors who are subjected to its will rather than as knowing agents.

According to recent readings of Marx, the means of production are controlled by a class which also controls political and ideological life. It is questionable that Marx himself intended that his theories be translated into a notion of power as the exclusive possession of the state. For example, he did explore the complex of powers which workers exercise in the operation of capital. However, Marx's ideas have been taken up in different ways, and the most popular readings of Marx conceive that the effects of power are imposed onto the population. State institutions are thought to exercise power in the interests of creating a favourable climate to the continuation of capitalism and the hegemony of the class system.

In response to this kind of "fundamentalism", Foucault argues that there is no such simple relationship rendering "habitual obedience" to the sovereign or the state. He considers that power relations are much more complex than this. Foucault argues that "the state, no more probably today than at any other time in its history, does not have this unity, this individuality, this rigorous functionality, nor, to speak frankly, this importance" (Foucault 1991a:103). In his effort to challenge this notion of a state/civil opposition, he remarks that: the state is no more than a composite reality and a mythicised abstraction, whose importance is a lot more limited than many of us think. Maybe what is really important for our modernity- that is, for our present- is not so much the etatisation (state-isation) of society, as the governmentalisation of the state (Foucault 1991a: 103). And so, in his critique of what he sees as an "over-statisation", he proposes that there is more to modem power than is conceptualised by many of his predecessors and contemporary commentators.

Foucault asserts that there is an exact homology between understandings of the "jurisprudential hypothesis of prohibition" (the sovereign rules his subjects) and the

15 "repressive hypothesis" (the state represses its citizens). This is what he tenns a "juridico-discursive" conception of power in which the state is disproportionally reduced to a number of functions which are regarded as separate from the citizen. Foucault argues that government does not have this singular "individuality". Rather, what is important is the multifarious array of tactics which produce a government of the state that ensures the preservation of life. This grid of strategies, which Foucault terms "bio power'', is deployed to preserve life and rests on the power of government as much as its citizenry. He argues that it is the taking charge of life which characterises the investment of knowledge/power within the political sphere. He explains the concern for a population's health: The pressure exerted by the biological on the historical had remained very strong for thousands of years; epidemics and famine were the two great dramatic fonns of this relationship that was always dominated by the menace of death. But through a circular process, the economic - and primarily agricultural - development of the eighteenth century, and an increase in productivity and resources even more rapid than the demographic growth it encouraged, allowed a measure of relief from those profound threats: despite some renewed outbreaks, the period of great ravages from starvation and plague had come to a close before the French Revolution; death was ceasing to tonnent life so directly .. .It was no longer a matter of bringing death into play in the field of sovereignty, but of distributing the living in the domain of value and utility. Such a power has to qualify, measure, appraise, and hierarchise, rather than display itself in its murderous splendour; it does not have to draw the line that separates the enemies of the sovereign from his obedient subjects; it effects distributions around the nonn (Foucault, 1990a: 144). Government is subject to the demands of bio-power as much as are its citizens. The rights to life, health and happiness, are entitlements which the population possess and have come to expect. Power is not a monopolised commodity. Instead, relations of power are open-textured, are exercised from innumerable points, and are not limited to one particular domain.

16 Foucault's work on the art of governing, as described in his genealogy of government which is explored in the following pages, reveals that the common assumption that sovereign power has always undermined the power of subjects is misconceived. He argues that the interest of the population in issues of government "explode in the sixteenth century" (Foucault,1991a: frl). He explains that the question of governance, whether of oneself or of the nation, is considered with vigorous interest at the time of the Stoic revival of the sixteenth century. Here the population exercised, among other things, the power of critique which effected considerable influence on ways of governing. Foucault argues: Throughout the Middle Ages and classical antiquity, we find a multitude of treatises presented as 'advice to the prince', concerning his proper conduct, the exercise of power, the means of securing the acceptance and respect of his subjects, the love of God and obedience to him, the application of divine law to the cities of men, etc. But a more striking fact is that, from the middle of the sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth, there develops and flourishes a notable series of political treatises that are no longer exactly 'advice to the prince', and not yet treatises of political science, but are instead presented as works on the 'art of government'. Government as a general problem seems to me to explode in the sixteenth century, posed by discussions of quite diverse questions. One has, for example, the question of government of oneself, that ritualisation of the problem of personal conduct which is characteristic of the sixteenth century Stoic revival (Foucault, 1991a: 87). At this time, ethical considerations of government such as the concern of government on the welfare of the population were raised. The right of subjects to good governance was expressed. In the following pages I will explore Foucault's genealogy and his insights concerning the implications of Stoicism on practices of government. For the moment, however, I will continue to introduce Foucault's intervention into the concept of power in more general terms.

17 2. Foucault's Critique of Marxist Structuralist Theories of Power Foucault argues that what is ignored by much of the literature on the state is recognition of the diverse and contradictory aspects of power. Foucault finds fault with the understanding that structures of power are simply based on economic productivity, a production which distributes people into roles: owners or non­ owners, "haves" or "have-nots", the superordinate or subordinate. Foucault argues that in much contemporary marxist and neo-marxist -inspired discourse it is claimed that a capitalist society is ultimately divided into class groupings based on owners and non-owners and is characterised by owners exploiting wage labour. It is considered that societal power and society's dominant belief systems, or ideology, are all controlled by a dominant economic ruling elite. A worker's position, if discordant with the demands placed upon him, is considered in terms of resistance and not power. Power is thought to be of an order which precedes resistance. Resistance is therefore considered a secondary reaction to, and therefore not, power. However, Foucault challenges this, arguing that resistance and power are mutually dependent He argues that the desire to reduce power into a single metaphor of control, at the expense of its other features like resistance, is selective. Foucault recognises that this attempt to reify power reveals the fact that it is an interested strategy which forms the very essence of what power is: a relational dynamic. People who consider themselves to be resisting power, Foucault asserts, are, like all others, part of its relational dynamic and are expressive of power. This point will be developed in the following chapters.

Writing about Foucault's critique of structuralist theory, Paul Patton asserts that common marxist conceptions of power tend to treat it as if it is necessarily external and opposed to the freedom of individuals (Patton,l993:144). Such marxist approaches suppose that power is a pre-determined, reified controlling mechanism that is only employed by a specific sector of the population for a specific set of reasons. Patton argues that marxism's predilection to think of power only in terms of overpowering the weaker with incotporation and exploitation, is to think of power essentially in terms of the hostile exercise of power over others: "hostile because not all forms of overpowering involve appropriation, injury and 18 exploitation of those over whom power is exercised" (Patton,l993: 152). Also inspired by Foucault's work, Marion Tapper adds that when conceptualising power as a hostile force, one paradoxically takes on power in order to expose it. She argues that in locating this power "it then requires and produces experts to detect the evil and special processes to expose it" (Tapper,l993:130).

Foucault was influenced by Nietzsche's attempt to situate power in terms other than those which want to reduce it to signify "good" or "evil". Central to Nietzsche's observations is his insight that "it is common for people to want others to be evil in order to be able to consider themselves good" (Nietzsche,l969:39). Foucault takes up Nietzsche's argument that power is primarily a matter of the expenditure of force or energy and not subject to a pre-determined moral code. Writing about Foucault's life, Joseph Miller follows Foucault's insights into the complexities and subtle nuances of power about which Nietzsche writes. Miller shows that Nietzsche's recognition that power is relational, that it is exercised on others and upon the self, led to Foucault ascribing much importance to practices of the self and issues of asceticism (Miller,l993:9). Following Nietzsche, Foucault thought that this complexity of experience should be recognised in order for the discursive workings of power to be grasped. Foucault expounds his point by insisting that power must not be viewed as something which is always simple, rational, conscious, clear, consistent, relevant or even valid. Cousins and Hussain comment: "it needs to be said that Foucault, like Hegel, analyses power in terms of the relation between individuals" and that he explores the ways in which power effects can be contradictory in that actual effects can be very different from intended effects (Cousins and Hussain,l984: 230-245). This is to recognise Foucault's notion of indeterminacy and the discursive movement of relations of power.

It is important to gain a sense of Foucault's challenge to strict teleologies, one of which he terms "enlightenment theories", which work with the assumption that power is a positive mechanism which will lead mankind towards the best possible outcome. He also critiques the presumption that power restricts potential,

19 something he refers to as the "repressive hypothesis". Foucault argues that "never has there existed more centres of power; never more attention manifested and verbalised; never more circular contacts and linkages; never more sites where the intensity of pleasures and the persistency of power catch hold" (Foucault, 1990a:49). Thus, the value attributed to power cannot be considered something that autonomously either restricts or enables. Power is not a singular technology, but is ubiquitous, and something which is endlessly productive. I will return to explore Foucault's theory of power in more detail in the following chapters after outlining his thoughts on the operation of governmental power.

3. Foucault's Genealogical Method As indicated, Foucault finds the dominant style of critique of the late 1970's inadequate in many respects, particularly in its refusal to recognise the fact that power is a productive mechanism, producing a diversity of positive and negative effects. In order to problematise how various writers come to conceptualise power as the exclusive tool of the state, Foucault deploys what he refers to as a "genealogical" form of inquiry. His critique of marxist structuralism is based on what he considers to be its major flaw. This is its reliance upon a notion of polarity between the subject who knows and the "dupe": the subject who doesn't know. Althusser's science/ideology opposition is a prime example of this notion of separation between subjectivities. Althusser argues that through the development of "rational criteria" one may distinguish between science and ideology. Althusser explains that this will: lay down the foundations of a scientific theory, or 'open the road' to the development of what will, irresistibly become a science, an unusual science, a revolutionary science, but (sic) a theory which contains what we recognise in the sciences, because it provides objective knowledge (Althusser, 1976: 110). Indeed, because these notions were so popular Foucault had much trouble finding sympathetic readers for his doctoral thesis within France. In fact, Foucault's original, preliminary title for The Order of Things was An Archaeology of Structumlism. What has resulted from this research is a work in which Foucault

20 seeks to explore structuralist assumptions genealogically.

It is worth exploring Foucault's concept of genealogy to understand the purpose of his research. Foucault refers to the "field of memory" of discourse in his conception of genealogy, a notion first discussed by Nietzsche as a way of exploring "a history of the present in terms of its past" (Nietzsche cited in Mahon,l992:8). Foucault shows that a genealogy is not a history of the past but an analysis of the present which attempts to describe how the present became possible. Foucault uses the term "genealogy" to describe the formation of ideas. Genealogy is widely understood as an account of the descent of a person through an ancestral line. However, Foucault's genealogy problematises linear notions of history which treat the present as if it were a straightforward or accumulative development from the past, or a progression. He finds problematic the treatment of events as if they are the outcome of evolutionary ordering - the notion that events occur in the line of progress or doom.

Genealogy takes up the techniques of historical "revisionism" and uses them to reassess specific issues which have been ignored by historians who focus upon "the overall picture" rather than diverse experiences of history. Genealogist Peter Dews argues that genealogical techniques demonstrate the fact that histories may be discontinuous and are also frequently ambiguous. He argues that Foucault's genealogical method recognises discursivity and rejects the traditional devices for constructing it as a structurally consistent development (Dews,1987:207). History works in the present, on our very ontology, producing the entirety of ways of being, including mainstream, dissident and alternative identities.

Foucault was intent on disrupting the notion of "the founding originating subject", based on the idea that "meaning and signification are pregiven" and may be identified by an inquiring subject (Foucault,l981:49). Foucault wished to "de­ centre" the subject and, in doing so, to reconsider the assumption of a "hidden essence or meaning" which can be uncovered through the application of scientific thought (Foucault,1981:50). Foucault argues that our will to truth governs our will

21 to know, and that this determines the possibilities of our field of discourse. With the establishment of science, Foucault asserts, "a certain division was established, separating true discourse from false discourse" (Foucault,l981:54). He argues that conceptions of truth have: never stopped shifting: sometimes the great mutations in scientific thought can perhaps be read as the consequence of a discovery, but they can also be read as the appearance of new forms in the will to truth. There is doubtless a will to truth in the nineteenth century which differs from the will to know characteristic of Classical culture (Foucault,l981:55). What this means is that starting from the Classical idea that man may only comment on and describe the world, with science came the idea that verifiable and material accounts of the world are possible. In a sense, the notion of the knowing subject replaces the idea of the truth of God and "unknowing man", with the concept of the truth of science. Despite this recognition, Foucault does not place his faith in hermeneutics, the idea that one may only interpret the world and never access the truth. He believes that this underscores the importance of truth in the function of discourse. To Foucault, the modem citizen is not singularly "knowing" or "duped", but productive. He argues that there is no one truth that one can straightforwardly access but a never-ceasing production of many truths which the population effect

Foucault's exploration of ideas about the state is important because it recognises the contingent and historical nature of the relation between ways of knowing and ways of being. In particular, as argued, Foucault's genealogy challenges assumptions put forth within the type of marxian philosophy and theory explicated by Althusser. Althusser's structuralist approach, based on the notion that through systematic study and observation one theory may throw off the "ideological distortions" of another and become "truly scientific", assumes that through systematic study one can access the truth and power source of a system. It is argued that when the basic and stable elementary rules of a given system are established, one can overthrow them. According to Althusser' s conception of history, structures are of more significance than events. Foucault seeks to problematise this notion of epistemic truth, the sense

22 that a fundamental truth and power structure so-called "ideological distortions" (Althusser, 1976:110). Foucault's identification with the movement of "post­ structuralism" is based on the way that he scrutinised structuralism as a mode of knowledge that sets itself apart from ideology. In doing so, Foucault suggests that all rationalities must be considered subject to "the order of discourse", not in terms of a structuring of ideology, the imposition of authorised ideas, but as part of all relations which together produce or constitute power.

4. Foucault's Genealogy of the Governmental State Foucault's purpose in outlining a genealogy of rationalities of government is to show that government has always been an "art", and that questions have forever been posed about how best to order and govern society. Although Foucault asserts that governmentality was first discovered in the eighteen century, his history shows that people have never been the kind of passive recipients of repression which we might imagine. In exploring the "history of ways of knowing", Foucault argues that populations have always deliberated over the issues: "how to govern oneself, how to be governed, how to govern others" (Foucault,l991a: 87).

Foucault does limit his historical study, preferring to focus on modem rather than ancient history, showing that particularly since the Stoic revival of the sixteenth century a problematic of government in general has emerged. The central point is that this problematic is not specific to the sovereign but is much more broad and includes issues of concern to the population about the government of religion, souls, economics, and families and health.

Writing about Foucault's genealogy of government and inspired to further explore Foucault's theoretical departure point, Colin Gordon provides comprehensive detail about Foucault's work on government and the historical context(s) of raison d'etat. In his description of Foucault's notion of governmentality, Gordon explains that: government is not just a power needing to be tamed or an authority needing to be legitimised. It is an activity and an art which concerns all

and which touches each. And it is an art which presupposes thought 23 (Gordon, 1991:x). For centuries questions concerning "how to govern oneself, how to be governed, how to govern others, by whom the people will accept being governed, how to become the best possible governor" (Foucault,1991a: 87) have been posed alongside questions concerning "how one must be spiritually ruled and led on this earth in order to achieve eternal salvation" (Foucault,1991a: 87).

Following the Middle Ages and the breakdown of the Feudal system, during the Renaissance period (which is known as an em of the revival of learning) there returned a style of Stoic sentiment based on interest in the pursuit of knowledge. Foucault shows that Machiavelli's The Prince is a pivotal text in this setting, where the authority of the church and state was slowly but surely being questioned. The rule of the church was increasingly being challenged as a result of the profound changes in the lifestyles of the growing merchant classes that were taking place during the sixteenth century. From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, changes were experienced in the structure and influence of the church. For example, in 1517 Martin Luther criticised the Church's teaching that salvation may only be gained through membership and devotion. He argued that people could claim their own communion with God, and their own salvation through faith and pmyer. Luther defied the authority of the Pope by saying this and was consequently excommunicated.

These events leading up to the eighteenth century, the period of the Reformation, helped to spark an interest in questioning issues such as Divine- and Monarchal­ Right. The increasing tmde and tmvel of merchants further contributed to this growing interest in matters of state, and tmvel significantly widened cultural and geogmphical horizons and people's conception oflife.

Machiavelli himself was influenced by this emerging consciousness and shared an awareness of the internal workings of other nations. He wrote in an effort to discover how best to strengthen his monarchal state against the authority of other states and sought to find answers concerning protection against internal rebellion.

24 His work was closely studied by his contemporaries and is of particular interest to Foucault (an interest he sustains and returns to in the first volume of The History of Sexuality) because of its preoccupation with questions of government. What Foucault finds important in Machiavelli's text is an interest in the Prince's relation to what he owns. He argues that there exists in Machiavelli a concern not only with protecting authority from the threat of other nations, but also with the communication of a new concern about subjectivity, an interest in legitimacy, popularity, and an emerging concern with consent. Foucault argues that it is: only at the beginning of the nineteenth century that Tbe Ptjnce re­ emerges, especially in Germany, where it is translated, prefaced and commented upon by writers such as Rehberg, Leo, Ranke and Kellerman, and also in Italy. It makes its appearance in a context. .. which is partly Napoleonic, but also partly created by the Revolution and problems of revolution in the United States, of how and under what conditions a ruler's sovereignty over the state can be maintained; but this is also the context in which there emerges... the problem of the relationship between politics and strategy, and the problem of relations of force and the calculation of these relations is a principle of intelligibility and rationalisation in international relations; and lastly, in addition, it connects with the problem of Italian and German territorial unity, since Machiavelli had been one of those who tried to define the conditions under which Italian territorial unity could be restored... There was a whole "affair" around his work. This whole debate should not be viewed solely in terms of its relation to Machiavelli's text and what were felt to be its scandalous or radically unacceptable aspects. It needs to be seen in terms of something which it was trying to define in its specificity, namely an art of government (Foucault,l991a: 88-89). Foucault asserts that the essential thing within the debate during this period is that: they attempted to articulate a kind of rationality which was intrinsic to the art of government, without subordinating it to the problematic of the Prince and of his relationship to the principality of which he is Lord and

25 master (Foucault,l991a: 89). The movement against Machiavelli's text produced what Foucault considers a shift from an awareness of the "transcendent singularity of the ability to retain one's principality" (self-protection) to "the multiplicity of an immanence of an art of government" (Foucault,1991a: 90-91). The security of the principality, in terms of its authority when considered against other principalities, became combined with concerns about internal authority and legitimacy. This interest in legitimacy was not only a concern of the prince but an increasing concern of subjects. Foucault chooses anti-Machiavellian Guillaume de La Perriere as exemplary of the literature of this time, arguing that La Perriere's discourse is important because it opens the concept of governing to encompass "king, magistrate, and judge", and even extends the concept of governing to be "conceived in terms of the government of the household, souls, children, a province, a convent, a religious order, a family" (Foucault,l991a: 90).

Foucault's tracing of raison d'etat continues onto his discussion of another stage in rationalities of government; the development of early liberalism. Liberalism intrigues Foucault, as it is a form of knowledge calculated to limit power by persuading government of its own incapacity. Within such a science of government it is always emphasised that things are always liable to go wrong (Gordon,l991:46- 47). There is an implicit recognition here that one cannot always determine outcomes. The finite nature of the state's power to act is an immediate consequence of the limitation of its power to know. In order to best manage this "liberal problem­ space" the notion of economic government is further introduced in a recitation of governmental reason "within a newly complicated, open and unstable politico­ epistemic configuration" (Gordon,l991: 16).

Indeed this aspect of the permeability of the economic, the political and the social is intensified by much liberal literature where there is a birth of the notion of "the political citizen" and "the man of government" (Gordon,1991:27-37). The mid­ nineteenth century is the "heyday of liberalism" and importantly, the time of an intensification of debate about its dangers. This explains the seeming incongruence 26 of the fact that what runs alongside the strengthening of liberal notions of government is also its critique (in the form of marxism, for example).

What distinguishes liberalism from forms of "neo-liberalism" is its emphasis on the limits of and respect for "the laws of nature ... the autonomous capability of civil society to generate its own order" (Gordon,1991:15). Versions of what have become known as neo-liberalism, by contrast, do not ascribe to liberalism's somewhat insightful qualification of its logical incoherence. In his discussion of the neo-liberalism of West German and American economists, Foucault points out that their notion of government is premised on the idea that economics governs all purposive conduct. Foucault argues: Economics has thus become an 'approach' capable in principle of addressing the totality of human behaviour, and consequently, of envisaging a coherent, purely economic method of programming the totality of governmental action. The neo-liberal homo economicus is both a reactivation and a radical inversion of the economic agent as conceived by the liberalism of Smith, Hume or Ferguson... But the great departure here from eighteenth-century precedent is that, whereas homo economicus originally meant that subject the springs of whose activity must remain forever untouchable by government, the American neo-liberal homo economicus is manipulable man, man who is perpetually responsive to modifications in his environment (Foucault, 1991a:43). In fact, Gordon believes that "there are a number of signs that a neo-liberal rationality of government is beginning to play a part in the life of several Western societies"(Gordon,1991:44). He counts in this "the idea of one's life as the enterprise of oneself' and argues that in contemporary society there is a greater stress on the individual's "civic obligation to moderate the burden of risk which he or she imposes on society, by participating, for example, in preventive health-care programmes" (Gordon,1991:44). Modem citizens possess an increasing consciousness which, to varying degrees, demand an awareness of their place as economic citizens.

27 Present-day governmental rationalities are part of a history of raison d'etat. The history of ideas about, and practice of, government all contribute to and inform the ways in which government is thought about and practised today. Foucault's interest in the enlightenment and his attention to the Machiavellian debate shows that governmental power was never in complete stasis, but has been continually questioned and challenged by the will of the sovereign as well as of subjects.

In the next section of this chapter I explore Foucault's account of modem rationalities of government and outline his conceptualisation of the constitutive elements of the governmental state. This account functions as a running critique of the notion that power is the exclusive domain of authority. This aspect of Foucault's critique is important in attempting to understand his unique work on power. Foucault argues that modem governance works in ways that are much more complex and nuanced than are generally recognised.

5. The Governmental State In Foucault's account of governmentality he argues that the relationship of the governor and governed exists in the West within a complex of disparate dynamics. Within this there exist concomitant and diverse governmental rationalities and strategies. A central aspect of governance Foucault describes is the ubiquitous concern for population management, the development of the concept of an art of government which has as its main aim the management of the population, directed by the population. The Governmental State is the complex dynamic within which different strategies run concurrently. Foucault's conceptualisation holds that in order for there to be governance of the first kind (governmentality: the government of the population by the population) there must be an organisational capacity which works at the same time for the implementation, order and facilitation of the population's needs. These formal processes of government are attempts to structure particular strategies deemed to be "good" for the population. Such structures are composed of a moving substrate of discursive interests.

28 6. Governmentality Thus, rather than understanding government or management as an exclusionary exercise, Foucault shows that, from the government of the self and one's children to the government of larger groups, the individual is implicated in a process whereby s/he occupies the roles of both governor and governed. As explained above, from the 16th century a considerable amount of discussion addresses the question of how to govern more effectively. During this time there is a growing recognition that purely sovereign forms of governance do not prove economical in both a social and monetary sense, particularly in terms of the increasing practice of dealing with other states. What is borne out of this realisation is a form of government which is not so much reliant upon a sovereign form of power, but upon a more efficient system; a system which is organised around an "art of government" concerned with conduct.

Foucault argues that with the increased interest of the population in issues of governance, the actions and calculations of authorities (for example bureaucracy) are directed to a concern with collectivity and individuality, efficiency and organisation. He shows that the concerns of governance become associated with creating a more productive and healthy social body, given the proposition that a healthy population is easier to govern. This realisation of the economic value of a self-policing population induced the development of disciplines such as philanthropy, medicine, science, psychoanalysis and pedagogy.

All of these knowledges connect with modem techniques of asceticism and individual agency. Institutions, individuals and families are disparate sites where rituals of discipline, cleanliness and hygiene are the responsibility of all. Indeed, in his elucidation of Foucault's theory of government, Watts argues that public virtue, tranquillity, and even happiness and subjectivity, have become a vital resource in the managing of the affairs of the nation (Watts,l994:143). And in his review of Foucault's essay, Nikolas Rose asserts that governmentality is the framework within which individuals, institutions, procedures, calculations and tactics, allow the exercise of this complex form of power, a form which has itself (the population) as its target (Rose,l990:5). In other words, these are practices within which the

29 population regulates itself.

This governmentality is: the ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics, that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power, which has as its target the population (Rose,l990:5). Wickham and Kendall elaborate this point: Government is always about attempting to make the unforeseeable foreseeable and manageable, attempting to make the uncertain certain and manageable; in short attempting to conduct more and more aspects of life, ordinary and extraordinary - food production, warfare, housing, personal manners etc. This list is potentially endless, and is indicative of the fact that government goes on many levels, from the management of personal lives to the management of organisations, cities, regions and nation-states, and even international relations and events (Wickham and Kendall,l992:2).

According to Foucault, the modem citizen is conceived as an active, thinking, feeling, doing and governing soul interacting with others in a complex relational dynamic. A web of technologies intertwine to effect efficient governmentality. Foucault's concept, "bio-politics", which he coins to explain the general management of the population, employs knowledges including science and medicine which are utilised to promote its health. The government of oneself which Foucault terms "anatomo-politics", has a major role to play in this attempt to co-ordinate the lifestyles of the population; this asceticism is a secular activity. This in tum leads to the organisation of the social body where the population regulates itself voluntarily as an investment in life. This he links with what he calls "noso-politics", a concern with the health of oneself and the population. It is thus through disciplines, normalisation and bio-power that populations govern themselves.

It is important to remember that one is unable to simply presume that there was a

30 sudden historical birth of techniques of governmentality. Watts reminds us of Foucault's point that governance is not the sum total of rules imposed on individuals, but is the totality of ideas and processes of populations attempting to organise themselves. The genealogy of raison d'etat has shown that although life is much more focussed on the figure of the state in sovereign states (for example the absolute monarchy), this is not to say that the population is necessarily estranged from issues of government. Foucault's point is that modem Western systems of government make more explicit the fact that the population is both its resource and its target.

7. The State What is unique about Foucault's essay "Governmentality" is its inherent irony. He ultimately illustrates the complex fact that in order to disrupt the notion of a state/civil division one cannot escape it. His challenge is important in that he must acknowledge the conceptualisation of division in order to critique it. He shows that as well as governmental power involving integration and participation it also involves division and distance. In elaborating his observations about pluralisation and individuation, Foucault also concedes that government also involves concurrent methods of acting at a distance through totalisation. Paul Rabinow argues that: The concerns of state or collective strength with those of individual life makes the modem state a formidable machine of individualisation and totalisation. It augments individual capacities as it augments its own power (Rabinow ,1991:40).

The concepts of individuality and collectivity are mutually inclusive in governance. As much as anyone is considered, and considers themselves, individual and distinguishable from the governing body, so too this individuality is a crucial component of collectivity which makes governance possible. This is what Foucault means by "government at a distance"; that government relies on the practice of individualisation and totalisation, concomitantly functioning as an individual and collective body. Foucault states: This is not to say sovereignty ceases to play a role from the moment 31 when the art of government begins to become a political science. I would say that, on the contrary, the problem of sovereignty was never posed with greater force than at this time, because it ... involved an attempt to see what juridical and institutional form, what foundation in the law, could be given to the sovereignty that characterises a state ... sovereignty is far from being eliminated by the emergence of a new art of government... on the contrary, the problem of sovereignty is made more acute than ever (Foucault, 1991a: 101). Foucault acknowledges that the dissolution of absolute monarchy does not cancel out the issue of sovereignty altogether, rather it resituates it in terms of the relation between individuation and collectivity, in which modem subjects engage in a perpetual movement between alliances and are implicated within a disparity of effects. Sovereign power is recognised in the form of the Prime Minister or President and ministers commonly referred to as ''The State". This power is vulnerable and subject to governmental power reacting, inducing, resituating and/or reinforcing it.

Foucault's genealogy shows that the notion that power is the exclusive domain of the State, a State which employs ideology to subjectify its citizens, is historically inaccurate. Foucault explains that power and governance are not fixed within such an autonomous structure. This conceptualisation of governmental power, he argues, presupposes that there is one site of power and that there are a select few who know The Truth of it. However, Foucault shows that such truth-telling is actually part of power's very production. Indeed, this notion of a "knowing" expert is an expression of a particular identity and interest within the totality of governmental rationalities. Thus, power is something that is exercised and negotiated within all formal and everyday relations and practices.

32 Chapter Two

The Foucault Effect

In Chapter One I introduced Foucault's critique of the assumption that through scientific inquiry one may uncover the strategies of the fundamental structure of power embodied within the state, a structure whose chief modus operandum is the reinforcement and protection of the status quo. What is chiefly critiqued by Foucault is the notion that behind ideology lies The Truth of Power. He argues that truth and power are produced by, rather than hidden by, discourse. Foucault asserts that the interests of the population in relation are constitutive of the shape of modem power.

Foucault left us with the assertion that he is not a "structuralist", that he does not wish to restrict his study of society to a notion where the preoccupation with identifying structure overrides recognition of specificity. The purpose of Foucault's method, which developed over the years and which has been commonly referred to as "discourse analysis", is to explore the specific ways in which people govern themselves and others through the production of truth. This type of analysis, Foucault insists, is concerned with interrogating "ways of being" and the ways in which discourses shape subjectivity. In this chapter I wish to establish a more considered understanding of Foucault's challenge to the theory and methods of structuralism's form of ideology critique by outlining the general development over the years of his social theory and his method of discourse analysis.

In this chapter I outline what I argue are the three main stages in Foucault's work

33 and explore the general developments within his most significant publications. This will convey a sense of his theory of power which up until the mid 1970's, was still largely dominated by the assumption that power is a commodity which essentially excludes, reduces and constricts. Foucault's focus on power's relational and ubiquitous nature is then developed, mid-career, and subsequently in the 1980's with TheHistocy of Sexuality. Yolumes II and III. he ventures in another direction. This is not intended to suggest an absolute break between the stages of Foucault's • work, as Foucault does contribute many insights regarding power both early and late in his career. However, his theory of power is developed with self-conscious focus mid-career because he is specifically interested in it as a central theme during this time. I argue that these moves and other contradictions in Foucault's theory of power are in fact illustrative of the complex ontology he studies.

1. Foucault's Founding Empirical Projects: Early Career Although Foucault's interest in power is sustained throughout his career, he does not specifically focus upon it as a theme in his early work, preferring instead to analyse the production of truth and discourse. Foucault's early texts are examinations of the particular discourses circulating about particular practices. These analyses exhibit recurring themes: an exploration of the production of knowledge and the ways in which this comes to be counted as truth. Power is figured by Foucault in the early works chiefly in terms of its location in science within truth's production of the mad, the sick and the criminal. Later, however, in Discigline and Punish. which was first published in 1975, Foucault complexifies his theory of power, not merely conceding that the population, including the insane, the sick and the incarcerated, possess some power too, but that the population is the point of power's very articulation. a) Madness & Civilisation The notion that science uncovers truth is, to Foucault, quite problematic. In his doctoral thesis and first book, Madness and Civilisation: A History of Insanity in the A~ of Reason (first published in 1961) which is only partially translated and in its entirety spans over 600 pages, Foucault argues that discourse produces truth. 34 that is, the many truths that govern the ways in which one comes to know the world, as well as the ways in which one knows and conducts oneself. Claiming to uncover the Truth behind something is, to Foucault, contentious as he considers that truth is something produced from whatever angle one argues. Foucault therefore goes about assessing the production of truth and the various discursive practices which come to form certain truths, know ledges and practices.

In MadneSS and Civilisation. Foucault explores the particular truth claims and truth effects of the various sciences of madness. He argues that from the 16th to the 19th centuries there developed new ways of thinking about the insane. Foucault's history starts from the Middle Ages, when the madman was considered the fool (stupid). When such a person transgressed their place as fool in committing a violent or criminal act, they were either rushed out of town or dealt with as a criminal. Foucault follows this to a time when the mad were considered a threat and locked away. Eventually madness became defined as illness: the fools became the sick. A whole science came to know their Truth, and within this science its discoveries, methods and styles of inquiry, came the production of new truths about men and "madness".

Foucault therefore sees the introduction of the truth of madness as a technique coming out of an: ambiguity of chaos and apocalypse: Goya's !W.gt who shrieks and twists his shoulder to escape from the nothingness that imprisons him - is the birth of the first man and his first movement toward liberty, or the last convulsion of the last dying man? (Foucault, 1993:281). Overall, Foucault's tone is intended to introduce some unease into the ethics of science which is concerned with liberating madness from ignorance. However, Foucault says of this: "In our era, the experience of madness remains silent in the composure of a knowledge which, knowing too much about madness, forgets it (Foucault, 1993:xiv). Foucault means that one does not consider "madness" without recourse to the very thing that makes that consideration possible: reason. Foucault explains that madness today is a "madness that links and divides time, that twists the

35 world into the ring of a single night, this madness so foreign to the experience of its contemporaries" which, with the sophisticated science of medicine, somehow concurrently restores to madness its "primitive savagery" (Foucault, 1993:281).

In his refutation of science's claim to know, and the problems that he thinks scientific moralism introduces in suggesting a break from the past towards total improvement, Foucault argues that the science of madness produces effects that are, to a certain degree, ambiguous. He concedes that the psychological sciences also work to empower individuals, "giving them for the first time an expression, a droit de cite, and a hold on Western culture which makes possible all contestation" (Foucault, 1993:281).

Foucault's main concern, however, is that reason's portrayal of madness relegates it to a determinism which constricts individuals, something which David Cooper, in the introduction to the 1993 Routledge edition, also finds disturbing. Cooper introduces Madness and Civilisation with the first sentence: "madness has in our age become some sort of lost truth" (Cooper in Foucault, 1993:vii). Cooper argues that this truth has become, in fact, a production of itself, stating that "the truth of madness is what madness is". Thus, in this process, "madness becomes abstractly present and absent" (Cooper in Foucault, 1993:vii). Cooper regards the loss and creation of madness as caught up in practices which celebrate the cure and eradication of madness while ensuring its ongoing presence. He calls these practices "sacrificial offerings", and among them he includes "the mass of tranquillising drugs that flood the ready market of well-trained but gullible psychiatrists" (Cooper in Foucault, 1993:vii). Like Foucault, Cooper believes that this all becomes a: defmable and measurable social fact But this is not all. By implication we all become this sort of fact that denies our core-essentiality and reduces us to a co-essentiality of abstract absences (Cooper in Foucault, 1993:vii).

Certainly Foucault's words are not in praise of psychiatrists. And yet, in the same breath, it is clear that Foucault was quite critical about the kinds of moralistic 36 assumptions that Cooper asserts in his name regarding "the deforming influence of a pseudo-medical perspective" (Foucault,1993:viii). Despite inattention to Foucault's intuitive sense (quite undeveloped at this stage but nevertheless present) of the complex nuances involved in the production of truth, Cooper does give some sense of Foucault's central thesis that there is an invention of madness in modernity which produces the truth of madness.

Foucault's work on madness produced a way of thinking that was different to structural accounts which operated with the assumption that madness, as well as other social and psychological diseases, are the result of structural, particularly economic, demands and stresses placed on citizens. The inequalities of class, race and gender under the capitalist system were of prime interest to researchers. Foucault, with his introduction to the productive nature of discourse, was more interested in exploring the ways in which discourses on madness, including the notion that madness is a symptom of modem society's organisation, produce/invest these discourses with normalising notions of mental health. Foucault thus critiques reason's absolute trust in the progressive nature of science, both health and social sciences, in seeking the truth because it in fact produces the very phenomena which it claims to discover and then study.

b) The Birth of the Oinic In the spirit of Madness and Civilisation Foucault published his next book which outlined the specific role of medicine in the development of modem reason. This work further developed the theories explored in his doctoral thesis. In The Birtb of The Oinic: An Archaeolo~ of Medical Perception (first published in 1963) Foucault contrasts medical discourse from the mid 18th century with that of the mid 19th century, and shows that the language and methodology used differ greatly from one another. He argues that in the space of one hundred years the art of healing has undergone considerable change. Foucault traces the methodology of early medicine which he shows was primarily interested in treatment and compares this to the methodology of 19th century medicine which is governed by an interest in dissection. 37 He contrasts early treatments such as the prescription of long baths (which lasted up to twelve hours per day for ten months) and the practice of blood letting (which, it was believed, relieved a patient by excreting poisons and impurities); with the pursual of research into physiology and with "discovering the shape of things as they really are" (Foucault, 1973:x). He shows that the two are very different and outlines the ways in which a whole new field of inquiry shaped not only medical discourse, but also the experiences of modem bodies. Foucault reveals how modem medicine defmes bodies as objects which are things to be potentially known and therefore studied. The movement is away from a primary interest in treatment and its effect on the body, to the body itself, which it is believed, determines the applicability of particular and newly developed treatments. Treatment loses its primacy as the discovery of the body progresses. The biological sciences become increasingly concerned with study and discovery. The modem doctor, Foucault argues, in the effort to know the body defines it in terms of body parts, that is, specifically diseased organs. Rather than symptoms being conceptualised in terms of the whole body, symptoms are equated with specific body parts.

This "time of mutation of discourse" during the last years of the 18th century, Foucault argues, marks a proliferation in medical language "which since the days of galenic medicine has extended whole regions of description around the greyness of things and their shapes" (Foucault, 1973:xi). From treatment based approaches, the field of medicine embarked on a territory it claimed it could only know through research. Foucault shows that amongst this change of structure and a language and knowledge of things, disease breaks away from the "metaphysic of evil and appears in positive terms" (Foucault,l973:196). This, he argues, "is a formal reorganisation rather than an abandonment of theories and systems that made the clinical possible" (Foucault,l973: 196).

The organisation of modem medicine marked a change in the field of study, rather than medicine's systemic interest in treatment and cure. There was a new "carving up" of bodies, a proliferation of ways of knowing, not a complete abandonment of

38 past interests in treatment. Different, or indeed more focussed questions were asked. The question "what is the matter with you'?" was replaced with "where does it hurt?'' Modem medical discourse poses its objectivity, necessarily divorced from the patient's subjectivity, as free from suspicion and myth and governed by an unprejudiced gaze.

Foucault states in his introduction that in writing a history of the conditions of possibility which give rise to the practice of medicine, Tbe Birth of the Clinic: has not been written in favour of one kind of medicine as against another kind of medicine, or against medicine and in favour of an absence of medicine ... What counts in the things said by men is not so much what they may have thought or the extent to which these things represent their thoughts, as that which systemises them from the outset, thus making them thereafter endlessly accessible to new discourses and open to the task of transforming them (Foucault, 1973: xix). Foucault argues here that discourse produces effects, and he places importance on the effect that medical discourse has on the reorganisation of experience. Rather than consider the rise of modem medicine as a result of reason's advancement towards truth, Foucault argues that discourse endlessly produces truth. To Foucault the body becomes the object of medicine. He argues that the importance of this rationality is not applicable only to the methodological but also to the ontological, "in that it concerns man's being as object of positive knowledge" (Foucault, 1973: 197). Foucault continues, "the possibility for the individual of being both subject and object of his own knowledge implies an inversion in the structure of finitude" (Foucault, 1973:197). Medicine is both the product, and producer, of man.

Foucault questions medical rationality because it attempts to situate the truth in medicine away from the subject, arguing that if medical thought is organised around the objectification of the body, then so too it relies on the experiences of bodies allowing the clinician his gaze. Foucault explores the complex arrangements of

39 medical discourse, arguing that at the same time that patients are afforded new liberties and rights, a steep increase in power is also placed in the hands of clinicians. He recognises that modem medicine is conducted according to principles of liberal government, arguing that the doctor is highly: political: the struggle against disease must begin with a war against bad government. Man will be totally and definitely cured only if he is first liberated ... Medicine must no longer be confmed to a body of techniques for curing ills and of the knowledge that they require; it will also embrace a knowledge of healthy man, that is, a study of non-sick man and a definition of the model man. In the ordering of human existence it assumes a normative posture, which authorises it not only to distribute advice as to healthy life, but also to dictate the standards for physical and moral relations for the individual and of the society in which he lives... If the science of man appeared as an extension of the sciences of life, it is because it was medically, as well as biologically, based (Foucault, 1973: pp. 34, 35, 36). One can see that medicine took on the rationality that had formerly belonged only to mathematical thought, a method of inquiry or regime of knowledge which "is fully engaged in the philosophical status of man" (Foucault, 1973: 98). c) The Order of Things In his next work The Order of Thinas: An Atchaeoloay of the Human Sciences (first published in 1966) Foucault decided to extend his previous studies into rationalities of the modem sciences and connect the realms of the psy and medical sciences to the study of modem thought as a whole. Foucault felt that empirical knowledges had been excluded from the historical interrogation that other disciplines such as mathematics, cosmology and physics had enjoyed. The human sciences had been considered too trivial to be studied. Foucault challenges this, arguing that the discourses of nature, of history, of psychoanalysis, of ethnology, philosophy and also sociology, are governed by discourses which possess a "well­ defmed regularity" (Foucault, 1970:ix).

40 Foucault believes that for knowledge to pass unexamined was to ignore the complexities of ways of knowing and the codes specific to them. He argues that knowledges are products which are dispersed throughout time. Foucault's most famous comment from the book reads: it seems to me that the historical analysis of scientific knowledge should, in the last resort, be subject, not to a theory of the knowing subject, but rather to a theory of discursive practice (Foucault, 1970: xiv). This means that discourse should be considered something which is subject to rules, codes and truths as much as it produces them. Therefore, the subject does not only reproduce and discover but also creates truth.

Foucault states that his intention is to disrupt the sovereignty of what he terms "the history of ideas" in which he calls into question the notion of "the founding originating subject'' and the idea that "meaning and signification are pregiven" (Foucault, 1981:49). In this work on scientific discourse, Foucault pushes to "de­ centre" the subject and, in doing so, to reconsider the idea of a "hidden essence or meaning" (Foucault, 1981:.50). In the introduction to The Order ofThin&s. Foucault comments that he is not a structuralist "as certain half-witted 'commentators' persist in labelling me" (Foucault, 1970:xiv). He makes it known that he does not wish to exclude his own work from the rules or orders of discourse which govern all thought He objects to the fact that structuralist theorists, who read society in terms of the ways in which ideological tools exploit the masses, consider themselves exempt from the rules of discourse.

As something which Foucault terms an "archaeological" study, The Order of Thin&s represents an attempt to reveal and isolate theories, beliefs and studies and locate the "archaeological basis common to a whole series of scientific representations" (Foucault, 1970:xi). In The Order of Ihin&s. Foucault argues that thought is governed by a system comparable to that of linguistic signs. He emphasises that this grammatical system does not signify a progression but a reordering in history. Foucault is confident in stating that thought is a mere product of a certain episteme,

41 "a history of resemblance" which has constructed the way in which we consider and know ourselves. Foucault finds "comfort" and "profound relief' in thinking that "man is only a recent invention, a figure not yet two centuries old, a new wrinkle in our knowledge" and argues that man "will disappear again as soon as that knowledge has discovered a new form" (Foucault,1970: xxiii). Foucault's "history of the order imposed upon things" is a practice of the population "collecting together everything into identities" (Foucault,1970:xxiv). He considers that history for the human sciences, in which he counts psychology, sociology, medicine, is constituted by an environment which is both "privileged and dangerous" because it "determines its cultural area" (Foucault, 1970: 371). Here Foucault argues that in seeking to know the truth of the subject, science invents it, investing it with certain features. This is a power which Foucault suggests serves to limit the experience of subjects.

d) The Archaeology of Knowledge

Further to his explorations in Tbe Ord.er of Things. Foucault states in ~ Archaeology of Knowledge (first published in 1969), that a reconfiguration of power into new domains such as the clinic, and more specifically medicine, suggests that the modem condition of the self is the product of a specific type of subjectivity. In this sense, Foucault's work challenges the assumption that knowledge is the result of the truth presenting itself to an increasingly more well­ informed scientific community. In The Archaeology of Knowledge Foucault argues that "discourse is... a totality, in which the dispersion of the subject and his discontinuity with himself may be determined" (Foucault,1977a:55). This is an important point. Foucault does not discount the significance or importance of the scientific discovery of truths, but he recognises that these truths are uncovered by a certain rationality of thinking which in tum contributes to fmding certain truths whilst also determining falsity. In describing "the organisation of the field of statements where they appear and circulate", Foucault explores the arrangement of knowledge around truth-value. He argues that the field of concepts taken to be true have changed throughout time, thus giving: new definition to concepts like 'genus' or 'character', which introduced

42 new concepts like that of 'natural classification' or 'mammal'; above all, it was a set of rules for arranging statements in series, an obligatory set of schemata of dependence, of order, and of successions, in which the recurrent elements that may have value as concepts were distributed (Foucault, 1977a:57). However, as mentioned the configuration of the enunciative field depends on the coexistence of truth and falsity (Foucault, 1977a: 57). As such, Foucault argues attention must be given to discourses which are deemed true and also to those which are criticised and rejected or excluded. Present within truth is falsity, and this is a relationship which is based on differentiality.

The disparity of concepts and the differential nature of knowledges means that concepts understood to be false in one discipline or by certain people are sometimes thought to have great merit and truth elsewhere. In this sense, concepts are mobile as "the preconceptual field allows the emergence of the discursive regularities and constraints that have made possible the heterogeneous multiplicity of concepts" (Foucault, 1977a:63). Foucault argues that the disparity and sheer multiplicity of the enunciative field means that one cannot reduce them to a notion of stagnancy which a teleology of progress, revolution or return might idealise: In order to analyse the rules for the formation of objects, one must neither, as we have seen, embody them in things, nor relate them to the domain of words; in order to analyse the formation of enunciative types, one must relate them neither to the knowing subject, nor to a psychological individuality. Similarly, to analyse the formation of concepts, one must relate them neither to the horizon of ideality, nor to the empirical progress of ideas (Foucault, 1977a: 63). Here Foucault acknowledges the tendency of knowledge to reduce its field: for the scientist, the psychiatrist, the philosopher, the revolutionary, to attempt to determine the truth of things. It seems that Foucault thinks that it is the totality of truth's production and reduction which characterises the discursive practices constituting knowledge. Foucault acknowledges that it is the relationality of concepts which constitute the what, how, why and when of knowledge. However, 43 Foucault overlooks the fact that his critique of science's will to know is similar to his own discourse, in as much as everyone, including Foucault, is implicated in the production of truth. As will be discussed in Chapter Three, Foucault later addresses this issue in his work on power. e) I, Pierre Riviere Initially, Foucault and his fellow researchers who produced I. Pierre Riyiere. bavin& slau&}ltered my mother. my sister. and my brotber: a case of parricide in the nineteenth ceutuzy (first published in 1973) wished to conduct a "study of the practical aspects of the relations between psychiatry and criminal justice" (Foucault,1982a:vii). In doing so they came across Pierre Riviere's case. Riviere was charged with parricide after brutally killing his mother, sister and brother in June, 1835. Riviere, who had been considered an idiot in his village, wrote a surprisingly astute and moving account in extraordinary detail, of his life, his abusive upbringing, his many frustrations in life, and the events leading up to his crime.

When reading about the case, Foucault became interested in what it reveals about modem criminality and the contrasts it represents to former techniques of analysis. Foucault shows that Riviere's case represents an historical epistemological break, arguing that it presents us with interesting facts about our ideas regarding insanity, accountability and justice. Foucault comments that this case marked a time when inquiry moved into a realm concerned with "retrospective investigation into the madman's personal and family history" (Foucault, 1982a:281). When reading Riviere's manifesto, Foucault points out that one makes assumptions based upon the various ways of knowing and expressions of this specific to one's experience. Hence, one's assessment when reading about Riviere's relationship with his family and the extreme degree of detachment and hostility presented by his mother, is informed by modem knowledge regarding childhood developmental psychology, socialisation and, for example, links between negative parental reinforcement and the production of criminality. Procedures in determining the possibility of feigning madness were specific to establishing the criminal's life-history, therefore requiring

44 the subject to speak (or write) and also experts to comment and evaluate. It is interesting to note the criminal's complicity in this analysis, as it was Riviere himself who volunteered investigation of his case.

Foucault's study is intended to challenge criminal science and its assumptions about criminals, madness, accountability and the justice system. He explains: I think the reason we decided to publish these documents was to draw a map, so to speak, of those combats to reconstruct these confrontations and battles, to rediscover the interaction of those discourses as weapons of attack and defence in the relations of power and knowledge (Foucault,1982a:xi). Foucault believed existing methods of textual analysis to be "dreary" and outdated, in respect of the significant importance of the history of discourses and the developments of particular types of know ledges, their acceptance and important role in contesting and affirming modem practices.

In his representation of Riviere's experience Foucault is concerned not to judge it. He sees his interpretation as dependent upon the rationality of psychology and its production of truth. Foucault becomes quite self-conscious about his representation of truth and his place in its production: As to Riviere's discourse, we decided not to interpret it and not to subject it to any psychiatric or psychoanalytic commentary... because we could hardly speak of it without involving it in one of the discourses (medical, legal, psychological, criminological) which we wished to use as our starting point in talking about it. If we had done so, we should have brought it within the power relation whose reductive effect we wished to show, and we ourselves should have fallen into the trap it set (Foucault, 1982a:xiii). Foucault illustrates through his work on Pierre Riviere that everyone, including and especially experts, is subject to the rules of the order of discourse. The point at issue then becomes specific to Foucault's desire to resist this. I will explore this in Chapter Three, arguing that his attempt not to judge the case is, by implication, an

45 impossibility. Because he is preoccupied at this moment with his argument that scientific inquiry defines and reduces the field it studies, Foucault overlooks the fact that all discourse, past and present, scientific or silent, delineates and thus produces a disparity of concurrent constraining and enabling effects.

2. Strengthening the Theory of Power: Mid Career. a) Discipline and Punish The introduction to Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (first published in 1975) is marked by the presentation of two methods of punishment. The first is the spectacle of a public execution and the second is a time-table depicting the movements of prisoners. Foucault shows how remarkably different these are, marvelling at the fact that less than a century separates them. Discipline and Punish traces the new theory of law and crime and the struggle for reform which began in the late eighteenth century. This is an important step, because as Foucault points out, developments in modem law and systems of punishment have largely been considered in terms of a notion of improvement, rather than the specificities of this change.

Foucault explores the fact that "the division between the permitted and the forbidden has preserved a certain constancy from one century to another" (Foucault, 1977b: 17). However, this constancy is defined in new ways and is governed by a whole new set of knowledges and principles. His contrast of the public torture of a criminal's body on the one hand with the regulation of prisoners' bodies on the other is effective in exemplifying Foucault's basic but fundamental point that, in contrast to the laws of the past, modem laws act at a distance. Modem punishment is concerned with the deprivation of liberty or the reduction of wealth. The modem criminal is considered to be a citizen, and therefore as a citizen he is endowed with certain rights. He is not simply hung-drawn-and-quartered, objectified outside humanity by virtue of his transgression of the rules of modem society, but has his normal rights and privileges suspended or withdrawn with the bestowal of the category "criminal".

46 A new science of criminality has emerged to deal with crime which is concerned with defining, coding, prevention and assessment. Causal processes of determining the production of criminals and crime and the science of rehabilitation all regard it as not so much an aberration as one of the many complexes of social functioning. Crime is understood as a symptom of the growing complexities of capitalism where those living in poverty and those of a certain gender and race are most significantly implicated. Rather than being judged according to a comparatively limited old logic of immediate guilt, the modem ideal is to consider criminals innocent until proven guilty. The "power" and "powerlessness" of criminals is thus complexly differential.

Foucault's theory of modem legality contrasts sharply with that of conventional considerations of the modem legal system which conceive legal power as a possession of a ruling class or classes. Foucault argues that: power is exercised rather than possessed; it is not the 'privilege', acquired or preserved, of the dominant class, but the overall effect of its strategic positions - an effect that is manifested and sometimes extended by the position of those who are dominated ... Lastly, they are not univocal; they defme innumerable points of confrontation, focusses of instability, each of which has its own risks of conflict, of struggles, and of an at least temporary inversion of the power relations (Foucault, 1977b:26-27). Foucault understands legal power as a network of relations in which everyone is caught.

In Discipline and Punish Foucault strengthens his critique of structuralism and focuses on a reconsideration of the structuralist theory of power. This work marks the strengthening of his theory of power into a radical break with the repressive hypothesis that power renders powerlessness, or indeed, powerfulness. Rather, Foucault sees that power is a dynamic which cannot be said to be working according to a specific causality or single notion of "good" or "evil". In Foucault's concern to study "the micro-physics of power'' he cannot sustain the notion of

47 repression so popular in the philosophical and social sciences of the time. Foucault argues quite clearly that: To analyse the political investment of the body and the micro-physics of power presupposes, therefore, that one abandons- when power is concerned - the violence-ideology opposition, the metaphor of property, the model of the contract or of conquest; that where knowledge is concerned- one abandons the opposition between what is 'interested' and what is 'disinterested', the model of knowledge and the primacy of the subject (Foucault, 1977b:28). Foucault considers that modernity is organised by a collectivity, a body politic in which we are all implicated and interested.

Foucault takes up Bentham's panopticon as a way to conceptualise the modem prison and also to conceive more generally of modem relations of power. The panopticon, an infinite labyrinth of surveillance, observation, the desire to know, individualisation and totalisation, is a technique of power in which the governor not only accounts for, but also must account to, the processes of criminality. The disciplinary power of the prison is organised by prison warders, officials, the determinations of judges, juries and many other administrations of power. The important point Foucault makes here is that amongst this complex panopticon of a

similar and varying network of interests, it is the criminal himselfl who governs

determinations and disciplinary processes: prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline. By means of a carceral continuum, the authority that sentences infiltrates all those other authorities that supervise, transform, correct, improve ...the carceral city, is not, therefore, the body of the king... (Foucault, 1977b:307).

1 For example, through the judicial technique of confession the criminal takes part in producing and determining penal truth, the confessional being the most prized in terms of truth-priority. Previously, the words of the accused were last-words before death and the truth of the crime was left solely to be determined by witnesses. This may be seen in contemporary expressions of plea­ bargaining, where the criminal's degree of confession and its detail can determine the penalty, and even demand that it be waived in some cases. 48 It is important to recognise that the panopticon is not a metaphor of control or instrument of repression, as the desire to reduce its meaning to this is to miss Foucault's point that power is both enabling and constraining. The panopticon is discussed at more length in the following chapters. b) Governmentality As elucidated in Chapter One, Foucault's essay "Governmentality" (first published in 1978) challenges the notion of a spatially and conceptually distinct state which controls power. I do not wish to repeat my outline here, but to remind the reader that this essay represents a unique challenge to conventional theories of power. Here, Foucault consolidates his insight that the state does not have a monopoly on power. He argues that citizens are heavily invested not simply in, but with power. This is one of the most "post-structuralist" works of his to date. This is because Foucault directly takes issue with the most fundamental assumption regarding ideology: that the state holds power and utilises ideology as a tool to ensure it at the expense of the population. c) Power The following three articles, although brief, are specific to Foucault's interest in power and are arguably amongst the most informative of his work on this issue. For this reason they are a strong source of reference in the following chapters of this thesis. Foucault's work on power contains both insight into the complex ontology of power as well as certain undermining aspects as will be evidenced in the following introductory outline.

In "Body/Power'' (first published in 1975) Foucault argues that power is relational, and that, like all relationships, it is complex, differential and frequently paradoxical. He argues that power does not hold deterministic value but is ubiquitous and continually shifting within the relational dynamics in which it is at work. Foucault uses the pursuit of the power of the body beautiful as an example of this: Mastery and awareness of one's own body can be acquired only through the effect of an investment of power in the body: gymnastics,

49 exercises, muscle-building, nudism, glorification of the body beautiful. All of this belongs to the pathway leading to the desire of one's own body, by way of the insistent, persistent, meticulous work of power on the bodies of children or soldiers, the healthy bodies. But once power produces this effect, there inevitably emerge the responding claims and affirmations, those of one's body against power, of health against the economic system, of pleasure against the moral norms of sexuality, marriage, decency. Suddenly, what had made power strong becomes used to attack it. Power, after investing itself in the body, finds itself exposed to a counter-attack in that same body (Foucault, 1980: 56). Foucault argues that this is not a prescriptive narrative nor is it an end point as power does not simply rest. Power relations are implicated in a continual dynamic.

Foucault clearly distances himself from a marxist perspective: because what troubles me with these analyses which prioritise ideology is that there is always presupposed a human subject on the lines of the model provided by classical philosophy, endowed with a consciousness which power is then thought to seize upon .. .And while there are some very interesting things about the body in Marx's writings, marxism considered as an historical reality had had a teni.ble tendency to occlude the question of the body, in favour of consciousness and ideology (Foucault, 1980: 58-59). Foucault argues that those who give to power an exaggerated value of repression, censorship and exclusion, are in effect attributing to it a "Superego" (Foucault, 1980: 59): an identity that is self-conscious and a unique power source. Foucault warns against seeking to find power's Superego in state institutions because they are subject to the same complexities as are all relations of power. The morality of purpose with which one struggles against power in order to overthrow it is something Foucault finds troubling. He states that the notion of power which reduces it to repression "strikes me as very inadequate and possibly very dangerous" (Foucault, 1980: 59). The notion that power is anchored in the sovereignty of the state overlooks the fact that power is in fact simultaneously at

50 work elsewhere producing resistance to it.

In "The Subject and Power" (1982b) Foucault argues that rather than "analyzing power from the point of view of its internal rationality", the issue is to "analyze power relations through the antagonism of strategies" (Foucault, 1982b: 211). Foucault shows that the empirical study of power, the "what happens?'' is of prime importance, as the way power is at work within all relations is not generally considered. Thus, Foucault criticises the notion that power is a possession of authority. He challenges the supposition of a fundamental power. Instead, he argues that it is important to study power relations which "can be grasped in the diversity of their logical sequence, their abilities, and their interrelationships" (Foucault, 1982b: 219). In effect, Foucault states that what defines a relationship of power is that it is a mode of action which acts upon another's actions- on existing, or past or future, actions. Foucault avoids and is suspicious of the kind of morality which seeks to define certain actions as powerful and others as powerless, as all relations are complicit in power dynamics. This is because: The exercise of power is not a naked fact, an institutional right, nor is it a structure which holds out or is smashed: it is elaborated, transformed, organised; it endows itself with processes which are more or less adjusted to the situation... Power relations are rooted in the system of social networks. This is not to say, however, that there is a primary and fundamental principle of power which dominates society down to the smallest detail ... but multiple forms of individual disparity, of objectives, of the given application of power over ourselves or others (Foucault, 1982b: 22). When speaking of psychiatry, however, Foucault is less inclined to consider these insights, preferring to focus upon the metaphor of power as singularly normalising and controlling, a theme which characterised his analysis of Madness and Civilisation. In fact, during the course of the following chapters I argue that Foucault's insights into power relations exhibit certain contradictions, specifically on the subject of the role of psychiatry and sexual science. These inconsistencies result from the fact that like all of us, Foucault is implicated in the micro-physics of

51 power that he studies. For example, when he speaks about domination, he argues in Tbe History of Sexuality. Volume I that specific power: form a general line of force that traverses the local oppositions and links them together; to be sure, they also bring about redistributions, realignments, homogenizations, serial arrangements, and convergences of the force relations. Major dominations are the hegemonic effects that are sustained by all these confrontations" (Foucault, 1990a:94). At this point Foucault's insight regarding power's ubiquity is undermined by a presumption that domination is the effect of juncture where certain localities of power meet. This is to assume a classical sense of spatiality. that is, it evokes an assumption of locale, of possession and benefit, and also temporality. of a fixed space in time. Indeed, Foucault does sometimes imply a notion of power as the final effect of micro-relations by arguing, for example, that power is "the overall effect of its strategic positions" (Foucault, 1977b:27). However, he manages to disrupt this sense by again turning his attention to the fact that one cannot differentiate a space in time where micro- and macro- effects transverse into a state of such absolute rest because "none of its [power's] localised episodes may be inscribed in history except by the effects that it induces on the entire network in which it is caught up" (Foucault, 1977b:27). Indeed, power is differential and disparate, something that Foucault cannot always articulate. As part of "the strictly relational character of power" he too is caught up in the complex interplay with the notion that power is simply a possession and so elements of this reductive definition perhaps inevitably enter Foucault's own words. It is an integral part of cognition that we differentiate things into elements, sometimes reducing them into singular and exclusionary metaphors. Notions of power which are reduced into the metaphor of property are thus part of the elements which characterise, and yet cannot be said to be a comprehensive explanation of, power.

In the interview "Power Affects the Body" (1989a), on being asked about power in the Histozy of Sexuality volume I. Foucault replies that up to and including the Order of Thinp he accepted the traditional conception of power as "that which forbids, that which says no" (Foucault, 1989a :1JJ7). He argues that in Madness 52 and Civilisation this was enough for him, as he considers madness "a privileged case" (Foucault, 1989a :207). In Discip1ine and Punish he instead understands power not in terms of rarefaction, that is, terms that reduce power into a notion of control which operates singularly as a repressive mechanism, but in terms of production, a generalised efficacy. This, he believes, disrupts the conventional moralisms of good/bad, positive/negative, yes/no in seeking the specificity of "our bodies, our existences, our daily life" in order to analyse each point of the social body.

In this interview Foucault adds the important point that power is not built on "wills (individual or collective)" (Foucault, 1989a: 210). Whether one is wilful (conscious) of it or not, Foucault shows that in relations with oneself and others, one is always engaged in exercising power. He indicates but does not elaborate the fact that those who strive against power are part of the play of power at work. This issue will be explored in greater detail throughout the following chapters. d) The History of Sexuality In "Power Affects the Body", the interview just discussed, Foucault states that initially he had intended Tbe History of Sexuality to be "a series of six volumes (at least)" (Foucault, 1989a: 209). He argues that in Volume I his focus was on power partly because: "I am not sure that the pleasure of writing on sexuality alone would have been enough to motivate me" ( Foucault, 1989a: 209). As will be discussed, his insights into power become less attentive in Volume II where he prefers to pursue what he calls "the hermeneutics of desire" - the notion that regimes of truth intend to prohibit certain pleasures. Foucault nevertheless recognises that these attempts are not always successful. As I will argue below, his work in Volumes II and III conflict with his earlier more nuanced theory of power.

Foucault begins The History of Sexuality. Volume I:An Introduction (first published in 1976) with an exploration of the belief that modem subjects are repressed. He argues: For a long time, the story goes, we supported a Victorian regime, and 53 continue to be dominated by it even today. Thus the image of the imperial prude is emblazoned on our restrained, mute, and hypocritical sexuality (Foucault, 1990a: 3). Foucault follows this narrative of reduction finding that, in fact, modem sexuality is not about reduction but multiplication. Although "the couple has imposed itself as a model" which may be perceived as repressive, the important thing is that the discourse on sex and sexuality has proliferated (Foucault, 1990a:3). Foucault argues: .. .I would like to disengage my analysis from the privileges generally accorded the economy of scarcity and the principles of rarefaction, to search instead for instances of discursive production (which also administer silences, to be sure), of the production of power (which sometimes have the function of prohibiting), of the propagation of knowledge (which often cause mistaken beliefs or systematic misconceptions to circulate); I would like to write the history of these instances and their transformations (Foucault, 1990a: 12). In arguing that he would like to "disengage" the principle of rarefaction Foucault refers to the common practice of attributing scarcity in modem sexuality to reasons of the economic: By placing the advent of the age of repression in the seventeenth century, after hundreds of years of open spaces and free expression, one adjusts it to coincide with the development of the bourgeois order. The minor chronicle of sex and its trials is transposed into the ceremonious history of the modes of production; its trifling aspect fades from view (Foucault, 1990a:5). The problem with locating the repression of sexuality with economic demands for sexual reduction is two-fold. First, Foucault argues that this "is incompatible with a general and intensive work imperative, because the pursuit of pleasure is not reduced so much as intensified because of the perception (actual or not) of repression; and secondly because: we are conscious of defying established power, our tone of voice shows that we know we are being subversive, and we ardently conjure

54 away the present and appeal to the future, whose day will be hastened by the contribution we believe we are making. Something that smacks of revolt, of promised freedom, of the coming age of a different law, slips easily into this discourse on sexual oppression (Foucault, 1990a:6). Foucault recognises that "the essential thing is not this economic factor'' but rather the existence in our era of a multitude of discourses on sex which are linked together (Foucault, 1990a:7). Foucault's aim is to examine a culture "which speaks verbosely of its own silence, takes great pains to relate in detail the things it does not say, denounces the power it exercises" and in doing so reinforces the thing it says it opposes. Foucault explores the fact that this lament is "part of the same historical network as the thing it denounces (and doubtless misrepresents) by calling it 'repression"' (Foucault, 1990a:10).

An important point stemming from Foucault's interest in the aesthetics of sexuality concerns his interest in the pleasures that socio-critics, for example, may experience while complaining about being the victim of power. These include the pleasure involved in deploying theories and strategies to overcome power. Within the violence-ideology conception, the world becomes subject to the investigative techniques of the altruistic social scientist who establishes that the (perceived) victim may be able to see this victimisation, this power, and therefore work with others to overthrow it. Therefore dreams of mobilisation, of having the power to overthrow power, become a target for the pursuit of this kind of pleasure.

Foucault argues that one can never escape power relations and the endlessly productive effects this entails. Therefore, Foucault sees that complexity and contradiction are things that propel the very heart of modem sexuality as well as the techniques of knowledge which seek to govern and discipline it. For example, in his chapter on ''The Perverse Implantation" Foucault seeks to show how two theories of sexuality in and of themselves are inadequate in exploring the complex restrictions and concurrent diversity and pleasures of modem sexualities. He asserts that "we must abandon the hypothesis that modem industrial societies ushered in an

55 age of repression"2 (Foucault, 1990a: 49). He argues that in fact this notion,

although quite persuasive, does not account for the multiplicity of pleasures produced. For example, governing, measuring, policing and studying "perverse" sexualities has an unpredictable outcome. Rather than a total restriction on sexual movement, there is produced a multiplication of desires and an emphasis on voyeurism. This is one of Foucault's strongest examples in which he argues that the role of the psychiatrist replaces the function of the priest

Alongside his explorations of what may best be regarded as the "contradictoriness" of practices, Foucault critiques what he calls the "ideology of return" (Foucault, 1991c: 248). A witty example given by him of the desire for return is included in an interview entitled "Space, Knowledge, and Power". In this Foucault asserts: it is very amusing to see how contemporary sexuality is described as something absolutely terrible. To think that it is only possible now to make love after turning off the television! and in mass-produced beds!

2 An example of this notion of the repressive movement of modem history and the "ideology of return", is argued by Denisoff and Merton The Sociology of Dissent ( 1974 }. In their first chapter entitled, "Introduction to Social Movements", they argue: The industrial revolution tore apart the social and economic fabric of Feudalism and replaced it with a cold new economic garment. People tied to the soil were driven from rural estates into overcrowded cities to compete for jobs in factories, where they worked 16 hours a day for an impersonal "management" instead of a particular, paternalistic nobleman. The conditions of life made the inequities between the haves and the have-nots more visible; injustices were enormous. This argument is flavoured with a selected reading of history which focuses on an ideology of the evils of modernity. Were injustices more enormous than those experienced under feudal reign? One may conclude from historical evidence that indeed injustices were experienced with the advent of the new structure, but the argument that injustices were "enormous", relatively, is questionable. Foucault's point is that life was very different and thus experiences of inequity and injustice were of a different kind in the new structure. Denisoff and Merton's argument also implies, through the manipulation of language and selected imagery, that within Feudalism managers were warmer and more personable, that inequality was less and that the distinction between the haves and have-nots was not so sharp. This argument seems to privilege life under feudalism over that of early capitalism, with little or no substantiation.

Many recognised and distinguished historians have clearly shown that this indeed is not the case. Some historical work is tarred by the extreme opposite of such arguments as presented in Denisoff and Merton's book: that of tracing the emergence of capitalism with an evolutionary ideal. Indeed Foucault's discernment that it is problematic to present a repressive or a progressive model of history is pertinent here. It is important to recognise the differing and discursive developments of history instead of treating history as a productive line developing a definitive meaning and effect for the future. However, Foucault does show us that there are distinctive trends in the order of discourse: enduring patterns of "rarefaction" (movements between reduction and proliferation}. The important point is that these trends are not prescriptive, but rather are productive of many potential outcomes. 56 'Not like that wonderful time when.. .' Well, what about those wonderful times when people worked eighteen hours a day and there were six people in a bed, if one was lucky enough to have a bed! There is in this hatred of the present or the immediate past a dangerous tendency to invoke a completely mythical past (Foucault, 1991c: 248).

Foucault also rejects as a sufficient explanation enlightenment notions of sexuality - the idea that science can best manage sexuality and uncover the "natural" desires of this. As mentioned, Foucault places much emphasis on the fact that in this search, certain pleasures may be repressed. Thus, Foucault critiques ideas of both the repressed and the knowing subject. Nevertheless, his task is to focus on a critique of notions of the knowing subject. This becomes Foucault's most important motivation here.

In this first volume Foucault explores "the regime of knowledge-pleasure that sustains the discourse on human sexuality in our part of the world" and the complex production of power that surrounds it where paradoxes such as excitement and fear propel sexual relations with the self and others (Foucault, 1990a:ll). In this section of his history he explores the complex ontology of sexual relations in which repression and arousal co-exist. Foucault sustains the tensions and ironies which he identifies as being characteristic of modem sexuality.

3. A Change in Direction: Late Career In Tbe History of Sexuality. Volume II: Tbe Use of Pleasure (first published in 1984) Foucault explores the hermeneutics of desire. Foucault argues that in the first volume he analysed the manifold relations of power in the constitution of modem sexuality. In this second volume Foucault announces that he wishes to undertake a shift in order to analyse the subject, "to look for the forms and modalities of the relation to self by which the individual constitutes and recognises himself qua subject" (Foucault, 1992: 6). He argues that: to undertake this genealogy would carry me far from my original project. I had to choose: either stick to the plan I had set, supplementing

57 it with a brief historical survey of the theme of desire, or reorganise the whole study around the slow formation, in antiquity, of a hermeneutics of the self. I opted for the latter... an analysis of the 'games of truth', the games of truth and error through which being is historically constituted as experience; that is, as something that can and must be thought (Foucault, 1992: 7). Foucault's interests are turned from the theme of power to an exploration of truth. In fact, Foucault links his earlier studies to his exploration of the history of sexuality, asking: what are the games of truth by which man proposes to think his own nature when he perceives himself to be mad; when he considers himself to be ill; when he conceives of himself as a living, speaking, laboring being; when he judges and punishes himself as a criminal? What were the games of truth by which human beings came to see themselves as desiring individuals? (Foucault, 1992:7). Thus, Foucault, although claiming it to be a genealogical project, returns to his archaeological method of seeking the truth behind rather than within sexual discourse. Foucault then "undertake[s] a theoretical and methodological reformulation" in which "the object was to learn to what extent the effort to think one's own history can free thought from what it silently thinks, and so enable it to think differently" (Foucault 1992: 8).

Volumes IT and III of The History of Sexuality are concerned with exploring a history of sexual problematisations, arguing that: Greek and Greco-Roman antiquity were much more oriented toward practices of the self and the question of askesis than toward codifications of conducts and the strict definition of what is permitted and what is forbidden (Foucault, 1992: 30). Foods, wines and relations with women and boys were at this time considered analogous pleasures and although a concern with excess was expressed, it was not the nature of one's indulgences that was of import. Foucault argues that the concern with moderation was:

58 never that of a hermeneutics of desire. It was a factor constituting the mode of being of the moderate subject; it was not equivalent to an obligation for the subject to speak truthfully concerning himself; it never opened up the soul as a domain of potential knowledge where barely discernible traces of desire needed to be read and interpreted. The relation to truth was a structural, instrumental, and ontological condition for establishing the individual as a moderate subject leading a life of moderation; it was not an epistemological condition enabling the individual to recognise himself in his singularity as a desiring subject and to purify himself of the desire that was thus brought to light (Foucault, 1992:89). In contrast to his first volume, in Foucault's second and third volumes of Ill£ History of Sexuality he emphasises the theme of repression. Although he sustains some of the insights of the first volume he argues that although modernity is not characterised by a reduction in sex but a proliferation of it, it is repressed by the multiple holds of power/knowledge. He argues "a whole corpus of moral reflection on sexual activity and its pleasures seems to mark, in the first centuries of our era, a certain strengthening of austerity themes" (Foucault 1992: 235). The intersection of truth and knowledge form a "certain style of sexual conduct" by a "whole movement of moral, medical, and philosophical reflection" which seeks to prohibit perverse sexualities (Foucault, 1992:239).

4. Conclusions Foucault's theory of power explores and critiques "anti-repressive" or "enlightenment" models of power and also the repressive hypothesis which seeks to reduce power into a notion of domination. In his most nuanced work Foucault sustains the tension between notions of enlightenment and repression as part of the movements of modem ways of being. He argues that modem rationalities or powers do not singularly enlighten or repress. Therefore, Foucault's work has had the effect of challenging singular metaphors of power by recognising that rationalities of good versus evil are an ontological fact, but in isolation do not form a comprehensive explanation of power. 59 As indicated, during the mid to late 1970's Foucault strengthens his critique of the repressive hypothesis and more rigorously considers questions of production. He attempts to further grasp what he sees in his studies of prisons, governance, politics and sexuality (up until The Histozy of Sexuality Volumes D and Ill), as the ubiquitous and differential nature of power. Given the shifts in Foucault's work, it is important to understand that the way one reads Foucault's theory of power is dependent upon his, and also one's own, attention to the issue of the complex ontology of power.

60 Chapter Three The Ontology of Power.

Derrida I Foucault two big names brought together in a single title, two masters separated by a single, silent virgule, by a discreet suspension of the breath, by the almost imperceptible and yet thoroughly dramatic moment when the pendulum has reached its apex and is about to descend. Derrida I Foucault separately, these names suggest many things - too many even to begin to enumerate here, but when combined, when joined together like the two terms of a pendulum movement, or like the two rivals in a debate, these names recall in their alteration and rhythm a single but significant episode or chapter in French intellectual history. Michael Naas, 1997: 141.

61 In the previous chapter I argued that Foucault did not focus on the theme of power until Discipline and Punish (1975). In this text he critiques dominant notions of the "violence-ideology opposition" in which it is assumed that power works to oppress citizens. Even in his earliest work, there is creeping evidence that the theory of power which Foucault utilised in these archaeologies, and which influenced broader social theory, did not account for his occasional glimpses of the ubiquitous and differential nature of power. From the mid-1970's Foucault's interest in power is posed with a developing attention to its ontology: its differential presence in all relations. In more polemical modes and particularly in The History of Sexuality Volumes II apd III, Foucault returns to an epistemological method arguing that modem sexual mores are largely repressive. In fact, with some insight into the changing focus of his work, Foucault likened it to a "Gruyere cheese", characterised by holes or insights which others can pursue as he shifts his interests and, at times, his methodological approach (Foucault cited in Sheridan, 1980:223).

In this chapter I follow Foucault's reconsideration of his early theory of power. I explore the problems with Foucault's epistemologically driven work and in particular its critique by Jacques Derrida. In Derrida's critique of Madness and Civilisation. "Cogito and the History of Madness" (1990) written in 1967, he argues that Foucault treats modem discourse as if it exists within an historical moment that is suspended from a more truthful and equitable past. Although I am aware of the much broader debate between Derrida and Foucault, in this chapter I argue that Derrida's critique is important in terms of thesis because it identifies the shortcomings in Foucault's early work, and forms the point from which Foucault's insights about the ontological workings of power develop. I argue that Foucault inadvertently will rectify the problems that Derrida identifies.

I explore Foucault's move mid-career from an epistemological and archaeological focus (that is, a concern with discovering an underlying locus of power

62 constructing modem discourse); to an ontological account where he adopts a genealogical approach which evaluates the ways in which power is endlessly produced rather than predetermined. Instead of reducing power to one particular domain or as one particular property, Foucault understands that power is produced in relation. Given this, he recognises that in order to study power one must bring one's attention to the multiple and changing ways in which people interact with one another. Foucault's genealogical method is thus concerned with the variety of ways in which people relate to another and the power dynamics which are specific to them.

Foucault's notion of genealogy changes. In "Govemmentality", for example, he explores the fact that discourse on governmental power is diverse and is not simply subject to an autonomous sovereign's or government's rule. However, during his early work, Foucault was inclined to accept the notion that discourse is determined by a pervading and exclusive power-source, not the state, but instead scientific discourse. This assumption of power as scientific property is also applied under the guise of "genealogy" in the last two volumes of The History of Sexuality. Here Foucault's work reverts back to the notion that discourse suppresses the power of the subject. In particular, Foucault argues that modem structures, and in particular institutions, exclude the subject's access to power.

In the following pages I outline Foucault's ontological method of discourse analysis and distinguish it from the epistemologically driven method of ideology critique in order to show how important and unique Foucault's attempt to approach the issue of power remains. Because Foucault's work on the ontology of power was short lived, in this chapter I embark on the important task of advancing and contextualising it. The changing focus of Foucault's theory of power and the contradictions this poses in fact illustrate Foucault's argument that everyone is implicated in the messy dynamics of relationality that characterise power.

1. The Epistemological Study of Power Early on, Foucault's conceptual framework was limited to a critique of the positivist

63 assumption that truth is a straightforward result of the progression of knowledge. Contrary to this, he argued, truth is a product of power which controls the development of discourse and knowledge. His early empirical studies were a collaboration in an effort to consolidate this thesis. Madness, the prison, prisoners, were all products of the institutionalisation of truth and the result of the dominance of institutional power. Foucault's founding empirical method was dominated by an attempt to unearth the structure and truth of institutional power and its effects which he considered to be largely repressive. In these archaeologies Foucault stated that he was not interested in an analysis of power, but was more concerned with the ways in which subjects are formed.

Foucault's epistemological focus was based on the assumption that our knowledge of things and the consolidation of this knowledge into sciences, is independent of the actual nature of the things or objects of study themselves. He approached the study of madness, science and later sexuality with the presumption that their nature does not equate with the ways in which we understand and then come to practice them. For Foucault, the truth underneath modem ways of being held the clue to the true nature of our subjectivity. Foucault's epistemological assumptions thus led him to an archeological method of "digging up" the historical and assumed truthful archetype of whatever he took to be his object of study.

Jacques Derrida contested the kinds of assumptions Foucault made in Ma.dness and Civilisation. those which Foucault returns to later in The History of Sexuality

Volumes D and III. Derrida argues in his essay "Cogito and the History of Madness" (1990) that Foucault's doctoral thesis and first book Madpess and Civilisation cannot sustain its own logic. Essentially, Derrida writes that Foucault's wish to understand madness itself, by measuring madness against modem reason, produces an argument that is absolutely indebted to reason. That is, although Foucault recognised in theory that one could not escape modem reasoning, in Madness and Civilisation he privileges the past as a space free from what he assumes to be the constraints specific to modem reason. Derrida presented his critique to Foucault in 1963. A debate ensued, with the most recent contribution

64 from Derrida entitled: "To Do Justice To Freud: The History of Madness in the Age of Psychoanalysis" (1998) which he originally wrote in 1992. Derrida comments that this exchange prevented them from associating with one another for almost ten years. This debate is lengthy and dense, with a range of issues discussed beyond the interests of this chapter. Overall, Derrida's critique is significant in that it identifies the problems with Foucault's epistemological assumptions and clarifies how Foucault's early work is actually continuous with the structuralist method of ideology critique and with understanding discourse as ideology.

Derrida shows that any attempt to present a history of madness without acknowledging the logic of the present, of psychiatry, is based on an unachievable purism. Derrida explains the pitfalls of this mode of argumentation most succinctly in Writin~ and Difference: The attempt to write the history of the decision, division, difference runs the risk of construing the division as an event or a structure subsequent to the unity of an original presence (Derrida, 1990: 40). In wishing to analyse madness as something in itself, pre-existing modernity, Foucault craves the originary truth and power of madness, the untouched rawness of it where it allegedly existed within a non-pathologised state, as if madness has only now lost its power to the power of science. In fact, Derrida shows that Foucault reverses the binary, only to privilege madness against reason.

Derrida argues that "a history of silence" is an impossibility, because one must revert or rely on some form of logic to explain the phenomenon of madness (Derrida, 1990: 35). Derrida shows that: it will perhaps be possible not to add anything whatsoever to what Foucault has said, but perhaps only to repeat once more, on the site of this division between reason and madness of which Foucault speaks so well, the fact that one cannot speak of madness except in relation to reason (Derrida, 1990: 33). In attempting to locate the true nature of madness in the past and the repressive power of psy-science in obscuring it, Foucault does in fact overlook his own

65 insight that such a morality can never be posed independently of, but is instead dependent upon, reason.

Derrida argues that Foucault's work is governed by an interest in: escaping the trap or objectivist nai'vete that would consist in writing a history of untamed madness, of madness as it carries itself and breathes before being caught and paralyzed in the nets of classical reason, from within the very language of classical reason itself, utilizing the concepts that were the historical instruments of the capture of madness - the restrained and restraining language of reason. Foucault's determination

to avoid this trap is constant. It is the most audacious and seductive aspect of his venture, producing its admirable tension. But it is also, with all seriousness, the maddest aspect of his project (Derrida, 1990: 34). Foucault's work here is important in showing that an historical break occurs in which during the Middle Ages madness was not considered an illness: the madman was considered a fool. This break however, is not one that leads us to a more exacting truth. Derrida asserts that to divide history as such is based upon the notion of a "virgin and unitary ground" which is a point in time that is at best "mythical" (Derrida, 1990: 39).

What is most important in the context of this thesis is that Derrida's critique points to the problems with Foucault's assumptions regarding subjectivity, in which Foucault insists that what the subject experiences today is repressed by the power of knowledge: the sciences and institutions which determine modem practice. Derrida argues that because there are aspects within Foucault's argument which recognise that discourses produce truth and power, this makes it difficult for Foucault to sustain his desire to arrive at a time and space where madness was unaffected by the taints of modem discourse. As Foucault argues in reference to science (and later to the method of structuralism), claiming to know the Truth behind something is always problematic. Later, in "Body/Power" (1980), Foucault recognises the problems attached to privileging the distant past. He argues that one must not

66 assume that modem practices repress the true power of the subject and the body: first of all we must set aside the widely held thesis that power, in our bourgeois, capitalist, societies has denied the reality of the body in favour of the soul, consciousness, ideality. In fact nothing is more material, physical, corporal than the exercise of power (Foucault, 1980:57).

Despite this insight, in his work on the sciences Foucault's conception of discourse is still quite limited. For example, in I. Pierre Riviere Foucault believes he can expose the truth about Riviere's case if he does not obscure it with interpretation. Foucault understands that his reading is dependent upon the repressive rationality of psychology. However, he believes that he can escape this by deciding not to interpret Riviere's discourse. He argues that any commentary on Riviere's case would be dependent upon modem understandings of psy-discourse and would therefore be contaminating. Foucault believes that in presenting the bare facts without commentary, he may come close to the true nature of the case. Foucault argues that presenting the case without direct discussion exposes "the power relation whose reductive effect we wished to show" (Foucault, 1982a: xiii). He assumes that if an attempt was made to articulate the meaning of the case, "we ourselves should have fallen into the trap it set" (Foucault, 1982a: xiii). As such, Derrida shows that Foucault's aim to let madness speak for itself meant that "Foucault wanted madness to be the subject of his book in every sense of the word: its theme and its first-person narrator, its author, madness speaking about itself' (Derrida, 1990: 34). The notion of "the trap" which modem institutions of power set for the pure existence of a thing itself is contingent upon the assumption that power is an exclusive possession of one thing against another, in this case, the logic of psy-science over subjects.

Foucault illustrates through his work on discourse that everyone, including, and especially, experts, is subject to the rules of the order of discourse. However, Foucault overlooks the issue of his own privileging of a notion of the truth of madness as other. As Derrida argues, it is impossible for Foucault to distance

67 himself from the language and assumptions of modern life. In fact, Foucault's desire to represent madness as other works with the very assumption he critiques. If Foucault finds modern discourses of madness objectionable for their systems of exclusion, then how may he follow such logic, that is, how can he suspend madness from the discourses that know it in order to uncover its basic truth? If the madness of the past represents a basic, or even another truth, then why is this truth more desirable such that Foucault wishes to consider modern discourse reductive? Derrida cites the fact that the modern experience, subjected as it is to division: is perhaps no less adventurous, perilous, nocturnal, and pathetic than the experience of madness, and is, I believe, much less adverse to and accusatory of madness, that is, accusative and objectifying of it, than Foucault seems to think (Derrida, 1990: 33). Derrida questions Foucault's desire to return to a space free of reduction. This is because one is never free of reduction: one can only perceive I interpret I know I theorise, that is, be informed by one's own present web of belief. This desire to access pure meaning is an issue that Foucault challenges later on. Even in Th. History of Sexuality where he critiques the "ideology of return", he argues that one cannot return to a time when sexuality was purer, better or more free. In particular, Foucault's ontology of power is very astute in addressing this very issue.

In addition to Derrida's points of contention, it seems important to specifically identify the theory of power operating within Foucault's work on the sciences. Most significant of all is the fact that Foucault endows psy-discourses with power, and madness with no power. In this early work, power is considered the exclusive property of institutionalised sciences, cancelling out the power of the material it studies. The notion that the subject is excluded from the exercise of power is sustained in this work. Foucault makes it his task to identify the instances where power is exercised by the state and is experienced by the population in a way which only narrowly recognises the power of citizens. In fact, citizens are not recognised as possessing power as such but only the ability to resist power. Power is considered a commodity, something which is exclusively owned. As such it is always referred to as a proper name, a possession, and is synonymous with

68 domination and control. This is defined in the French proper noun le pouvoir which translates as those who hold power, exercise power over, or the power. This model: power I resistance attributes the possession of power to a notion of dominance and bears more in common with structuralism than with Foucault's ontological theory.

2. Epistemology Reconsidered There is certainly an increased sensitivity to the kinds of issues which Derrida identifies in Foucault's work in the middle of his career. There are parallels between Derrida and Foucault's ontological focus although this is expressed very differently and certainly does not place them as allies. As indicated in the prefatory quotation, Michael Naas, writing about the Foucault/ Derrida debate (1997) fmds provoking, not their interest in ontological questions, but their ongoing discourse. Quite apart from Naas' concern with the specificities of the Foucault!Derrida dialogue, itself a discipline of study, the ontological questions which Derrida poses to Foucault, however inadvertent this influence is, appears to form a lasting impression.

The "agonistic" relation which Foucault and Derrida represent illustrates much about the perpetual ironies at work within all relations. The complex dynamics which characterise their relation, despite all their intent to differentiate from one another, also reveal a complicity. Foucault ultimately shows that the discourses of the past represent not an originary and therefore fundamental truth to be uncovered or "dug-up", but another space within discourses of truth. Foucault's temporary engagement in seeking the lost truth of science serves as a starting point in an attempt to introduce some unease into the judgments and occasional arrogance of positivist science, and lays the path for his challenge of ideology critique.

During the period from the mid-lg]O's up until the second volume of The Histoty of Sexuality. Foucault's empirical method can no longer be associated with epistemological preoccupations as he does not seek to reduce power to an exclusive site, as a "thing" that is owned, but recognises that power is a variable dynamic

69 ubiquitously active within all relations. Foucault states in an interview that: I think I mixed two conceptions in this 'Order of Things' or rather, I proposed an inadequate response to a question I think is legitimate (the meshing of facts of discourse with the mechanisms of power). This text I wrote at a moment of transition. Until then, it seems to me that I accepted the traditional conception of power, power as an essentially legal mechanism, what the law says, that which forbids, that which says no, with a whole string of negative effects: exclusion, rejection, barriers, denial, dissimulation, etc. Now I find that conception inadequate .. .It seemed to me, after a while, that this was insufficient, and this occurred to me in the course of a concrete experience I had around 1971-1972, regarding prisons ... For me, the essential part of the work is a reworking of the theory of power, and I am not sure that the pleasure of writing on sexuality alone would have been enough to motivate me to start this series of of six volumes (at least), had I not felt the need to reconsider this question of power.. .It seems to me that too often... we reduce the problem of power to sovereignty ... and it seems to me to discredit a whole series of fields of analysis; I know that can seem very empirical, and secondary, but after all they concern our bodies, our existences, our daily life (Foucault, 1989a: 207).

Foucault approaches the theme of power by recognising that in an analysis of it one must examine the common and popular supposition of a fundamental power. He recognises that this sovereign conception of power can only serve as a partial account, arguing that power exists within all relations and exists differentially. That is, all power relations differ, are specific, and are experienced variably. Thus, power cannot be viewed in absolute terms.

At this point, Foucault's theory of power must take heed of the fact, put forth by Derrida, that power exists within "psy" and also within madness because they are contingent on a rationality of what constitutes I measures I governs madness and health and sanity. Psy-sciences make madness possible, and equally madness

70 makes psy-sciences possible. It is not a matter that modem discourse invents previously unformed phenomena such as madness, but that it produces new or differing truths about power.

3. The Ontology of Power Foucault's critique of the positivist assumption that truth is a result of the progression of knowledge led him to argue that truth is a product of power/knowledge. In this sense, Foucault's initial concept of power was still quite limited to a notion of ownership and exclusion, and is a theory motivated by epistemological questions. Epistemology is concerned with the assumptions regarding our knowledge of things, and an epistemological question is one concerned with establishing the grounding truth governing things. As argued, Foucault's early epistemological endeavours were accompanied by an archaeological method concerned with uncovering or digging up truth.

Foucault later reconsiders this, recognising that this approach is not attentive to the many complexities of what power is. He felt that he needed to ask the ontological question: how does power work, what is it, in order to consider where it comes from and how it exists. Foucault's ontological questions are concerned with the being of things - how things present themselves in relation to everything else. His most rigorous genealogical method is one interested in exploring both epistemological and ontological issues, in considering the relationality of all things.

Foucault then works on developing the idea, mentioned but underdeveloped in his early studies, that power is not source-specific, but is a ubiquitous production. He argues that power cannot be reduced to a notion of intent, of absolute positive or negative value, but is at work in multiple and varying ways. Power is not the tool of governments, institutions, or specific groups or individuals but is at work everywhere. Therefore Foucault states: one must analyze institutions from the standpoint of power relations, rather than vice versa, and that the fundamental point of anchorage of the relationships, even if they are embodied and crystallised in an

71 institution, is to be found outside the institution (Foucault, 1982b:222).

Foucault asks the relatively neglected question: what is power? He clearly states that power is not sovereignty and cannot be considered synonymous with control. Power is at work differentially and ubiquitously within all relations both social and interpersonal. It is not in potentia but ever present. Power is an activity that encompasses a number of dynamics including many different and interchangeable ones that can be intended, unintended, covert, overt, reactionary, instigatory and its effects can be repressive, enabling, and may be considered as negative and I or positive. like the French word pouvoir meaning "to be able", "strength" or "force", Foucault considers power a verb - at work within all relations, and also a noun - a name we give to a relational dynamic. Power is a force or action which effects, but not in a final sense that would bring it back to a singular effect or specific and static state. Instead it works as a perpetual dynamic. In evaluating le pouvoir, or "the power", one must recognise that relations of power are highly variable and cannot be reduced to a single relation in which one exerts power over another. Relations of power are highly variable. It is not simply the case that all power relations may be evaluated according to a relation of domination. If treated as such, domination becomes the issue, rather than power. Power is not a relation characterised by domination! revolution, it is a dynamic in which we are indefinitely engaged in a multiplicity of connections which constitute all social and personal relations. It is not a matter that, with the exertion of power, one finds a simple reaction of resistance. This is because the notion of resistance realised in revolution suggests the finality of power's effect. This is not the case: power represents a relation that features perpetual engagement.

Evidently, Foucault later realises that it is not sufficient to assert that "power can be positive too", or that "it also resides in the sites of a pluralised state", and Foucault moves towards challenging the persistence of such a notion. Power is not the uninterrupted or exclusive domain of certain privileged discourses, but more 72 accurately, it is the sum total, or the configuration of a multitude of truths circulating within the social body. Everyone is engaged in the exercise of power. Power is not necessarily a conscious mechanism. It can be inadvertent. It can be self-defeating and ambiguous. Power works in ways that are intentional as much as unintentional and/or perverse. Power relations reverberate but are not set according to a fixed causality, or from one who has the ultimate say. Power is not something ultimately possessed by governments and suspended from citizens. Power works on governments: it is at work everywhere. Politics is one site where interest groups are engaged in relations of power, producing effects which are multiple and complex. Foucault recognises that: to approach the theme of power by an analysis of "how" is therefore to introduce several critical shifts in relation to the supposition of a fundamental power... One sees why the analysis of power relations within a society cannot be reduced to the study of a series of institutions, not even to the study of all those institutions which would merit the name 'political'. Power relations are rooted in the system of social networks (Foucault, 1980: 219-224). Power is relational. It is at work differentially within all relations with the self and others. However, such an understanding is challenging to grasp because of the dominance of the notion of a fundamental structure of Power based on a property model. Despite the fact that one is always implicated and complicit within power relations, it is difficult for many to recognise power's ubiquitous and mutating presence in their own lives.

Because the metaphor of property and the repressive notion of power is so strong, it is difficult for many to reconcile their occasional insights regarding the ubiquity of power into a comprehensive concept. Just because some relations of power are experienced as repressive, repression cannot be considered the simile for power. Foucault argues that many do not wish to interrogate what power is in itself because "they would rather not call it into question" (Foucault, 1982b: 216). In respect to this, it is important to recognise that Foucault's interests and discoveries are very complex and broad and they require an attention to their detail. There are no simple

73 moral resolutions regarding "goodies" and "baddies" so common within discourses on power. Rather each experience is significant. Discourses of power which claim they are other to power are part of the multitude or totality of power relations. In response to the fact that a discussion of the ontology of power runs the risk of seeming abstract when held apart from a specific empirical focus, I will elaborate these points in relation to specific discourses of power in chapters four and five.

4. An Ontological Method: Discourse Analysis Discourse is the entirety of possible ways of knowing, speaking, thinking and doing in regard to things and phenomena. Discourse then is an entirety of ways of being. Discourse does not exist in terms of periodic breaks but is continually shifting, being contested, sustained and negotiated. It is the way we criticise, agree and relate to our selves and one another. It is thus very different to a structuralist marxist notion of ideology which is generally based on a division between the ruling class and its subjects. According to this very crude but common notion of ideology, it is thought that citizens accept or seek to resist ideology. Foucault's discourse analysis recognises that the concept of ideology is a part of the totality of ways of knowing but does not form the basis of a fundamental truth of discourse. Discourses are much more multifarious, fragmented and unstable than this. As such, discourse analysis is a method based upon Foucault's ontological theory that the production of power is not the construction of a privileged section of the population who controls it, but is the sum total of all social relations.

In conducting a discourse analysis, one is immersed in the process of examining the ways in which social phenomena present themselves within minute detail, informal utterances, and formal or public discourse. In examining these elements, one cannot conclude that each and every detail within all parts of a particular phenomenon, debate, or event, equates with a particular purpose.

Foucault becomes more conscious of the fact that one can only know the past or predict the future on the basis of present knowledge or discourse. This modem field of discourse is diverse and mutating. Foucault's ontological method of discourse 74 analysis, informed by these genealogical insights, calls for a recognition of his earlier kinds of historical and teleological moralism as a part of the features of fields of possibility of discourse. According to Foucault, discourse is repressive, enabling, and it is also indifferent. It is everything about the ways in which everyone thinks, feels, relates and acts.

5. Foucault's Return to Ideology Critique Foucault shifts his attention from the ontological workings of power in The History of Sexuality in which, after emphasising the multifarious nature of discourse and critique of the repressive hypothesis in Volume I of the series, he changes his approach arguing in Volumes II and III that modem sexuality is governed by "austerity" (Foucault, 1990b:235). He argues that modem discourses of sexuality produce perverse identities in an effort to regulate sex. He states that the science of sex has devoted itself to analysis of a prohibition rather than pleasure (Foucault, 1990b:238). Foucault shows that modem sexuality differs greatly from that of ancient Greece, arguing that an economy of pleasures has been introduced to modem sexuality: The code elements that concern the economy of pleasures, conjugal fidelity, and relations between men may well remain analogous, but they will derive from a profoundly altered ethics and from a different way of constituting oneself as the ethical subject of one's sexual behaviour (Foucault, 1990b:240). Like his work on madness, here again Foucault works with the notion that the modem sexual economy has lost touch with if not the truth, certainly the freedom of sexuality which he locates in the days of early Greece where sexuality was not approached in such analytical terms. In this sense, Foucault's approach becomes associated again with ideology critique. The fact that his own views on ancient Greek ethics are the product of a specific modem morality is not recognised. In other words, Foucault does not consider, as he did in his ontologically driven work, the fact that his history of sexuality and the ancient Greece he represents, are part of the multitude of discourses produced by modem discourse.

75 All discourse is complicit in the games of truth and knowledge which produce movements within the workings of power and thus each represent a moment in the configuration of what power is. An ontology of power allows for such considerations in attempting to explain the "what" and "how" as well as the "who" and "where". As Foucault states "the analysis, elaboration, and bringing into question of power relations and the 'agonism' between power relations ... is a permanent political task inherent in all social existence" (Foucault, 1982b: 223).

***

Foucault's approach to the study of power changes considerably during the middle of his career and in The Histot;y of Sexuality he returns to his initial preference for an epistemological method concerned with seeking the originary, historical truth that founds modem discourse. The features of this movement are not absolute as Foucault in interviews and within parts of these same texts disrupts any straightforward notion of power as repression. In fact, Foucault asserts in ~

Arcbaeolo&Y of Kn.owled~e: "do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same" (Foucault, 1977a: 17).

Derrida recognises the movements in Foucault's work, commenting in "To do Justice To Freud: The History of Madness in the Age of Psychoanalysis" that: ... things will never change for Foucault. There will always be this interminable alternating movement that successively opens and closes, draws near and distances, rejects and accepts, excludes and includes, disqualifies and legitimates, masters and liberates (Derrida cited in Naas, 1997: 147). However, the above itinerary does form the general direction of his focus and interests. Most important to the study of power is Foucault's ontologically driven work. Here he recognises the complicity of every discourse, about the past, future and present, the self and others, in the dynamic that is power.

76 Chapter Four The Foucauldian Effect

...the growth of psy has been connected, in an important way, with transformations in forms of personhood- our conceptions of what persons are and how we should understand and act toward them, and our notions of what each of us is in ourselves, and how we can become what we want to be. In posing the matter in this way, my investigations take their inspiration from the writings of Michel Foucault. They are attempts to explore 'the games of truth and error through which being is historically constituted as experience; that is as something that can and must be thought (Foucault, 1985:6-7)'. By experience here, Foucault does not refer to something primordial that precedes thought, but to 'the correlation between fields of knowledge, types of normativity, and forms of subjectivity in a particular culture (Foucault, 1985:3)' and it is something like this sense that I use the term in this book. I explore aspects of the regimes of knowledge through which human beings have come to recognise themselves as certain kinds of creature, the strategies of regulation and tactics of action to which these regimes of knowledge have been connected, and the correlative relations that human beings have established themselves, in taking themselves as subjects. In doing so, I hope to contribute to the type of work that Foucault described as an analysis of 'the problematizations through which being offers itself to be, necessarily, thought - and the practices on the basis of which these problematizations are formed (Foucault, 1985: 11)'. Rose, 1996: 11.

77 In this chapter I explore the work of seveml foucauldian theorists and their accounts of power. I argue that rather than expanding upon Foucault's most nuanced work on power, much foucauldian discourse returns us to the notion of power as domination, where power resides within the sites of an expanding state. By conceptually re-assigning power from the state onto institutions, the basic assumption is that institutionalised knowledges and sciences serve to repress modem citizens. These theorists do not move beyond the notion that power produces a single effect of good or evil. Hence, what is arguably the most provocative and complex aspect of Foucault's thesis is mitigated by many foucauldians who insist that power works exclusively within certain authoritative modalities and that it strengthens the exercise of authority over subjects. According to such views, power is still considered to be a restricted commodity, with those who are subjected to power having little or no access to it themselves. In much foucauldian discourse the exercise of power is thus distinguished and separated from the experience of power.

In what has become the canonical foucauldian approach, an assumption is made that beyond modem practices of power and knowledge there exist other historical ways and other understandings of power which are preferable. It is assumed that before or beyond modem regimes of power lies a more equitable past or future. Throughout the course of his life we can see that Foucault strives to challenge this kind of analysis which many foucauldian theorists insist on repeating. In sum, adoptions of Foucault's theory of power do not adequately represent the profound break he makes with the view that power is a singularly repressive mechanism.

Although Foucault is an empiricist his theories are not easily digested by social philosophers and sociologists who fmd his ontology of power, especially as it is articulated in his later work, too divorced from the conventional analyses of the sociology of power that they are most familiar with. His approach does not sit 78 easily with long established definitions of power which base themselves on restricted assumptions of causality. Foucault's notions of power are not conventional even within post-structuralism, and are quickly converted back into the familiar certainties of social inquiry that are consistent with structuralism. Within this frame of analysis power is understood to be something that can be owned, and which produces an abjected powerlessness.

In the following pages I conduct a focussed critique of prominent Australian and international foucauldians including Nikolas Rose, Herbert Dreyfus, Paul Rabinow, Paul Patton and Barry Allen, concentrating on their tendency to reduce Foucault's theory of power to the notion of repression. I also explore various instances where Foucault's theory of power is reduced to a politics of control in the work of theorists who seem to use Foucault's name as an iconic prop. This, I argue, demonstrates at most a very slim and dubious theoretical link to elements in Foucault's earliest analyses of institutional power. The writers chosen are exemplary of various tones of foucauldian analysis, which, I will argue, misrepresent and compromise Foucault's work on power by ignoring power's ontological ubiquity. I will argue that many foucauldian philosophers and sociologists fail to take on the full force of Foucault's theory of power. Most significantly, foucauldian scholars seek to sanitise, and themselves, strive to resist power with notions of utility and moral purpose. A blind eye is turned to the empirical because much of what power is doesn't fit with the narrow definitions and synonyms for power which they put forth such as "discipline", "capacity" and "restriction".

As the most radical insights of Foucault's work on power were developed in the middle of his career, and in many ways because they problematise aspects of his other work, particularly some assertions made in The History of Sexuality, foucauldian scholarship requires our further consideration.

1. Changes in Foucault's Account of Power While writing Discipline and Punish Foucault decided to "willingly abandon

79 everything in the order of discourse that might present the relations of power to discourse as negative mechanisms of rarefaction" (Foucault, 1989:208). In his subsequent work Foucault further develops his insights about power occasioned in his earlier analyses. Dreyfus and Rabinow (1982) agree that Foucault's earlier work succumbs to "the illusion of autonomous discourse", arguing that Foucault was later able to break away from the tendency to represent power in terms of control through discourse. Importantly, Dreyfus and Rabinow assert that Foucault's position goes "beyond the subject/object division to which structuralism and hermeneutics still fall prey", and that Foucault's work on power and discourse does indeed change considerably towards the end of his life (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982: viii). In fact, philosopher Alan Schrift, writing about "Foucault's Reconfiguration of the Subject", puts it succinctly when he says: the self's relations to itself is insufficiently attended to in the earlier work. What Foucault left to us are several thoughts on the self or subject in terms of an aesthetics of existence which resist easy integration into the power analytics of his earlier works (Schrift,1997: 155).

Foucault's richest work problematises the notion of power where a power over/resistance opposition is sustained. According to this model power is considered to be control, and resistance the reaction to it. Foucault comments that he is frustrated by those who exaggerate and attempt to develop what he agrees is a tendency in Mad.ness and Civilisation (Orig 1961) towards structural analysis. He comments in an interview conducted in 1984 that: "those who say that for me savoir (knowledge) is the mask for pouvoir (power), do not seem to me to have the capacity to understand" (Foucault, 1991b: 22). He argues that this is not at all what he has in mind when studying the question "what is power in its very being?" Foucault states that a preoccupation with locating ownership of power displaces a battery of interesting and important questions: The political is not what ultimately determines (or over determines) elementary relations, which are "neutral" by nature. All relations of force imply a power relation (which, in a way, instantly provides an

80 analysis of it) and each power relation can be referred to the political sphere of which it is a part, both as its effect and as its condition of possibility (Foucault, 1989a:211 ).

In stressing the development of Foucault's work, Dreyfus and Rabipow qualify that in The Archaeolo:;y of Knowledee (1972) discourse is presented as autonomous. They view this work as a mistake, a hiccough in the progression of Foucault's argument away from his archaeological focus on discovering the original truth of a thing, to a genealogical methodology which concentrates on the production of truth as he pursued it in his institutional analyses, particularly of the modem institution of sex as explored in The HistOJY of Sexuality Volumes II and III. However, it is precisely the ideas regarding production explored in The Arcbaeolo~ of Knowled&e which prevent Foucault from cultivating the kind of conception of power and institutional analysis that Dreyfus and Rabinow prefer and which dominate these later volumes on sexuality. Foucault's exploration of ~

Arcbaeolo~ of Knowled&e is not flawed so much as implicated in the complex process of developments in his ontology of power. In this text Foucault rethinks notions of production and explores the issue of the subject's profound implication in shaping discourse and, as he later understands from this, the ubiquity of power. like any writer, Foucault is interested in and perplexed by matters at issue in his life. He works with a life whose problematic unfolding produces his work. Thus, his theory of power recognises that power relations are subject to the same complexities that produce these social and interpersonal relations. It is not the case that Foucault suddenly realised and corrected past assumptions but rather that his experiences gradually led him into a direction which allowed him to further contemplate and complicate relations of power. Foucault's own work, with its paradox and unevenness, therefore represents his thesis of power, namely that one's motivations and the power one has are not essentially sure or even self­ conscious. His oeuvre gives us an insight and illustration of this, as we see in Foucault's more polemical modes of analysis where he seems to reinforce the theme of repression. What we might take from this is that there are many important aspects

81 of power, and all are at work in a multiplicity of ways within all kinds of relations.

2. The Foucauldians: Embracing the Early Foucault In the post-structuralist move to address accounts of power, many theorists call on Foucault because he thinks power beyond categories of class and relations of production, and attempts to explore all aspects, -and especially more nuanced relations, of power. However, apart from such efforts, a preference for his critique ... of institutions particularly of the psychological "psy" - and sexual sciences form the focus of foucauldian theory. In recognising that society is copstructed by the organisation of knowledge about the world, this style of analysis attempts to identify the locus or source of this organisation. The centml theme within the following foucauldian theories is the desire to reduce power to a presence/absence model. Despite the different foci and terms chosen to defme power, such as ~

"discipline" and "cap.aclty" ~ they .all work with the notion of power as an exclusive commodity.

As will be explored, many foucauldian texts therefore present a view of power which favours themes that are antithetical to Foucault's ontological account. This trend to circumscribe Foucault's work is wide-spread and perhaps understandable given the turnaround Foucault makes in The Histozy of Sexuality. particularly in his second and third volumes. Like all writers there are moments within Foucault's work where he seems to contradict and undermine his own project. However, this cannot anchor claims that ovemll Foucault merely contributes to and reinforces the same repressive hypothesis that he contests.

Foucault's theory of power is diverse and uneven in its explication; and much of it works towards opening up new fields and ways of analysis. During the course of this thesis I have drawn upon the work of many of those who present important insights about Foucault's oeuvre. I do not examine all of these here because of their vast number and different attentions, and because my main priority within this chapter is to bring attention to the particular direction taken by the dominant

82 foucauldian discourse on power3,4. Because my interest lies with theorists who are

3 This chapter is concerned with indicating the prevalent direction in foucauldian scholarship and seeks to do so by drawing on a variety of authors. However, because of their sheer number I am unable to deal in specific detail with all of them. Despite the significant contribution he makes to the study of Foucault, Graham Burchell's work on governance, for example, is not included in this section. As explored in the previous chapter, one of the most important influences Foucault's work has had is upon theorists of governance. "Cutting off the King's head" has proved important for many writers such as Graham Burchell, who, in his elucidation of Foucault's theory of governmental power, agrees that "a recognisably liberal form of questioning remains a constitutive element of contemporary political thought" (Burchell, 1991 :144). He adds that this form is implicated with considerations of political identity and the ways in which this identity is currently framed. He also asserts that general principles and procedures of government suppose that individuals are bound by frameworks imposed by a unified state, for example, ethico-legal frameworks. However this notion of a unified state is insufficient to conceptualising and governing modem life which has come to consider itself beyond disciplinary government. Furthermore, what makes modernity different, he argues, is that it recognises that regulation is not a sufficient basis for effective government. Practicable government involves the knowledge, calculation, and encouragement of diverse and socially stratified collections of individuals, which have become integrated within various groupings of governable sectors. Although Burchell does elaborate certain assumptions about power in very interesting ways, this is restricted to the theme of government: its history and functions. Burchell does however explain Foucault's concept of pastoral forms of power which, he argues, shape people in ways that invoke the creation of rights, freedoms and privileges for those who, in turn, come to demand and expect them.

4 Also significant in the study of Foucault's oeuvre but not explored in this chapter are many feminist theorists and researchers on sexualities. Foucault's theory of power is taken up by some feminists who do not agree with the structuralist assumption that we live in a patriarchal state where men possess power and women do not. I do not wish to explore the many and varied aspects of this work here. However, a good example of a feminist interested in challenging structuralist assumptions is Lesley Johnson, who shows that many studies of youth culture, particularly within work on subcultures, argue that girls occupy the space of the follower - the girlfriend who follows her man, the protagonist in this sphere of subcultures. Referring to 1950's and 1960's youth culture, Johnson argues that girls did not necessarily identify themselves as passive followers. In contrast to structuralist sociologist Barbara Hudson, who argues that: "the discourses of femininity and adolescence are subversive of one another, and in particular, that adolescence is subversive of femininity ... adolescence is a masculine construct" (Hudson, 1984:31 ), Johnson argues: Teenagerhood allowed young women to experiment with taking on and off different types of femininity, and playing with those images. And, at times, young women totally disrupted all notions of femininity as object-to-be-looked-at by demanding a public visibility for themselves as femininity-out-of-control in the form of the teenage fan {Johnson,1993:153). She argues that the peculiar obsession of that era with modernisation - within which youth is personified as its symbol - did not exclude girls. Girls did have an agentic relationship to the cultural ideal of the self-determining, autonomous individual (though discursive and complex) that was so representative of, and inexplicably linked to, the modernised 1950's society. However, as much as this recognition of agency does maintain the spirit of Foucault's thesis that modernity is representative of plural identities, that is, girls have agency too, it does not manage to grasp his notion of power as a multitude of differentials. The complicity of girls in the production of these power effects is significant in that power produces effects that are extremely complex, simultaneously contradictory and multiple and which cannot be understood according to a causal morality which presumes an ethics based on conscious intent. As a counter- position to the repressive hypothesis, power comes to be considered in a wholly positive sense as "empowering" or enabling rather than as a complex and mutating dynamic, the value of which cannot be defined singularly in positive or negative terms.

83 chiefly concerned with the theme of power and with analysing it in foucauldian terms, I choose authors who have devoted considerable time to assessing it. Because not all foucauldian theorists interested in aspects of Foucault's theory of power can be explored here, I have chosen a cross-section of theorists who are recognised as eminent foucauldian scholars. My main is to explore the ways in which Foucault's theories have been explicated, in order to help explain how power works. a) The Institutionalisation of Power? Sociologist Nikolas Rose is a prominent foucauldian theorist who has been pivotal in developing and encouraging thought about foucauldian questions of subjectivity, modernity, sexuality and power. Over the past decade, a much greater understanding of Foucault's theories and their relevance to questions about politics have been facilitated by authors such as Rose. In his most recent book, Inyentin&

Ourselves (1996), Rose draws upon Foucault's thesis from Madness and Civilisation to argue that the modem citizen is fabricated by the power of psy­ discourse in which "psy knowledges and authorities have given birth to techniques for shaping and reforming selves" (Rose, 1996:173). Rose asserts that his aim is to provide a "critical history to diagnose our contemporary condition of the self', so that "we might at least enhance the contestability of the forms of being that have been invented for us, and begin to invent ourselves differently" (Rose, 1996: 197).

Rose argues that "while our culture of the self accords humans all sorts of capacities and endows all sorts of rights, practices and privileges, it also divides, imposes burdens" (Rose,1996:3). He locates the "culture of the self' as a modem phenomenon which is held in the institution, practices, truth-effects and circulation of "psychologised" discourse. The power of psychology "is far more significant if thought about in terms of what it does, rather than what it is" (Rose, 1996:65).

Rose picks up on Foucault's comments concerning "psy-networks", arguing that technologies of power which demarcate, elevate and discipline the truth of psychology have come to constitute the ways in which modem citizens come to 84 know themselves. Foucault argues that psy-networks make visible certain aspects of people's make-up and the ways in which they know themselves, speak of themselves and what they come to expect in the behaviour of others. However, Rose agrees that "to speak of the invention of the self is not to suggest that we are in some way the victims of a collective fiction or delusion. That which is invented is not an illusion; it constitutes our truth" (Rose,1996:3).

Nonetheless, Rose states that his study arises out of an unease about our cultural practices and the tensions between modem promises of freedom and right, the ways in which these "freedoms" and "rights" are governed, and the accompanying "anxieties and disappointments" generated by their restriction (Rose, 1996:3). He hopes that in "rendering the historical contingency of our contemporary relations to ourselves more visible, they [such analyses] may help open these [modem practices] up for interrogation and transformation" (Rose,l996:3).

It is at this point that Rose's discourse ignores Foucault's later approach, focussing

entirely upon the style of argument in MadneSS and Civilisation. Rose critiques the present in favour of a better, freer or more ideal way of life that might be free of power. However, Foucault's ontology of power recognises that power is omnipotent, that is, it is present within all relations, past and present. Rose treats power as if it is "disempowering" for the population and misses the point that power does not produce just one singular effect that is either enabling or repressive. Rose states that he does not place much value in what he terms "our current confused ethical climate" (Rose,l996:197). Instead he privileges a notion of escape from modem discourse which "might at least enhance the contestability of the fonns of being that have been invented for us" so that we may be able to "begin to invent ourselves differently" (Rose,l996:197). Thus, Rose engages in an ethical struggle against modem power which he locates in psy-science. According to Rose modem subjects are repressed or disempowered by the modem seductions of the psychological sciences.

Put simply, regulation is regarded by Rose as unproductive. Apart from his

85 particular attention to psychology, Rose also finds the "seductive architecture of our own times" to be restrictive (Rose,l996:194). Here he sites "the gym, the doctor's surgery, the radio phone-in" as extensions of the modem attempt to restrict and to govern through the seduction of promise and freedom (Rose,l996:194). He argues that "cultural technologies of advertising and marketing ... have deployed psy devices for understanding and acting upon the relations between persons and products" which repress (Rose,l996: 195). Such "life-style" formations, he asserts, are understood as personal choice. Yet, in an effort to prevent his work from being identified too closely with hegemonic analysis, Rose states that "it would be foolish to claim that psychology and its experts are the origin of all these subjectifying machines" (Rose, 1996:195). Rather, he continues, psychological explanation, truth and authority have participated in constructing lifestyle practices. Unfortunately, this particular insight is not sustained throughout the rest of the book, and its implications for how we might understand power's complex ontology are by and large ignored.

It is Rose's contention that such cultural practices are more or less fixed or determined by powers beyond that of the population, or the body. For example, he continually utilises the term "culture" to indicate distance from the individual. Through a politics of revelation, Rose seeks to study "culturally diverse linguistic practices, beliefs and conventions" in order to prove that modem notions of what he terms the "unified self' are a construction (Rose,1996:9). However, it is not understood by Rose that this construction is one directed by the population upon the population, the self upon the self. Indeed, one must ask what the status of the term "construction" is meant to instantiate because it implicitly assumes a notion of imposition from a specific and exclusive point of creation. Rose defines power as control which he understands is directed by a selection of people who possess power. He believes that self-direction or individual agency is secondary to the power of modem disciplines which work to constrain individuals. Rose regards psychology as "a discipline whose very existence is to be regarded with suspicion" and he asks "whose interests [does] such an intellectual project serve?" (Rose,l996:9). He concludes that psy-discourse promotes the political rationality of

86 liberal democracy and its emphasis on rule through this form of ideological repression.

Importantly, it can be seen that Rose's use of the tenn "our culture", an "entity" which he argues fabricates modem life, operates as a substitute phrase for "the state". He clearly believes that "we have been bound into relationship with new authorities", a relation which he fmds troubling since he considers that these authorities tend to mask their influence with the technique of desire. Specifically, he argues that these new technologies create subjects with aspirations for self­ knowledge (Rose,1996:17). In fact Rose expresses a certain horror that the techniques which these new authorities utilise are "more profoundly subjectifying because they appear to emanate from our individual desires to fulfil ourselves in our everyday lives" (Rose, 1996: 17).

This style of analysis leaves in place the notion that power is a force of control, and it works with the supposition that power is generated by institutions. This enforces the view that power is redistributed in modem life, only allocated to certain agents who then subject others to it. Here power is considered to be in the hands of a ruling class or social stratum in the sense that it remains the possession of professions and institutions. However, as Foucault explains, "power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society" (Foucault, 1990a:93). Power is the product of relations that are mobile and frequently contradictory. Power is "produced from one moment to the next, at every point, or rather in every relation from one point to another'' (Foucault, 1990a:93).

As such: one needs to be nominalistic, no doubt: power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society (Foucault, 1990a:93). According to Foucault, power is specific to every relation and the strategies and

87 investments made within each of these. Power is the name we give to the complex of mobile relations that constitute society and is not characterised by one absolute, or fundamental type of relation (Foucault, 1990a:93). In understanding power as a force which produces multiple and kinetic effects, "let us not look for the headquarters that presides over its rationality" (Foucault, 1990a:93). The search for the source of power is an activity which forms part of the movement of power, illustrating not the totality of what power is, but a specific relation (Foucault, 1990a:95).

Rose omits Foucault's complex insight that power is in a constant state of play. Therefore, one cannot assume that modem life, or as Rose might put it, "modem technologies of power'', are now more or less exclusively institutionally locatable. As much as power produces certain ways of being, placing limits on what is said or thought, concomitantly these limits also function as productive enticements of other, apparently extraneous effects and modes of being.

Theories of power such as Rose's are numerous and varied and are made possible by something that he does not recognise; power's ubiquitous and peculiar ontology. Modem subjects effect ways of knowing. As Foucault argues: ... in analysing power relations from the standpoint of institutions one lays oneself open to seeking the explanation and the origin of the former in the latter, that is to say finally, to explain power to power. Finally, insofar as institutions act essentially by bringing into play two elements, explicit or tacit regulations and an apparatus, one risks giving to one or the other an exaggerated privilege in the relations of power and hence to see in the latter only modulations of the law and coercion (Foucault, 1982b: 222). Rose considers psy-discourse to be coercive. In his opinion, psy-discourse "disciplines human difference" (Rose,l996:105). However, when considered carefully it may be seen that with attempts to diminish and create control, power actually simultaneously undermines itself, frequently and inadvertently instigating effects which cannot be viewed as a repetition of any one aspect of itself. Power

88 relations, Foucault argues, do not essentially result in "legitimating political power... making subjects into allies of rule" as Rose might have it (Rose,1996:20). The problem with Rose's position is that he disconnects Foucault's four linked elements: knowledge, truth, subjectivity and power. Rose asserts that truth and knowledge wield and, in effect, mask power in ways that abuse subjectivity and can render it powerless. As argued in chapter three, this is not what Foucault sets out to do in his archaeologies. And he certainly criticises any suggestion of the repressive hypothesis in his later genealogies, although his last volumes on the history of sexuality direct their attentions to other questions and do not sustain this perception.

Rose's wish "to think against the present" (Rose,1996:18) in fact re-presents the dilemma Foucault experienced in Madness and Civilisation before he moved on to consider power relations in more detail. As I argue in chapter three, drawing from Derrida's critique of Madness and Civilisation. in "Cogito and the History of Madness" (1990), one cannot speak of madness itself as if it is separated from everything else. However, just as Foucault did in Ma4ness and Oyilisation, in lnveptin~ Qurselyes Rose works with the notion that modem discourse suppresses truth. He treats psy-sciences as if they hide rather than produce the truth of psychology. He overlooks the fact that what is also produced by psy-science is the simultaneous discourse of those who are opposed to it, thus also making his discourse against truth possible. This puts into question how Rose understands the nature of his own interventions, their causal motor and oppositionality.

By claiming that his arguments "are dependent upon Michel Foucault's analyses of subjectification" Rose illustrates a very narrow reading of Foucault's work on subjectivity (Rose, 1996: 199). Foucault stated repeatedly that power inhabits all relations and produces us as subjects. And yet it is clear that Rose considers himself the product of a certain subjectivity which can somehow resist or refuse "certain regimes of subjectification" (Rose, 1996: 200). By analysing the regimes of subjectification, Rose argues that the "possibilities of resisting or refusing" present themselves. Rose does not consider himself part of the mobile relations of power

89 which are continually in play, but understands his response as one of resisting

them. He therefore claims to think outside regimes of power. However, if considered as Foucault intended in his ontology, the subject cannot be outside relations as "one is always 'inside' power, there is no 'escaping' it" (Foucault, 1990a: 94). Power relations are not reducible to the oppositional roles of "prohibition or accompaniment": the "masses" subject topsy-science as Rose may have it, and then those scholars and savvy critics who problematise/analyselquestion it (Foucault, 1990a: 94).

In arguing that psychology makes humans amenable to having certain things done to them by others - that humans are "fabricated" by this dominant discourse - Rose presumes that this is somehow layered on top of what humans are "naturally". But the question most basic or even banal must be asked: what is human nature if not what humans do? The profundity of this issue must be considered. Indeed, Foucault argues that "everybody is aware of such banal facts. But the fact that they're banal does not mean they don't exist" (Foucault, 1982b: 210).

b) Power ~ Discipline

Herbert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow's Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (1982) provides an excellent account of the developments of Foucault's work, and supplies one of the best elucidations of Foucault's efforts to challenge structuralism. Recognition is owed to them for providing the grounding necessary for further exploration of Foucault's theory of power. They argue that his most important contribution is in recognising the polymorphous nature of power in modernity and in seeing that power does not come from a sovereign state but is organised within much more diffused configurations.

Despite their recognition of power's complexity, they nevertheless ignore many of the issues which Foucault's ontological questions open. Regardless of their careful attempts to keep the spirit of Foucault alive, a rather restricted understanding of power creeps in which undermines the rich direction of the theory they outline. In sum, their theoretical explication of his position is attentive, but many of their 90 arguments are not consistent with Foucault's focussed ontology of power. Inevitably, they reduce relations of power to a notion of discipline which they understand works to repress.

In their preface, Dreyfus and Rabinow mention that the text emerged out of their struggle with identifying Foucault's style of analysis. In admitting that "this book was born out of a disagreement among friends" who convinced them that they were mistaken about Foucault's theoretical position, causing them to rethink and in effect re-draft this book, Dreyfus and Rabinow express the extent of their humility and intellectual rigour (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982: vii). As a result, this debate is productive because Dreyfus and Rabinow sift through many diverse readings of his theories. In fact, they explained their arguments to Foucault himself, who agreed "that he was never a structuralist but that perhaps he was not as resistant to the seductive advances of structuralist vocabulary as he might have been" (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982:viii). Dreyfus and Rabinow argue that, ultimately, Foucault is more "quasi-structuralist" than post-structuralist I agree that Foucault is not simply anti­ structure for he is more concerned about detail, complexity and exception: the complexity of the moving substrates of structure. Foucault argues that the exception, the contradictory and the anomaly are part of the complexity of structuration which is power.

The most substantial insight that Dreyfus and Rabinow explore is that Foucault's work during the 1970s introduces a new method. This method combines the "distancing effect of structuralism, and an interpretation dimension which develops the hermeneutic insight that the investigator is always situated and must understand the meaning of his cultural practices from within them" (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982:viii). They refer to this method as "interpretive analytics", arguing that Foucault presents a more satisfactory and self-conscious analysis of power in this work. Foucault agrees that earlier on "his concept of power remains elusive but important" in directing his ideas and focusing his future interests (Foucault cited in Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982: ix).

91 Dreyfus and Rabinow argue that when writing IheArchaeolo&y of Knowledw;. Foucault is interested in discourse and "the search for deep meaning", that is, the quest for absolute truth. They criticise this, arguing that within all his other work Foucault was highly critical of this approach, considering the search for a foundational meaning, the truth that guides science and knowledge, to be highly problematic. Dreyfus and Rabinow are clearly relieved in the end that Foucault rejects this approach, arguing instead that "social institutions influence discursive practices" (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982:xx). They insist that Foucault identifies and isolates the power of rationalisation in his later work and argue that Foucault's final theory of power centres on "the practical operation of 'the truth' in modem regimes of power'' (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982:133). In other words, Dreyfus and Rabinow consider that modem regimes of power are constructed by truths produced by newly articulated scientific and medical discourse. They understand power to be reconfigured in modernity according to an epistemology concerned with discovering the facts about a thing, a process which actually constructs rather than uncovers truth. Such rationality is concentrated in the institution. As such, Dreyfus and Rabinow believe that modernity is dominated by institutional power.

Dreyfus and Rabinow's explanation of Foucault's critique of hermeneutics is extremely helpful. However, they illustrate a flaw in their grasp of his account of power, or are reductionist when explicating his ideas. They quote Foucault's insight that " ... there is nothing absolutely primary to interpret because, when all is said and done, underneath it all everything is already interpretation" (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982:106). Dreyfus and Rabinow expand on this, noting that "these interpretations have been created and imposed by other people, not by the nature of things" (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982:106). But here it would appear that they part company with Foucault. We need to remember that Foucault considers it problematic to search for the true essence of a thing apart from, beyond or behind discourse, since the essence of a thing is already informed by interpretation. Dreyfus and Rabinow, however, understand interpretation through the metaphorics of contamination or corruption, something created and imposed by authority. They separate the nature of things from the actions of people in a way that misrepresents

92 Foucault's care in recognising the relationality of things: that the prinuuy nature of things is already interpretation, just as interpretation moves us to know. As we will see exemplified below, there are many other instances where Dreyfus and Rabinow also attempt to tum Foucault's theory of power into a theory of the institutionalisation of power.

They work with the notion that power within modernity is increased when compared with the rarefied power of the sovereign past The assumption they make is that modem power has "the tendency to be depersonalised, diffused, relational, and anonymous, while at the same time totalising more and more dimensions of social life" (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982:192). In this sense, emerging from sovereign forms of power come modem forms which increase the sites of power and multiply its hold. Essentially this increase is held by a diffused authority in the form of institutionalised power. In their account, power within modernity exists in twofold form: within the types of power which totalise or determine the nature of social relations, and within the various relations and practices which hold the population's interests and sense of agency. The problem with this conceptualisation is that both are considered to be working on rather than from the population.

In his effort to "cut off the king's head" with the argument that modem forms of power cannot be considered the same as sovereign forms, Foucault does not simply mean that the power of the past was of an entirely authoritarian nature. Rather, he asserts that power works differentially within different political and social relations and does not work strictly according to the rule of augmentation (nor diminution). The notion that power is situationally increased but actually reduced in modem life is a view Foucault challenges in his critique of "the repressive hypothesis", just as he challenges its inverse, namely that power is more enabling and diffuse in modernity: the "enlightenment" presumption. Unfortunately, Dreyfus and Rabinow uncritically recapitulate the repressive hypothesis when they base their argument on the notion that power is increased in modernity and exerted through the control of institutions.

93 like Foucault, Dreyfus and Rabinow refer to the operation of power as comparable to the structure of the panopticon. They argue that within the relations of the panopticon "each comrade becomes a guardian" (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982: 192). However, a more accurate representation of the nuanced workings of the panopticon is that power is generated not only by the will of some authority which individuals guard, but from the people themselves who delegate, entrust and exercise power.

Towards the end of the book Dreyfus and Rabinow are more revealing in their commitment to a repressive notion of power, stating that: "the Panopticon then is an exemplary technology for disciplinary power" (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982:192). More consistent with Foucault's account, however, is the recognition that the panopticon represents the relations of individuals to one another and that it is the population itself which manages and lives these relations. Dreyfus and Rabinow consider that the panopticon's "chief characteristics are its ability to make the spread of power efficient". However, the notion of efficiency as described here presumes an intended and desired effect, the production of one single effect Because of Dreyfus and Rabinow's somewhat narrow understanding of causality, in their view "efficiency" is goal-oriented and assumes singularity and consensus. The power of the drive for efficiency in their view is a sovereign cause which operates at the very heart of modem thought about the self and community. However, the many, varied, conflicting and shifting attempts at efficiency are driven not by the watchful eye of an authoritarian desire, but if considered ontologically, efficiency must be understood as the totality of multiple effects and interests. Power isn't entrusted to someone who exercises it alone, over others. Foucault argues that the panopticon "is a machine in which everyone is caught ... it becomes a machinery that no one controls" (Foucault, 1989b: 236). Foucault's conceptualisation of the panopticon is not meant to imply that everyone is imprisoned or its converse, that everyone is free, in fact, it is something which everyone is implicated within, something which they enact Just as no one can exist independently of others and of the society they live in, one cannot escape power.

94 According to Dreyfus and Rabinow, power is deployed: to discipline individuals with the least exertion of overt force by operating on their souls; to increase to a maximum the visibility of those subjected; to involve in its functioning all those who come in contact with the apparatus (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982:192). Oearly, though, the population is this apparatus which operates upon itself, within a reflex that produces the soul. Dreyfus and Rabinow's privileging of the notion of discipline is again evident in the following statement regarding the emerging nature of modem power: "the technology of discipline link[ s] the production of useful and docile individuals with the production of controlled and efficient populations" (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982: 193). However, citizens are not docile individuals linked to power, as if power is a supplement to their own ontology: they already are an expression of power's complex identity and expression.

Dreyfus and Rabinow ultimately substitute the foucauldian terms "discipline", "strategf' and "normalisation" for the notions of ideology and hegemony. As such they understand these notions in terms of a single process which represents a monopoly of control. They conceive power within the population to be a separate realm which is linked to, and operates to focus and complement, the totalising power of "numerous kinds of institutions" (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982:193). The crux of their argument and its commitments is most clearly stated in the following passage: As disciplinary technology undermined and advanced beyond its mask of neutrality, it imposed its own standard of normalisation as the only acceptable one. Gradually the law and other standards outside of power were sacrificed to normalisation (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982:193) They argue that "under the banner of normalization" institutionalised knowledges create and control "anomalies in the social body" (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982:194- 195). However, it is important to realise that if there is not an outside of power/knowledge, then the totality of people's attempts to understand and know just as importantly undermines and transforms the nexus of power/knowledge. The problem with Dreyfus and Rabinow's work is that they assume that there is an 95 outside of power and an outside of discourse, as if power is an exclusive technology or commodity that is "used" or exerted. This is something Foucault contests, arguing that "all relations imply a power relation (which, in a way, instantly provides an analysis of it)" (Foucault, 1989:211). Power is always at work within all relations with others and with the self.

As with Rose, Dreyfus and Rabinow object to what they see as the role of psy­ discourses in creating "our meaning-obsessed society" (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982:xvxi). They see that social institutions effect the population, but they can't conceive the dynamics of this effect the other way around. Dreyfus and Rabinow still work with a notion of an absolute split between power and the population and with a dogmatic concept of agency. Such concepts are consistent with the notions of power which rest on the assumption that it is located or exercised outside of struggle, or removed from social or political relations. It assumes that power is repressive and not relationally produced, as if it is only exercised by one body at the expense of another.

c) Power '# "Capacity" Paul Patton has published widely on many aspects of Foucault's oeuvre over the past two decades, offering significant insights into the field of foucauldian criticism. In a recent article "Foucault's Subject of Power'' (1998), Patton summarises his viewpoint with the assertion that power can be defmed as capacity, arguing that power is the capacity a body holds for action. Patton's theory of power is based on the notion that whether or not power is present within a relation depends upon whether the social actor is capable of action. Capability refers to conditions of physical ability, social status and moml interpretation. Patton argues that human action is predicated not only by consciousness but by self-consciousness. One is aware of power and thus this "feeling for power'' drives the human animal and determines structures of power. According to Patton, power is intentional and active, working to enable good or bad. Like most others, Patton assumes that power is a good thing if put in the hands of those who work for the good of society, bad if held by people who do not have society's best interests at heart. It is

96 understood in terms of possession, of the will of the beholder, and according to the notion that it produces an effect of "good" or "bad".

"Foucault's Subject of Power'' examines critiques of Foucault's work on power that Patton wishes to challenge, perspectives that he considers are inaccurate representations of Foucault's views and politics. Patton explains that critiques of Foucault's work on power can be summarised in two ways. Firstly, those that distinguish oppressive forms of power from liberating types, and secondly, those that object that Foucault offers no "alternative ideal" which may be "freed from the bonds of power" (Patton, 1998:64). Importantly however, Patton wishes to establish a point of intervention in these readings, arguing that Foucault "does offer a surrogate for hope" (Patton, 1998:65).

In addressing this issue of hope, Patton introduces the notions of potential and solution to improve or ameliorate relations of power where they are considered oppressive. This notion of hope underpins his argument which essentially seeks to reduce power to a model narrowly defmed by a power/resistance opposition, and to a notion of causality bound to a conception of presence/absence. Instead of taking up the many dimensions of Foucault's ontology, Patton argues that where there is power there is always resistance, as if this resistance is something that is not power but rather a reaction to it. Patton therefore adopts Foucault's conception of power from TheHistw;y of Sexuality Volume III where Foucault seems to abandon his sense of the ontology of power, focussing instead on an argument that modem life has ushered in the repression of sexualities, and that this austerity does indeed produce sexualities in the form of a reactive resistance.

According to Patton, in Foucault's theory the subject is one: upon which power is exercised, or which exercises power upon itself... [T]he human subject is a being endowed with certain capacities [and] the powers of human beings can be exercised in infinite different ways (Patton, 1998:65). With this established, Patton continues that Foucault's theory of subjectivity

97 "provides a means to distinguish domination from other forms of power'' and "a basis on which to understand the inevitability of resistance to domination" (Patton, 1998:65). I agree with Patton's definition of Foucault's theory of power as "the capacity to become or to do certain things". However, Patton's notion of capacity is limited because he reduces it into the concept of potentiality, relying on a presumption of lack rather than recognising "capacity" as indicating both potential (absence) and aptitude (presence).

Patton wants to define power relations as "action upon the actions of others", but limits this according to what he considers is a Nietzschean understanding of action. Picking up on a particular reading of Nietzsche, Patton believes that there are essentially two kinds of power: active and reactive. In his 1993 article "Politics and the Conceptualisation of Power in Hobbes and Nietzsche", Patton argues that these two types of power are characterised by their activity in "the maintenance or increase of power... as well as forms of activity which might lead to its destruction or to its transformation into a different kind of body" (Patton, 1993:153). Patton considers that Nietzsche distinguishes between the power which is deployed to ensure self-preservation based on lack usually exercised by the weak, and power which is concerned with "the noble mode of valuation" which is not defined by lack but by capability (Patton, 1993:153).

Patton uses this conception of power to argue that in contrast to assumptions regarding Nietzsche's thoughts on cruelty, where, "the desire for ever renewed feelings of power would be satisfiable only by some at the expense of others", Nietzsche distinguishes between "more agreeable" and "harmful" effects of power (Patton, 1993:156). Thus Patton works with the notion of progress where the Nietzschean ideal of a more "honourable" subject "who is capable of taking responsibility for their own actions" will prevail (Patton, 1993: 159). According to Patton "such individuals possess a heightened sense of their own power'' (Patton, 1993: 159). These "sovereign individuals will then stand in a relation of mutual respect to one another'' (Patton, 1993:159). This is distinct, he argues, from interpersonal and social, or non-dominating relations, in which multiple parties

98 exercise power. Patton clearly prefers the moralism of this reading, with its sense of progress, to Foucault's more difficult and open ontology. Therefore underlying all Patton's endeavours there is an explicit righteous ethics of "the good".

Similar to the conceptualisation of power outlined in the above article is Patton's argument in "Foucault's Subject of Power'' (1998). Instead of simply repeating Nietzsche's metaphors, Patton here reworks Nietzsche's active/reactive power into a notion of harmful/agreeable power. In this paper Patton defmes what for him appear to be types of power that work according to a domination/resistance opposition, where power is dominating, repressive and authoritative (active, master, harmful), but where this authority is experienced, negotiated and resisted by subjects (reactive, slave, agreeable). In this sense Patton disrupts his reading of Nietzsche's defmitions of the noble as master and instead introduces a more contemporary revision of master/slave relations. The "noble mode of valuation" is the kind of standpoint called upon by Patton in his attempt to offer hope. Patton thus differentiates between noble and ignoble views, the ethics of which are then decidable according to strategies which "enhance the feeling for power'' (Patton, 1998: 76).

Thus, the two kinds of power which Patton considers characterise modem relations are determined as either dominating or non-dominating forms. And within this differentiation there are then two terms that Patton obviously needs to explore, "power over and domination" (Patton, 1998:67), and he criticises Foucault for "not making the necessary distinctions" between them (Patton, 1998:67). He argues that: in his later discussions of power, Foucault does make these distinctions explicit, and in doing so refutes the charge that his approach is incapable of distinguishing forms of power that involve domination and those that do not (Patton, 1998:67).

Patton's argument's justification is therefore highly selective, and he glosses over many qualifications that Foucault makes. The most obvious example is Patton's citation of Foucault where he states: "where there is power, there is resistance"

99 (Patton, 1998:68). Patton intends to utilise this now well-known aphorism to differentiate Foucault's understanding of the different kinds of power. However, Patton overlooks the important point, made in the end of that sentence and the following lines: "where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power" (Foucault, 1990a:95). If read carefully and with attention to the ontology of power, Foucault's theory of power cannot affirm the absolute points of difference that Patton insists upon. In fact, Foucault's attention to the relationality that characterises power entirely problematises Patton's account.

In his attempt to validate these assertions, Patton proceeds to defme "power over" as "an inescapable feature of any social interaction". This, he argues, is similar to "Foucault's thin subject of power... a normatively neutral concept" (Patton, 1998:67). "Power over" is the kind of power which "is not always bad" and which can be compared to Nietzsche's "honourable" power, a type of power which is "agreeable" (Patton, 1998:69). This "power over'' is distinct from "systems of domination" which: are always secondary results of power relations ... only when the possibility of effective resistance has been removed does (sic) the power relations between two subjects of power become unilateral and one­ sided. In such cases, we have something more than the exercise of power over another, namely the establishment of a state of domination : in these cases 'the relations of power instead of being variable and allowing different partners a strategy which alters them, find themselves firmly set and congealed (Foucault, 1987:114)' (Patton, 1998:68).

Thus, Patton's account of Foucault's theory of power is caught in a struggle to distinguish between two types of power: 1) Structures of domination- repressive power, exercised asymmetrically. 2) Power over - or what Patton calls "thin" power, that is, power exercised between like individuals. Patton distinguishes between the two in order to address his belief that power,

100 where it makes its impact, or where it matters, is essentially repressive. He argues that Foucault's conception of power as capacity "may therefore be supposed to amount to a 'thin' conception of the subject of power" (Patton, 1998:65). Patton's notion of "thin" power is power where it exists ubiquitously between equal subjects. It is secondary and essentially benign because it "involves no reference to action against the interests of the other party" and includes the power one has in affecting the life of another, for example, "by providing advice, moral support, or by passing on certain knowledge or skills" (Patton, 1998:67). However, such activity is neither repressive nor objectionable, he adds, because it involves "no reference to action against the interests of the other party'' (Patton, 1998:67). This kind of "power over'' exists in relations "between subjects of power" (my emphasis) (Patton, 1998:68).

Patton then moves on to explore the "stable mechanisms" of power in which power relations become fixed in a state of domination (Patton, 1998:68). As an example of such asymmetrical power relations, Patton cites the institution of eighteenth and nineteenth- century maniage. He argues that even though "the wife was not entirely deprived of power'' in that she could: be unfaithful to the husband, steal money or refuse sexual access: 'she was, however, subject to a state of domination in the measure where all that was finally no more than a certain number of tricks which never brought about a reversal of the situation (Foucault, 1987:123)' (Patton, 1998:68). This rhetoric of the evils of past institutions, in this case marriage, is a rather common one, but it generalises social practices of the past without recognising the diversity of people's experiences in different historical times. Patton follows the rather orthodox view that before contemporary feminism, women had little or no

101 powerS. However, values about types of power are relative. Without delving too

much into this debate, it seems important to at least point out that power does not exist primarily in relations of domination with little more than a trickling effect of resistance. A very narrow notion of presence versus absence is deployed here to explain power relations, one which, in an attempt to hierarchise different types or effects of power, must disregard the many and complex instantiations of power and thus the messy nature of power itself.

As previously argued, it must be acknowledged that Foucault's pastoral model of power tends to encourage such readings which want to split power into two separate dynamics based on a property model, where the pastor owns power and others negotiate it. Many foucauldians favour the pastoral model because it is commonly understood in a way which differentiates between totalising and individualising forms of power, and thus confirms the assumption that the interests which processes of power serve are not necessarily those of the pastorate but the pastor. Many call on this model, believing that pastoralism neatly encapsulates Foucault's theory of power. However, Foucault's discussion of pastoralism is more accurately a passing metaphor, a moment in a theory which involved many contradictions and modes of expression. Thus, as an attempt to convey the contributive functioning of governmental forms of power, Foucault's exploration of pastoralism should not be taken out of context

Within the pastoral frame there are two types of power which operate: one which totalises; and one which works between people. Dreyfus and Rabinow also rely on this binary division. The foucauldian embrace of the notion of pastoral power is an instance where the complexity Foucault attempts to capture inevitably returns to the familiar and reductionist thesis of power, namely, that power is essentially

5 In a fairly representative response to such views, Vera Abriel, in "Shut up, sisters; we had a grand old day", resents the insinuation that: before feminism women had hopelessly circumscribed lives, their freedom severely limited, their existence dull and boring. In my eyes, that devalues the lives of women of older generations. Not to mention that nothing could be further from the truth (SMH 10/3199). This complicates Patton's idea that within relations of domination people do not exercise power. It also complicates and problernatises exactly what "domination" is. And it places in question any absolute sense of what constitutes and who decides what is dominating. According to what value system, for example, does one consider domination given the contingency of positive and negative relations? 102 repressive. Patton's argument participates in this style of thinking about pastoral power, something which Foucault argued should not be essentialised as a theory of power but rather seen as just one aspect of power at work. The pastoral model should be understood as part of Foucault's earlier attempts to understand the workings of governmental power rather than as a succinct and fmal metaphor that captures power's identity.

Like Dreyfus and Rabinow, Patton also believes that the panopticon: provides a model of such mechanisms for controlling the conduct of others: the asymmetrical structure of visibility which is the key to the architectural design maps on to the fixed asymmetrical distribution of power which defines every system of domination (Patton, 1998:68). Again, what is not considered here is Foucault's assertion that every citizen is in the watch tower and every citizen has interests in the complex functioning of society. Patton certainly occupies some space in the watch tower, as does anyone who has an interest in knowing or questioning power. In fact, Foucault argues that because everyone is interested, there is no need for anyone in particular to occupy a central surveillance space. There are not two distinct structures of power: one a dominating kind which is beamed down and the other a more supplementary structure where power is mainly exercised between people. Foucault argues that the panopticon is a technology in which everyone has vested interests: ... if you ask me whether the new technology of power has its historical roots in a specific individual or in a group who would decide to apply this technology in their own interests and in order to shape the social body according to their designs, then I would have to say no. These tactics were invented and organised according to local conditions and particular urgencies .. .It should also be noted that these ensembles do not consist in a homogenization but rather in a complex interplay of support among the different mechanisms of power which nonetheless remain quite specific (Foucault, 1989b).

It can be seen, though, that Foucault's neologisms, coupled with his commentator's

103 desire to paraphrase and domesticate this language leads many, and indeed Patton himself, towards a rhetoric that glosses over the radical break Foucault makes with the repressive hypothesis. Unfortunately, what many foucauldian accounts do is to rely on such metaphors as: "strategy", "calculation", "discipline", "economies of power'', "modalities of power'' as equivalents of repressive intention. This conflation serves to undermine the complexity of Foucault's intervention. Patton wants to further emphasise the repressive hypothesis rather than recognise that Foucault's attempt to move beyond this notion, or to seriously complicate it, necessitates a certain degree of linguistic and conceptual innovation. With his reassessment of the metaphors of power within the panopticon and pastoralism, Foucault explores aspects of power where even within relations of repression there are powers at work which cannot be seen as conforming to, or simply reinforcing, this relation.

Patton's notion that domination rules out the opportunity for the exercise of power and can only offer meagre opportunities for resistance, rebellion or revolution, takes him further away from Foucault. Patton's wish for the "possibility of transforming existing economies of power'' means that he follows a rather restricted teleology rather than the more innovative and challenging aspects of Foucault's oeuvre (Patton, 1998:70). In emphasising the argument that power is a certain kind of action, Patton embarks on what he considers is the Nietzschean view that "those subject to relations of domination will inevitably be led to oppose them", and that domination is not something to be opposed if it is conducted in the attempt to maximise potential (Patton, 1998:73). In sum, Patton transforms Foucault's "thin conception" of power into "a more robust theory of human agency" and hopes that this is the direction for overthrowing and then establishing more favourable relations of power (Patton, 1998:74).

Patton argues that: what distinguishes an action from a mere bodily movement is the fact that it is voluntary rather than involuntary motion, and that it is intended to serve some purpose. Actions are intentional, goal-oriented

104 movements or dispositions of bodily forces (Patton, 1998:67). This model of power reiterates a very conventional account which assumes the overt consciousness of subjects of power and the accompanying conceptual baggage of a rigid causality, and a certain notion of origin, according to an assumed and unaddressed detenninism. Indeed, Foucault would assert that we are constitutionally incapable of grasping such fmal truths and problematises this notion of a knowing subject who may access The Truth and detennine one solution. People are not always aware of the motivations for, or the effects of, their actions. Foucault takes direct issue with the question: "who knows?'', placing the Cartesian notion of the subject who knows into serious dispute. In this same way, Patton's understanding of intention must be put into question. As noted earlier, Foucault argues that: there is no power that is exercised without a series of aims and objectives. But this does not mean that it results from the choice or decision of an individual subject; let us not look for the headquarters that presides over its rationality (Foucault, 1990a:95) Although Foucault does not make this point often, it is apparent that he did not wish to imply that power is consciously active. Instead, Foucault stressed the perverse character of intentions and the frequently masochistic and self-defeating desires of subjects. Power relations can, but do not essentially, rely upon conscious intent6.

I have spent much time addressing the fact that power relations are not governed according to a causal equation of:

POWER >>>>>>>>>>>>> RESISTANCE. (1) (2)

Foucault also argues that resistance is not a thing or action which is apart from power: Should it be said that one is always "inside" power, there is no "escaping" it, there is no absolute outside where it is concemed... these points are present everywhere in the power network? Hence there is no 6 To reject or to claim conscious intent or "consciousness" (like "power") is laden with the complexity of human relations and is always subjective and arguable. 105 single locus of great Refusal, no soul of revolt, source of all rebellions, or pure law of the revolutionary ... they can only exist in the strategic field of power relations. But this does not mean that they are only a reaction or rebound, forming with respect to the basic domination an underside that is in the end always passive, doomed to perpetual defeat. Resistances do not derive from a few heterogeneous principles; but neither are they a lure or a promise that is of necessity betrayed. They are the odd term in relations of power; they are inscribed in the latter as an irreducible opposite (Foucault, 1990a:96). Resistance is in and of power: it is the nominal reference one gives to certain instantiations of power. Resistance is in the fold of power. In other words, power is not a synonym for evil, with resistance its righteous opponent.

Attempting to distinguish the original action or actor which embodies power, from the one who is acted upon or who resists, is quite problematic. The dynamics of power cannot be classified according to such a model unless we presume a vecy restricted and conventional notion of action, where power produces a singular and fixed effect. In fact, power becomes defined and reified as the effect itself. For example, the most common assumption is that power effects control and so comes to be considered as control itself.

However, if one thinks in terms of the plurality of effects that power relations produce - that dynamics of power cannot necessarily be identified as one single originating action by an actor, followed by the reaction of another - one can see the morphic playfulness of power and the fact that it is not an autonomous entity. Power is as varied as the myriad of relations, experiences and interests that are expressed in a society. Power relations are political. Perhaps the equation of relations of power, although they frequently involve more than two parties, could be represented more accurately as:

POWER> < POWER.

Apart from taking fields of relations where power appears to be shared, Patton

106 wants to devise a theory of power that will allow him to identify the site where dominance or repression occurs, as if to discriminate a space where he can judge what is power and what is not. In other words, Patton constructs a model that presumes to determine what is control and what is not. Patton argues that "by confining himself to the very thin notion of human being as a subject of power, Foucault deprives himself of the means to provide ... the possibility of transforming existing economies of power" (Patton, 1998:70). Patton hopes that by mobilising the "Nietzschean" strand in Foucault's work he may be able to open Foucault's account to enable "developmental power'' which works to "maximise" human potential (Patton, 1998:70). Patton argues that by reading Foucault in this way: we can see that Foucault's conception of human being in terms of power enables us to distinguish between those modes of exercise of power which inhibit and those which allow the self-directed use and development of human capacities. To the extent that individuals and groups acquire the meta-capacity for the autonomous exercise of certain of their own powers and capacities, they will inevitably be led to oppose forms of domination which prevent such activity (Patton, 1998:72).

Concentrating on what he considers to be Foucault's concept of capacity for action, Patton envisages "a different economy of power'' which "enhances the feeling of power'', transforming it from a reactive and denigrative will to power over, into a strong-willed extractive developmental and positive process. By transforming Nietzsche's genealogy of morality into a genealogy of power, Patton recalls Nietzsche's moralism. In the desire to explore what we may become, Patton argues that "following Nietzsche" Foucault: allows that new human capacities may come into existence as effects of forms of domination, only to then become bases of resistance to those same forms of domination. Deleuze takes this Nietzschean thought a stage further in suggesting that the forces which defined man have already begun to connect with new, non-human forces: 'Spinoza said that there was no telling what the human body might achieve, once freed from human discipline (Deleuze, 1988:90)' (Patton, 1998:71).

107 Patton thus believes that some forms of domination are productive, as evidenced in his principle of extractive power which he acknowledges is derived from humanist C.B. Macpherson's Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (1973) (Patton, 1998:72). In this case extractive power's purpose is to enhance the powers of its subjects (Patton, 1998:69). Patton calls on Foucault to validate this by arguing that "asymmetrical power relations are not in themselves evil", and "not all cases of domination are objectionable" (Patton, 1998:69). By coupling his version of Nietzsche's genealogy of morals with Foucault's history of sexual morality as expressed in his second and third volumes of The History of Sexuality. and by attempting to apply them to the study of power, Patton endorses the same rationale of good versus evil which ignores the fact that one needs to acknowledge the disparity and diversity of moral truth. Foucault's genealogy of sexuality did not engage in the kinds of absolute moralisms that Patton commits: the "good" and the "bad". However, Foucault did find modem sexual mores repressive because they are preoccupied with "constituting oneself as the ethical subject of one's sexual behaviour'' (Foucault, 1990b:240). Patton thinks that present ways of being show promise of being transformed into better, more informed ways of being. Patton's wish for a "surrogate for hope" in which one can work with identifying instances of power as domination puts him in the same mode of thinking that is critiqued by the more rigorous and complex aspects of Foucault's work.

In fact, in "Polemics, Politics and Problematizations" (1991b) written just before he died, Foucault argued that "in the serious play of questions and answers ... an obstacle for the search for truth" is the polemicist's desire for the solution (Foucault,1991b:ll2). Foucault suggests that polemics seeks the mistaken, the "neglected, ignored, or transgressed; and it denounces this negligence as a moral failing; at the root of the error... " (Foucault,l991b:112). What Foucault objects to is not an interest in "questions and answers" and "problematizations" with which he must himself identify, but the belief that one can "answer something completely", for example, believing that "there is a political formula likely to resolve the question of crime and put an end to it" (Foucault,l991b:114). Of course, Foucault recognises that in this "play" of:

108 critical analysis ... one tries to see how the different solutions to a problem have been constructed; but also how these different solutions result from a specific form of problematization. And then it appears that any new solution which might be added to the others would arise from current problematization... The work of philosophical and historical reflection is put back into the field of the work of thought only on condition that one clearly grasps problematization not as an arrangement of representations but as a work of thought (Foucault, 1991 b: 114). Patton's claim towards transforming relations of power is polemical, in Foucault's sense of an inability to recognise the contingent nature of any notion, because it cannot recognise its engagement in the work of thought but rather poses itself against it.

Patton's circumscription of Foucault's account of power, a circumscription he makes in the hope of change, is not one that sits well with the properties of power that I have presented throughout this thesis. His understanding of subjectivity, truth and power are quite restricted. As I have previously stated, Foucault's point that power, in its peculiar perversity of expressions, undermines and transforms the oppositional sense of relations of domination contra the powers of rebellion or revolution, is not acknowledged within Patton's account. In fact, Patton regards Foucault's critique of the power/resistance opposition to be a major mistake in the development of Foucault's theory of power, preferring Foucault's work on power in The Histozy of Sexua]ity which Patton believes offers a way to distinguish between "power over" and resistance.

The assumption that one always knows what one does, that one is conscious of the effects of power that one exercises or that one is even aware of the exercise of power upon oneself or others, is a fairly extraordinary one, and certainly not one that post-structural accounts can glibly endorse. Thus, power cannot be reduced to Patton's notion of capacity without significantly simplifying, or ignoring, the many ambiguities and difficulties in Foucault's oeuvre.

109 d) The Rationalisation of Power? There are, of course, writers who simply equate the notion of power with control, further emphasising the repressive hypothesis under the guise of a foucauldian approach. In "Government in Foucault" (1991) Barry Allen, describing Foucault's concept of government, argues that: government represents a widening control of conduct by historically new instruments and relations of power in which technologies of power through the construction of truth, norms and knowledges are continuously redefined and rationalised in the discourse and practice of medicine, psychiatry, economics, pedagogy, advertising, and what calls itself the media. Power works by means more subtle than occlusion, censorship, threat or outright violation. The tactics, targets and instruments of power are reconfigured in the productive work of advertising, the media, the therapist, etc, in which they guide the possibilities of conduct. This is a power relationship by virtue of which one subject acts upon the significant space of possibilities in which another interpretively situates its future, thereby to a variable degree governing the latter's conduct. The means by which control may be affected are very heterogeneous (Allen, 1991:431).

Allen argues that Foucault criticises the assertion that power is a property, and Allen takes from this the notion that "power sustains a polymorphous politics of control" (Allen, 1991; 431). He expresses the belief that power is located throughout society but is nevertheless a controlling mechanism. Allen reverts to using the terms "power" and "control" interchangeably, neglecting Foucault's insight that "power'' is not another word for "domination". In a later article, "Foucault and modem political philosophy" (1998), Allen rethinks this earlier position, arguing that: perhaps the best that political philosophy can do without degenerating into ideology is to seek conceptions which yield the greatest insight into where we are now, what we have become... [W]e are wary of the radical agenda(Allen, 1998:195).

110 Still apparent in this revision however, is Allen's assumption that power works on, and not from, the subject. He considers that modem forms of power produce docile bodies that are "simultaneously stronger and more obedient'' than before (Allen, 1998:174). Again, the assumption here is that modem power has increased, multiplying its grip on the body where "individual conduct is constantly monitored, differentiated, and ranked in relation to group norms" (Allen, 1998: 175). Such power renders the social body "easier to direct and subjugate, and also more calculable and easier to know, a predictable object for the quasi-scientific knowledge of the social or human sciences" (Allen, 1998:175).

Allen's definition of power works in tandem with notions of predictability and causality: "an exercise of power is an action designed to govern someone's conduct by modifying their subjective representation of the practically possible future" (Allen, 1998:177). Allen presumes that the exercise of power is a singular movement whose intention is to produce a particular and predictable effect. The problem with such a conceptualisation is evident in Allen's own question: how is the discourse of truth able to fix limits to the rights of power? He assumes that hidden behind discourse are the manipulative producers of truth, the creators of the repressive regimes that dominate us. In asking the question in terms of an emphasis on limitation and flXity, Allen must presume that the right to power is a privileged one and that the field in which it is possessed and expressed is rarefied. likewise, in "The Genealogy of Justice and the Justice of Genealogy: Chomsky and Said vs Foucault and Bove", philosopher Harold Weiss (1989) presumes that power is exercised by rationality, by the regimes of truth that produce and then restrict and tame it. Weiss summarises Foucault's argument that: "truth is an historical product or effect of certain power configurations and that a particular regime of truth is set up only by virtue of its complicity with power'' (Weiss, 1989:78). Weiss asks the following question, in part as a criticism of the latter claim: "how can we be in and of power and still work against it?" (Weiss, 1989:78). Weiss considers that if we are thoroughly enmeshed within power

111 systems then how can we resist them. how can one be in and against something at the same time? Although Weiss' question, in its fullest implications, could mark a radical reconfiguration of the "repressive hypothesis" that equates power with prohibition, he instead implies that one is not already within relations of power when resisting power. In other words, Weiss assumes unequivocally that power equals repression.

Weiss understands power to be the weapon of oppressive governments and not the implicit dynamic present within all social relations, even within the most "just societies". He thinks in terms of relationality so long as the tentacles of those connections do not become ubiquitous. Instead, he presumes to struggle against power, using Foucault's name to further this ambition. He claims that "a comprehensive interpretation of Foucault is within reach'' and aims to re-interpret Foucault so as to offer an "ironic reading" (Weiss,l989:94). The definition of irony is that the literal meaning of a thing is different to the actual meaning. In other words, Weiss overlooks (or indeed one may well question the rigour of Weiss' attention to) Foucault's distinctive theory of power on this basis.

Weiss' attempt "to articulate more fully the fate of justice in post modem critical debates" is at odds in this sense with Foucault's problematisation of the kind of humanism which understands and seeks to reduce power from the clutches of sovereign interests in the effort of a benign moralism (Weiss,l989:94). Foucault argues that no one is exempt from power, as it defmes our very being. There is no rationalisation of power from which one can hope to escape, as the very desire to overcome power (this kind of rationality being part of the totality of ways of being) is just another facet of power at work within the complexities of power relations in which everyone is inscribed. No one is ever without or before power as it produces everyone: it is at work within all relations.

Thus, a rigorous assessment of power cannot be reduced into this. Weiss' "ironic reading" reveals an interest in reducing the significance of Foucault's intervention into the study of power and a desire to obstruct it. Hence, Weiss' argument against

112 power illustrates the perverse ontology of power where power mutates. e) Power'# Restriction In the Journal of the Histozy of Ideas, (1990) Jerrold Seigel recognises that Foucault's work leaves itself open to multiple interpretations. He argues that this is because of the "sharp changes of orientation and vocabulary that he [Foucault] took pleasure in throwing like sand in the faces of anyone who tried to fix his features" (Seigel, 1990:273). Seigel prefers to focus upon the differences between Foucault's texts rather than pay attention to the apparent developments evident throughout the majority of Foucault's work. Rather than recognise the fact that the contradictions in Foucault's work on power represents the complex ontology of power in which we are all implicated, like Weiss, Seigel considers that the inconsistencies within Foucault's work represents a fundamental inaccuracy in his philosophy. Seigel claims that Foucault is an academic who is too engrossed in his own "problems" and personal "transformation" to be able to take responsibility for his statements and hence to present a clear direction for action against power. Seigel attempts to save Foucault by arguing that Foucault's theory of power can be transformed, with some work, into a model which promotes resistance to power.

Seigel claims that Foucault's most pivotal argument is that "modem forms of individuality derived from the very practices that subjected individuals to insidious regimes of disguised social power'' (Seigel, 1990: 274). It is important to recognise that this is not a citation that Seigel draws from Foucault's work but rather Seigel's opinion. In attempting to strip Foucault's argument of the difficult empirical material that it so insightfully recognises, Seigel seeks to establish the position that individuals "are the products of the social powers that dominate them" (Seigel, 1990: 274). Seigel argues that elements within Foucault's work promote the search for an alternative, or better form of subjectivity or way of being. According to Seigel, Foucault's theory of power posits that power lies "outside individuals" (Seigel, 1990: 276). According to Seigel: man is a being of incoherencies, a 'transcendento-empirical doublet', an 'enslaved sovereign' and 'observed spectator'. All our deepest

113 intellectual and moral dilemmas derive from these contradictions, [as do] our unsatisfied claims to understand the world we make and our unfulfilled aspirations to achieve the liberty we pretend to possess (Seigel, 1990: 279). Seigel recognises here that Foucault's project is to seek another notion of power that goes against established conceptions, whether liberal or conservative, about rights and freedom. However, like many others Seigel believes that Foucault's vision is a problematic one because it assumes what he refers to as an outside of power. That is, Seigel finds difficult Foucault's recognition of all the complexities of inter-subjective relationality. Seigel considers "power'' to be synonymous with "repression", assuming that power relations are straightfotward and something to struggle against. He can only understand Foucault in this way and instead of recognising that power is a multitude of different kinds of relations which are internal or intrinsic to the very nature of it, he argues that Foucault's work is a study of something other than power, an "outside" of power. Resultingly, Seigel argues that Foucault's work fails to provide "resistance to the social powers that dominate" (Seigel, 1990: 298).

Seigel perceives that power dominates, that it represses, and that it restricts and thus has difficulty with Foucault's understanding of production as non-prescriptive, enabling of concurrent "positive" and "negative" effects. Seigel can only understand power in tenns of a negativity, assuming that to be "inside" power is always to be repressed. He wants to see the subject as constrained by domination, where domination can never be displaced "even by Marx's belief that a higher fonn of individual existence could be found in proletarian communities" (Seigel, 1990: 298).

Because Seigel believes that power is repressive he is the one who assumes that there is an outside of power, where Foucault understood that this is not possible. Throughout his outline of Foucault's treatment of power Seigel accentuates Foucault's interest in institutional power, while de-emphasising what he considers to be Foucault's exploration of the "spaces" in which the subject exercises power.

114 Seigel considers the subject ''too densely invaded by a web of insidious power relations to allow any freedom of movement" (Seigel, 1990: 299). As a result, Foucault's exploration of anything other than hegemonically driven, dominating forms of power actually illustrates for Seigel the fact that power is innately restrictive. Seigel proclaims that power suffocates freedom and that freedom cannot be understood to exist within current fonns of power.

Siegel is not able to recognise that the very objection he makes is the one he is most dependent upon: a presupposition of freedom outside the social powers that dominate, a presupposition which he considers makes freedom from within impossible. He asserts that his project is different from Foucault's in that his aim is "not to side with oppression" (Seigel, 1990: 275). As evident in all of these arguments, ethical questions regarding liberation from power - like that posed by another foucauldian philosopher, Reiner Schurmann, (1985): "what can I do in our contemporary juncture of history to oppose power?" - struggle with the fact that all relations are engaged in complex relations of power. Ironically, the claim against power misrepresents the author's power as it is the very nature of relationality that allows one to speak, and even to take objection to Foucault's argument

A staunch critique of modernity is expressed in all of the above arguments. For example, in the article "Comments on Foucault's Anachronistic Truths" (1985), Charles EScott argues that the aim of one's work should be to draw on Foucault to show "that one kind of self-constitution is possible that avoids the dangers of modem self-constitution" (Scott, 1985: 547). He presumes that one can or should escape power, a position Foucault problematises for its lack of insight into the complex dynamics of social relations and its inadequate understanding of self­ referentiality. By overlooking the complexities of intent, the nuances of perversity and the question of the unconscious, writers such as Scott invest in a notion of the self which can resist or overcome such restrictions and detenninations. This rather conventional investment in a self-intending subject, or cogito, is not infonned by Foucault's appreciation of the paradoxes of power.

115 The struggle against power is not informed by Foucault's ontology of power. For there is no outside of power; no one anywhere is exempt from it. One cannot eradicate power. Foucault warns that one should not assume that one can overthrow power as power exists in the very argument that claims to critique or deflect power. He states that "one has to recognise the indefiniteness of the struggle [for power]. This is less of a face to face confrontation which paralyses both sides than a permanent provocation" (Foucault in Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982:222). Relations of power are ubiquitous and are always in play. Even the desire to turn Foucault's work into something different is an instance of power at work.

***

The foucauldian philosophers and sociologists I have discussed understand power to be located in the hands of institutions and they study power in those terms. Rather than pay attention to the empirical, to the question of "what happens?" scholars continue to turn a blind eye to it (Foucault, 1982b:216). Foucault considers that many analyses of the question: where does power come from? are indeed neglectful of the facts of power. This failure to consider evidence from the everyday is one driven by interest and by the fact that the complexity of power doesn't suit the kinds of moral absolutes that these writers want to impose. Foucault's work on the ontology of power shows that "although flat and empirical", the recognition that power is a relational dynamic that is subject to the complexities of relationality, offers a frame "in which one can attempt to critically investigate the thematic of power" (Foucault, 1982b:217). According to Foucault, analysing and recognising specificity is as important a task as pursuing patterns of uniformity or structure: "I think the word rationalization is dangerous. What we have to do is analyze specific rationalities... " (Foucault, 1982b:210). In attempting to analyse structures of power, many have relegated their studies to one particular dynamic which they label "power", rather than explore power's many different manifestations.

116 Many foucauldians want to identify power as essentially repressive by following the premise that there are fundamentally two types of power: first, dominating kinds which limit the experience of subjects, and second, non-dominating forms which work within the confines of these imposed limitations. Paul Patton's attempt to distinguish the two into a desirable and undesirable typology is one example of this notion. Through attempts to reduce power to a commodity, with its inevitable corollaries of possession and dispossession, presence and absence, power can only be repressive. As resistance is not of this negative order, a moralism which hopes for a better way is called upon to answer the situation. Those directing this rationality are of course those who consider themselves honourable subjects who are "capable of taking responsibility for their own actions" (Patton, 1993: 159). These individuals it is implied, will then "stand in a relation of mutual respect to one another" (Patton, 1993: 159).

Such arguments, as outlined above, which are more common than not have led many to the opinion that Foucault's central tenet is that power is not in the hands of a sovereign state but is produced by regimes of truth and institutionalised knowledges whose micro-expressions work to repress more thoroughly . It is clear from an exploration of central foucauldian texts that the most profound aspects of Foucault's conceptualisation of power are still too difficult for many theorists to accept. A strong preference for hegemonic analysis, the kind that understands power as something which is owned by authority, means that Foucault's rejection of the notion that power exists exclusively in the sites of a pluralised sovereign is frequently overlooked. Foucault did not argue for such a functionalist account of power, nor was he the critic of modernity that many wish to claim.

Emerging out of the above efforts to circumscribe Foucault's work on power is evidence that power is a force which operates within a multitude of different manifestations with different experiences and effects. Furthermore, power is exercised in ubiquitous and complex ways, even within those relations which are considered asymmetrical, where power is purportedly located in the hands of a few.

117 Power is also exercised by those who do not consider themselves powerful but resistant or powerless. Indeed, even "foucauldian" accounts which want to anthropomorphise power as a wilful controlling mechanism are themselves expressions of power's very dynamic; one of its myriad articulations.

118 Chapter Five "A Society Of Government": The Tyranny of "the Weak".

For each move by one adversary, there is an answering one by the other. But this isn't a 'recuperation' in the Leftists' sense. One has to recognise the indefiniteness of the struggle ...

(Foucault, 1980: 57).

We're not foolishly looking for trouble. But tyrants should know that they will be met with force. (Stem, 1996: 96).

...no matter what political party is 'in office' ... neither Liberal nor Labor are capable of tackling the nation's real problem. Nor would they want to, as they are in partnership with a corrupt system. (Veitch, 1997: 34).

They [the state] want us to be fighting each other over the crumbs instead of uniting and fighting against the real causes of people's problems. (Malhi, 1997: 12).

119 In the preceding chapter I established that despite Foucault's challenge to the presumption of the repressive nature of power, it is still prevalent within foucauldian analyses. This, I argue, represents a penurious reading of Foucault's thesis and an unwillingness to disengage from the convention of regarding power as the simile for, or definition of, control. The idea is that the subject who is "negatively" controlled by power may revolutionise this hold and work to control power to produce "positive" effects. In this chapter I explore popular ideologies which also work with the notion that power is a mechanism which one can control, a view that is evident in the rhetoric of various popular political movements of both Left and Right. This chapter is divided into four sections that are reflective of groups with significantly differing politics yet shared understandings of power. I have concentrated on widely publicised American and Australian movements whose rhetoric is united by a similar conception of power. This chapter is not intended as a study of the events per se, nor is it meant as an overarching review of the literature on each individual topic. Instead, I will attempt to illustrate the problem of trying to understand power as something that is held in suspension apart from oneself, as if power exists outside one's experience.

All of these different movements seem to capture a type of parochialism which appears to be on the periphery of political and social relations. And yet the issues discussed are telling of the politics of everyday relationality. Within the American context I study conceptions of power within the far-Right American Militia organisations, followed by an analysis of discourses about Waco. In the Australian setting I explore debates surrounding Hansonism. Finally, I examine the arguments of one individual, the politically non-aligned Unabomber, his understanding of power as well as the various responses to him. Such popular discourse, whether Left or Right, is centred around attempts to identify sovereign power and relies upon a presence/absence model of power wherein resistance is the absence of

120 power. In these situations, power is considered to be in potentia, something that is not already active. I argue that whether it be Left or Right, Socialist or Conservative discourse, the same assumption about power as something that is exclusionary is shared. In the attempt to deny self-interest through the call for a united liberation from power, there develops in all the following cases an inability to understand their complicity or implication in the reflexive relations of power.

I draw upon the importance of Foucault's theory to address such discourse, arguing that Foucault's work on the ontology of power enables a more nuanced, if admittedly difficult (by the fact that its usefulness isn't immediately legible) recognition of the nature of politics. In sum, to Foucault, power is relationality as: every power relationship involves a strategy of confrontation in which each adversary leans toward the idea that it may become the winning strategy... A society without power relations can only be an abstraction (Foucault, 1982b: 226). No one is outside of power and there can be no exteriority particular to the claim of resistance or reaction. This is because: power relations are rooted deep in the social nexus, and are not reconstituted above society as a supplementary structure whose radical effacement one could perhaps dream of... This is less of a face to face confrontation which paralyses both sides than a permanent provocation (Foucault, 1982b: 222). As such, the popular and the academic, the Right and the Left, are all implicated in a "game... in the field of the work of thought", a game whose play makes thought possible and constitutes the political (Foucault,l991b:119). Although they do not acknowledge it, the following examples are complicit in this game, indeed, are the game of power at work.

The purpose of this chapter is to show that the identification of power as "outside" or external to one's experience cannot be sustained. However, this should not simply imply the reverse, namely that these people are ultimately powetful when they argue that they are not, that life is actually fair, or that everyone is in fact equal.

121 Most commonly the absence of power becomes defmed as a singularly positive state, the repressed "good" - because those in positions of authority, those with power, are inevitably "bad". However, the point is that everyone is caught up in the dynamic of power and is implicated in relations of power from the outset. One cannot be in a state external to power. Thus, the ontology of power's identity cannot be relegated to strict oppositions between the good and the bad. This is not to argue that one should strive towards moral absolution or freedom from morality, as one always makes moral judgments precisely because we are defined in relation. Because we are always already in power dynamics, by implication we engage in the games of ethical value, and are at times compelled to locate and defme power in tenns of its presence or absence. This is a difficult point and is one which Foucault's own work illustrates, with its moves sometimes into and at other points away from a notion of the exclusionary nature of power. One must attempt to think this implication and the complex weave of empirical facts that confrrm it rather than reduce power's strange and frequently perverse ontology into an effect, one final outcome, that is, into notions of exclusion or repression in tenns of one individual inflicting an exclusive will or agenda.

122 1. The American Militias

In this section I explore assertions made by Right-wing American "patriots" that power is held by Leftist governments and stands opposed to the rights of "real Americans". Rather than adjudicate between the government and the militias as to the morality of the situation, I am concerned with conveying the fact that government/militia discourses are engaged in the games which characterise power relations. They represent a specific movement within the ontology of power, that is a part of the sum total of relational dynamics within the social body. In observing the ways in which these groups relate to one another, a number of contradictory and ambiguous arguments can be found which illustrate the fact that relationality is fraught with, and produces, differing opinions and different ways of reading the world.

Inevitably, by implication, people reduce the issue of power into one of moral purpose and invest in it a certain notion of value. People frequently deny the actual complex of powers in which they are engaged. An exploration of militia rhetoric illustrates this and shows that it is in the nature of power that at certain points a blind spot comes to motor one's perspective. What I seek to identify in this section are the many and varied discourses of power, including those that are thought to be internal to one "side", in order to show that power is comprised of relations in which one commonly resembles one's enemy. a) The Organisation

123 The American Militia Organisation is a loosely connected but interrelated assemblage of Americans who congregate in small groups throughout the United States. They share common as well as disparate beliefs and in addition to engaging in independent political meetings, also communicate through a variety of magazines, journals and rallies, and vocalise their ideas about what they consider acts of tyranny. Their textual focus is very broad and diverse, with some members preferring to concentrate on interpreting the principles of the American Constitution whilst others prefer to produce an extraordinary range and abundance of theories put forth in militia and gun journals. Militia members' interests can range from issues about liberty and justice in broad terms to the specific politics of gun control. Supporters differ in terms of ideological extremes and many share the militia's core beliefs but do not engage directly with the organisation. One could say, in sum, that the militias are not so much internally coherent as unified by a sense of resistance.

The Montana Militia was founded in February, 1994, and it introduced the modem form of the militias. Since then, the militias have expanded throughout the United States and also internationally through an increasing utilisation of the internet. Louis Beam of the militia Aryan Nations, describes the structure of the organisation on their web site under the title "Leaderless Resistance": "all individuals and groups operate independently of each other, and never report to a central headquarters or single leader for direction or instruction" (Beam, n.d. retrieved December, 1996). This is described as a cell - like activity in which all groups operate individually but are linked through common allegiances. As Beam argues, the groups are diverse and are organised so that each appears to operate as a separate source. They share a similar ideology but are widespread and exist in autonomous groups. This arrangement indicates the organisation's concerns with anonymity. It is argued that "phantom cell" structures protect the identity of members and protect them against exposure to the government whom they consider attempts to quash the opposition the militias represent.

In "Leaderless Resistance" Beam argues that this modus operandi is utilised by many dissident groups within the United States. It includes an explanation of the

124 militia's organisational procedures by the head of Wisconsin's militia, Rev. Matthew Trewhella (some leaders openly identify themselves) who is also the founder of other political organisations including the Missionaries to the Prebom and the United States Taxpayers Party. He explains: All militia life is centred around its cells... All fortified positions are determined, prepared and concealed by the cell. All combat orders are executed by the cell as the cell sees fit within its own context... since the entire purpose of leaderless resistance is to defeat state tyranny all members of phantom cells or individuals will tend to react to objective events in the same way through usual tactics of resistance. Organs of information distribution such as newspapers, leaflets, computers, etc., which are widely available to all, keep each person informed of events, allowing for a planned response that will take many variations. No one need issue an order to anyone (Beam, n.d. retrieved December, 1996). This concern with discretion is considered necessary protection from the tyrannical government whom they believe attempts to repress them. With the Democrats in power, a party which the militias believe is dominated by the political interests of the Left, the militias consider themselves to be unrepresented in government. They understand government to be corrupt, destructive and oppressive to their rights. The militias argue that a New World Order led by Jewish bankers is taking over the world.

This economic interest group is considered so powerful that world wide, governments have succumbed to the New World Order's pressures. The American government is considered complicit in a conspiracy with the New World Order to ensure control of the American population. This notion of the sovereign power of the New World Order, and how it achieves its authority, is quite loose and as a result the conspiracy is elaborated in very general terms. The central assertion, however, is that through its Leftist ideology the government controls and represses any opposition. Through the techniques of political correctness, multiculturalism and freedom of rights, it is believed that governments use Left-politics and its various rhetorics to achieve their goal to disempower the white American

125 population. It is argued that the New World Order seeks to subject populations to intrusive taxation and attempts to seduce individuals into mass consumerism in order to render them part of its capital (Beam, n.d. retrieved December, 1996). b) Ruby Ridge The popularity of militia beliefs received a massive boost in what members believed was an act of tyranny against a family living in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Studies of Ruby Ridge which include the head of the American Jewish Committee's Kenneth Stem's comprehensive commentary A Force Upon the P}aip (1996), show that this particular citizenry/governmental conflict was pivotal in the formation of a much stronger militia organisation.

In 1989 the ATE (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) set up surveillance on a group of white supremacists who were thought to be running an illegal gun business. One such suspect, Randy Weaver, refused to attend court when he was charged with selling illegal guns to an A TF agent, instead, returning to his property. He argued that as a citizen of the United States he had the right to arm himself and also to choose whether or not to pay taxes, thus placing fears in the minds of authorities that his actions would be emulated by others. On 20th August, 1992, marshals were sent to investigate Weaver's cabin. During this time Weaver and his 13 year old son, Sam, left the cabin while his dogs began barking at the agents. One of the officials shot a dog and amidst the confusion, Weaver killed one marshal while three escaped and the remaining two were forced to hide. Soon, hundreds of FBI agents, national guardsmen, an elite hostage team and state police surrounded the cabin, as well as protesters and militia members.

Reports of the incident were widely publicised. It was released through the media that Weaver's son had also been killed in the gunfire. More protesters, along with more media, came to assess the situation. As the Weaver's other children were considered hostages, the strategy was to wait for them to surrender. The Weavers

126 were heavily armed, but to what extent was uncertain. Bo Gritz6, who had formerly

served with Weaver in the army and was also involved in the Christian Identity religion which is affiliated with the militia movement, was sent in to negotiate. Gritz found that Weaver and his friend Kevin Harris had been injured, and that Mrs Weaver had been fatally shot. The children were unharmed, and eventually Weaver surrendered.

Past grievances with officials resurfaced and further inflamed public perception of the case. Fellow militiaman Gritz' co-operation with police in attempting to talk Weaver around suggests that at least from the beginning, officials did not consider Weaver's beliefs to be so strongly informed by the militia's views on governmental power. From the course of their action it seems that authorities underestimated the force of militia animosity to them, believing Weaver's behaviour to be the result of a relatively isolated or at least an extremist aggression. However, the theory that Weaver had been persecuted for his patriotic and religious beliefs became popularised. An increasing number of protesters including members and leaders of the militias campaigned behind a roadblock at Ruby Ridge. The reactive nature of the situation became magnified with each move, illustrating the fact that each were partners in a complex power play.

Indeed, rather ironically, the force of Weaver's convictions lead him to the very situation he most feared: the mobilisation of state authority and jurisdiction. In response to Weaver's actions the government felt that he constituted a threat to both officials and to the broader community. And in their attempt to challenge Weaver, the government reinforced his beliefs. Contrary to their stated intent, the government's actions produced the further mobilisation of the militias. The struggle between Weaver and the authorities thus became more intertwined, each side inciting and confmning the other's self-justification.

The principles of freedom, right and liberty and most significantly of all, the notion 6 Gritz is a former green beret, and inspiration for the character "Rambo". He was later to become Vice­ President of the anti-Semitic Populist Party, headed by its President David Duke, Ku Klux Klan member and head of the Christian Identity church. Duke has been linked to the Australian political party One Nation, with rumours suggesting financial assistance (Veitch, 1997:53). 127 of resistance, were emphasised in this power struggle. The militias invested in a morality of resistance which made possible their discourse and their power. The situation at Ruby Ridge was motivated by an oppositional dynamic in which both antagonists shared a very similar view of power. Their resistance was based on the assumption that their own position is "other" to power. The Militias identified with Weaver's politics of powerlessness and neglected to recognise the fact that Weaver was an agent in determining his family's fate. And the government overlooked the fact that its actions served to affirm Weaver's beliefs and indirectly popularised them.

The paradoxical nature of this conflict hinges on the fact that the assumptions involved are rigidly defined by a certain notion of action. It is based on a reactive/active opposition in which each side considers themselves reactive rather than actively exerting power. When power is taken to indicate the active, and resistance considered in terms of reaction, the very contingency of the definition which makes their actions meaningful as oppositional actions becomes abstracted. In other words, power and resistance cannot be said to be empirically divorced but are rather complicitously related as "irreducible opposites" (Foucault, 1990a: 96). In fact, at Ruby Ridge both groups considered themselves to be reacting to the other's "illegal" or "immoral" actions, thereby providing evidence that this is part of what constitutes resistance, moreover, it shows that these kinds of power are mutable. These commonalities, these reflections or mirroring features, are part of the complex of relations of power. c) "Militia Day''

April 19th, 1993 is known as "Militia Day". This is the day that the tragedy at Waco occurred in which members of the Branch Davidian sect were burnt to death. This led many of the people already enraged by Ruby Ridge to further consolidate their beliefs and strengthen their organisation. The Branch Davidian religion is a division of the Seventh-Day Adventist church led by David Koresh, who prophesised that Armageddon would come on 22nd April,l993. In preparation, he called for members to congregate at their compound in Waco, Texas. Amongst Koresh's

128 religious convictions was the belief that the forces of evil were located in the power of the government of the United States. Upon hearing that local police were conducting training exercises nearby, Koresh became worried that this was part of a government surveillance of the sect. Koresh reacted by recalling members from overseas, acquiring chemicals to make explosives and collecting ammunition to defend his followers. For someone who rallied against violence, Koresh's firepower was quite significant.

The events at Waco were represented through the same kind of rhetoric as Ruby Ridge, locating conflict between two antagonistic groups. The first, an extremist religious group and the second, government officials. The militias thought that government officials were sent to Waco to quash the Branch Davidians' freedoms because the latter presented a threat to the principles of the New World Order. The complex weave of beliefs and events at Waco were influenced by a section of the public including members of the militia movement who lobbied for the rights of the group, and also by the perspective of government officials and many in the general public who objected to the Branch Davidians' actions and/or beliefs. In certain ways the sect seemed to represent a threat and many believed that the government had an obligation to protect the public from such anned extremists. In many ways these attitudes are all plausible ones, this however is not conceded which prevents recognition of the sensitive nature of the situation.

When a parcel addressed for delivery to the Branch Davidian compound fell apart revealing hand grenades, authorities were alerted. The U.S Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) was called in to research the group and to interview former members who were concerned about the considerable amount of firepower possessed by Koresh. The ATF then approached the building with warrants but were refused entry. Koresh had been informed of the raid by leaks from the ATFs contact with local services and the media. A fifty-day stand-off resulted, as authorities believed that Koresh presented a threat to the people who were also in the compound, including a number of children.

129 Koresh was accused of paedophilia and the accusation, made explicit in the media, strengthened and further authorised in the public's mind, the government's objective to remove Koresh from his headquarters. Whether or not Koresh actually committed or tolerated child sexual abuse was never determined. The issue was that he was suspected of it. The notion of evil was personified in Koresh. With these doubts established in the minds of the authorities, their notion of Koresh as not only a heavily armed, but also "immoral" leader, was reinforced. Authorities then decided to use gas to force the Branch Davidians out. However, rather than a forced retreat, what resulted was a massive ftre. As ftre crews were not allowed into the building because of the sect's suspected cache of arms, the ftre could not be fought. Eighty people died as a result, including members of the sect as well as ATF officers.

Despite the complexity of the issues involved in this incident, the demonization of Koresh ran concurrently with the demonization of the government. The government's actions at Waco have served to reinforce the conspiracy theories of not only militia but other political groups who subscribed to a similar conception of governmental power as abuse. Both Waco and Ruby Ridge are events which have inspired an enormous amount of both Right and Left-wing discourse on the internet, in magazines and in films. For example, solicitor linda Thompson, who later became a member of the militias, was distressed by these events and produced two influential videos "Waco: The Big lie" and "Waco II: The Big lie Continues" which popularised the view that the government's actions were the result of a conspiracy to quash religious dissidence.

Involved in these power relations is a complex field of strategies and strategists that cannot be said to reside with two opposing and clearly coherent sides. The initial protagonists involved in the stand-off do not represent two autonomous perspectives, as within them individual differences of opinion and differing strategical styles as well as intra-personal conflicts, and even indifference, manifest. As much as they differ, at certain points opposing actors and their tactics also come to resemble the other. The fact that the above documentaries on Waco and others like them are also popular with groups from the Left indicates that the relational play

130 is quite disparate. People from a diversity of different political backgrounds and beliefs are implicated in this issue. Carol Moore, who heads the "Committee for Waco Justice", argues that the issue has "cross-over appeal to more than just gun owners, constitutionalists and militia members" and proves interesting to liberals (Moore,l997:15). She insists that many American activists, writers and film producers "have no intention of letting the matter rest" (Moore, 1997:15). Such theories, rather than situate their argument on the prospect that governmental officials may not have operated with the type of care required for the people involved, consider instead that the conflict represents the inevitable tyranny of government and they seek out evidence to support this position.

Many of the publications and discussions about governmental blame at Waco, although not supportive of militia ideology, have nevertheless become key militia texts. Such material of any political persuasion or narrative-style is appealing to the militias as evidence of their theory of a growing conspiracy against the population. This is because the underlying polemic subscribed to by all these commentaries seeks to determine, in absolute terms, the difference between perpetrators and victims. A campaign to allocate blame has followed.

The specific politics differ between militia groups; issues of gun control and/or race relations, for example. But the same notion of governmental power unites them. The same is true for the primarily reductive notions of power that government officials followed, which, overall, failed to confront their involvement in terms other than as a reaction to a threatening, dangerous religious group. The specific investments of all of these diverse groups are united by a polemic which is driven by the conclusion, however fraught, of who is good and who is bad. This decision is based on the contingently differential idea that people without power are considered to be inherently good and people with power are dangerous and hurtful. d) A Position of Powerlessness? The Oklahoma City Bombing

The Oklahoma City Bombing occurred on 19th April, 1995 and appears to have been the result of two individuals' anger at the American government's treatment of

131 returned soldiers. Political revenge was the motivation behind the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah government building which was headquarters for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Oklahoma City bombing occurred on the second anniversary of Waco, killing and injuring 167 members of government, other employees and their children who were on site in the building's day care centre.

Timothy McVeigh has been charged with responsibility for the bombing. When asked in an inteiView what he thought about Attorney General Janet Reno and President Ointon's call to sentence him to death, McVeigh said that "it was awfully hypocritical, especially because in some ways, the government was responsible for doing it" (McVeigh,15/4/96:36). McVeigh describes himself as a patriot who believes that the government instigated the bombing. He subscribes to the belief that Ruby Ridge and Waco represent the tyranny of government and that the government is engaged in the repression of its citizens.

McVeigh believes that by repressing its citizens the FBI must inevitably become a target for resistance. According to the logic of McVeigh's arguments, it is the government who instigated the kind of event that occurred in Oklahoma. In an interview, when asked about his militia sympathy, McVeigh stated: If it means that I was angered at Waco and I enjoy guns as a hobby, I

do go to gun shows, and I follow the beliefs of the Founding Fathers 7.

If it means that I was involved in the bombing, then that means about a billion other Americans were involved as well (McVeigh, 15/4/96:36). McVeigh's words reveal the unbending conviction in such beliefs and the powerful effect they have. It allows McVeigh to understand his crime as an attack on the government and to overlook the fact, secondary in his view, that the lives of civilians and their children were taken. McVeigh perceives a pure split between government and citizens, although the deaths of those outside and within the building including pedestrians, children, child care workers, sub-contractors and so on, illustrates their relativity. McVeigh can only understand relationality in terms of his connection with other people opposed to government, as he puts it: "about a 7 The "Founding Fathers" is a militia group, so called because of its interpretation of the American Constitution which, it is believed, reflects the values of the pioneers, America's founding fathers. 132 billion other Americans were involved as well" (McVeigh, 15/4/96:36). His conception of power is limited to the common belief that power is characterised by an uncontaminated split between adversaries: the powerful and the powerless, in this case the government and the people. As the results of the crime show, because notions of what constitutes "powerfulness" and "powerlessness" are relative, they are always mutually implicated.

Also connected to the crime is Terry Nichols, fellow Gulf war veteran and dissident. Both have strong feelings that the American government has cheated them and other Americans by neglecting the welfare of its soldiers. They believe that the United States government's choices during the Gulf war were tainted with secrecy and deception, and that the government has shown little regard since for its returned soldiers. Individually, or in isolation, some of these beliefs may raise plausible questions as the Gulf War did present many ambiguities regarding the role of the United States government and the nature of media coverage. It seemed to many that information about the war was restricted to what the government wanted to project, namely that the bombing which was carried out was conducted with humanitarian concerns in contrast to the tyranny and violence of Saddam Hussein. Many academic analyses of the war questioned the nature of CNN's slick war game -type coverage where smart bombs and precision warfare led some to ponder - did the

gulf war really happen or was it a televisual event?8 These confusions add some

weight, in many individuals' minds, to such beliefs.

McVeigh and Nicholls believe that the New World Order in fact staged the war under the guise of concern for Middle Eastern peace, manipulating this to achieve their real aim which was the assurance of oil reserves, then retreating when this assurance was met. Whether or not this conspiracy theocy is well-founded is not the issue here. The fact that MeVeigh and Nicholls consider themselves to be resisting and exposing power, and privy to an insight that others may not be in receipt of, is ironic. This unshaken conviction seeks to overlook their own engagement in relations of power. Power is understood in these terms as something whose value is

8 Jean Baudrillard's The Gulf War Did Not Tal

Because power is reified in such a way, the fact that power is efficacious, that is, it effects in both the "positive" and "negative" sense, is not recognised. People are "victimised", "disempowered" and "empowered" as a result of power. The ontological fact of power's efficacy and ubiquitous presence is illustrated by the profound implication of a diverse number of people in events such as those at Ruby Ridge and Oklahoma City including those directly involved, bystanders and also many children. e) Power and Productivity The stand against violence by groups such as the militias, among many things, produced the same violence it claims to have resisted. Power is productive, not in the sense that it is productive of wholly positive, or for that matter, entirely negative effects. In this way, "to produce" is not to imply the common moral metaphor of "good",just as "power as productivity" does not simply imply that power produces a predetermined or premeditated effect. Rather, the empirical evidence shows that power must be understood in terms of a generalised efficacy.

Militia power has been formative in many respects. In fact, in addition to a focus on international groups, American anti-terrorist strategy has been directed internally, towards the domestic threat of militia violence. At the time of the Oklahoma bombing, for example, it was assumed that international terrorists were responsible, as it had not occurred to many that American citizens could themselves constitute a threat. Media reports were slow to consider domestic terrorism and when this was eventually established a considerable degree of shock was expressed. The conception of terrorism as "other'', as something deriving from "outside" was the general presumption. The fact that some Americans were so hateful of their own government was at first inconceivable. However, expectations had changed considerably by the time of the Atlanta games where domestic terrorism formed the

134 acknowledged basis for anti-terrorist security.

The threat posed by the militias is particular to the force of their claims to powerlessness. Paradoxically, through the rhetoric of powerlessness the attraction the militias hold for people is the authorisation of their ideas and the power to promote them. Despite the militia's aversion to authority which they believe stifles the freedom the American Constitution advocates and their founding fathers fought for, local authorities such as politicians and sheriffs are central figures in the militia movement Their understanding is therefore based upon a reductive model that, intentionally or otherwise, misrepresents the complicit relationship they share with their "enemy". Rather than recognise that they are engaged in a power relation, it is claimed that they are the victims of the fmal effect of power. What they in fact show is that power is a mutating presence from which no one can "escape". Militia rhetoric overlooks its complicity in the relations of power and the fact that its members enact and articulate power. It seems that the difficulty in recognising this fact is a perverse and yet a central phenomenon of power's ontology.

135 2.IijscoursesaboutVVaco

Deep down inside your heart, you know the truth; you cannot hide. Christians who believe in God don't contemplate suicide.

The day will come we'll all be judged as we stand before the Lord. Koresh might have thought himself as Christ But you thought yourself as God.

Poem allegedly composed by some of the children who were released before the FBI attack. (Lewis,l994: 120).

Like the militias, the Branch-Davidians involved in the 51 day stand-off with FBI agents at VVaco believed that the government was corrupt and therefore used its power to repress its citizenry. However, unlike the militias, the Branch Davidians believed the corruption was influenced by "evil forces" rather than the New VVorld Order. As already indicated, authorities had ordered the sect to leave their compound because it was believed there was a massive number of weapons inside. This weaponry had been collected by the sect to ward off the "forces of evil" (the government) while the Branch Davidians awaited Armageddon. The FBI finally lost patience and decided to use gas to force the occupants out. However, the sect's leader, David Koresh, allegedly ordered his followers to light fires which, when

136 mixed with the gas, caused explosions and resulted in the death of eighty people.

As previously argued, American Militia interpretations of the event were that the "Bmnch Davidians", rather than being the aggressors in the situation as claimed by officials, were actually the victims, targeted because they were different and because they criticised the authority of the United States government. As mentioned in the previous section, the Waco incident holds the sympathy of many within the general public, and also forms the focus of interest in several major ftlms. Waco: The Rules ofEnaaaexnent was nominated for best documentary in the 1997 Academy Awards. Thus, an attention to the Waco event is not confined to militia oral-histories or even to film, for it has also become the focus of critique in various publications. One such book is From The Asbes: Malcina Sense of Waco (1994). Contributors include libertarians, academics from the fields of Sociology, Political Science and History, religious educators, criminologists and specialists in raid and assault planning. As would be expected from such a breadth of expertise, the articles represent a diversity of political backgrounds and interpretations. However, despite this diversity, the book's argument is quite coherent, united by the shared opinion that authorities wielded their power against a group who posed little threat. They argue that the government acted precipitously with the intent to quash any possible opposition the group presented.

In the context of this thesis, I am interested in discourses of power and, in this chapter, to illustrate that the discourses on Waco are part of the complex of interests and relations that form the perverse shape of power. The following exploration is intended to show that the ways in which power works are intricately connected in debate and contestation. The following analyses of Waco, like Bmnch Davidian and militia interpretations, are attempts to differentiate between power and resistance. Implicit within these attempts, however, are dissensions and ironies which inadvertently illustrate the complicit relation of power/resistance. Such analysis becomes embroiled in establishing a moral order according to a notion of power/resistance synonymous with bad/good, where the "negative" power of governments is posed against a notion of the "positive" resistance of its citizens.

137 Like the militias, libertarian discourse arrives at virtually the same kind of understanding as the Branch Davidians. By reducing power to a notion of control, the Branch Davidians' implication as agents in their own spectacular demise is not recognised. This is because they assume a rigid notion of subjectivity. Both groups consider the Branch Davidians to be essentially and only victims, and seek to overlook the significant contribution or interest they invested in the situation's stand-off. They ignore any evidence of the effects that the Branch Davidians in fact helped to produce. Insight into the profound complexity of relations between the Branch Davidians and authorities becomes extremely limited in libertarian discourse, reducing down into a pre-detennined argument about perpetrators and victims, the powerful and the powerless. Amongst the many paradoxes of the events at Waco and interpretations of them, is this claim of absolute powerlessness. a) The Analyses One contributor to from The Ashes is Michael Barkun, a professor of Political Science who argues that as bizarre and misguided as the Branch Davidians' beliefs might have seemed, it was morally necessary for government officials to grasp them. Barkun claims that the government was hostile to the group from the outset, and officials therefore decided not to conduct research into discovering effective means of negotiation with the sect. Barkun argues that the sect subscribed to a theory which ended up not only translating but in fact shaping the events that ensued. The Branch-Davidians' belief that the government was a repressive and tyrannical force proved in a sense to be a reality. Barkun writes that by using massive force the A TF and FBI: conformed to Koresh's millenarian script. He wanted and needed their opposition, which they provided in the fmal tank and gas attack. The government's actions almost certainly increased the resolve of those in the compound, subdued the doubters and raised Koresh's stature by in effect validating his predictions (Barkun,l994:44).

At frrst, it seems as though Barkun may offer a more intricate reading of the

138 situation and the fact that government officials should have sought to consider the Branch Davidian's beliefs, particularly their deeply entrenched notions of resistance to government. Instead however, because he sees that government officials seemed to refuse any recognition of their implication in events, at least in terms of reinforcing the Branch Davidians' expectations and uncompromising resistance to them, Barlrun views the government's "hostility" to the group as simply indicative of their geneml malicious intent, rather than as a complex ingredient in a recipe of diverse motivations, difficulties and ambiguities. Barkun believes that it is the government who is ultimately responsible.

Barkun argues that what the government wishes to call "suicide", is instead something more, the unfortunate result of the violence which authorities themselves inflicted. He asserts that the situation could and should have been easily avoided. It is Barkun's contention that time was something the government "could afford", and if Koresh had been given adequate time he may have been able to rationalise his situation in a less hostile way. If he had not been pressured and if authorities had not acted with such violence, Barkun ponders whether the situation may have ended differently. Barkun concludes that governments should avoid such dramatic presentations of force (Barkun,1994:48). He links this scenario to the Weaver affair which, he asserts "was Waco in microcosm- one from which, apparently, the ATF learned little" and, he contends, were not wanting to learn. Here again, he argues, was a situation where force was used against powerless individuals who had merely asserted themselves against a powerful state.

This may indeed be true as government officials certainly did not seem concerned to negotiate with the sect on their terms and were consequently insensitive to the Branch Davidians' interpretations of events. However, Barkun does not recognise that so too, from the outset, the Branch Davidians were also hostile and did not or could not negotiate with officials. The fact that the sect had in their possession a vast array of weaponry seemed to represent to the government that they clearly had hostile intentions. In attempting to differentiate between the exercise of power and resistance to it, Barkun misrepresents the entirety of these relations. Likewise,

139 fellow essayist, Timothy Miller, concludes that anyone who is involved in contemporary resistance movements, including individuals committed to "perfectly harmless but small and socially marginalised groups are almost certainly in for some very hard times" (Miller,1994:9). In fact, in this case Miller considers that authorities had initiated a situation they knew would lead to slaughter. It is evident that these writers prefer to discuss the conduct of the authorities rather than that of Koresh. The exploration of government procedure is designed to illustrate the belief that the raid was the result of a fear of dissidence rather than a reaction to crime.

Another contributor, James R. Lewis, considers "the weather conditions at Waco that day were poor for a gas attack and ideal for setting fire to a wood frame structure", and that this in itself suggests that the government intended to bum the occupants, making it appear like suicide (Lewis,1994:116). Lewis argues that the potential for fire should have been "readily apparent" (Lewis,1994:116). He also claims that the gas used in the raid: is so inhumane that in January 1993, the United States and 130 other nations signed the Chemical Weapons convention agreement banning CS gas. This treaty does not, however, cover internal uses, such as quelling domestic disturbances (Lewis,1994: 118). Pertinently, Lewis argues that the use of CS gas suggests malicious intent, but this cannot stand alone to represent one sole arbiter of blame. It should not be posed to explain the event in its entirety, just as accusations of Koresh' s armament cannot be taken to simply indicate a clear and intentional attack and be used to justify retaliation.

Such conjecture does raise some important points, particularly the fact that the actions of officials confirmed the Branch Davidians' perceptions of governmental power. However, such analysis refuses to recognise the difficult and subtle nuances implicit within the situation and the fact that the protagonists worked with a similar polemic which prevented recognition of their mutual responsibility in contributing to the tragic outcome of the situation. In fact, these analyses of Waco repeat the kinds of dualisms which characterise the nature of the conflict. Rather than recognise their

140 complicity in what Foucault terms the "work of thought" or the political, they believe that they can "answer something completely" (Foucault,l991b:114). They too understand the fault of a thing to be the result of a repressive motive of power.

This attempt to reduce an event's explanation to a notion of conscious intent is evident, for example, in an article included in From the Asbes: "Who Committed Child Abuse at Waco?'' written by Lawrence Lilliston, Chair of Psychology at Oakland University. He states that authorities considered Koresb abusive to children. Ulliston is suspicious of this, and questions the reliability of sources about specific evidence of abuse. Ulliston and many others argue that if federal agents knew that there were children inside the compound and if they feared for their safety at the hands of Koresh, they should never have: fir(ed) a fusillade of bullets through windows and walls, killing one child and severely terrifying the others... cut off electricity and other utilities necessary to the maintenance of health and safety standards for these children ... bombarded the building with spotlights twenty-four hours a day in an attempt to disrupt sleep and rest (Lilliston,l994: 172). Ulliston continues to question why the agents "assaulted the building with loud music and bizarre sounds" (Ulliston,l994:173). He asks that if firing bullets, disregarding health and safety and intentionally inflicting fear "is not abusive to children, what is?" (Ulliston,l994:173). Lilliston asserts that the federal government, the media and Americans in general have blamed Koresh and other Branch Davidian adults for the suffering of these children. The reasoning goes something like this: Koresb cannot be dealt with rationally because he is mentally ill (a real live Wacko from Waco) and, as part of his sickness, be is abusing the children. And because be is abusing children, we have an obligation to stop him, and if necessary we are allowed to take strong measures. Of course, there could be problems. Some people may get hurt. We may lose a few kids. But what the hell - at least they won't grow up crazy! (Ulliston, 1994: 173).

141 Lilliston seems to imply that the government is completely to blame for the deaths of the Branch Davidian children. He does not wish to consider that both the government and the Branch Davidians were complex groups who cannot be reduced according to a decision of who was most abusive to children, using children as a loaded term. Both parties refer to children as indicators of powerlessness, ironically using the power of tininess and its associated notions of dependency and innocence to substantiate their arguments.

As Lilliston points out, the violence of the government cannot be justified on the grounds of Koresh's child abuse, but nor does apparent cruelty to children by the authorities justify Koresh's position. The moral issue arising out of the "powerlessness of children" cannot be used to justify the violence of either side.

It is important to attempt to grasp the irony of the event: that the outcome simultaneously reinforces both the Branch Davidians' assumptions about governmental power, as well as officials' perceptions of the sect's power. Because power is understood here in terms of a power/resistance opposition, power is assumed to be a commodity to be contested, overcome, or won. As such, power is not understood to be ubiquitously and differentially at work within all relations, but held suspended from the actual dynamic of the event in a restricted teleology. Evaluation of the conflict then becomes so rigidly defmed that it repeats and illustrates the same logic that was driving the event.

Many of the writers in From the Ashes argue that the media's role in reporting the event was biased and sensational. The media is described as a vehicle for "official propaganda" and "official PR", which "intend(ed) to erase any possible sympathy or even compassion" with "lies, half-truths and 'cult' bashing and cover-up" (Maffett,l994: 12). For example, I. Lamar Maffett argues that the media was "fed data" from the government which was "beefed-up" in order to attract the largest possible audience (Maffett,l994:158). It is argued that the media serves as a vehicle through which information favourable to governments is somehow imposed onto the minds of the masses. Another contributor, R.W Bradford, argues that the

142 representation of events at Waco was at the mercy of the authorities' viewpoint. He contends that although President Clinton made the comment that Waco "was probably the most well-covered operation of its kind in the history of the country", this coverage actually took place about a mile away and consisted mostly of "news spoon-fed by FBI spokespeople" of which, Bradford asserts, most were "statements that were obviously contradictory and patently false" (Bradford,1994: 113). Can this, however, given the significant counter-position also popularised by militia groups and numerous others in the mainstream media, a fact overlooked by Bradford, in itself be used to discredit the government and victimise the Branch Davidians? In fact, it is common for the decision to be "yes", the notion that a decision of guilt must be made and that any ambiguity, however pertinent, be over­ ruled by the power of victimology, that is, the power of the rhetoric supporting a presumed "silent'' minority.

Whether expressed by Right-wing militia groups or these writers, the notion that the government through coercive and ideological means exerts power onto a powerless citizenry is shared. A desire to attribute power exclusively to one site is based on the idea that power is a repressive tool. Their complicity in power relations, in producing powerful narratives of protest is not acknowledged. Both anti- and pro­ government forces believe power to be on the other side, suspended and locked away from them, when the case is that both are engaged in producing the event. This is not to conclude that "powerlessness" is in fact "powerfulness". Both terms are mutually inter-dependent, and cannot be considered to be individually coherent or autonomous. Within what is thought to be "powerlessness", however, there are also instantiations of agency and so too, within what is considered at one moment to be "powerful" is powerlessness. The empirical fact is that power relations are mutating and are productive of endless debate and conflict, that is: movement. Experiences of gross inequity and iniquity are therefore a part of power's movement as are experiences of equality and equity, and this needs to be understood in order to fully examine any series of events, especially ones involving an escalation of violence.

143 3. Hansonism The kinds of rhetoric I have discussed thus far are a prominent part of American politics. To bring this thesis' concerns into a local context, one of the most significant recent movements of Right-wing anti-government rhetoric within the Australian political arena is that of Hansonism. For many and varied reasons, Pauline Hanson became one of the most renowned protagonists in Australian politics especially during 1997 and 1998. In the following pages I explore conceptions of power which are expressed in the arguments that Hansonism has provoked. I will argue that the Hanson debate represents the agonism which characterises relations of power, and that attention to the rhetoric of Hanson and One Nation politics and also to contra-Hanson discourse reveals important facts about the nature of their shared, if unacknowledged, investments.

According to Hanson, as well as many of those who oppose her, power operates from governments who act in the interests of capital. I will argue that pro- or con-, the Hanson debate has been dominated by a discourse of powerlessness and works according to a logic that disavows its own considerable efficacy. I will also specify the fact that the complexities of power are indicative of the nature of relationality, the fact that there is not an absolute all-defining and coherent break between adversaries and the apparently different arguments that they advocate. In fact, polemical arguments show most clearly the fact that one's discourse is reliant upon the discourse of the other and is part of the play of thought. This, however, is not recognised and as such, the complicity of one's investment in power is denied. Their arguments come to resemble one another, working to produce among many

144 things a dependent polarity. The nature that incites ongoing opposition of this type of relation becomes symbiotic and the coherent identity or position of an adversary impossible to sustain. As shown in the following pages, the specific claims which protagonists make within the Hanson debate change according to their perceived exclusion from power. The dissensions the debate presents, and the various nuances expressed in these relations, represent part of the movements that constitute the nature of power and politics. a) Hanson Pauline Hanson was voted independent member for Oxley (which is located in the Ipswich region of Queensland) in 1996. Since then her style of politics has attracted national interest. Hanson offers herself as "the real independent", accountable to the people to whom she is indebted for support. Before becoming a politician, Hanson argues that she was well-informed about the worries of the people around her through her position as owner of a fish-and-chip shop where locals complained about various issues affecting the local area, including: high local crime rates, unemployment, land rights, union ineffectiveness and alleged corruption, drug­ related problems and the incidence of gangs. They complained to Hanson that no one seemed to want to work anymore, indeed, no-one was encouraged to work.

Hanson promoted herself as working class and promised to encourage small to medium-sized business, to address economic and social problems, and to disregard political correctness, which she argued rendered many important and pressing issues taboo. In 1995 Hanson joined the Liberal Party but was asked to resign when her letter to The Queensland Times in January 1996 caused serious controversy. From the point of view of her own personal opinion rather than her standing as Liberal candidate, she wrote about many topics considered politically prohibited: The problem is that the politicians in all their profound wisdom have and are causing a racism problem. I would be the first to admit that, not that many years ago, the Aborigines were treated wrongly but in trying to correct this they have gone too far. I don't feel responsible for the treatment of Aboriginal people in the past because I had no say, but

145 my concern is for now and the future. How can we expect this race to help themselves when governments shower them with money, facilities and opportunities that only these people can obtain no matter how minute the indigenous blood that flows through their veins, and this is what is causing racism. Until governments wake up to themselves and start looking at equality not colour then we might start to work together as one (Hanson cited in Dodd,l997: 39)

Hanson's constituency, the electorate of Oxley, had been a safe Labor seat for 27 years. Hanson changed that because her discourse appealed to the notion that the government ignores "real" Australians and is somehow in a vacuum and out of touch with real people. The idea that non-indigenous, non-migrant citizens were being overlooked in policy and justice decisions was aroused. Support for Labor was generally declining and Hanson struck at a critical moment. After her own political party, One Nation, was established, Hanson continued her "personal experience" style of oratory. Hanson asserted that people like her, whom she broadly defined as "hard workers", were experiencing a reduction in social, economic and political rights which was the result of a ruling class mentality which disregarded the interests of workers and ordinary people. This theory of persecution formed her initial and primary appeal. Government policy and its bias towards the development of corporate capital became the central focus for her critique; second was the belief that governments encourage dissension within the community through the use of political correctness. This technique, Hanson argues, privileges the rights of minority groups who, while they seem to possess obvious opportunities and individual agency, are ultimately disempowered through welfare dependency. Hanson's discourse from the everyday point of view appealed to a wide audience, some of whom focussed upon, and further embellished Hanson's racial prejudice. Support for Hanson varied and Hansonism became a discourse invested with a number of different interests united by a persecutory politics.

With Hanson's assistance, Helen J. Dodd wrote Pauline: The Hanson Phenomenon (1997). It attempts to challenge what they argue are inaccurate assumptions about

146 Hanson's politics and to distinguish between and separate Hanson's policies from the "Hanson" of media manufacture. The book is presented as a biography and outlines Hanson's family history, her career and her political experience. An editorial in The Oueensland Times is called upon to define the attraction she holds. It states: The arrogant leadership qualities of Paul Keating and the out-of-touch Labor party were given a resounding salvo by the electorate ... it cannot be denied that a contributing factor in possibly the nation's biggest swing against Labor was the Aboriginal issue and still others admired her for the bravery of her convictions in the face of the party machine (cited in Dodd,l997: 45). What Dodd attempts to articulate in reference to this article is that people liked Hanson's dissidence and the style of its unsophisticated presentation. In fact, what is not made explicit is that Hanson's discourse on powerlessness challenged established notions of the powerless. She inverted predominant conceptions of power in society, offering herself and those like her, "hard working patriotic Australians", as the real face of the disenfranchised. By confronting issues of welfare and particularly Aboriginal welfare, Hanson put into dispute the easy workability of identity politics. Notions of equity and entitlement largely reserved for the unemployed, migrants and Aborigines, were challenged by her insistence that non-Aboriginal, Australian-born citizens were being overlooked and rendered powerless. She argued that this attempt to disenfranchise is an interested one and one instigated by the demands of economic elites.

b) The Power of Everyday Observation As indicated, Hanson's public voice is concentrated on "everyday observations" and the notion that her experience is one of being denied access to power. Her perception of power as "other" is authorised by a limited understanding of relationality and resistance in which it is assumed the goal is to resist, or to oppose,

rather than exercise power. Hanson argued in her "maiden speech9'', presented to

the House of Representatives in October, 1996, that workers' rights are routinely

9 See Appendix. 147 overlooked. This was the main platform of her resistant stand.

The support which Hanson attracted aroused the attention of many people whose reactions included a combination of enthusiasm, outmge and partiality. Her politics influenced political discourse in various ways, provoking differences in opinion within many mnks. Hanson's arguments challenged the routine predictability of the political climate and disturbed the entrenched alliances of party politics. The contradictions which Hanson identified in the party system presented a challenge to established politics where she argued that the focus of all parties, particularly the Liberal and Country parties, for all their supposed differences, had become analogous in that their policies had become stagnant, and/or ignorant about the needs of their constituencies. Her claim to work from "everyday observation" appealed to a cross-section of different individuals and groups who both identified and disagreed with her analysis of problems, however her focus on the everyday was something that a significant number of people felt had been suppressed in favour of more elite political agendas. In fact, it is not only the dissension between Hanson supporters and those opposed to her politics that is significant here. Hanson's criticisms of migmtion enraged many. However, although suspicious of her motivations some migrants argued that they also recognised some of the problems which Hanson identified and argued against Her attack on ATSIC (The Australian and Torres Straight Islander Commission) funding sparked outrage but it also encoumged some members of indigenous communities to speak out about their concerns regarding the corruption of some members of ATSIC whom they believed had exploited access to funding.

Contradictions were also significant within groups who identified with Hanson's portrayal of struggling citizens, with one supporter complaining that things were getting so despemte she was concerned that she and many others like her would end up on the poverty line. The supporter expressed this in an interview conducted from her affluent home and whilst travelling in her large new car. Indeed, Hanson's discourse was complex and it seems that its strength was, to a large degree, inherent within its contradictions, both those delibemtely emphasised, and elabomted, but

148 also those which were unintentional.

Hence, Hanson's discourse was popular with a diversity of people who believed, to varying degrees, that governments overlooked the well being of citizens in the interests of economics. In her maiden speech Hanson argued: In response to my call for equality for all Australians, the most noisy criticism came from the fat cats, bureaucrats and the do-gooders. They screamed the loudest because they stand to lose the most - their power, money and position, all funded by ordinary Australian taxpayers .. .If this government wants to be fair-dinkum, then it must stop kow­ towing to financial markets, international organisations, world bankers, investment companies and big business people .. Australia must review its membership and funding of the UN, as it is a little like ATSIC on a grander scale, with huge tax-free American dollar salaries, duty-free luxury cars and diplomatic status ...The government must be imaginative enough to become involved, in the short term at least, in job-creating projects that will help establish the foundation for a resurgence of national development and enterprise ... (Dodd, 1997:22).

Government is understood as a repressive force which prevents citizens from realising their entitlements. It is implied that people lack access to power, that the government dominates and defends its possession of power. By wandering from misgiving to misgiving and not actually arguing her case in detail, Hanson encourages supporters to elaborate on these notions. c) Power as a Commodity As argued, the appeal of One Nation is disparate and varies from supporters who identify with Hanson's general observations, those who elaborate it into conspiracy theory, to those who are tentative about her arguments yet find her attention to marginalised issues and everyday concerns important. In fact, a combination of radicals and conservatives form her power-base in the One Nation party.

149 Interestingly, extremists such as those from the international militia group, the Freedom Scouts, identify themselves as One Nation voters. In the lOth April, 1999 edition of the "Good Weekend" magazine, Frank Robson interviewed members of the Australian branch of the Freedom Scouts. In "A few Bullets Short of a Militia", Robson explains that many in this group are also members of One Nation. And according to Robson, there has also been a recent surge of interest in militias among One Nation supporters (Robson, 1999: 22). The Freedom Scouts believe that global corporate forces control the world and overlook the interests of individual countries and their citizens. This militia is largely composed of gun lobbyists who believe that guns are essential to opposing such globalisation and to protecting and recovering rights.

Although not as extreme as the Freedom Scouts, Don Veitch in Hansonism: Trick or .Imi1 ( lm) also adopts a conspiracy theory, arguing that "the Hanson phenomenon" was created by economically-driven governments who found Hanson threatening. Veitch, a Hanson supporter and former member of the Citizens'

Electoral CouncillO, contends that Hanson's critique of "Asianisation" is no

different nor should it be seen to be any more offensive than the common critique of "Americanisation" (Veitch,l997:8). Veitch argues that: our 'System' (consisting of Parliament, Executive and High Court) is increasingly adverse to the interests of most Australians ... because Parliament does not make policy, it primarily rubber stamps initiatives that are agreed upon elsewhere (Veitch,l997:10).

He argues that "the real decision making is by the Executive (Ministers of State, Executive councillors, the Crown), in consultation with its 'friends"', and contends that Parliament is not the highest of powers. There is a power that transcends Labor or Liberal politics and "watches" and "works" the system (Veitch, 1997:10). This

10 The Citizens' Electoral Council, which in 1988 appeared as a new organisation, won a victory in a Queensland by-election. Veitch explains that after its initial success, it was reduced in popularity and effectiveness because of its management takeover by the powerful American far-Right advocate Linden La Rouche, who allegedly squandered moneys and reformulated its directives. Veitch also reports on another American militia group operating in Australia called the Christian Patriots Association, which has enjoyed a limited yet sustained success with its paramilitary style tactics and extremist rhetoric. 150 supra-governmentality he calls the "permanent, informal government" (PIG for short) (Veitch, 1997:13). According to Veitch, this group consists of the great financial powers of Australia who rule Australia and deploy Parliament to break the discontent of "the masses" (Veitch,1997:14). Given his conspiracy theory Veitch argues that the media, controlled by the Executive, intentionally promoted Hansonism in order to discredit it. This is because a "people's party" constitutes a threat to the Executive, and therefore the branding of Hanson as racist is intended to show the adverse nature of such politics for Australians. Veitch argues that race issues have been levelled at certain citizens in order to displace criticisms of government and brand dissenters as "racists".

While offering itself as an exploration of Hanson's politics and the media's reactions to them, Don Veitch contends that the system tries to quash Hanson's dissent. Whereas Helen Dodd's outline in Pauline: The Hanson Phenomenon (1997) reflects Hansonism in its least radical form, Don Veitch offers a glimpse of Hansonian extremism. Hanson's arguments conveyed in the official One Nation

text, The Truthll. also represents much of Veitch's radicalism, making Dodd's

outline of Hanson as an everyday woman concerned with everyday issues seem a misrepresentation.

The Troth is now very difficult to acquire. Most libraries do not hold the text and inter-library loans are very difficult to organise due to the book's placement in reserve sections at the few libraries outside NSW that do hold it. This could be as much to do with its contentious nature as with any alleged difficulty of acquisition. However, a copy is published on the One Nation internet site (n.d. retrieved Aug, 1999). It explains that demand has meant that stockists have sold out of copies. The One Nation web page includes passages from the book which are organised according to chapter headings.

As indicated, The Truth is much more extremist than the public face of Hansonism. Despite these differences, the central tenets of a politics which is attentive to the

11 See appendix. 151 issue of "powerlessness" fonns the pivotal point of attraction of Hanson. In Hanson's view, powerlessness is a state encouraged by indifferent governments who do little to ensure the proper government of the social and economic well-being of its citizens. Hanson argues that the alliances which government fonns with groups such as Aborigines and migrants are superficial ones which do not offer much in tenns of real power to these groups or to others in the community. d) Power and Interest It is interesting to look more closely at issues as Hanson sees them, especially the way that she inverts established ethical values, challenging conceptions of power which dominate discourses of family law. For example, she states in her maiden speech: I wish to comment briefly on some social and legal problems encountered by many of my constituents - problems not restricted to just my electorate of Oxley. I refer to the social and family upheaval created by the Family Law Act and the ramifications of that act embodied in the child support scheme. The child support scheme has become unworkable, very unfair and one-sided. Custodial parents can often profit handsomely at the expense of a parent paying child support and , in many cases, the non-custodial parent gives up employment to escape, in many cases, the heavy and punitive financial demands. Governments must give to all those who have hit life's hurdles the chance to rebuild and have a future (Hanson in Dodd, 1997: 25). Hanson considers that custodial parents are privileged by the legal system over non­ custodial parents. It is interesting that Hanson seeks to challenge the position of custodial parents because generally it is these single parents whom the courts believe experience hardship and require support in order to offset the difficulties of supporting children. People's feelings that they have been under-represented in the family court are stirred by her words. This particular argument may explain Hanson's attraction for many male voters who believe they are discounted by the family court system. By shifting attention to the concerns of non-custodial parents, whom she claims carry "heavy and punitive financial demands", Hanson introduces

152 new issues and shifts in the notion of power within political relations. Hanson is also a non-custodial parent. Although she does not acknowledge the self-motivated nature of her complaint, Hanson is of course involved in an interested power struggle.

Hanson identifies her "resistance" as a challenge to power, implying that it has a higher moral value than that of any political party's established and entrenched "power''. Hanson denies the fact that she is politically interested because she is "able to express... views without having to toe a party line" (Dodd, 1997:41). Ironically, Hanson appeals to her electorate that she is a citizen, not a politician. She thus emphasises a false distinction between the two terms: citizen/politician. This is because her own analysis of the everyday and her dual position as "ordinary" citizen and political leader, illustrate the fact which the success of her politics rests on, but which she does not recognise: that we are all political citizens. e) Contra-Hanson and The Socialist Worker Hansonism has served to incite and mobilise the powers it opposes. For example, The Socialist Worker published a special broadsheet about Hanson's politics in its 20th June, 1997 edition, and many of the stories in the 1997 editions were devoted to the Hanson phenomenon.

The Socialist Worker accuses the Howard government of "fuelling Hanson's rise", endorsing her message of prejudice and hatred, giving her "racist lies the official stamp of approval" ("Pa~ Four Insert; Special Broadsheet" The Socialist Worker, 20/6/g"/:2). The newspaper reports that "from the beginning Howard has defended Hanson's right to 'free speech"', reporting Howard's comment that "I think we have been too apologetic about our past" ("Pa~ Four Insert: Special Broadsheet" The Socialist Worker. 20/6/g"/: 2). They argue that: Howard is using racism to force through his government's agenda of budget cuts and economic rationalism. Dividing workers weakens the resistance to his attacks. Howard wants us to blame migrants for causing unemployment, when his job cuts in the public service, ABC 153 and Telstra are the real problem. As he introduces the Common Youth Allowance which will drive more students and young unemployed into poverty, he wants us to blame Aborigines and migrants for being a 'drain' on welfare ("P!u:e Four Insert: Special Broadsheet" The Socialist Worker. 20/6/97:3).

In another edition T. Tietze of the TheSocialist Worker argues: "They want us to be fighting each other over the crumbs instead of uniting and fighting against the real causes of people's problems" (Tietze, 23/5/97:3). And again, in the special broadsheet The Socialist Worker asserts: Howard and Hanson say they care about 'the battlers'. But they did not support the strike by BHP workers or the rolling stoppages by public servants in May. Their anti-migrant rhetoric is a way of trying to get workers to accept retrenchments and closures ("Pa&e Four Insert: Special Broadsheet" The Socialist Worker. 20/6/97:2). The newspaper contends that it is the government's strategies which have created the conditions for racists to build and argues that it is specifically budget cutbacks, privatisation, university fees and anti-union laws that are creating insecurity in

Australians, leading them to support groups such as Hanson's. A. Stewart of~ Socialist Worker advocates that in order to fight Hanson: the bitterness people feel needs to be channelled into a fight against the Uberals and the bosses ... we need to fill the political vacuum. We need Socialists in every community ... (Stewart, 9/5/97:6).

According to The Socialist Worker. Howard has given "legitimacy" to Hanson's "racist lies" in cutting immigration, slashing ATSIC funding and placing native title into serious question. The Socialist Worker explains that church groups and the media have condemned militant protests against Hanson and have called for peaceful candle-light vigils, because "the rallies are clearly having an impact, making it more difficult for Hanson to organise her national racist party" ("Pa&e Four Insert: Special Broadsheet" The Socialist Worker, 20/6/97:2). Other resistance has been organised by union groups, various political organisations and local 154 councils. For example, the Socialist Worker reports that Ashfield Municipal Council have prevented Pauline Hanson from rallying on council property. This prevents Hanson and One Nation from speaking at Ashfield Town Hall and other council premises. Councillors argued that Hanson: can have free speech- she can go speak in the park. But we're saying on behalf of the majority of rate-payers that we don't want that sort of meeting taking place in the area (Malhi, 417/cr/:3). Other councils, including Marrickville and Randwick in NSW, are campaigning to pass similar motions (Malhi, 4/7/cr/:3).

Here, political groups, such as churches and councils have become involved in the Hanson phenomenon, their interest provoked by their implication as subjects of power. They respond with a sense of responsibility, exerting their influence by challenging Hanson's popularity and questioning her ideals. Such emphasis in the community on regulating Hansonism illustrates Foucault's important point that the population is the instrument or machine of governmental power. It is the very stuff of the "political economy" at work, where: The population now represents more the end of government than the power of the sovereign; the population is the subject of needs, of aspirations, but is also the object in the hands of this government (Foucault, 1991a: 100). The population subjects itself to itself, if you like, and, by implication, it is perpetually engaged in this "society of government" (Foucault, 1991a:102). f) Complicity The Socialist Worker's main assertion is that alongside racism, economic rationalism is essentially to blame for Hanson's rise. They argue that instead of expressing anger in racist terms, dissenters should organise their anger around Socialism's more radical and ultimately equitable proposal to overthrow the system. The Socialist Worker does not recognise that side of Hansonism which reflects their own goals; a desire to overthrow the weight of a bureaucratic, governmental system and the control of the Executive, in short, big business and Imperial

155 interests. So too, Hanson misrecognises these alignments with socialist politics.

There is a mutual dependence by these oppositional stands on the notion that power is an exclusive commodity owned by capital and exercised by economically-driven governments. Their various attempts to resist and overthrow power are part of the same effort and are based on a very similar epistemology. What the Hanson debate reveals is that many of the concerns of the Left and Right intersect. Expressions of discontent revolve around similar matters: unemployment, poverty, crime. Indeed, even their analyses of power within government and the Capitalist system converge. It is considered by both that the ruling classes exploit the lot of workers. The identity of power is made synonymous with a notion of commodity and money; in other words, the interests of economics are thought to dominate issues of governance.

This dialogue is interesting because it shows that the logic of such opposing viewpoints presents a type of battle whose moves, given close analysis, are often congruent in logic. Each persists in the assumption that power operates from somewhere else, as the application of a series of techniques which preclude the citizen. In this case both supporters of Hanson and followers of The Socialist Worker assert that the government wants to discredit their dissent through deploying the media to debunk them. The government is seen as the source of all power. For example, either it is assumed by Hanson supporters that power is exerted by the sovereignty of Leftist politics, that government is controlled by "Lefties", or, in the case of Socialist politics, that power operates from the sovereignty of the Right Power is assumed, in these accounts, to be suspended or outside one's own negotiations for political acknowledgement. This demonstrates the point that power is not merely an agonistic relation, characterised by adversaries as such, but also by a kind of law of similars in which we are all implicated. g) The Politics of Power: Eristic Negotiation One interesting study of Hansonism that acknowledges the complex attraction which Hanson offers is Pauline ftanson: One Nation and Australian Politics edited 156 by Bligh Grant (1997). Rather than repeating the common sentiment of dismissive irritation or inflamed reaction, this work aims to explore and understand why such a phenomenon exists. Acknowledging economic, social and psychological factors and drawing on a knowledge of populist politics, contributors such as David Wells argue that this recent example of a politics of resentment gained widespread support as a result of certain economic, demographic and political conditions.

The argument that Hanson's rhetoric is a backlash to social change is one taken up by many commentators. Contributor to Pauline Hanson: One Nation and Australian Politics. Wells in "One Nation and the Politics of Populism" argues that certain political and economic changes have caused people to recognise, real or notional, a decline in their status. This perception of decline, he asserts: can be the basis for deep resentment. Such resentment can go in many ways ...if things have not turned out as they should, then it must be those... who are different- who must be to blame (Wells, 1997: 23). Wells claims that governments have disappointed the community: not only because they have fostered the expectation that their campaign pledges are not to be trusted, but also because of their apparent inability to deal with those economic problems which are having such a negative impact on so many people's lives (Wells, 1997: 22). Economic rationalist approaches by both recent Labor and Liberal governments are regarded by Wells as the main problem with social and economic leadership.

Like Wells, Ruth Bothill, another contributor to Pauline Hanson: One Nation and Australian Politics argues that although Hanson's politics are reactive: it is simply too easy to blame everything on Pauline Hanson. Australian voters have a perfect right to feel betrayed. We were. The adoption of economic dogmas from Chicago by central agency bureaucrats and senior political leaders, including Hawke, Keating and Howard, has combined with the global inflationary effects of central banking decisions in the 1970s, to make our manufacturing industry a basket case and our essential services no longer our own. Unemployed

157 working class Australians have suffered, while the rich soared to dizzy heights of affluence. But are leaders and their minders the only ones to blame? Could each of us have done more to break the economic rationalists' hold? (Bothill, 1997: 62). Bothill argues that Hanson's importance is in identifying what she agrees are central political problems. Unlike Wells who assumes that "the great majority of Australians are relatively uninterested in, and not very knowledgeable about, politics" (Wells, 1997:22), Bothill recognises that Hanson's politics is a crucial political indicator of a crisis in social and economic relations. Bothill argues that we are all involved in these complex issues, and that we are all responsible in the face of this change.

So too, cultural studies scholar len Ang refers to Hansonism as a reactionary form of politics, and yet in summarising her conference paper "Identity Blues" presented at the Alternative Dialgpes seminar (1999), she argues that Hansonism is: a response to the social uncertainties and cultural upheavals presumably caused by 'globalisation'. 'Identity', in this context, is constructed as the antithesis of change, the realm of attachment to the past, the signifier for what Meaghan Morris calls 'future fear' (Ang, Online posting, retrieved 6/5/99: 2). Such readings of Hansonism as a "politics of resentment" or as a political "backlash" reveal aspects of the movements within contemporary relations of power. The implicit assumption made by many academics is that in the face of change the academy can offer a more "progressive politics" to Hanson which, for example, takes "into account the importance of 'place' and 'community' as sites of everyday engagement in the slow and practical reconstruction of the social" (Ang, Online posting, retrieved 6/5/99: 2). A similar point was made by the foucauldian theorists I explored in the previous chapter, particularly Patton's reading of a noble politics of "hope" (Patton, 1998:65). Indeed, both Hansonism and its various commentators are political in that they are based on the notion of crisis and a sense of reform.

158 Put simply, each considers its politics to be the most useful. However, there are certain problems with this equation of "use" with progress. "Use" is defined in much the same way as are notions of production, that is, it is reduced into an entirely positive sense where a knowing subject has control over, or can determine the outcome of, events. This politics assumes that "one knows what is best". Although one is necessarily compelled to adopt this politics (and it is certainly not my point that there is any error in this), as an evaluation of the ontology of power it must be recognised that there are no such singular effects of power.

Foucault argues that this desire for hannony is inevitable but it is also a "great fantasy" (Foucault, 1980: 55). He reminds us that politics is not uniformity but "the materiality of power operating" on an extremely diversified social body (Foucault, 1980: 55). Power is implicated within an endless process of production. It is not determined by a restrictive teleology or some all-defining causality, but by what are considered both the "good" and the "bad". As the above discourses inadvertently serve to illustrate, it is important for academics and writers to recognise that all of the moves in this dynamics of debate are expressions of power at work and that power "functions out of powers" (Foucault, 1989a:210). h) Governmentality In the introduction to Pauline Han!IDJ1: One Nation and Australian Politics, Grant argues that "populism always is in a sense a political scream motivated by a heartfelt perception that injustices have been visited on people" (Grant, 1997:8). He states that "a kind of truth resides in the scream but it is not the kind of truth upon which democracy is founded", qualifying that "democracy involves debate which involves an engagement and critical openness to the arguments of others" (Grant, 1997:8). Grant's simple observation that "it's very hard to listen when you're screaming" is an important one (Grant, 1997:8). However, most of the time one does not acknowledge the fact that one is a political subject And it is on this very basis that people find it difficult to actually listen to the other's argument. Indeed, Hansonism illustrates the fact that although not explicitly conscious of it, one is compelled, by the very fact of one's implication as a subject of power, as a political being.

159 In contrast to Grant's conclusion that populism, although inevitable, is antithetical to democracy, it is necessary to understand that such expressions are governmental power at work. Democracy is forged within, and is alive to, dissension and debate: the workings of all of these discourses, these multiple sites of powers, all constitute the shape of "the political". Because power relations are so complex, so too is the political arena in which these relations are enacted. It is not the case that discourses such as Hansonism prevent the course of democracy. Indeed, it is precisely their expression of interest, along with all others', that represents the intrinsic workings of power even in democracies. In fact, Hansonian politics inadvertently shows that because one is a social being, one's subjectivity is defmed in relation, meaning that one can be both the victim and oppressor, powerless and powerful at the same time.

160 4. The Unabomber

Relying heavily upon the notion that power is exclusive, a possession that can be seized, retired professor of mathematics Theodore Kaczynski writes his thesis against those who, he understands, possess power. He argues that power is domination, that domination is inevitable, however he distinguishes between "good" and "bad" types of power or domination. Power as it works today, he asserts, is exerted by the interests of economics. Kaczynski argues that the effects of the exercise of power are thus singular and serve to repress people. In fact, he argues that everyone is victim to the demands of the economic system which overrides the interests of the people it is thought to serve. Kaczynski believes that the perceived power which the system offers is merely superficial and that another form of power or domination could offer subjects more freedom.

Thus, the themes "power'' and "domination" are considered synonymous. As the issues discussed in this chapter have indicated, clearly there are many problems with

Kaczynski's manifesto on modem power12. However, from this Foucauldian

standpoint, its "problems" are an elucidating instantiation of power's very expression. It is not the lack of a coherent logic expressed in the text, but the inherent contradictions that are made which illustrate that Kaczynski's imagined state of domination where power works for "the good", is nevertheless of power's grammar: it is part of the elements of power's very articulation.

12 See appendix. 161 a) The Crimes Until his identification and arrest, the alias "Unabomber'' was given to Kaczynski in reference to his main targets: universities and airlines. "The Unabomber" was infamous because he killed three people and injured twenty three others during a seventeen year string of bombing attacks in the United States. The first bombing occurred at Northwestern University in 1978, and targeted a professor at the technological institute. A year later a second letter bomb was left at the same site, injuring a student who opened it. Mter that Kaczynski delivered bombs to an airline executive, to computer-science departments at Vanderbilt and Berkeley Universities, and to a University of Michigan professor.

Police believe that the Oklahoma City bombing (1995) instigated Kaczynski's resurgence after years of silence. Mter Oklahoma Kaczynski wrote to victims and newspapers, making renewed demands. Most threatening was his plan to blow up a plane near Los Angeles. However, he promised to put a stop to this if The Times and The Washin&ton Post published his thesis. These newspapers were instructed by authorities to follow his demands and published sections of the thesis in the hope that someone who knew him would recognise the familiar arguments of a friend or relative. This strategy was successful and on Friday 5th April, 1996 Theodore Kaczynski was charged with possessing components of a destructive device. b) The Manifesto The well-known treatise of the Unabomber is published on the internet. It is centred around the rhetoric of the return to traditional values, the right to individual freedom and the choice to eschew taxation. Kaczynski's thesis is composed of35,000 words and structured by 232 points. He focuses his dissent specifically on what he considers to be the sovereign power of the industrial and technological system, and he expresses this in an extremely complex and in many ways, contradictory thesis.

Amongst the complexities which the manifesto struggles with is the fact that repeatedly Kaczynski's argument mirrors the same commitments which he ascribes to his adversaries: "The system" and "Leftists"; and he uses the same words in the

162 same way. In defining power as domination and by arguing that some forms of power are better than others, Kaczynski inadvertently shows that the coherent identity of the "other'', as the antithesis of one's position, is impossible to sustain.

Kaczynski's most fundamental assertion in his thesis is that: the industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race ... The bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it were to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later... We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system. This revolution may or may not make use of violence: it may be sudden or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning a few decades. We can't predict any of that .. This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to overthrow not governments but the economic and technological basis of the present society. (Kaczynski, n.d. retrieved January, lCJC.n, pts. 3- 4).

Kaczynski locates the repressive nature of power in modernity. Power is not attributed directly to economics nor to those who occupy positions within government or corporations. Rather, power is revealed to be in the form of the "system" which determines all modem practices and economics. To Kaczynski the industrial revolution introduced a new and exploitative form of power driven by the production process. This power is overwhelmingly negative, and is the root cause of what he believes are the signs of society's breakdown. In the following passage Kaczynski explains his theory of the repressive nature of modem power: In modem industrial society only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy one's physical needs. It is enough to go through a training program to acquire some petty technical skill, then come to work on time and exert very modest effort needed to hold a job. The only requirements are a moderate amount of intelligence, and most of all, simple OBEDIENCE... Thus it is not surprising that modem society is full of surrogate activities. These include scientific work, athletic

163 achievement, humanitarian work, artistic and literary creation, climbing the cotporate ladder, acquisition of money and material goods far beyond the point at which they cease to give any additional physical satisfaction, and social activism when it addresses issues that are not important for the activist personally, as in the case of white activists who work for the rights of nonwhite minorities ... (Kaczynski, n.d. retrieved January, 1997, pt. 40).

According to Kaczynski, the system exercises power over people who are caught in its web, a web that limits them by offering them the seduction of its various conveniences. To Kaczynski the people whose behaviour is most efficiently caught up in the system's matrix are "the bourgeois". This class, in particular, is caught by its seductions and the promise of success. However, Kaczynski argues that as the production process grows and people become bored with their lives, social problems will inevitably increase. As people are less and less satisfied, they act out in the pursuit of surrogate goals driven by the interests of the system.

This argument relies on the notion that subjectivity is limited by power, but if the subject, all subjects, including Kaczynski, are repressed, how is Kaczynski's argument even possible? I will explore the implication of his discourse of resistance/refusal in the following pages after providing a little more insight into the tone of his argument. c) The Ideology of Return Kaczynski considers that modem life is dominated, ruled in fact, by the sovereign power of industrialism. All relations are extensions of this power where people are but the transfer points for the operation of power. In its review of the manifesto, an anonymous article in the New Statesman and Society entitled "The Land of the Free", seems accurate in describing it as conveying a "dreary fatalism mingled with apocalyptic romanticism about the primitive condition" (New Statesman and Socie1y. 1/9/95: 14). Kaczynski does express a kind of fatalism arguing that: The world today seems to be going crazy ... this sort of thing is not

164 normal for human societies. There is good reason to believe that primitive man suffered from less stress and frustration and was better satisfied with his way of life than modem man is ... Change is IMPOSED on him, whereas the 19th century frontiersman had the sense (also largely justified) that he created change himself, by his own choice (Kaczynski, n.d. retrieved January, 1997, pts. 45,57,67).

Further to this, Kaczynski argues that in pre-industrial societies people do not seem to have suffered from psychological problems to the same extent as does modem man. The manifesto resembles the kind of rhetoric Foucault explains is dominated by "the ideology of return". Kaczynski's luddite-style argument is based on the notion that modem life is repressive. This is to contrast the present with the past, a place where power is "anti-repressive" (Foucault, 1990a:131). Common to the discourses explored in this thesis is the notion that the subject is repressed. It is thought that the modem subject is at the mercy of technologies which endow modem life with certain pleasures, but these pleasures are nullified by strategies which are designed to ensure the operation of power. As mentioned in chapter four, these are distractions which Nikolas Rose argues deploy the psychological seductions of marketing, for example, which promises subjects freedom (Rose, 1996:194). The subject is thus considered the point of application for an external power which determines subjectivity. This notion of a "fictionalised self' assumes that power, which is definitively negative, if overturned at the source, has the potential to be positive. This can be realised by the "subject who knows". Such arguments maintain that they have somehow broken free of the constraints of a false consciousness. The underlying desire is to reveal to others that we may "invent ourselves differently" (Rose, 1996:197), truly and "positively", in order to become "other than what we are" (Patton, 1998:76).

However, Foucault argues that "the power of life and death" is no less or no more restricted in modernity than it was in the past or could be in the future. He explains that in modem life: The development of different fields of knowledge concerned with life in

165 general, the improvement of agricultural techniques, and the observations and measures relative to man's life and survival contributed to this relaxation: a relative control over life averted some of the imminent risks of death (Foucault, 1990a: 142). Moving this, Foucault argues, are methods of power and knowledge which promote well-being. Foucault does not consider this an all-informing "anti-repressive movement" the design of a progressive will, in fact he points out that it is not possible to detennine all-positive outcomes with which everyone can always be satisfied. Attempts at the preservation of life, that is, what we call "government", are subject to what Foucault describes as "the rule of the tactical polyvalence of discourses" in which there exists not a single telos but "a series of discontinuous segments whose tactical function is neither uniform nor stable" (Foucault, 1990a:100). d) Power Anything anyone does that contradicts or attempts to resist power is not considered by Kaczynski to be of power but the negative effect of this power. This is because he believes that the interests of industrialism cancel out the true primitive interests and needs of humans. Power is considered to be one thing, reified into the form of the industrial system. In fact power is attributed a single consciousness, that is, it is anthropomorphised as one identity. Power is regarded as the face of a destructive and preponderant entity. As argued, Kaczynski calls for a return to the pre-industrial way of life where a power that produces a positive effect is enabled. According to his assumption that power is an exclusive possession, Kaczynski imagines a state where power can be simply positive. This purist notion overlooks the fact that all relationality: with the self and others, is characterised by complex dynamics which produce multiple and disparate effects that are indetenninate.

According to Kaczynski, power is driven by the industrial process, however, this is thought to be productive only in a negative sense and anything that is pleasurable or "good" is a secondary effect of power serving to reinforce its reign. On the issue of effect Foucault argues that power does not work according to a lone will, nor is it something which is determinable (Foucault, 1990a:101). As a relational dynamic

166 power is always negotiated, it is a variable of the ways in which people relate to another.

Kaczynski is hostile to modem power despite the fact that his thesis relies essentially upon it. The very existence of the Unabomber in modernity reveals that power is in fact an unstable process, for: discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling-block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy (Foucault, 1990a: 101). Relations of power produce discourses like those expressed by Kaczynski which seek to run counter to power, acting "as tactical elements or blocks operating in the field of force relations" (Foucault, 1990a: 102). e) Leftism To Kaczynski, Leftist psychology is a reaction to what he argues is the real state of powerlessness that we experience within the current system. Under the theme "the psychology of modem Leftism" he argues: one of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is Leftism ...When we speak of Leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, "politically correct types", feminists, gay and disability activists, animal Rights activists and the like. But not everyone associated with one of these movements is a Leftist. What we are trying to get at in discussing Leftism is not so much a movement or an ideology as a psychological type, but rather a collection of related types (Kaczynski, n.d. retrieved January, 1997, pts. 6-7).

In this sense "Leftists" are not merely a political collective, nor is "Leftism" something which is self-conscious about its own motivations. To Kaczynski, it is a dominant, but varying type of logic, and yet ultimately, he asserts that Leftism is a result of the system's repression of people. Kaczynski argues that the Leftist "psychological type" is influenced by ''feelings of inferiority". He explains that feelings of inferiority are influenced by low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness,

167 depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt and self-hatred. He continues: Those who are most sensitive about "politically correct" terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from a privileged strata of society. Many Leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak: ... Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilisation, they hate white males, they hate rationality ... They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the Leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilisation (Kaczynski, n.d. retrieved January, 1997, pts. 12-15).

This section of Kaczynski's text is interesting because throughout his commentary on Leftism, he inadvertently reflects his own frustrations with modem life. The inconsistency or perversity of his theory of power becomes increasingly apparent. Kaczynski's discussion of the "Leftist-psychological type" as encompassing a plethora of beliefs and political identifications, in effect represents the politics that Kaczynski himself shares! His identification with victims and "losers", in discussing modem politics is evident.

Kaczynski escapes easy political identification because he combines Left-wing politics in communicating a staunch objection to capitalism's destruction of the environment, with conservatism in his thoughts about family, women, lifestyle, and a general Right-wing support for armament and criticisms of Leftism. The Unabomber clearly shows that there exist different and even contradictory discourses within his strategy.

168 Kaczynski makes specific mention of growing numbers of people who in one way or another are rebels against the system. Included in his list of rebels are militiamen who are driven to an exclusionary politics based on hate because they are frustrated with the demands of the system. Kaczynski agrees with the militias that life was simpler and more satisfying when "a pioneer settled onto his piece of land of his own choosing and made it into a farm through his own effort" (Kaczynski, n.d. retrieved January, 1997, pt. 57). Issues such as taxation and the right to individual armament are also conceptualised in terms of a notion of romanticised hunter­ gatherer rhetoric.

Despite the fact that Kaczynski's motivations seem very complex and are extreme, the tendency to view power as lacking, other, or "out there" is something that is evidently common within a diverse range of political expressions. The perception of lack and the attribution of power to someone or something other than oneself, forms the basis for much political reasoning. Indeed, people from the Leftist movements that Kaczynski critiques share many of the ideas outlined in Kaczynski's text. A "letter to the editor'' in the May 6th, 1996 edition of IIMB magazine reflects this. Lee G. Mestress of Yardley, Pennsylvania compares Kaczynski's arguments with his favourite writer, David Thoreau. However, he points out that their activism differs greatly: Your story prompts a comparison with the American writer Henry David Thoreau. Both men built cabins in remote areas. Both rallied against industrialism, distrusted the government, withdrew from society and rejected progress, materialism, invention and the machine. But Thoreau, while certainly a radical, was also somewhat of a visionary. He communed intensely with nature. The Unabomber killed, maimed and fostered civil disorder to gain his ends. Thoreau was a man of learning who gave sage instruction. The Unabomber is a man of cunning who wreaks violent destruction. One seeks to define the meaning of life; the other violates it (Mestress, 1996:31 ). Similarly, in the same section Donald C. Rifas from Sacramento, California writes:

169 While the desire for a simpler life crosses all our minds, the Unabomber sought changes that would best have been accomplished using means like the demonstrations of the 1960s. Popular opinion can be swayed by example, and acceptance of views can be peacefully promoted by a smart leader. Some of the Unabomber's ideas have merit. But let's educate the people we wish to influence, not kill or maim them (Rifas, 1996:31).

The lament for a return to a "simple" autonomous life freed from the corruptions of modernity is shared by people from various fields and forms the rationale of values expressed in discourse as diverse as that from American militia rhetoric to Green politics. This philosophy should be seen as an integral part of the very dynamics of power's ontology in society, rather than a complete explanation of it. f) Freedom From his critique of Leftism Kaczynski then expands his focus to problems he believes are the result of, and are specific to, the current system. The issue of freedom is one such theme. He argues that ''freedom means having power, not the power to control other people, but the power to control the circumstances of one's own life" (Kaczynski, n.d. retrieved January, 1W7, pt.94). This contrast between "freedom" and "power" is very common and is done in an attempt to distinguish the negative: "power'', from "freedom" which is defined positively as autonomy. Writing about the ambiguities involved in the notion of freedom, political journalist Conor Cruise O'Brien argues that not infrequently, the idea of: freedom combined with order and limited by law which is the freedom of the mainstream liberal tradition in the English-speaking world becomes confused and abstracted into a notion of boundless freedom (Cruise O'Brien, 1996: 10). That is, it is common for people to overlook their own particular investments and the fact these are defmed in relation to another's.

Freedom and right are considered the appurtenance and rightful heritage of a

170 particular individual or group's notion of ethics. The idea that one's own notion of "what is best" and that one is "good" turns a blind eye to the fact that these claims

are generic to politics, because we all consider that we know "best''. This is not to suggest the futility of ethics or politics but to recognise that the question of ethics and "the political" cannot be answered absolutely, because one is always engaged in a process of choosing sides. However, one should attempt to (re)open these questions of relativity: of ethics, politics, and power; that is, to attempt to (re)cognise one's implication in this game. With insight into the problems sometimes resulting from an isolated notion of freedom, Cruise O'Brien argues that: freedom so understood is one of the most powerful of human motivating forces and the most destructive, impelling large numbers of people to risk their lives for it and to take the lives of others (Cruise O'Brien, 1996: 10). Also important is, of course, the complicated fact that all discourse defmes itself by working inevitably "against" an other.

The concept of freedom which understands it as an exclusive commodity to be won and defended, is central within Kaczynski's thesis. So too Kaczynski's concept of power as something to be contested and secured, ironically exemplifies his own investment in the drive he finds objectionable: the desire to influence and regulate, to exercise power.

g) Revolution The manifesto presents itself to be against power of the kind that controls other people, because it assumes that "one does not possess real power nor does one have freedom if anyone else has power over one" (Kaczynski, n.d. retrieved January, 1997, pt. 94). This is ironic because Kaczynski in fact wants power over others in order to save mankind from the grip of industrialism. He argues that: To make an impression on society with words is therefore almost

impossible for most individuals and small groups. Take us (FC) 13 for

example. If we had never done anything violent and had submitted the 13 The Unabomber refers to his cause as the combined work of a group called FC. However, the FBI believe that the Unabomber's activities are not the work of a group. 171 present writings to a publisher, they probably would not have been accepted. If they had been accepted and published, they probably would not have attracted many readers, because it's more fun to watch the entertainment put out by the media than to read a sober essay (Kaczynski, n.d. retrieved January, 19f./7, pt. 96). Kaczynski argues that the system cannot be reformed from within and that the restriction of freedom is unavoidable in industrial society because the "bad" parts of technology cannot be separated from the "good" parts. In not being able to recognise that the good is necessarily defined with the bad, he then deduces that modem life must therefore be bad irredeemably. This means that the possibility of reform is seriously threatened by a notion of conquest and oppositionality which can offer little hope for the desired egalitarian, "simple" life.

***

The fact that power is productive is reflected by the Unabomber phenomenon. His crimes and his manifesto are fraught with his own particular and individual investments, and also with a whole history of discourses about power. In a passage from Discipline and Punish, Foucault explains this inevitability: To analyse the political investment of the body and the micro-physics of power presupposes, therefore, that one abandons ... the metaphor of property, the model of the contract or of conquest; that - where knowledge is concerned - one abandons the opposition between what is 'interested' and what is 'disinterested' ... (Foucault, 1977b: 28). This is not to presume however, that populist politics such as the Unabomber's and those explored in this chapter are a site of power threatening the fabric of modem politics. This would be to deny the fact that such discourse is of this very order, namely, of the diversity of power's articulation in these political discourses. Therefore, Foucault argues: we must not imagine a world of discourse divided between accepted discourse and excluded discourse, or between the dominant discourse and the dominated one; but as a multiplicity of discursive elements that

172 can come into play in various strategies (Foucault 1990a:100).

173 5. The Power of Denial From these snapshots of the ontological workings of power it becomes evident that power is a relational dynamic working on and from us all and that it exhibits the diverse and complex qualities characteristic of our subjectivity. The claim that one is not of power or that one does not exercise it is, as Foucault argues, a "great fantasy". The "idea of a social body constituted by the universality of wills" or an expectation of consent is quite abstracted because "the phenomenon of the social body is the effect not of a consensus but of the materiality of power operating on the very bodies of individuals" (Foucault, 1980: 55). This is not a materiality which is harmonious but characterised by the totality of all forms of relationships, alliances and conflicts: the impression that power weakens and vaccilates... is in fact mistaken; power can retreat here, reorganise its forces, invest itself elsewhere... and so the battle continues (Foucault,1980: 56).

This collection provides a point of reference from which relations of power can be understood, not according to a morality which repeats this logic but which is mindful of it. In this chapter I have illustrated arguments made in previous chapters that power is relational, that it is the totality of positions, including those explored above, which "makes possible the continual definition and redefinition of what is within the competence of the state" (Foucault, 1991a: 103). In other words, the population is the subject and object of government, governmental power works on and from the population. Power has not developed apart from individuals but according to the fact that individuals are in a perpetual state of negotiation with one 174 another and, internally, even with themselves.

175 Conclusion A Society of "Politicians"

A. Weldon "The 'Bad Guy' Bomb" Sydney Mornine Hera}d, 23/4/99 p.22.

176 In this thesis I have argued that academic, and indeed, everyday conceptions of power are based upon a narrow notion which represents it as a commodity, something that is always in the possession of another, and/or is objectified in the form of the state. Power is assumed to be a repressive mechanism. I have argued that this understanding does not recognise that the complex field of power at work is the population in relation. What is considered to be resistance or in opposition to power is part of its very activity. Indeed, Foucault recognises this, arguing that "there are points of resistance present everywhere in the power network... there is no pure law of the revolutionary" (Foucault, 1990a:96). Power is composed of a generalised and indeterminate efficacy, rather than a conflict based on the individual will of the powerful and the resistance of revolutionaries. In other words, there is no single point at which the messy unevenness of micro-relations can be made uniform and reduced into a state of homogeneity, or into an aggregation of specific conflicts or local expressions of power which together equal state domination. This is because power is mobile; that is, its polymorphous and disparate currents flow throughout the whole spectrum of social relations without exception.

The expository discussion mounted in this thesis has been intended to establish that Foucault's theorisation of the ontology of power has been left largely unacknowledged. This is because Foucault became interested in other issues during his exploration of the history of sexuality and so much Foucauldian theory does not take up Foucault at his most difficult, especially where his insights aren't easily put to work. Instead, scholars are consistent in overlooking one of his most repeated assertions, namely that power is a relational dynamic and thus cannot be considered an isolated or exclusive exercise, working for or against repression. The restricted reading of Foucault is partly because much of Foucault's own insight was undermined by Foucault himself in the second and third volumes of The History of Sexuality: and he has certainly been diluted by many foucauldian theorists who have transformed his ontology of power into conventional notions of repression, 177 investing power with a specific morality which overlooks their own interest.

The case studies I have explored exemplify the efficacious nature of power and establish that discourses on power are in fact the properties of, or matter that is, power. This is something one cannot always articulate because one is caught up in its manifold, and complex interplay. There are a plurality of differences within the micro-relations of power, each of them presenting "a special case: resistances that are spontaneous, savage, solitary, concentrated, rampant, or violent; still others that are quick to compromise, interested, or sacrificial... " (Foucault, 1990a:96). These specificities can certainly be at work concurrently, internally within the one strategy or subject. In fact, in working against something, one can also, when seen from a different perspective, be working for it. The metaphor of domination is thus part of the elements which characterise power but power as domination is not a model which explains the empirical fact of power's diversity. More accurately, the domination model is just one expression, or component, of power's ontology.

It is an integral part of our cognition that we differentiate things into separate elements, inevitably reducing them into exclusionary metaphors of autonomy. This demands our re-cognition. In other words, one needs to have some appreciation that given that power is a multi-faceted dynamic whose signature is specific to each relation, it is, by its very nature, generally understood to be other, to be working on, rather than from, itself (indeed, oneself). It is thus important, as much as possible, to recognise that we are not isolated but intersubjective actors, intrasubjective - that is, ethical social beings always implicated with the other.

Thus, power manifests in many different ways: it encompasses all interests. This is to recognise the inherently political nature of our sociality. The important point is that the political is a movement of discontinuous and indeterminate specificities which are not uniform. By dint of one's complicity in the general problematic of government one expects, or feels entitled to, one's rights. A generalised governmental rationality moves subjects to politicise the specific problems of the population, deliberating on issues such as: "how to govern oneself, how to be 178 governed, how to govern others ... " (Foucault, 1991a:87). We are complexly inter­ related beings, connected by our activism and our silences. In addition to Foucault's insight that we are a society of governors, it can also be said that so too we are a society of politicians.

This is to recognise the importance and significance of one's subjectivity. We are neither "dupes" nor are we "knowing subjects". We are productive and contributing citizens who both enable and constrain. Therefore, Foucault asserts that: It is a question of orienting ourselves to a conception of power which replaces the privilege of the law with the viewpoint of the objective, the privilege of prohibition with the viewpoint of tactical efficacy ... the strategical model rather than the model based on law ... (Foucault, 1990a: 102). Foucault argues, and this thesis has sought to illustrate, that recognition of the relational nature of power does not arise purely out of a "theoretical preference" but is based on empirical fact, that is, the actual, observable life of power and sociality at work (Foucault, 1990a: 102). Recognition of the specificity of the everyday brings attention to the problems of the notion of the unified subject, that is, the idea that people are always aware and are in control of the effects they have, because it ignores the evidence of an inherent, constitutive alterity. Acknowledgement of the complex workings of power in the everyday therefore demands a more considered theoretical approach to the study of what power is, in order to allow recognition of the diverse and interesting character of our sociology.

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191 APPENDIX

1. Payline Hanson's"Maiden Soeech". October.1996(Dodd, 1997:pp22-28).

Mr Acting Speaker, in making my first speech in this place, I congratulate you on your election and wish to say how proud I am to be here as the Independent member for Oxley. I came here not as a polished politician but as a woman who has had her fair share of life's knocks. My view on issues is based on commonsense and my experience as a mother of four children, as a sole parent, and as a business woman running a fish and chip shop. I won the seat of Oxley largely on an issue that has resulted in me being called a racist. That issue is related to my comment that Aboriginals received more benefits than non-Aboriginals. We now have a situation where a type of reverse racism is applied to mainstream Australia by those who promote political correctness and those who control the various taxpayer-funded 'industries' that flourish in our society servicing Aboriginals, multiculturalists, and a host of other minority groups. In response to my call for equality for all Australians, the most noisy criticism came from the fat cats, bureaucrats and the do-gooders. They screamed the loudest because they stand to lose the most- their power, money and position, all funded by ordinary Australian taxpayers. Present governments are encouraging separatism in Australia by providing opportunities, land, moneys, and facilities available only to Aboriginals. Along with millions of Australians, I am fed up to the back teeth with the inequalities that are being promoted by the government and paid for by the taxpayer under the assumption that Aboriginals are the most disadvantaged people in Australia. I do not believe that the colour of one's skin determines whether you are disadvantaged. As Paul Hasluck said in Parliament in October 1995, when he was Minister for Territories: 'The distinction I make is this. A social problem is one that concerns the way in which people live together in one society. A racial problem is a problem which confronts two different races who live in two separate societies, even if those societies are side by side. We do not want a society in Australia in which one group enjoy one set of privileges and another group enjoy another set of privileges.' Hasluck's vision was of a single society in which racial emphases were rejected and social issues addressed. I totally agree with him, and so would the majority of Australians. But, remember, when he gave his speech he was talking about the privileges that white Australians were seen to be enjoying over Aboriginals. Today, 41 years later, I talk about the exact opposite - the privileges Aboriginals enjoy over other Australians. I have done research on benefits available only to Aboriginals and challenge anyone to tell me how Aboriginals are disadvantaged when they can obtain three and five percent housing loans denied to non-Aboriginals. This nation is being divided into black and white, and the present system encourages this. I am fed up with being told, 'This is our land'. Well, where the hell do I go? I was born here, and so were my parents and children. I will work beside anyone and they will be my equal but I draw the line when told I must pay, and continue paying, for something that happened over 200 years ago. Like most Australians, I worked for my land; no-one gave it to me. Apart from the $40 million spent so far since Mabo on native title claims, the 192 government has made available $1 billion for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders as compensation for land they cannot claim under native title. Bear in mind that the $40 million spent so far in native title has gone in to the pockets of grateful lawyers and consultants. Not one native title has been granted as I speak. The majority of Aboriginals do not want handouts because they realise that welfare is killing them. This quote says it all: 'If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime'. Those who feed off the Aboriginal industry do not want to see things changed. Look at the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. Members receive $290 a day sitting allowance and $320 a day travelling allowance, and most of these people also hold other very well paid positions. No wonder they did not want to resign recently! Reconciliation is everyone recognising and treating each other as equals, and everyone must be responsible for their own actions. This is why I am calling for ATSIC to be abolished. It is a failed, hypocritical and discriminatory organisation that has failed dismally the people it was meant to serve. It will take more than Senator Herron's surgical skills to correct the terrible mess it is in. Anyone with a criminal record can, and does, hold a position with ATSIC. I cannot hold my position as a politician if I have a criminal record - once again, two sets of rules. If politicians continue to promote separatism in Australia, they should not continue to hold their seats in this Parliament. They are not truly representing all Australians, and I call on the people to throw them out. To survive in peace and harmony, united and strong, we must have one people, one nation, one flag. The greatest cause of family breakdown is unemployment. This country of ours has the richest mineral deposits in the world and vast rich land for agriculture and is surrounded by oceans that provide a wealth of seafood, and yet we are $190 billion in debt with an interest bill that is strangling us. Youth unemployment between the age of fifteen to twenty-four runs at 25% and is even higher in my electorate of Oxley. Statistics, by cooking the books, say that Australia's unemployment is at 8.6%, or just under one million people. If we disregard that one hour's work a week classifies a person as employed, then the figure is really between 1.5 million and 1.9 million people unemployed. This is a crisis that recent governments have ignored because of a lack of will. We are regarded as a third World country with First World living standards. We have one of the highest interest rates in the world, and we owe more money per capita than any other country. All we need is a nail hole in the bottom of the boat and we're sunk. In real dollar terms, our standard of living has dropped over the past ten years. In the 1960s, our wages ran at three percent and unemployment as two percent. Today, not only is there no wage increase, we have gone backwards and unemployment is officially 8.6%. The real figure must be close to 12 to 13%. I wish to comment briefly on some social and legal problems encountered by many of my constituents - problems not restricted to just my electorate of Oxley. I refer to the social and family upheaval created by the Family Law Act and the ramifications of that act embodied in the child support scheme. The Family Law Act, which was the child of the disgraceful senator Lionel Murphy, should be repealed. It has brought death, misery and heartache to countless thousands of Australians. Children are treated like pawns in some crazy game of chess. The child support scheme has become unworkable, very unfair and one-sided. Custodial parents can often profit handsomely at the expense of a parent paying child support and , in many cases, the non-custodial parent gives up employment to escape, in many cases, the heavy and punitive financial demands. Governments must give to all those who have hit life's hurdles the chance to rebuild and have a future. We have lost all our big Australian industries and icons, including Qantas when it sold 25% of its shares, and a controlling interest, to British airways. Now this government wants to sell Telstra, a company that made a 1.2 billion profit last year 193 and will make a $2 billion profit this year. But first, they want to sack 54, 000 employees to show better profits and share prices. Anyone with business sense knows that you do not sell off your assets especially when they are making money. I may be only 'a fish and chip shop lady', but some of these economists need to get their heads out of the textbooks and get a job in the real world. I would not even let one of them handle my grocery shopping. Immigration and multiculturalism are issues that this government is trying to address, but for too long ordinary Australians have been kept out of any debate by the major parties. I, and most Australians, want our immigration policy radically reviewed and that of multiculturalism abolished. I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. Between 1984 and 1995, 40% of all migrants coming into this country were of Asian origin. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate. Of course I will be called racist but, if I can invite whom I want into my own home, then I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country. A truly multicultural country can never be strong or united. The world is full of failed and tragic examples, ranging from Ireland to Bosnia to Africa, and closer to home, Papua New Guinea. America and Great Britain are currently paying the price. Arthur Calwell was a great Australian and Labor leader, and it is a pity that there are not men of his stature sitting on the opposition benches today. Arthur Calwell said: 'Japan, India, Burma, Ceylon and every new African nation are fiercely anti-white and anti one another. Do we want or need any of these people here?'. I am a red­ blooded Australian who says no and who speaks for 90% of Australians. I have no hesitation in echoing the words of Arthur Calwell. There is light at the end of the tunnel and there are solutions. If this government wants to be fair-dinkum, then it must stop kow-towing to financial markets, international organisations, world bankers, investment companies and big business people. The Howard government must become visionary and be prepared to act, even at the risk of making mistakes. In this financial year we will be spending at least $1.5 billion on foreign aid and we cannot be sure that this money will be properly spent, as corruption and mismanagement in many of the recipient countries are legend. Australia must review its membership and funding of the UN, as it is a little like ATSIC on a grander scale, with huge tax-free American dollar salaries, duty-free luxury cars and diplomatic status. The World Health Organisation has a lot of its medical experts sitting in Geneva while hospitals in Africa have no drugs and desperate patients are forced to seek medication on the black market. I am going to find out how many treaties we have signed with the UN, have them exposed and then call for their repudiation. The government should cease all foreign aid immediately and apply the savings to generate employment here at home. Abolishing the policy of multiculturalism will save billions of dollars and allow those from ethnic backgrounds to join mainstream Australia, paving the way to strong, united country. Immigration must be halted in the short term so that our dole queues are not added to by, in many cases, unskilled migrants not fluent in the English language. This would be one positive step to rescue many young and older Australians from a predicament which has become a national disgrace and crisis. I must stress at this stage that I do not consider those people from ethnic backgrounds currently living in Australia anything but first-class citizens, provided of course that they give this country their full, undivided loyalty. The government must be imaginative enough to become involved, in the short term at least, in job-creating projects that will help establish the foundation for a resurgence of national development and enterprise. Such schemes would be the building of the Alice Springs to Darwin railway line, new roads and ports, water conservation, reforestation and other sensible and practical environmental projects. Therefore, I call for the introduction of national service for a period of twelve 194 months, compulsory for males and females upon finishing year 12 or reaching eighteen years of age. This could be a civil service with a touch of military training, because I do not feel that we can go on living in a dream world forever and a day believing that war will never touch our lives again. The government must do all it can to help reduce interest rates for business. How can we compete with Japan, Germany and Singapore, who enjoy rates of 2%, 5.5% and 3.5% respectively? Reduced tariffs on foreign goods that compete with local products seem only to cost Australians their jobs. We must look after our own before lining the pockets of overseas countnes and investors at the expense of our living standards and future. Mr Acting Speaker, time is running out. We may have only ten to fifteen years left to tum things around. Because of our resources and our position in the world, we will not have a say because neighbouring countries such as Japan, with 125 million people; China, with 1.2 billion people; India, with 846 million people; Indonesia, with 178 million people; and Malaysia, with 20 million people are well aware of our resources and potential. Wake up, Australia before it is too late. Australians need and want leaders who can inspire and give hope in difficult times. Now is the time for the Howard Government to accept the challenge. Mr Acting Speaker, everything I have said is relevant to my electorate of Oxley, which is typical of mainstream Australia. I do have concerns for my country and am going to do my best to speak my mind and stand up for what I believe in. As an independent I am confident that I look after the needs of the people of Oxley and I will always be guided by their advice. It is refreshing to be able to express my views without having to toe a party line. It has got me into trouble on the odd occasion., but I am not going to stop saying what I think. I consider myself just an ordinary Australian who wants to keep this great country strong and independent, and my greatest desire is to see all Australians treat each other as equals as we travel together towards the new century. I will fight hard to keep my seat in this place, but that will depend on the people who sent me here. Mr Acting speaker, I thank you for your attention and trust that you will not think me presumptuous if I dedicate this speech to the people of Oxley and those Australians who have supported me. I salute them all.

2. Excerpt from One Nation's The Truth 1 The New aass Elites

Australian Leadership elites in politics, the bureaucracy, academia, big business, the churches and the media have effectively cut themselves adrift from the interests of the majority of Australians. Many have betrayed the trust of the people they are supposed to represent. As part of this process the elites, while they may mouth concern for the country, have given up thinking in terms of the national interest to pursue an internationalist agenda This agenda is eroding the foundations of our nation and marginalising the majority, which has less and less say in its destiny. The bulk of the media, charges with a watchdog role in the public interest, have become active agents in this process. Academics, artists and others who are supposed to be independent-minded have become propagandists and intellectually corrupt hirelings. Graeme Campbell and Mark Uhlmann.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gate is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very hall of government itself. 1 Downloaded from the "One Nation" website http://www.gwb.com.au/one nation/truth/. Reproduced verbatim, all errors are original and specific to the text. 195 for the traitor appears not traitor - he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation - he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city - he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less likely to be found. Cicero, 42 BC.

The new class elites are coercive utopians, a term first used by the social theorist Peter Metzger. They believe that humans are perfectible, human nature is essentially good and that the evils that exist are the products of a corrupt social system. An ideal social order realised. But this ideal has to be imposed - it is not freely and democratically accepted. In particular, coercive utopians see their own culture and society as deeply flawed. This technocratic manipulation of the ordinary people is discussed by John Ralston Saul in his book Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West, David Ehrenfeld's The Arrogance of Humanism, B E Brown, Intellectuals and other traitors and Paul Johnson's Intellectuals. George Bernard Shaw believed that Neitzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra was the first modern book that can be set above the Psalms of David. And Nietzsche's view of the masses: 'Many too many are born, and they hang on their branches much too long. I wish a storm would come and shake all this rottenness and wormeatenness from the tree. Great writers such as Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesses and Andre Gide are all in debt to the novelist Knut Ham sun, but Ham sun was a supporter of Adolf Hitler and said in a obituary of Hitler that he was a warrior for man kind, and a prophet of the gospel of justice for all nations. His fate was to arise in a time of unparalleled barbarism which finally felled him. All of that from one of the so-called great writers of the 20th century! Yet the view of the masses as unliving is made by T S Eliot in the Wateland and is an idea accepted by George Orwell (who should have known better) and D H Lawrence. Lawrence's correspondence is full of holocaust-style remarks. ('Three cheers for the inventors of poison gas.) He looked forward to the extermination of the human race. Nietzche, a hero of the postmodern movement which dominates the arts faculties in Western universities, said in The Will to Power: the great majority of men have no right to existence, but are a misfortune to higher men. He looked forward to the same annihilation of millions of failures. In that same book, Nietzsche proposes the establishment of international racial unions to rear a tremendous aristocracy so that the will of philosophical men of power and artistic tyrants will be made to endure for millennia. Carey sees Hitler's Mein Kampf as firmly rooted in the intellectual traditions of the time. tan Viner QC could not be more mistaken. New class elites or cognitive elites are creatures primarily created by the university system. In the American context George Roche in his book The Fall of the Ivory Tower argues that the entire system of American higher education is academically, morally, and quite literally going bankrupt. He identifies two villains: (1) the radicals of the 1960s who have now become the liberal-left establishment and given the US multiculturalism and political correctness and (2) a federal government motivated by economic rationalist concerns. The same is truth of Australia Further, if Roche is right that much of the research being done and published is worth little or nothing is true of the US, then it is certainly true of Australian academic work in the arts, social sciences and humanities which remain essentially a neo­ colonial US product. In both societies the intelligentsia have viciously attacked the societies that have supported them and fed them. In the Australian context, John Carroll has written of the treason of the upper middle class' a remissive class fuelled by paranoia and hatred. The rebellion of the 1960s expressed itself in direct attacks on the institutions of traditional Australia. They are the generation who regard John Lennon as a profound philosopher. According to 196 Professor R Gaita (Australian Catholic University) there is an untruthfulness that pervades nearly all the institutions which we now call universities. M C Conner correctly observes that our universities are horrible lefty, authoritarian places brimful of nonsense subjects and crazy PC rules. The qualification that we would add to this is that the left/right distinction is no longer of mush significance since the so-called fall of Communism. We have instead a new religion of internationalism - of anti-white racism, multiculturalism, feminism and Asianisation - that can be approached either from the dreadlock direction (Hanson's rent-a-crowd arts graduate dole bludgers) or from above, (the elite economic rationalist men-in-slimy-grey-suits). There is little philosophical difference between them. In both cases they hate old Anglo-Australia and wish to see it destroyed. Les Murry, Australia's most reveres living poet has recognised this in his award-winning Subhuman Redneck Poems, In the poem The Suspension of Knock he speaks of the very uniqueness of a racism. Unfortunately Murry interprets Pauline Hanson as betraying us by turning the debate in to racism, indicating that Murry himself is duped by the new class. It is not possible or necessary to conduct a detailed study of the operation of the Australian new class but we shall give three brief examples to illustrate our these. From the left, consider that case of Manning Clark. At the time of writing, a debate rages about whether Clark was a soviet agent of influence, being recipient of the Soviet Union's highest honour, the Order of Lenin. These revelations were published by Brisbane's The Courier-Mail on August 24, 1996. Following Colebatch we believe that it is probable that Clark was a Soviet agent of influence but not a Soviet spy. Clark's History promoted the view that Australia was a nation of bastards a kingdom of emptiness and that its traditions and values are worthless. This new class view of history survives today in Paul Keatings anti-Anglo, anti-English view of Australian history. Colebatch notes that in the hypothesis that Manning Clark deliberately attempted to explain a lot: the nonsense about The Man from Snowy River being participation in a blood sacrifice, the recurring image of the sinister people in black, the sneer at Jewish money lenders. Indeed Clark's anti-Semitic comments should be an embarrassment to the left but their hypocrisy and deceit is so great that they choose to ignore it. Clark's real damage was to Australian history. Beyond this Clark had a particularly strong hatred for science and technology. He was in bed with the radical feminists (God help him) who believe that white male science is an organ of oppression and domination and that technology rapes nature. In his Boyer Lectures of 1976, he sees the coming of the white man to Australia as a curse for the land. Clark contributed to the situation where Australian history has become Australian anti-history, a historical revisionism of feminism, Asianism, multiculturalism and Aboriginalism. Patience takes some of the blame but puts the rest upon the yoke of Australia's hard culture, characterised by secularism, populism, racism and masculinism. Well, is any of this true? Australia has one of the highest male youth suicide rates in the world - even Germaine Greer is coming to believe Australian males may be in trouble. Second, as Sydney is one of the homosexual capitals of the world, it hardly seems reasonable to say that Australia is not tolerant in this respect. Third, Asian culture has a much harder, almost cruel, view of women's destiny and social place. Things have not changed much in modem times. According to a report by the UN's Children's Fund, Progress of Nations (1996), SE Asia has the world's most malnourished children. The Asia Syndrome is not due to poverty - sub - Saharan Africa is poorer. The report places the blame on the poor care given to women in Asian societies. In our opinion it is an instructive failure of Patience's essay that he does not consider whether Asian cultures are hard, instructive because in the new cargo cult religion of Asianisation, all that is Asian is sacred and all that belongs to Anglo-Australia is evil. 197 3. The Unabomber's Manifesto2

INTRODUCTION

1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in "advanced" countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in "advanced" countries.

2. The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy.

3. If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.

4. We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system. This revolution may or may not make use of violence: it may be sudden or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning a few decades. We can't predict any of that. But we do outline in a very general way the measures that those who hate the industrial system should take in order to prepare the way for a revolution against that form of society. This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to overthrow not governments but the economic and technological basis of the present society.

5. In this article we give attention to only some of the negative developments that have grown out of the industrial-technological system. Other such developments we mention only briefly or ignore altogether. This does not mean that we regard these other developments as unimportant. For practical reasons we have to confine our discussion to areas that have received insufficient public attention or in which we have something new to say. For example, since there are well-developed environmental and wilderness movements, we have written very little about environmental degradation or the destruction of wild nature, even though we consider these to be highly important.

2 Downloaded from http://pathfinder.com/pathfinder/features/Unabomber/index.html. Reproduced verbatim, all errors are original and specific to the text. 198 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM

6. Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society. One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an Introduction to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general.

7. But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th century leftism could have been practically Identified with socialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not clear who can properly be called a leftist. When we speak of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, "politically correct" types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like. But not everyone who is associated with one of these movements is a leftist. What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much a movement or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related types. Thus, what we mean by "leftism" will emerge more clearly in the course of our discussion of leftist psychology (Also, see paragraphs 227-230.)

8. Even so, our conception of leftism will remain a good deal less clear than we would wish, but there doesn't seem to be any remedy for this. All we are trying to do is indicate in a rough and approximate way the two psychological tendencies that we believe are the main driving force of modem leftism. We by no means claim to be telling the WHOLE truth about leftist psychology. Also, our discussion is meant to apply to modern leftism only. We leave open the question of the extent to which our discussion could be applied to the leftists of the 19th and early 20th century.

9. The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call "feelings of Inferiority" and "oversocialization." Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of modem leftism as a whole, while oversocializatlon is characteristic only of a certain segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly influential.

FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY

10. By "feelings of inferiority'' we mean not only inferiority feelings in the strictest sense but a whole spectrum of related traits: low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to have such feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these feelings are decisive in determining the direction of modern leftism.

11. When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything that is said about him (or about groups with whom he identifies) we conclude that he has inferiority feelings or low self-esteem. This tendency is pronounced among minority rights advocates, whether or not they belong to the minority groups whose rights they defend. They are hypersensitive about the words used to designate minorities. The terms "negro," "oriental," "handicapped" or "chick" for an African, an Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally had no derogatory connotation. "Broad" and "chick" were merely the feminine equivalents of "guy," "dude" or "fellow." The negative connotations have been attached to these terms by the activists themselves. Some animal rights advocates have gone so far as to reject the word "pet" and insist on its replacement by "animal companion." Leftist anthropologists go to great lengths to avoid saying anything about primitive peoples that could 199 conceivably be interpreted as negative. They want to replace the word "primitive" by "nonliterate." They seem almost paranoid about anything that might suggest that any primitive culture is inferior to our own. (We do not mean to imply that primitive cultures ARE inferior to ours. We merely point out the hypersensitivity of Iettish anthropologists.)

12. Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect" terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from privileged strata of society. Political correctness has its stronghold among university professors, who have secure employment with comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual, white males from middle-dass families.

13. Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals), or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit it to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not suggest that women, Indians, etc., ARE inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology).

14. Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as capable as men.

15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist's real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.

16. Words like "self-confidence,'' ''self-reliance," ''initiative", "enterprise," "optimism," etc. play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone's needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his own ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.

17. Art forms that appeal to modern leftist intellectuals tend to focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or else they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything through rational calculation and all that was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of the moment.

18. Modern leftist philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective 200 reality and to insist that everything is culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific knowledge and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be defined. But it is obvious that modern leftist philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of the1r own psychological needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the leftist hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e. failed, inferior). The leftist's feelings of inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any classification of some things as successful or superior and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests. Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities or behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame for an individual's ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is "inferior'' it is not his fault, but society's, because he has not been brought up properly.

19. The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose feelings of inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist, a bully, a self-promoter, a ruthless competitor. This kind of person has not wholly lost faith in himself. He has a deficit in his sense of power and self-worth, but he can still conceive of himself as having the capacity to be strong, and his efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant behavior. [1] But the leftist is too far gone for that. His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.

20. Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait.

21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principle, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists' 201 hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.

22. If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.

23. We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to be an accurate description of everyone who might be considered a leftist. It is only a rough indication of a general tendency of leftism.

OVERSOCIALIZATION

24. Psychologists use the term "socialization" to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that many leftists are over-socialized, since the leftist is perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists are not such rebels as they seem.

25. The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term "oversocialized" to describe such people. [2)

26. Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society's expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the oversocialized person are more restricted by society's expectations than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority of people engage in a significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think "unclean" thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to confirm to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another.

27. We argue that a very important and influential segment of the modern left is oversocialized and that their oversocialization is of great 202 importance in determining the direction of modern leftism. Leftists of the oversocialized type tend to be intellectuals or members of the upper-middle class. Notice that university intellectuals (3) constitute the most highly socialized segment of our society and also the most left-wing segment.

28. The leftist of the oversocialized type tries to get off his psychological leash and assert his autonomy by rebelling. But usually he is not strong enough to rebel against the most basic values of society. Generally speaking, the goals of today's leftists are NOT in conflict with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it as its own, and then accuses mainstream society of violating that principle. Examples: racial equality, equality of the sexes, helping poor people, peace as opposed to war, nonviolence generally, freedom of expression, kindness to animals. More fundamentally, the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. All these have been deeply rooted values of our society (or at least of its middle and upper classes (4) for a long time. These values are explicitly or implicitly expressed or presupposed in most of the material presented to us by the mainstream communications media and the educational system. Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized type, usually do not rebel against these principles but justify their hostility to society by claiming (with some degree of truth) that society is not living up to these principles.

29. Here is an illustration of the way in which the oversocialized leftist shows his real attachment to the conventional attitudes of our society while pretending to be in rebellion against it. Many leftists push for affirmative action, for moving black people into high-prestige jobs, for improved education in black schools and more money for such schools; the way of life of the black "underclass" they regard as a social disgrace. They want to integrate the black man into the system, make him a business executive, a lawyer, a scientist just like upper-middle-class white people. The leftists will reply that the last thing they want is to make the black man into a copy of the white man; instead, they want to preserve African American culture. But in what does this preservation of African American culture consist? It can hardly consist in anything more than eating black-style food, listening to black-style music, wearing black-style clothing and going to a black-style church or mosque. In other words, it can express itself only in superficial matters. In all ESSENTIAL respects more leftists of the oversocialized type want to make the black man conform to white, middle-class ideals. They want to make him study technical subjects, become an executive or a scientist, spend his life climbing the status ladder to prove that black people are as good as white. They want to make black fathers "responsible." they want black gangs to become nonviolent, etc. But these are exactly the values of the industrial-technological system. The system couldn't care less what kind of music a man listens to, what kind of clothes he wears or what religion he believes in as long as he studies in school, holds a respectable job, climbs the status ladder, is a "responsible" parent, is nonviolent and so forth. In effect, however much he may deny it, the oversocialized leftist wants to integrate the black man into the system and make him adopt its values.

30. We certainly do not claim that leftists, even of the oversocialized type, NEVER rebel against the fundamental values of our society. Clearly they sometimes do. Some oversocialized leftists have gone so far as to rebel against one of modern society's most important principles by engaging in 203 physical violence. By their own account, violence is for them a form of "liberation." In other words, by committing violence they break through the psychological restraints that have been trained into them. Because they are oversocialized these restraints have been more confining for them than for others; hence their need to break free of them. But they usually justify their rebellion in terms of mainstream values. If they engage in violence they claim to be fighting against racism or the like.

31. We realize that many objections could be raised to the foregoing thumb-nail sketch of leftist psychology. The real situation is complex, and anything like a complete description of it would take several volumes even if the necessary data were available. We claim only to have indicated very roughly the two most important tendencies in the psychology of modem leftism.

32. The problems of the leftist are indicative of the problems of our society as a whole. Low self-esteem, depressive tendencies and defeatism are not restricted to the left. Though they are especially noticeable in the left, they are widespread in our society. And today's society tries to socialize us to a greater extent than any previous society. We are even told by experts how to eat, how to exercise, how to make love, how to raise our kids and so forth.

THE POWER PROCESS

33. Human beings have a need (probably based in biology) for something that we will call the "power process." This is closely related to the need for power (which is widely recognized) but is not quite the same thing. The power process has four elements. The three most clear-cut of these we call goal, effort and attainment of goal. (Everyone needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort, and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.) The fourth element is more difficult to define and may not be necessary for everyone. We call it autonomy and will discuss it later (paragraphs 42-44).

34. Consider the hypothetical case of a man who can have anything he wants just by wishing for it. Such a man has power, but he will develop serious psychological problems. At first he will have a lot of fun, but by and by he will become acutely bored and demoralized. Eventually he may become clinically depressed. History shows that leisured aristocracies tend to become decadent. This is not true of fighting aristocracies that have to struggle to maintain their power. But leisured, secure aristocracies that have no need to exert themselves usually become bored, hedonistic and demoralized, even though they have power. This shows that power is not enough. One must have goals toward which to exercise one's power.

35. Everyone has goals; if nothing else, to obtain the physical necessities of life: food, water and whatever clothing and shelter are made necessary by the climate. But the leisured aristocrat obtains these things without effort. Hence his boredom and demoralization.

36. Nonattainment of important goals results in death if the goals are physical necessities, and in frustration if nonattainment of the goals is compatible with survival. Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life results in defeatism, low self-esteem or depression.

204 37. Thus, in order to avoid serious psychological problems, a human being needs goals whose attainment requires effort, and he must have a reasonable rate of success in attaining his goals.

SURROGATE ACTIVITIES

38. But not every leisured aristocrat becomes bored and demoralized. For example, the emperor Hirohito, instead of Sinking into decadent hedonism, devoted himself to marine biology, a field in which he became distinguished. When people do not have to exert themselves to satisfy their physical needs they often set up artificial goals for themselves. In many cases they then pursue these goals with the same energy and emotional involvement that they otherwise would have put into the search for physical necessities. Thus the aristocrats of the Roman Empire had their literary pretentions; many European aristocrats a few centuries ago invested tremendous time and energy in hunting, though they certainly didn't need the meat; other aristocracies have competed for status through elaborate displays of wealth; and a few aristocrats, like Hirohito, have turned to science.

39. We use the term "surrogate activity" to designate an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward, or let us say, merely for the sake of the "fulfillment" that they get from pursuing the goal. Here is a rule of thumb for the identification of surrogate activities. Given a person who devotes much time and energy to the pursuit of goal X, ask yourself this: If he had to devote most of his time and energy to satisfying his biological needs, and if that effort required him to use his physical and mental facilities in a varied and interesting way, would he feel seriously deprived because he did not attain goal X? If the answer is no, then the person's pursuit of a goal X is a surrogate activity. Hirohito's studies in marine biology clearly constituted a surrogate activity, since it is pretty certain that if Hirohito had had to spend his time working at interesting non-scientific tasks in order to obtain the necessities of life, he would not have felt deprived because he didn't know all about the anatomy and life-cycles of marine animals. On the other hand the pursuit of sex and love (for example) is not a surrogate activity, because most people, even if their existence were otherwise satisfactory, would feel deprived if they passed their lives without ever having a relationship with a member of the opposite sex. (But pursuit of an excessive amount of sex, more than one really needs, can be a surrogate activity.)

40. In modern industrial society only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy one's physical needs. It is enough to go through a training program to acquire some petty technical skill, then come to work on time and exert very modest effort needed to hold a job. The only requirements are a moderate amount of intelligence, and most of all, simple OBEDIENCE. If one has those, society takes care of one from cradle to grave. (Yes, there is an underclass that cannot take physical necessities for granted, but we are speaking here of mainstream society.) Thus it is not surprising that modern society is full of surrogate activities. These include scientific work, athletic achievement, humanitarian work, artistic and literary creation, climbing the corporate ladder, acquisition of money and material goods far beyond the point at which they cease to give any additional physical satisfaction, and social activism when it addresses issues that are not important for the activist personally, as in the case of white activists who work for the rights of nonwhite minorities. These are not always pure surrogate 205 activities, since for many people they may be motivated in part by needs other than the need to have some goal to pursue. Scientific work may be motivated in part by a drive for prestige, artistic creation by a need to express feelings, militant social activism by hostility. But for most people who pursue them, these activities are in large part surrogate activities. For example, the majority of scientists will probably agree that the "fulfillment" they get from their work is more important than the money and prestige they earn.

41. For many if not most people, surrogate activities are less satisfying than the pursuit of real goals ( that is, goals that people would want to attain even if their need for the power process were already fulfilled). One indication of this is the fact that, in many or most cases, people who are deeply involved in surrogate activities are never satisfied, never at rest. Thus the money-maker constantly strives for more and more wealth. The scientist no sooner solves one problem than he moves on to the next. The long-distance runner drives himself to run always farther and faster. Many people who pursue surrogate activities will say that they get far more fulfillment from these activities than they do from the "mundane" business of satisfying their biological needs, but that it is because in our society the effort needed to satisfy the biological needs has been reduced to triviality. More importantly, in our society people do not satisfy their biological needs AUTONOMOUSLY but by functioning as parts of an immense social machine. In contrast, people generally have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing their surrogate activities. have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing their surrogate activities.

AUTONOMY

42. Autonomy as a part of the power process may not be necessary for every individual. But most people need a greater or lesser degree of autonomy in working toward their goals. Their efforts must be undertaken on their own initiative and must be under their own direction and control. Yet most people do not have to exert this initiative, direction and control as single individuals. It is usually enough to act as a member of a SMALL group. Thus if half a dozen people discuss a goal among themselves and make a successful joint effort to attain that goal, their need for the power process will be served. But if they work under rigid orders handed down from above that leave them no room for autonomous decision and initiative, then their need for the power process will not be served. The same is true when decisions are made on a collective bases if the group making the collective decision is so large that the role of each individual is insignificant [5]

43. It is true that some individuals seem to have little need for autonomy. Either their drive for power is weak or they satisfy it by identifying themselves with some powerful organization to which they belong. And then there are unthinking, animal types who seem to be satisfied with a purely physical sense of power(the good combat soldier, who gets his sense of power by developing fighting skills that he is quite content to use in blind obedience to his superiors).

44. But for most people it is through the power process-having a goal, making an AUTONOMOUS effort and attaining t the goal-that self-esteem, self-confidence and a sense of power are acquired. When one does not have adequate opportunity to go throughout the power process the consequences are (depending on the individual and on the way the power process is disrupted) 206 boredom, demoralization, low self-esteem, inferiority feelings, defeatism, depression, anxiety, guilt, frustration, hostility, spouse or child abuse, insatiable hedonism, abnormal sexual behavior, sleep disorders, eating disorders, etc. [6]

SOURCES OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS

45. Any of the foregoing symptoms can occur in any society, but in modern industrial society they are present on a massive scale. We aren't the first to mention that the world today seems to be going crazy. This sort of thing is not normal for human societies. There is good reason to believe that primitive man suffered from less stress and frustration and was better satisfied with his way of life than modem man is. It is true that not all was sweetness and light in primitive societies. Abuse of women and common among the Australian aborigines, transexuality was fairly common among some of the American Indian tribes. But is does appear that GENERALLY SPEAKING the kinds of problems that we have listed in the preceding paragraph were far less common among primitive peoples than they are in modern society.

46. We attribute the social and psychological problems of modern society to the fact that that society requires people to live under conditions radically different from those under which the human race evolved and to behave in ways that conflict with the patterns of behavior that the human race developed while living under the earlier conditions. It is clear from what we have already written that we consider lack of opportunity to properly experience the power process as the most important of the abnormal conditions to which modern society subjects people. But it is not the only one. Before dealing with disruption of the power process as a source of social problems we will discuss some of the other sources.

47. Among the abnormal conditions present in modern industrial society are excessive density of population, isolation of man from nature, excessive rapidity of social change and the break-down of natural small-scale communities such as the extended family, the village or the tribe.

48. It is well known that crowding increases stress and aggression. The degree of crowding that exists today and the isolation of man from nature are consequences of technological progress. All pre-industrial societies were predominantly rural. The industrial Revolution vastly increased the size of cities and the proportion of the population that lives in them, and modern agricultural technology has made it possible for the Earth to support a far denser population than it ever did before. (Also, technology exacerbates the effects of crowding because it puts increased disruptive powers in people's hands. For example, a variety of noise-making devices: power mowers, radios, motorcycles, etc. If the use of these devices is unrestricted, people who want peace and quiet are frustrated by the noise. If their use is restricted, people who use the devices are frustrated by the regulations ... But if these machines had never been invented there would have been no conflict and no frustration generated by them.)

49. For primitive societies the natural world (which usually changes only slowly) provided a stable framework and therefore a sense of security. In the modern world it is human society that dominates nature rather than the other way around, and modern society changes very rapidly owing to technological change. Thus there is no stable framework.

207 50. The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can't make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society with out causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.

51.The breakdown of traditional values to some extent implies the breakdown of the bonds that hold together traditional small-scale social groups. The disintegration of small-scale social groups is also promoted by the fact that modern conditions often require or tempt individuals to move to new locations, separating themselves from their communities. Beyond that, a technological society HAS TO weaken family ties and local communities if it is to function efficiently. In modern society an individual's loyalty must be first to the system and only secondarily to a small-scale community, because if the internal loyalties of small-scale small-scale communities were stronger than loyalty to the system, such communities would pursue their own advantage at the expense of the system.

52. Suppose that a public official or a corporation executive appoints his cousin, his friend or his co-religionist to a position rather than appointing the person best qualified for the job. He has permitted personal loyalty to supersede his loyalty to the system, and that is "nepotism" or "discrimination," both of which are terrible sins in modern society. Would-be industrial societies that have done a poor job of subordinating personal or local loyalties to loyalty to the system are usually very inefficient. (Look at Latin America.) Thus an advanced industrial society can tolerate only those small-scale communities that are emasculated, tamed and made into tools of the system. [7]

53. Crowding, rapid change and the breakdown of communities have been widely recognized as sources of social problems. but we do not believe they are enough to account for the extent of the problems that are seen today.

54. A few pre-industrial cities were very large and crowded, yet their inhabitants do not seem to have suffered from psychological problems to the same extent as modem man. In America today there still are uncrowded rural areas, and we find there the same problems as in urban areas, though the problems tend to be less acute in the rural areas. Thus crowding does not seem to be the decisive factor.

55. On the growing edge of the American frontier during the 19th century, the mobility of the population probably broke down extended families and small-scale social groups to at least the same extent as these are broken down today. In fact, many nuclear families lived by choice in such isolation, having no neighbors within several miles, that they belonged to no community at all, yet they do not seem to have developed problems as a result.

56. Furthermore, change in American frontier society was very rapid and deep. A man might be born and raised in a log cabin, outside the reach of law and order and fed largely on wild meat; and by the time he arrived at old age he might be working at a regular job and living in an ordered community with effective law enforcement. This was a deeper change that that which typically occurs in the life of a modern individual, yet it does not seem to have led to psychological problems. In fact, 19th century American society 208 had an optimistic and self-confident tone, quite unlike that of today's society. [8]

57. The difference, we argue, is that modem man has the sense (largely justified) that change is IMPOSED on him, whereas the 19th century frontiersman had the sense (also largely justified) that he created change himself, by his own choice. Thus a pioneer settled on a piece of land of his own choosing and made it into a farm through his own effort. In those days an entire county might have only a couple of hundred inhabitants and was a far more isolated and autonomous entity than a modern county is. Hence the pioneer farmer participated as a member of a relatively small group in the creation of a new, ordered community. One may well question whether the creation of this community was an improvement, but at any rate it satisfied the pioneer's need for the power process.

58. It would be possible to give other examples of societies in which there has been rapid change and/or lack of close community ties without he kind of massive behavioral aberration that is seen in today's industrial society. We contend that the most important cause of social and psychological problems in modern society is the fact that people have insufficient opportunity to go through the power process in a normal way. We don't mean to say that modern society is the only one in which the power process has been disrupted. Probably most if not all civilized societies have interfered with the power ' process to a greater or lesser extent. But in modern industrial society the problem has become particularly acute. Leftism, at least in its recent (mid-to-late -2oth century) form, is in part a symptom of deprivation with respect to the power process.

DISRUPTION OF THE POWER PROCESS IN MODERN SOCIETY

59. We divide human drives into three groups: (1) those drives that can be satisfied with minimal effort; (2) those that can be satisfied but only at the cost of serious effort; (3) those that cannot be adequately satisfied no matter how much effort one makes. The power process is the process of satisfying the drives of the second group. The more drives there are in the third group, the more there is frustration, anger, eventually defeatism, depression, etc.

60. In modern industrial society natural human drives tend to be pushed into the first and third groups, and the second group tends to consist increasingly of artificially created drives.

61. In primitive societies, physical necessities generally fall into group 2: They can be obtained, but only at the cost of serious effort. But modern society tends to guaranty the physical necessities to everyone [9] in exchange for only minimal effort, hence physical needs are pushed into group 1. (There may be disagreement about whether the effort needed to hold a job is "minimal"; but usually, in lower- to middle-level jobs, whatever effort is required is merely that of obedience. You sit or stand where you are told to sit or stand and do what you are told to do in the way you are told to do it. Seldom do you have to exert yourself seriously, and in any case you have hardly any autonomy in work, so that the need for the power process is not well served.)

62. Social needs, such as sex, love and status, often remain in group 2 in modern society, depending on the situation of the individual. [10] But, 209 except for people who have a particularly strong drive for status, the effort required to fulfill the social drives is insufficient to satisfy adequately the need for the power process.

63. So certain artificial needs have been created that fall into group 2, hence serve the need for the power process. Advertising and marketing techniques have been developed that make many people feel they need things that their grandparents never desired or even dreamed of. It requires serious effort to earn enough money to satisfy these artificial needs, hence they fall into group 2. (But see paragraphs SQ-82.) Modem man must satisfy his need for the power process largely through pursuit of the artificial needs created by the advertising and marketing industry [11], and through surrogate activities.

64. It seems that for many people, maybe the majority, these artificial forms of the power process are insufficient. A theme that appears repeatedly in the writings of the social critics of the second half of the 20th century is the sense of purposelessness that afflicts many people in modern society. (This purposelessness is often called by other names such as "anomie" or "middle-class vacuity.") We suggest that the so-called "identity crisis" is actually a search for a sense of purpose, often for commitment to a suitable surrogate activity. It may be that existentialism is in large part a response to the purposelessness of modern life. [12] Very widespread in modern society is the search for "fulfillment." But we think that for the majority of people an activity whose main goal is fulfillment (that is, a surrogate activity) does not bring completely satisfactory fulfillment. In other words, it does not fully satisfy the need for the power process. (See paragraph 41.) That need can be fully satisfied only through activities that have some external goal, such as physical necessities, sex, love, status, revenge, etc.

65. Moreover, where goals are pursued through earning money, climbing the status ladder or functioning as part of the system in some other way, most people are not in a position to pursue their goals AUTONOMOUSLY. Most workers are someone else's employee as, as we pointed out in paragraph 61, must spend their days doing what they are told to do in the way they are told to do it. Even most people who are in business for themselves have only limited autonomy. It is a chronic complaint of small-business persons and entrepreneurs that their hands are tied by excessive government regulation. Some of these regulations are doubtless unnecessary, but for the most part government regulations are essential and inevitable parts of our extremely complex society. A large portion of small business today operates on the franchise system. It was reported in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago that many of the franchise-granting companies require applicants for franchises to take a personality test that is designed to EXCLUDE those who have creativity and initiative, because such persons are not sufficiently docile to go along obediently with the franchise system. This excludes from small business many of the people who most need autonomy.

66. Today people live more by virtue of what the system does FOR them or TO them than by virtue of what they do for themselves. And what they do for themselves is done more and more along channels laid down by the system. Opportunities tend to be those that the system provides, the opportunities must be exploited in accord with the rules and regulations [13], and techniques prescribed by experts must be followed if there is to be a chance of success. 210 67. Thus the power process is disrupted in our society through a deficiency of real goals and a deficiency of autonomy in pursuit of goals. But it is also disrupted because of those human drives that fall into group 3: the drives that one cannot adequately satisfy no matter how much effort one makes. One of these drives is the need for security. Our lives depend on decisions made by other people; we have no control over these decisions and usually we do not even know the people who make them. ("We live in a world in which relatively few people - maybe 500 or 1,00- make the important decisions" - Philip B. Heymann of Harvard Law School, quoted by Anthony Lewis, New York Times, April 21, 1995.) Our lives depend on whether safety standards at a nuclear power plant are properly maintained; on how much pesticide is allowed to get into our food or how much pollution into our air; on how skillful (or incompetent) our doctor is; whether we lose or get a job may depend on decisions made by government economists or corporation executives; and so forth. Most individuals are not in a position to secure themselves against these threats to more [than] a very limited extent. The individual's search for security is therefore frustrated, which leads to a sense of powerlessness.

68. It may be objected that primitive man is physically less secure than modern man, as is shown by his shorter life expectancy; hence modern man suffers from less, not more than the amount of insecurity that is normal for human beings. but psychological security does not closely correspond with physical security. What makes us FEEL secure is not so much objective security as a sense of confidence in our ability to take care of ourselves. Primitive man, threatened by a fierce animal or by hunger, can fight in self-defense or travel in search of food. He has no certainty of success in these efforts, but he is by no means helpless against the things that threaten him. The modern individual on the other hand is threatened by many things against which he is helpless; nuclear accidents, carcinogens in food, environmental pollution, war, increasing taxes, invasion of his privacy by large organizations, nation-wide social or economic phenomena that may disrupt his way of life.

69. It is true that primitive man is powerless against some of the things that threaten him; disease for example. But he can accept the risk of disease stoically. It is part of the nature of things, it is no one's fault, unless is the fault of some imaginary, impersonal demon. But threats to the modern individual tend to be MAN-MADE. They are not the results of chance but are IMPOSED on him by other persons whose decisions he, as an individual, is unable to influence. Consequently he feels frustrated, humiliated and angry.

70. Thus primitive man for the most part has his security in his own hands (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) whereas the security of modern man is in the hands of persons or organizations that are too remote or too large for him to be able personally to influence them. So modem man's drive for security tends to fall into groups 1 and 3; in some areas (food, shelter, etc.) his security is assured at the cost of only trivial effort, whereas in other areas he CANNOT attain security. (The foregoing greatly simplifies the real situation, but it does indicate in a rough, general way how the condition of modern man differs from that of primitive man.)

71. People have many transitory drives or impulses that are necessary 211 frustrated in modern life, hence fall into group 3. One may become angry, but modern society cannot permit fighting. In many situations it does not even permit verbal aggression. When going somewhere one may be in a hurry, or one may be in a mood to travel slowly, but one generally has no choice but to move with the flow of traffic and obey the traffic signals. One may want to do one's work in a different way, but usually one can work only according to the rules laid down by one's employer. In many other ways as well, modern man is strapped down by a network of rules and regulations (explicit or implicit) that frustrate many of his impulses and thus interfere with the power process. Most of these regulations cannot be disposed with, because the are necessary for the functioning of industrial society.

72. Modern society is in certain respects extremely permissive. In matters that are irrelevant to the functioning of the system we can generally do what we please. We can believe in any religion we like (as long as it does not encourage behavior that is dangerous to the system). We can go to bed with anyone we like (as long as we practice "safe sex''). We can do anything we like as long as it is UNIMPORTANT. But in all IMPORTANT matters the system tends increasingly to regulate our behavior.

73. Behavior is regulated not only through explicit rules and not only by the government. Control is often exercised through indirect coercion or through psychological pressure or manipulation, and by organizations other than the government, or by the system as a whole. Most large organizations use some form of propaganda [14] to manipulate public attitudes or behavior. Propaganda is not limited to "commercials" and advertisements, and sometimes it is not even consciously intended as propaganda by the people who make it. For instance, the content of entertainment programming is a powerful form of propaganda. An example of indirect coercion: There is no law that says we have to go to work every day and follow our employer's orders. Legally there is nothing to prevent us from going to live in the wild like primitive people or from going into business for ourselves. But in practice there is very little wild country left, and there is room in the economy for only a limited number of small business owners. Hence most of us can survive only as someone else's employee.

74. We suggest that modern man's obsession with longevity, and with maintaining physical vigor and sexual attractiveness to an advanced age, is a symptom of unfulfillment resulting from deprivation with respect to the power process. The "mid-life crisis" also is such a symptom. So is the lack of interest in having children that is fairly common in modern society but almost unheard-of in primitive societies.

75. In primitive societies life is a succession of stages. The needs and purposes of one stage having been fulfilled, there is no particular reluctance about passing on to the next stage. A young man goes through the power process by becoming a hunter, hunting not for sport or for fulfillment but to get meat that is necessary for food. (In young women the process is more complex, with greater emphasis on social power; we won't discuss that here.) This phase having been successfully passed through, the young man has no reluctance about settling down to the responsibilities of raising a family. (In contrast, some modern people indefinitely postpone having children because they are too busy seeking some kind of "fulfillment." We suggest that the fulfillment they need is adequate experience of the power process -- with real goals instead of the artificial goals of surrogate 212 activities.) Again, having successfully raised his children, going through the power process by providing them with the physical necessities, the primitive man feels that his work is done and he is prepared to accept old age (if he survives that long) and death. Many modern people, on the other hand, are disturbed by the prospect of death, as is shown by the amount of effort they expend trying to maintain their physical condition, appearance and health. We argue that this is due to unfulfillment resulting from the fact that they have never put their physical powers to any use, have never gone through the power process using their bodies in a serious way. It is not the primitive man, who has used his body daily for practical purposes, who fears the deterioration of age, but the modern man, who has never had a practical use for his body beyond walking from his car to his house. It is the man whose need for the power process has been satisfied during his life who is best prepared to accept the end of that life.

76. In response to the arguments of this section someone will say, "Society must find a way to give people the opportunity to go through the power process." For such people the value of the opportunity is destroyed by the very fact that society gives it to them. What they need is to find or make their own opportunities. As long as the system GIVES them their opportunities it still has them on a leash. To attain autonomy they must get off that leash.

HOW SOME PEOPLE ADJUST

77. Not everyone in industrial-technological society suffers from psychological problems. Some people even profess to be quite satisfied with society as it is. We now discuss some of the reasons why people differ so greatly in their response to modern society.

78. First, there doubtless are differences in the strength of the drive for power. Individuals with a weak drive for power may have relatively little need to go through the power process, or at least relatively little need for autonomy in the power process. These are docile types who would have been happy as plantation darkies in the Old South. (We don't mean to sneer at "plantation darkies" of the Old South. To their credit, most of the slaves were NOT content with their servitude. We do sneer at people who ARE content with servitude.)

79. Some people may have some exceptional drive, in pursuing which they satisfy their need for the power process. For example, those who have an unusually strong drive for social status may spend their whole lives climbing the status ladder without ever getting bored with that game.

80. People vary in their susceptibility to advertising and marketing techniques. Some people are so susceptible that, even if they make a great deal of money, they cannot satisfy their constant craving for the shiny new toys that the marketing industry dangles before their eyes. So they always feel hard-pressed financially even if their income is large, and their cravings are frustrated.

81. Some people have low susceptibility to advertising and marketing techniques. These are the people who aren't interested in money. Material acquisition does not serve their need for the power process.

82. People who have medium susceptibility to advertising and marketing 213 techniques are able to earn enough money to satisfy their craving for goods and services, but only at the cost of serious effort (putting in overtime, taking a second job, earning promotions, etc.) Thus material acquisition serves their need for the power process. But it does not necessarily follow that their need is fully satisfied. They may have insufficient autonomy in the power process (their work may consist of following orders) and some of their drives may be frustrated (e.g., security, aggression). (We are guilty of oversimplification in paragraphs 8Q-82 because we have assumed that the desire for material acquisition is entirely a creation of the advertising and marketing industry. Of course it's not that simple.

83. Some people partly satisfy their need for power by identifying themselves with a powerful organization or mass movement. An individual lacking goals or power joins a movement or an organization, adopts its goals as his own, then works toward these goals. When some of the goals are attained, the individual, even though his personal efforts have played only an insignificant part in the attainment of the goals, feels (through his identification with the movement or organization) as if he had gone through the power process. This phenomenon was exploited by the fascists, nazis and communists. Our society uses it, too, though less crudely. Example: Manuel Noriega was an irritant to the U.S. (goal: punish Noriega). The U.S. invaded Panama (effort) and punished Noriega (attainment of goal). The U.S. went through the power process and many Americans, because of their identification with the U.S., experienced the power process vicariously. Hence the widespread public approval of the Panama invasion; it gave people a sense of power. [15] We see the same phenomenon in armies, corporations, political parties, humanitarian organizations, religious or ideological movements. In particular, leftist movements tend to attract people who are seeking to satisfy their need for power. But for most people identification with a large organization or a mass movement does not fully satisfy the need for power.

84. Another way in which people satisfy their need for the power process is through surrogate activities. As we explained in paragraphs 38-40, a surrogate activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that the individual pursues for the sake of the ''fulfillment" that he gets from pursuing the goal, not because he needs to attain the goal itself. For instance, there is no practical motive for building enormous muscles, hitting a little ball into a hole or acquiring a complete series of postage stamps. Yet many people in our society devote themselves with passion to bodybuilding, golf or stamp collecting. Some people are more "other-directed" than others, and therefore will more readily attack importance to a surrogate activity simply because the people around them treat it as important or because society tells them it is important. That is why some people get very serious about essentially trivial activities such as sports, or bridge, or chess, or arcane scholarly pursuits, whereas others who are more clear-sighted never see these things as anything but the surrogate activities that they are, and consequently never attach enough importance to them to satisfy their need for the power process in that way. It only remains to point out that in many cases a person's way of earning a living is also a surrogate activity. Not a PURE surrogate activity, since part of the motive for the activity is to gain the physical necessities and (for some people) social status and the luxuries that advertising makes them want. But many people put into their work far more effort than is necessary to earn whatever money and status they require, and this extra effort constitutes a surrogate activity. This extra effort, together with the 214 emotional investment that accompanies it, is one of the most potent forces acting toward the continual development and perfecting of the system, with negative consequences for individual freedom (see paragraph 131). Especially, for the most creative scientists and engineers, work tends to be largely a surrogate activity. This point is so important that is deserves a separate discussion, which we shall give in a moment (paragraphs 87-92).

85. In this section we have explained how many people in modern society do satisfy their need for the power process to a greater or lesser extent. But we think that for the majority of people the need for the power process is not fully satisfied. In the first place, those who have an insatiable drive for status, or who get firmly "hooked" or a surrogate activity, or who identify strongly enough with a movement or organization to satisfy their need for power in that way, are exceptional personalities. Others are not fully satisfied with surrogate activities or by identification with an organization {see paragraphs41, 64). In the second place, too much control is imposed by the system through explicit regulation or through socialization, which results in a deficiency of autonomy, and in frustration due to the impossibility of attaining certain goals and the necessity of restraining too many impulses.

86. But even if most people in industrial-technological society were well satisfied, we (FC) would still be opposed to that form of society, because (among other reasons) we consider it demeaning to fulfill one's need for the power process through surrogate activities or through identification with an organization, rather then through pursuit of real goals.

THE MOTIVES OF SCIENTISTS

87. Science and technology provide the most important examples of surrogate activities. Some scientists claim that they are motivated by "curiosity," that notion is simply absurd. Most scientists work on highly specialized problem that are not the object of any normal curiosity. For example, is an astronomer, a mathematician or an entomologist curious about the properties of isopropyltrimethylmethane? Of course not. Only a chemist is curious about such a thing, and he is curious about it only because chemistry is his surrogate activity. Is the chemist curious about the appropriate classification of a new species of beetle? No. That question is of interest only to the entomologist, and he is interested in it only because entomology is his surrogate activity. If the chemist and the entomologist had to exert themselves seriously to obtain the physical necessities, and if that effort exercised their abilities in an interesting way but in some nonscientific pursuit, then they couldn't giver a damn about isopropyltrimethylmethane or the classification of beetles. Suppose that lack of funds for postgraduate education had led the chemist to become an insurance broker instead of a chemist. In that case he would have been very interested in insurance matters but would have cared nothing about isopropyltrimethylmethane. In any case it is not normal to put into the satisfaction of mere curiosity the amount of time and effort that scientists put into their work. The "curiosity" explanation for the scientists' motive just doesn't stand up.

88. The "benefit of humanity" explanation doesn't work any better. Some scientific work has no conceivable relation to the welfare of the human race - most of archaeology or comparative linguistics for example. Some other areas of science present obviously dangerous possibilities. Yet scientists in these areas are just as enthusiastic about their work as those who 215 develop vaccines or study air pollution. Consider the case of Dr. Edward Teller, who had an obvious emotional involvement in promoting nuclear power plants. Did this involvement stem from a desire to benefit humanity? If so, then why didn't Dr. Teller get emotional about other "humanitarian" causes? If he was such a humanitarian then why did he help to develop the H-bomb? As with many other scientific achievements, it is very much open to question whether nuclear power plants actually do benefit humanity. Does the cheap electricity outweigh the accumulating waste and risk of accidents? Dr. Teller saw only one side of the question. Clearly his emotional involvement with nuclear power arose not from a desire to "benefit humanity'' but from a personal fulfillment he got from his work and from seeing it put to practical use.

89. The same is true of scientists generally. With possible rare exceptions, their motive is neither curiosity nor a desire to benefit humanity but the need to go through the power process: to have a goal (a scientific problem to solve), to make an effort (research) and to attain the goal (solution of the problem.) Science is a surrogate activity because scientists work mainly for the fulfillment they get out of the work itself.

90. Of course, ifs not that simple. Other motives do play a role for many scientists. Money and status for example. Some scientists may be persons of the type who have an insatiable drive for status (see paragraph 79) and this may provide much of the motivation for their work. No doubt the majority of scientists, like the majority of the general population, are more or less susceptible to advertising and marketing techniques and need money to satisfy their craving for goods and services. Thus science is not a PURE surrogate activity. But it is in large part a surrogate activity.

91. Also, science and technology constitute a mass power movement, and many scientists gratify their need for power through identification with this mass movement (see paragraph 83).

92. Thus science marches on blindly, without regard to the real welfare of the human race or to any other standard, obedient only to the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government officials and corporation executives who provide the funds for research.

THE NATURE OF FREEDOM

93. We are going to argue that industrial-technological society cannot be reformed in such a way as to prevent it from progressively narrowing the sphere of human freedom. But because "freedom" is a word that can be interpreted in many ways, we must first make clear what kind of freedom we are concerned with.

94. By "freedom" we mean the opportunity to go through the power process, with real goals not the artificial goals of surrogate activities, and without interference, manipulation or supervision from anyone, especially from any large organization. Freedom means being in control (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) of the life-and-death issues of one's existence; food, clothing, shelter and defense against whatever threats there may be in one's environment. Freedom means having power; not the power to control other people but the power to control the circumstances of one's own life. One does not have freedom if anyone else (especially a large organization) has power over one, no matter how benevolently, 216 tolerantly and permissively that power may be exercised. It is important not to confuse freedom with mere permissiveness (see paragraph 72).

95. It is said that we live in a free society because we have a certain number of constitutionally guaranteed rights. But these are not as important as they seem. The degree of personal freedom that exists in a society is determined more by the economic and technological structure of the society than by its laws or its form of government. [16] Most of the Indian nations of New England were monarchies, and many of the cities of the Italian Renaissance were controlled by dictators. But in reading about these societies one gets the impression that they allowed far more personal freedom than out society does. In part this was because they lacked efficient mechanisms for enforcing the ruler's will: There were no modern, well-organized police forces, no rapid long-distance communications, no surveillance cameras, no dossiers of information about the lives of average citizens. Hence it was relatively easy to evade control.

96. As for our constitutional rights, consider for example that of freedom of the press. We certainly don't mean to knock that right: it is very important tool for limiting concentration of political power and for keeping those who do have political power in line by publicly exposing any misbehavior on their part. But freedom of the press is of very little use to the average citizen as an individual. The mass media are mostly under the control of large organizations that are integrated into the system. Anyone who has a little money can have something printed, or can distribute it on the Internet or in some such way, but what he has to say will be swamped by the vast volume of material put out by the media, hence it will have no practical effect. To make an impression on society with words is therefore almost impossible for most individuals and small groups. Take us (FC) for example. If we had never done anything violent and had submitted the present writings to a publisher, they probably would not have been accepted. If they had been accepted and published, they probably would not have attracted many readers, because it's more fun to watch the entertainment put out by the media than to read a sober essay. Even if these writings had had many readers, most of these readers would soon have forgotten what they had read as their minds were flooded by the mass of material to which the media expose them. In order to get our message before the public with some chance of making a lasting impression, we've had to kill people.

97. Constitutional rights are useful up to a point, but they do not serve to guarantee much more than what could be called the bourgeois conception of freedom. According to the bourgeois conception, a "free" man is essentially an element of a social machine and has only a certain set of prescribed and delimited freedoms; freedoms that are designed to serve the needs of the social machine more than those of the individual. Thus the bourgeois's "free" man has economic freedom because that promotes growth and progress; he has freedom of the press because public criticism restrains misbehavior by political leaders; he has a rights to a fair trial because imprisonment at the whim of the powerful would be bad for the system. This was clearly the attitude of Simon Bolivar. To him, people deserved liberty only if they used it to promote progress (progress as conceived by the bourgeois). Other bourgeois thinkers have taken a similar view of freedom as a mere means to collective ends. Chester C. Tan, "Chinese Political Thought in the Twentieth Century," page 202, explains the philosophy of the Kuomintang leader Hu Han-min: "An individual is granted rights because he is a member of society and his community life requires such rights. By community Hu meant the whole 217 society of the nation." And on page 259 Tan states that according to Carsum Chang (Chang Chun-mai, head of the State Socialist Party in China) freedom had to be used in the interest of the state and of the people as a whole. But what kind of freedom does one have if one can use it only as someone else prescribes? FC's conception of freedom is not that of Bolivar, Hu, Chang or other bourgeois theorists. The trouble with such theorists is that they have made the development and application of social theories their surrogate activity. Consequently the theories are designed to serve the needs of the theorists more than the needs of any people who may be unlucky enough to live in a society on which the theories are imposed.

98. One more point to be made in this section: It should not be assumed that a person has enough freedom just because he SAYS he has enough. Freedom is restricted in part by psychological control of which people are unconscious, and moreover many people's ideas of what constitutes freedom are governed more by social convention than by their real needs. For example, it's likely that many leftists of the oversocialized type would say that most people, including themselves are socialized too little rather than too much, yet the oversocialized leftist pays a heavy psychological price for his high level of socialization.

SOME PRINCIPLES OF HISTORY

99. Think of history as being the sum of two components: an erratic component that consists of unpredictable events that follow no discernible pattern, and a regular component that consists of long-term historical trends. Here we are concerned with the long-term trends.

100. FIRST PRINCIPLE. If a SMALL change is made that affects a long-term historical trend, then the effect of that change will almost always be transitory - the trend will soon revert to its original state. (Example: A reform movement designed to clean up political corruption in a society rarely has more than a short-term effect; sooner or later the reformers relax and corruption creeps back in. The level of political corruption in a given society tends to remain constant, or to change only slowly with the evolution of the society. Normally, a political cleanup will be permanent only if accompanied by widespread social changes; a SMALL change in the society won't be enough.) If a small change In a tong-term historical trend appears to be permanent, it is only because the change acts in the direction in which the trend is already moving, so that the trend is not altered but only pushed a step ahead.

101. The first principle is almost a tautology. If a trend were not stable with respect to small changes, it would wander at random rather than following a definite direction; in other words it would not be a long-term trend at all.

102. SECOND PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is sufficiently large to alter permanently a long-term historical trend, than it will alter the society as a whole. In other words, a society is a system in which all parts are interrelated, and you can't permanently change any important part without change all the other parts as well.

103. THIRD PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is large enough to alter permanently a long-term trend, then the consequences for the society as a whole cannot be predicted in advance. (Unless various other societies have 218 passed through the same change and have all experienced the same consequences, in which case one can predict on empirical grounds that another society that passes through the same change will be like to experience similar consequences.)

104. FOURTH PRINCIPLE. A new kind of society cannot be designed on paper. That is, you cannot plan out a new form of society in advance, then set it up and expect it to function as it was designed to.

105. The third and fourth principles result from the complexity of human societies. A change in human behavior will affect the economy of a society and its physical environment; the economy will affect the environment and vice versa, and the changes in the economy and the environment will affect human behavior in complex, unpredictable ways; and so forth. The network of causes and effects is far too complex to be untangled and understood.

106. FIFTH PRINCIPLE. People do not consciously and rationally choose the form of their society. Societies develop through processes of social evolution that are not under rational human control.

107. The fifth principle Is a consequence of the other four.

108. To illustrate: By the first principle, generally speaking an attempt at social reform either acts in the direction in which the society is developing anyway (so that it merely accelerates a change that would have occurred in any case) or else it only has a transitory effect, so that the society soon slips back into its old groove. To make a lasting change in the direction of development of any important aspect of a society, reform is insufficient and revolution is required. (A revolution does not necessarily involve an armed uprising or the overthrow of a government.) By the second principle, a revolution never changes only one aspect of a society; and by the third principle changes occur that were never expected or desired by the revolutionaries. By the fourth principle, when revolutionaries or utopians set up a new kind of society, it never works out as planned.

109. The American Revolution does not provide a counterexample. The American "Revolution" was not a revolution in our sense of the word, but a war of independence followed by a rather far-reaching political reform. The Founding Fathers did not change the direction of development of American society, nor did they aspire to do so. They only freed the development of American society from the retarding effect of British rule. Their political reform did not change any basic trend, but only pushed American political culture along its natural direction of development. British society, of which American society was an off-shoot, had been moving for a long time in the direction of representative democracy. And prior to the War of Independence the Americans were already practicing a significant degree of representative democracy in the colonial assemblies. The political system established by the Constitution was modeled on the British system and on the colonial assemblies. With major alteration, to be sure - there is no doubt that the Founding Fathers took a very important step. But it was a step along the road the English-speaking world was already traveling. The proof is that Britain and all of its colonies that were populated predominantly by people of British descent ended up with systems of representative democracy essentially similar to that of the United States. If the Founding Fathers had lost their nerve and declined to sign the Declaration of Independence, our way of life today would not have been significantly different. Maybe we 219 would have had somewhat closer ties to Britain, and would have had a Parliament and Prime Minister instead of a Congress and President. No big deal. Thus the American Revolution provides not a counterexample to our principles but a good illustration of them.

110. Still, one has to use common sense in applying the principles. They are expressed in imprecise language that allows latitude for interpretation, and exceptions to them can be found. So we present these principles not as inviolable laws but as rules of thumb, or guides to thinking, that may provide a partial antidote to naive ideas about the future of society. The principles should be borne constantly In mind, and whenever one reaches a conclusion that conflicts with them one should carefully reexamine one's thinking and retain the conclusion only if one has good, solid reasons for doing so.

INDUSTRIAL-TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY CANNOT BE REFORMED

111. The foregoing principles help to show how hopelessly difficult it would be to reform the industrial system in such a way as to prevent it from progressively narrowing our sphere of freedom. There has been a consistent tendency, going back at least to the Industrial Revolution for technology to strengthen the system at a high cost in individual freedom and local autonomy. Hence any change designed to protect freedom from technology would be contrary to a fundamental trend in the development of our society.

Consequently, such a change either would be a transitory one -- soon swamped by the tide of history -- or, if large enough to be permanent would alter the nature of our whole society. This by the first and second principles. Moreover, since society would be altered in a way that could not be predicted in advance (third principle) there would be great risk. Changes large enough to make a lasting difference in favor of freedom would not be initiated because it would realized that they would gravely disrupt the system. So any attempts at reform would be too timid to be effective. Even if changes large enough to make a lasting difference were initiated, they would be retracted when their disruptive effects became apparent. Thus, permanent changes in favor of freedom could be brought about only by persons prepared to accept radical, dangerous and unpredictable alteration of the entire system. In other words, by revolutionaries, not reformers.

112. People anxious to rescue freedom without sacrificing the supposed benefits of technology will suggest naive schemes for some new form of society that would reconcile freedom with technology. Apart from the fact that people who make suggestions seldom propose any practical means by which the new form of society could be set up in the first place, it follows from the fourth principle that even if the new form of society could be once established, it either would collapse or would give results very different from those expected.

113. So even on very general grounds it seems highly improbably that any way of changing society could be found that would reconcile freedom with modern technology. In the next few sections we will give more specific reasons for concluding that freedom and technological progress are incompatible.

RESTRICTION OF FREEDOM IS UNAVOIDABLE IN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY

114. As explained in paragraph 65-67, 70-73, modern man is strapped down by 220 a network of rules and regulations, and his fate depends on the actions of persons remote from him whose decisions he cannot influence. This is not accidental or a result of the arbitrariness of arrogant bureaucrats. It is necessary and inevitable in any technologically advanced society. The system HAS TO regulate human behavior closely in order to function. At work, people have to do what they are told to do, otherwise production would be thrown into chaos. Bureaucracies HAVE TO be run according to rigid rules. To allow any substantial personal discretion to lower-level bureaucrats would disrupt the system and lead to charges of unfairness due to differences in the way individual bureaucrats exercised their discretion. It is true that some restrictions on our freedom could be eliminated, but GENERALLY SPEAKING the regulation of our lives by large organizations is necessary for the functioning of industrial-technological society. The result is a sense of powerlessness on the part of the average person. It may be, however, that formal regulations will tend increasingly to be replaced by psychological tools that make us want to do what the system requires of us. (Propaganda [14], educational techniques, "mental health" programs, etc.)

115. The system HAS TO force people to behave in ways that are increasingly remote from the natural pattern of human behavior. For example, the system needs scientists, mathematicians and engineers. It can't function without them. So heavy pressure is put on children to excel in these fields. It isn't natural for an adolescent human being to spend the bulk of his time sitting at a desk absorbed in study. A normal adolescent wants to spend his time in active contact with the real world. Among primitive peoples the things that children are trained to do are in natural harmony with natural human impulses. Among the American Indians, for example, boys were trained in active outdoor pursuits -- just the sort of things that boys like. But in our society children are pushed into studying technical subjects, which most do grudgingly.

116. Because of the constant pressure that the system exerts to modify human behavior, there is a gradual increase in the number of people who cannot or will not adjust to society's requirements: welfare leeches, youth-gang members, cultists, anti-government rebels, radical environmentalist saboteurs, dropouts and resisters of various kinds.

117. In any technologically advanced society the individual's fate MUST depend on decisions that he personally cannot influence to any great extent. A technological society cannot be broken down into small, autonomous communities, because production depends on the cooperation of very large numbers of people and machines. Such a society MUST be highly organized and decisions HAVE TO be made that affect very large numbers of people. When a decision affects, say, a million people, then each of the affected individuals has, on the average, only a one-millionth share in making the decision. What usually happens in practice is that decisions are made by public officials or corporation executives, or by technical specialists, but even when the public votes on a decision the number of voters ordinarily is too large for the vote of any one individual to be significant. [17] Thus most individuals are unable to influence measurably the major decisions that affect their lives. Their is no conceivable way to remedy this in a technologically advanced society. The system tries to "solve" this problem by using propaganda to make people WANT the decisions that have been made for them, but even if this "solution" were completely successful in making people feel better, it would be demeaning.

221 118 Conservatives and some others advocate more "local autonomy." Local communities once did have autonomy, but such autonomy becomes less and less possible as local communities become more enmeshed with and dependent on large-scale systems like public utilities, computer networks, highway systems, the mass communications media, the modern health care system. Also operating against autonomy is the fact that technology applied in one location often affects people at other locations far away. Thus pesticide or chemical use near a creek may contaminate the water supply hundreds of miles downstream, and the greenhouse effect affects the whole world.

119. The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy human needs. Instead, it is human behavior that has to be modified to fit the needs of the system. This has nothing to do with the political or social ideology that may pretend to guide the technological system. It is the fault of technology, because the system is guided not by ideology but by technical necessity. [18] Of course the system does satisfy many human needs, but generally speaking it does this only to the extent that it is to the advantage of the system to do it. It is the needs of the system that are paramount, not those of the human being. For example, the system provides people with food because the system couldn't function if everyone starved; it attends to people's psychological needs whenever it can CONVENIENTLY do so, because it couldn't function if too many people became depressed or rebellious. But the system, for good, solid, practical reasons, must exert constant pressure on people to mold their behavior to the needs of the system. Too much waste accumulating? The government, the media, the educational system, environmentalists, everyone inundates us with a mass of propaganda about recycling. Need more technical personnel? A chorus of voices exhorts kids to study science. No one stops to ask whether it is inhumane to force adolescents to spend the bulk of their time studying subjects most of them hate. When skilled workers are put out of a job by technical advances and have to undergo "retraining," no one asks whether it is humiliating for them to be pushed around in this way. It is simply taken for granted that everyone must bow to technical necessity and for good reason: If human needs were put before technical necessity there would be economic problems, unemployment, shortages or worse. The concept of "mental health" in our society is defined largely by the extent to whrch an individual behaves in accord with the needs of the system and does so without showing signs of stress.

120. Efforts to make room for a sense of purpose and for autonomy within the system are no better than a joke. For example, one company, Instead of having each of its employees assemble only one section of a catalogue, had each assemble a whole catalogue, and this was supposed to give them a sense of purpose and achievement. Some companies have tried to give their employees more autonomy In their work, but for practical reasons this usually can be done only to a very limited extent, and In any case employees are never given autonomy as to ultimate goals -- their "autonomous" efforts can never be directed toward goals that they select personally, but only toward their employer's goals, such as the survival and growth of the company. Any company would soon go out of business if it permitted its employees to act otherwise. Similarly, in any enterprise within a socialist system, workers must direct their efforts toward the goals of the enterprise, otherwise the enterprise will not serve its purpose as part of the system. Once again, for purely technical reasons it is not possible for most Individuals or small groups to have much autonomy in industrial society. Even the small-business owner commonly has only limited autonomy. 222 Apart from the necessity of government regulation, he is restricted by the fact that he must fit into the economic system and conform to its requirements. For instance, when someone develops a new technology, the small-business person often has to use that technology whether he wants to or not, in order to remain competitive.

THE 'BAD' PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE 'GOOD' PARTS

121. A further reason why industrial society cannot be reformed in favor of freedom is that modern technology is a unified system in which all parts are dependent on one another. You can't get rid of the "bad" parts of technology and retain only the "good" parts. Take modern medicine, for example. Progress in medical science depends on progress in chemistry, physics, biology, computer science and other fields. Advanced medical treatments require expensive, high-tech equipment that can be made available only by a technologically progressive, economically rich society. Clearly you can't have much progress in medicine without the whole technological system and everything that goes with it.

122. Even if medical progress could be maintained without the rest of the technological system, it would by itself bring certain evils. Suppose for example that a cure for diabetes is discovered. People with a genetic tendency to diabetes will then be able to survive and reproduce as well as anyone else. Natural selection against genes for diabetes will cease and such genes will spread throughout the population. (This may be occurring to some extent already, since diabetes, while not curable, can be controlled through the use of insulin.) The same thing will happen with many other diseases susceptibility to which is affected by genetic degradation of the population. The only solution will be some sort of eugenics program or extensive genetic engineering of human beings, so that man in the future will no longer be a creation of nature, or of chance, or of God (depending on your religious or philosophical opinions), but a manufactured product.

123. If you think that big government interferes in your life too much NOW, just wait till the government starts regulating the genetic constitution of your children. Such regulation will inevitably follow the introduction of genetic engineering of human beings, because the consequences of unregulated genetic engineering would be disastrous. [19]

124. The usual response to such concerns is to talk about "medical ethics." But a code of ethics would not serve to protect freedom in the face of medical progress; it would only make matters worse. A code of ethics applicable to genetic engineering would be In effect a means of regulating the genetic constitution of human beings. Somebody (probably the upper-middle class, mostly) would decide that such and such applications of genetic engineering were "ethical" and others were not, so that in effect they would be imposing their own values on the genetic constitution of the population at large. Even if a code of ethics were chosen on a completely democratic basis, the majority would be imposing their own values on any minorities who might have a different idea of what constituted an "ethical" use of genetic engineering. The only code of ethics that would truly protect freedom would be one that prohibited ANY genetic engineering of human beings, and you can be sure that no such code will ever be applied in a technological society. No code that reduced genetic engineering to a minor role could stand up for long, because the temptation presented by the 223 immense power of biotechnology would be irresistible, especially since to the majority of people many of its applications will seem obviously and unequivocally good (eliminating physical and mental diseases, giving people the abilities they need to get along in today's world). Inevitably, genetic engineering will be used extensively, but only in ways consistent with the needs of the industrial-technological system. [20]

TECHNOLOGY IS A MORE POWERFUL SOCIAL FORCE THAN THE ASPIRATION FOR FREEDOM

125. It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force and continually encroaches on freedom through REPEATED compromises. Imagine the case of two neighbors, each of whom at the outset owns the same amount of land, but one of whom is more powerful than the other. The powerful one demands a piece of the other's land. The weak one refuses. The powerful one says, "OK, let's compromise. Give me half of what I asked." The weak one has little choice but to give in. Some time later the powerful neighbor demands another piece of land, again there is a compromise, and so forth. By forcing a long series of compromises on the weaker man, the powerful one eventually gets all of his land. So it goes in the conflict between technology and freedom.

126. Let us explain why technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom.

127. A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. For example, consider motorized transport. A walking man formerly could go where he pleased, go at his own pace without observing any traffic regulations, and was independent of technological support-systems. When motor vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase man's freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile if he didn't want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could travel much faster than the walking man. But the introduction of motorized transport soon changed society in such a way as to restrict greatly man's freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous, it became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In a car, especially in densely populated areas, one cannot just go where one likes at one's own pace one's movement is governed by the flow of traffic and by various traffic laws. One is tied down by various obligations: license requirements, driver test, renewing registration, insurance, maintenance required for safety, monthly payments on purchase price. Moreover, the use of motorized transport is no longer optional. Since the introduction of motorized transport the arrangement of our cities has changed in such a way that the majority of people no longer live within walking distance of their place of employment, shopping areas and recreational opportunities, so that they HAVE TO depend on the automobile for transportation. Or else they must use public transportation, in which case they have even less control over their own movement than when driving a car. Even the walker's freedom is now greatly restricted. In the city he continually has to stop and wait for traffic lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and unpleasant to walk atong the highway. (Note the important point we have illustrated with the case of motorized transport: When a new 224 item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.)

128. While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually narrows our sphere of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to be desirable. Electricity, indoor plumbing, rapid long-distance communications ... how could one argue against any of these things, or against any other of the innumerable technical advances that have made modem society? It would have been absurd to resist the introduction of the telephone, for example. It offered many advantages and no disadvantages. Yet as we explained in paragraphs 59-76, all these technical advances taken together have created world in which the average man's fate is no longer in his own hands or in the hands of his neighbors and friends, but in those of politicians, corporation executives and remote, anonymous technicians and bureaucrats whom he as an individual has no power to influence. [21] The same process will continue in the future. Take genetic engineering, for example. Few people will resist the introduction of a genetic technique that eliminates a hereditary disease It does no apparent harm and prevents much suffering. Yet a large number of genetic improvements taken together will make the human being into an engineered product rather than a free creation of chance (or of God, or whatever, depending on your religious beliefs).

129 Another reason why technology is such a powerful social force is that, within the context of a given society, technological progress marches in only one direction; it can never be reversed. Once a technical innovation has been introduced, people usually become dependent on it, unless it is replaced by some still more advanced innovation. Not only do people become dependent as individuals on a new item of technology, but, even more, the system as a whole becomes dependent on it. (Imagine what would happen to the system today if computers, for example, were eliminated.) Thus the system can move in only one direction, toward greater technologization. Technology repeatedly forces freedom to take a step back -- short of the overthrow of the whole technological system.

130. Technology advances with great rapidity and threatens freedom at many different points at the same time (crowding, rules and regulations, increasing dependence of individuals on large organizations, propaganda and other psychological techniques, genetic engineering, invasion of privacy through surveillance devices and computers, etc.) To hold back any ONE of the threats to freedom would require a long different social struggle. Those who want to protect freedom are overwhelmed by the sheer number of new attacks and the rapidity with which they develop, hence they become pathetic and no longer resist. To fight each of the threats separately would be futile. Success can be hoped for only by fighting the technological system as a whole; but that is revolution not reform.

131. Technicians (we use this term in its broad sense to describe all those who perform a specialized task that requires training) tend to be so involved in their work (their surrogate activity) that when a conflict arises between their technical work and freedom, they almost always decide in favor of their technical work. This is obvious in the case of scientists, but it also appears elsewhere: Educators, humanitarian groups, conservation organizations do not hesitate to use propaganda or other psychological techniques to help them achieve their laudable ends. Corporations and 225 government agencies, when they find it useful, do not hesitate to collect information about individuals without regard to their privacy. Law enforcement agencies are frequently inconvenienced by the constitutional rights of suspects and often of completely innocent persons, and they do whatever they can do legally (or sometimes illegally) to restrict or circumvent those rights. Most of these educators, government officials and law officers believe in freedom, privacy and constitutional rights, but when these conflict with their work, they usually feel that their work is more important.

132. It is well known that people generally work better and more persistently when striving for a reward than when attempting to avoid a punishment or negative outcome. Scientists and other technicians are motivated mainly by the rewards they get through their work. But those who oppose technilogiccal invasions of freedom are working to avoid a negative outcome, consequently there are a few who work persistently and well at this discouraging task. If reformers ever achieved a signal victory that seemed to set up a solid barrier against further erosion of freedom through technological progress, most would tend to relax and turn their attention to more agreeable pursuits. But the scientists would remain busy in their laboratories, and technology as it progresses would find ways, in spite of any barriers, to exert more and more control over individuals and make them always more dependent on the system.

133. No social arrangements, whether laws, institutions, customs or ethical codes, can provide permanent protection against technology. History shows that all social arrangements are transitory; they all change or break down eventually. But technological advances are permanent within the context of a given civilization. Suppose for example that it were possible to arrive at some social arrangements that would prevent genetic engineering from being applied to human beings, or prevent it from being applied in such a ways as to threaten freedom and dignity. Still, the technology would remain waiting. Sooner or later the social arrangement would break down. Probably sooner, given that pace of change in our society. Then genetic engineering would begin to invade our sphere of freedom, and this invasion would be irreversible (short of a breakdown of technological civilization itself). Any illusions about achieving anything permanent through social arrangements should be dispelled by what is currently happening with environmental legislation. A few years ago it seemed that there were secure legal barriers preventing at least SOME of the worst forms of environmental degradation. A change in the political wind, and those barriers begin to crumble.

134. For all of the foregoing reasons, technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom. But this statement requires an important qualification. It appears that during the next several decades the industrial-technological system will be undergoing severe stresses due to economic and environmental problems, and especially due to problems of human behavior (alienation, rebellion, hostility, a variety of social and psychological difficulties). We hope that the stresses through which the system is likely to pass will cause it to break down, or at least weaken it sufficiently so that a revolution occurs and is successful, then at that particular moment the aspiration for freedom will have proved more powerful than technology.

135. In paragraph 125 we used an analogy of a weak neighbor who is left destitute by a strong neighbor who takes all h1s land by forcing on him a 226 series of compromises. But suppose now that the strong neighbor gets sick, so that he is unable to defend himself. The weak neighbor can force the strong one to give him his land back, or he can kill him. If he lets the strong man survive and only forces him to give his land back, he is a fool, because when the strong man gets well he will again take all the land for himself. The only sensible alternative for the weaker man is to kill the strong one while he has the chance. In the same way, while the industrial system is sick we must destroy it. If we compromise with it and let it recover from its sickness, it will eventually w1pe out all of our freedom.

SIMPLER SOCIAL PROBLEMS HAVE PROVED INTRACTABLE

136. If anyone still imagines that it would be possible to reform the system in such a way as to protect freedom from technology, let him consider how clumsily and for the most part unsuccessfully our society has dealt with other social problems that are far more simple and straightfoJWard. Among other things, the system has failed to stop environmental degradation, political corruption, drug trafficking or domestic abuse.

137. Take our environmental problems, for example. Here the conflict of values is straightfoJWard: economic expedience now versus saving some of our natural resources for our grandchildren [22] But on this subject we get only a lot of blather and obfuscation from the people who have power, and nothing like a clear, consistent line of action, and we keep on piling up environmental problems that our grandchildren will have to live with. Attempts to resolve the environmental issue consist of struggles and compromises between different factions, some of which are ascendant at one moment, others at another moment. The line of struggle changes with the shifting currents of public opinion. This is not a rational process, or is it one that is likely to lead to a timely and successful solution to the problem. Major social problems, if they get "solved" at all, are rarely or never solved through any rational, comprehensive plan. They just work themselves out through a process in which various competing groups pursing their own usually short-term) self-interest [23] arrive (mainly by luck) at some more or less stable modus vivendi. In fact, the principles we formulated in paragraphs 1OQ-1 06 make it seem doubtful that rational, long-term social planning can EVER be successful. 138. Thus it is clear that the human race has at best a very limited capacity for solving even relatively straightforward social problems. How then is it going to solve the far more difficult and subtle problem of reconciling freedom with technology? Technology presents clear-cut material advantages, whereas freedom is an abstraction that means different things to different people, and its loss is easily obscured by propaganda and fancy talk.

139. And note this important difference: It is conceivable that our environmental problems (for example) may some day be settled through a rational, comprehensive plan, but if this happens it will be only because it is in the long-term interest of the system to solve these problems. But it is NOT in the interest of the system to preserve freedom or small-group autonomy. On the contrary, it is in the interest of the system to bring human behavior under control to the greatest possible extent. <24> Thus, while practical considerations may eventually force the system to take a rational, prudent approach to environmental problems, equally practical considerations will force the system to regulate human behavior ever more closely (preferably by indirect means that will disguise the encroachment on freedom.) This isn't just our opinion. Eminent social scientists (e.g. James 227 Q. Wilson) have stressed the importance of "socializing" people more effectively.

REVOLUTION IS EASIER THAN REFORM

140. We hope we have convinced the reader that the system cannot be reformed in a such a way as to reconcile freedom with technology. The only way out is to dispense with the industrial-technological system altogether. This implies revolution, not necessarily an armed uprising, but certainly a radical and fundamental change in the nature of society.

141. People tend to assume that because a revolution involves a much greater change than reform does, it is more difficult to bring about than reform is. Actually, under certain circumstances revolution is much easier than reform. The reason is that a revolutionary movement can inspire an intensity of commitment that a reform movement cannot inspire. A reform movement merely offers to solve a particular social problem A revolutionary movement offers to solve all problems at one stroke and create a whole new world; it provides the kind of ideal for which people will take great risks and make great sacrifices. For this reasons it would be much easier to overthrow the whole technological system than to put effective, permanent restraints on the development of application of any one segment of technology, such as genetic engineering, but under suitable conditions large numbers of people may devote themselves passionately to a revolution against the industrial-technological system. As we noted in paragraph 132, reformers seeking to limite certain aspects of technology would be working to avoid a negative outcome. But revolutionaries work to gain a powerful reward -­ fulfillment of their revolutionary vision -- and therefore work harder and more persistently than reformers do.

142. Reform is always restrainde by the fear of painful consequences if changes go too far. But once a revolutionary fever has taken hold of a society, people are willing to undergo unlimited hardships for the sake of their revolution. This was clearly shown in the French and Russian Revolutions. It may be that in such cases only a minority of the population Is really committed to the revolution, but this minority is sufficiently large and active so that it becomes the dominant force in society. We will have more to say about revolution in paragraphs 180-205.

CONTROL OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR

143. Since the beginning of civilization, organized societies have had to put pressures on human beings of the sake of the functioning of the social organism. The kinds of pressures vary greatly from one society to another. Some of the pressures are physical (poor diet, excessive labor, environmental pollution), some are psychological (noise, crowding, forcing humans behavior into the mold that society requires). In the past, human nature has been approximately constant, or at any rate has varied only within certain bounds. Consequently, societies have been able to push people only up to certain limits. When the limit of human endurance has been passed, things start going rong: rebellion, or crime, or corruption, or evasion of work, or depression and other mental problems, or an elevated death rate, or a declining birth rate or something else, so that either the society breaks down, or its functioning becomes too inefficient and it is (quickly or gradually, through conquest, attrition or evolution) replaces by some more efficient form of society. 228 [25]

144. Thus human nature has in the past put certain limits on the development of societies. People coud be pushed only so far and no farther. But today this may be changing, because modern technology is developing way of modifying human beings.

145. Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that amke them terribley unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society. It is well known that the rate of clinical depression had been greatly increasing in recent decades. We believe that this is due to disruption fo the power process, as explained in paragraphs 59· 76. But even if we are wrong, the increasing rate of depression is certainly the result of SOME conditions that exist in today's society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants area a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to toelrate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable. (Yes, we know that depression is often of purely genetic origin. We are referring here to those cases in which environment plays the predominant role.)

146. Drugs that affect the mind are only one example of the methods of controlling human behavior that modern society is developing. Let us look at some of the other methods.

147. To start with, there are the techniques of surveillance. Hidden video cameras are now used in most stores and in many other places, computers are used to collect and process vast amounts of information about individuals. Information so obtained greatly increases the effectiveness of physical coercion (i.e., law enforcement).[26] Then there are the methods of propaganda, for which the mass communication media provide effective vehicles. Efficient techniques have been developed for winning elections, selling products, influencing public opinion. The entertainment industry serves as an important psychological tool of the system, possibly even when it is dishing out large amounts of sex and violence. Entertainment provides modern man with an essential means of escape. While absorbed in television, videos, etc., he can forget stress, anxiety, frustration, dissatisfaction. Many primitive peoples, when they don't have work to do, are quite content to sit for hours at a time doing nothing at all, because they are at peace with themselves and their world. But most modern people must be contantly occupied or entertained, otherwise the get "bored," i.e., they get fidgety, uneasy, irritable.

148. Other techniques strike deeper that the foregoing. Education is no longer a simple affair of paddling a kid's behind when he doesn't know his lessons and patting him on the head when he does know them. It is becoming a scientific technique for controlling the child's development. Sylvan Learning Centers, for example, have had great success in motivating children to study, and psychological techniques are also used with more or less success in many conventional schools. "Parenting" techniques that are taught to parents are designed to make children accept fundamental values of the system and behave in ways that the system finds desirable. "Mental health" programs, "intervention" techniques, psychotherapy and so forth are ostensibly designed to benefit individuals, but in practice they usually 229 serve as methods for inducing individuals to think and behave as the system requires. (There is no contradiction here; an individual whose attitudes or behavior bring him into conflict with the system is up against a force that is too powerful for him to conquer or escape from, hence he is likely to suffer from stress, frustration. defeat. His path will be much easier if he thinks and behaves as the system requires. In that sense the system is acting for the benefit of the individual when it brainwashes him into conformity.) Child abuse in its gross and obvious forms is disapproved in most if not all cultures. Tormenting a child for a trivial reason or no reason at all is something that appalls almost everyone. But many psychologists interpret the concept of abuse much more broadly. Is spanking, when used as part of a rational and consistent system of discipline, a form of abuse? The question will ultimately be decided by whether or not spanking tends to produce behavior that makes a person fit in well with the existing system of society. In practice, the word "abuse" tends to be interpreted to include any method of child-rearing that produces behavior inconvenient for the system. Thus. when they go beyond the prevention of obvious, senseless cruelty, programs for preventing "child abuse" are directed toward the control of human behavior of the system.

149. Presumably, research will continue to increas the effectiveness of psychological techniques for controlling human behavior. But we think it is unlikely that psychological techniques alone will be sufficient to adjust human beings to the kind of society that technology is creating. Biological methods probably will have to be used. We have already mentiond the use of drugs in this connection. Neurology may provide other avenues of modifying the human mind. Genetic engineering of human beings is already beginning to occur in the form of "gene therapy," and there is no reason to assume the such methods will not eventually be used to modify those aspects of the body that affect mental funtioning.

150. As we mentioned in paragraph 134, industrial society seems likely to be entering a period of severe stress, due in part to problems of human behavior and in part to economic and environmental problems. And a considerable proportion of the system's economic and environmental problems result from the way human beings behave. Alienation, low self-esteem, depression, hostility, rebellion; children who won't study, youth gangs, illegal drug use, rape, child abuse • other crimes, unsafe sex, teen pregnancy, population growth, political corruption, race hatred, ethnic rivalry, bitter ideological conflict (i.e., pro-choice vs. pro-life), political extremism, terrorism, sabotage, anti-government groups, hate groups. All these threaten the very survival of the system. The system will be FORCED to use every practical means of controlling human behavior.

151. The social disruption that we see today is certainly not the result of mere chance. It can only be a result fo the conditions of life that the system imposes on people. (We have argued that the most important of these conditions is disruption of the power process.) If the systems succeeds in imposing sufficient control over human behavior to assure itw own survival, a new watershed in human history will have passed. Whereas formerly the limits of human endurance have imposed limits on the development of societies (as we explained in paragraphs 143, 144), industrial-technological society will be able to pass those limits by modifying human beings, whether by psychological methods or biological methods or both. In the future, social systems will not be adjusted to suit the needs of human beings. Instead, human being will be adjusted to suit the needs of the system. 230 [27] 152. Generally speaking, technological control over human behavior will probably not be introduced with a totalitarian intention or even through a conscious desire to restrict human freedom. [28] Each new step in the assertion of control over the human mind will be taken as a rational response to a problem that faces society, such as curing alcoholism, reducing the crime rate or inducing young people to study science and engineering. In many cases, there will be humanitarian justification. For example, when a psychiatrist prescribes an anti-depressant for a depressed patient, he is clearly doing that individual a favor. It would be inhumane to withhold the drug from someone who needs it. When parents send their children to Sylvan Learning Centers to have them manipulated into becoming enthusiastic about their studies, they do so from concern for their children's welfare. It may be that some of these parents wish that one didn't have to have specialized training to get a job and that their kid didn't have to be brainwashed into becoming a computer nerd. But what can they do? They can't change society, and their child may be unemployable if he doesn't have certain skills. So they send him to Sylvan.

153. Thus control over human behavior will be introduced not by a calculated decision of the authorities but through a process of social evolution (RAPID evolution, however). The process will be impossible to resist, because each advance, considered by itself, will appear to be beneficial, or at least the evil involved in making the advance will appear to be beneficial, or at least the evil involved in making the advance will seem to be less than that which would result from not making it (see paragraph 127). Propaganda for example is used for many good purposes, such as discouraging child abuse or race hatred. [14] Sex education is obviously useful, yet the effect of sex education (to the extent that it is successful) is to take the shaping of sexual attitudes away from the family and put it into the hands of the state as represented by the public school system.

154. Suppose a biological trait is discovered that increases the likelihood that a child will grow up to be a criminal and suppose some sort of gene therapy can remove this trait. [29] Of course most parents whose children possess the trait will have them undergo the therapy. It would be inhumane to do otherwise, since the child would probably have a miserable life if he grew up to be a criminal. But many or most primitive societies have a low crime rate in comparison with that of our society, even though they have neither high-tech methods of child-rearing nor harsh systems of punishment. Since there is no reason to suppose that more modern men than primitive men have innate predatory tendencies, the high crime rate of our society must be due to the pressures that modern conditions put on people, to which many cannot or will not adjust. Thus a treatment designed to remove potential criminal tendencies is at least in part a way of re-engineering people so that they suit the requirements of the system.

155. Our society tends to regard as a "sickness" any mode of thought or behavior that is inconvenient for the system, and this is plausible because when an individual doesn't fit into the system it causes pain to the individual as well as problems for the system. Thus the manipulation of an individual to adjust him to the system is seen as a "cure" for a "sickness" and therefore as good.

156. In paragraph 127 we pointed out that if the use of a new item of technology is INITIALLY optional, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional, 231 because the new technology tends to change society in such a way that it becomes difficult or impossible for an individual to function without using that technology. This applies also to the technology of human behavior. In a world in which most children are put through a program to make them enthusiastic about studying, a parent will almost be forced to put his kid through such a program, because if he does not, then the kid will grow up to be, comparatively speaking, an ignoramus and therefore unemployable. Or suppose a biological treatment is discovered that, without undesirable side-effects, will greatly reduce the psychological stress from which so many people suffer in our society. If large numbers of people choose to undergo the treatment, then the general level of stress in society will be reduced, so that it will be possible for the system to increase the stress-producing pressures. In fact, something like this seems to have happened already with one of our society's most important psychological tools for enabling people to reduce (or at least temporarily escape from) stress, namely, mass entertainment (see paragraph 147). Our use of mass entertainment is "optional": No law requires us to watch television, listen to the radio, read magazines. Yet mass entertainment is a means of escape and stress-reduction on which most of us have become dependent. Everyone complains about the trashiness of television, but almost everyone watches it. A few have kicked the TV habit, but it would be a rare person who could get along today without using ANY form of mass entertainment. (Yet until quite recently in human history most people got along very nicely with no other entertainment than that which each local community created for itself.) Without the entertainment industry the system probably would not have been able to get away with putting as much stress-producing pressure on us as it does.

157. Assuming that industrial society survives, it is likely that technology will eventually acquire something approaching complete control over human behavior. It has been established beyond any rational doubt that human thought and behavior have a largely biological basis. As experimenters have demonstrated, feelings such as hunger, pleasure, anger and fear can be turned on and off by electrical stimulation of appropriate parts of the brain. Memories can be destroyed by damaging parts of the brain or they can be brought to the surface by electrical stimulation. Hallucinations can be induced or moods changed by drugs. There may or may not be an immaterial human soul, but if there is one it clearly is less powerful that the biological mechanisms of human behavior. For if that were not the case then researchers would not be able so easily to manipulate human feelings and behavior with drugs and electrical currents.

158. It presumably would be impractical for all people to have electrodes inserted in their heads so that they could be controlled by the authorities. But the fact that human thoughts and feelings are so open to biological intervention shows that the problem of controlling human behavior is mainly a technical problem; a problem of neurons, hormones and complex molecules; the kind of problem that is accessible to scientific attack. Given the outstanding record of our society in solving technical problems, it is overwhelmingly probable that great advances will be made in the control of human behavior.

159. Will public resistance prevent the introduction of technological control of human behavior? It certainly would if an attempt were made to introduce such control all at once. But since technological control will be introduced through a long sequence of small advances, there will be no 232 rational and effective public resistance. (See paragraphs 127,132, 153.)

160. To those who think that all this sounds like science fiction, we point out that yesterday's science fiction is today's fact. The Industrial Revolution has radically altered man's environment and way of life, and it is only to be expected that as technology is increasingly applied to the human body and mind, man himself will be altered as radically as his environment and way of life have been.

HUMAN RACE AT A CROSSROADS

161. But we have gotten ahead of our story. It is one thing to develop in the laboratory a series of psychological or biological techniques for manipulating human behavior and quite another to integrate these techniques into a functioning social system. The latter problem is the more difficult of the two. For example, while the techniques of educational psychology doubtless work quite well in the "lab schools" where they are developed, it is not necessarily easy to apply them effectively throughout our educational system. We all know what many of our schools are like. The teachers are too busy taking knives and guns away from the kids to subject them to the latest techniques for making them into computer nerds. Thus, in spite of all its technical advances relating to human behavior the system to date has not been impressively successful in controlling human beings. The people whose behavior is fairly well under the control of the system are those of the type that might be called "bourgeois." But there are growing numbers of people who in one way or another are rebels against the system: welfare leaches, youth gangs cultists, satanists, nazis, radical environmentalists, militiamen, etc ..

162. The system is currently engaged in a desperate struggle to overcome certain problems that threaten its survival, among which the problems of human behavior are the most important. If the system succeeds in acquiring sufficient control over human behavior quickly enough, it will probably survive. Otherwise it will break down. We think the issue will most likely be resolved within the next several decades, say 40 to 100 years.

163. Suppose the system survives the crisis of the next several decades. By that time it will have to have solved, or at least brought under control, the principal problems that confront it, in particular that of "socializing" human beings; that is, making people sufficiently docile so that their behavior no longer threatens the system. That being accomplished, it does not appear that there would be any further obstacle to the development of technology, and it would presumably advance toward its logical conclusion, which is complete control over everything on Earth, including human beings and all other important organisms. The system may become a unitary, monolithic organization, or it may be more or less fragmented and consist of a number of organizations coexisting in a relationship that includes elements of both cooperation and competition, just as today the government, the corporations and other large organizations both cooperate and compete with one another. Human freedom mostly will have vanished, because individuals and small groups will be impotent vis-a-vis large organizations armed with supertechnology and an arsenal of advanced psychological and biological tools for manipulating human beings, besides instruments of surveillance and physical coercion. Only a small number of people will have any real power, and even these probably will have only very limited freedom, because their behavior too will be regulated; just as today our politicians 233 and corporation executives can retain their positions of power only as long as their behavior remains within certain fairly narrow limits.

164. Don't imagine that the systems will stop developing further techniques for controlling human beings and nature once the crisis of the next few decades is over and increasing control is no longer necessary for the system's survival. On the contrary, once the hard times are over the system will increase its control over people and nature more rapidly, because it will no longer be hampered by difficulties of the kind that it is currently experiencing. Survival is not the principal motive for extending control. As we explained in paragraphs 87-90, technicians and scientists carry on their work largely as a surrogate activity; that is, they satisfy their need for power by solving technical problems. They will continue to do this with unabated enthusiasm, and among the most interesting and challenging problems for them to solve will be those of understanding the human body and mind and intervening in their development. For the "good of humanity," of course.

165. But suppose on the other hand that the stresses of the coming decades prove to be too much for the system. If the system breaks down there may be a period of chaos, a "time of troubles" such as those that history has recorded: at various epochs in the past. It is impossible to predict what would emerge from such a time of troubles, but at any rate the human race would be given a new chance. The greatest danger is that industrial society may begin to reconstitute itself within the first few years after the breakdown. Certainly there will be many people (power-hungry types especially) who will be anxious to get the factories running again.

166. Therefore two tasks confront those who hate the servitude to which the industrial system is reducing the human race. First, we must work to heighten the social stresses within the system so as to increase the likelihood that it will break down or be weakened sufficiently so that a revolution against it becomes possible. Second, it is necessary to develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology and the industrial society if and when the system becomes sufficiently weakened. And such an ideology will help to assure that, if and when industrial society breaks down, its remnants will be smashed beyond repair, so that the system cannot be reconstituted. The factories should be destroyed, technical books burned, etc.

HUMAN SUFFERING

167. The industrial system will not break down purely as a result of revolutionary action. It will not be vulnerable to revolutionary attack unless its own internal problems of development lead it into very serious difficulties. So if the system breaks down it will do so either spontaneously, or through a process that is in part spontaneous but helped along by revolutionaries. If the breakdown is sudden, many people will die, since the world's population has become so overblown that it cannot even feed itself any longer without advanced technology. Even if the breakdown is gradual enough so that reduction of the population can occur more through lowering of the birth rate than through elevation of the death rate, the process of de-industrialization probably will be very chaotic and involve much suffering. It is naive to think It likely that technology can be phased out in a smoothly managed orderly way, especially since the technophiles will fight stubbornly at every step. Is it therefore cruel to work for the breakdown of the system? Maybe, but maybe not. In the first place, 234 revolutionaries will not be able to break the system down unless it is already in deep trouble so that there would be a good chance of its eventually breaking down by itself anyway; and the bigger the system grows, the more disastrous the consequences of its breakdown will be; so it may be that revolutionaries, by hastening the onset of the breakdown will be reducing the extent of the disaster.

168. In the second place, one has to balance the struggle and death against the loss of freedom and dignity. To many of us, freedom and dignity are more important than a long life or avoidance of physical pain. Besides, we all have to die some time, and it may be better to die fighting for survival, or for a cause, than to live a long but empty and purposeless life.

169. In the third place, it is not all certain that the survival of the system will lead to less suffering than the breakdown of the system would. The system has already caused, and is continuing to cause , immense suffering all over the world. Ancient cultures, that for hundreds of years gave people a satisfactory relationship with each other and their environment, have been shattered by contact with industrial society, and the result has been a whole catalogue of economic, environmental, social and psychological problems. One of the effects of the intrusion of industrial society has been that over much of the world traditional controls on population have been thrown out of balance. Hence the population explosion, with all that it implies. Then there is the psychological suffering that is widespread throughout the supposedly fortunate countries of the West (see paragraphs 44, 45). No one knows what will happen as a result of ozone depletion, the greenhouse effect and other environmental problems that cannot yet be foreseen. And, as nuclear proliferation has shown, new technology cannot be kept out of the hands of dictators and irresponsible Third World nations. Would you like to speculate abut what Iraq or North Korea will do with genetic engineering?

170. "Oh !" say the technophiles, "Science is going to fix all that! We will conquer famine, eliminate psychological suffering, make everybody healthy and happy!" Yeah, sure. That's what they said 200 years ago. The Industrial Revolution was supposed to eliminate poverty, make everybody happy, etc. The actual result has been quite different. The technophiles are hopelessly naive (or self-deceiving) in their understanding of social problems. They are unaware of (or choose to ignore) the fact that when large changes, even seemingly beneficial ones, are introduced into a society, they lead to a long sequence of other changes, most of which are impossible to predict (paragraph 103). The result is disruption of the society. So it is very probable that in their attempt to end poverty and disease, engineer docile, happy personalities and so forth, the technophiles will create social systems that are terribly troubled, even more so that the present one. For example, the scientists boast that they will end famine by creating new, genetically engineered food plants. But this will allow the human population to keep expanding indefinitely, and it is well known that crowding leads to increased stress and aggression. This is merely one example of the PREDICT ABLE problems that will arise. We emphasize that, as past experience has shown, technical progress will lead to other new problems for society far more rapidly that it has been solving old ones. Thus it will take a long difficult period of trial and error for the technophiles to work the bugs out of their Brave New World (if they ever do). In the meantime there will be great suffering. So it is not all clear that the survival of industrial society would involve less suffering than the breakdown of that society 235 would. Technology has gotten the human race into a fix from which there is not likely to be any easy escape.

THE FUTURE

171. But suppose now that industrial society does survive the next several decade and that the bugs do eventually get worked out of the system, so that it functions smoothly. What kind of system will it be? We will consider several possibilities.

172. First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better that human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained.

173. If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can't make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decision for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better result than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.

174. On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car of his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite --just as it is today, but with two difference. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless the may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consist of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone's physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes "treatment" to cure his "problem." Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered 236 either to remove their need for the power process or to make them "sublimate" their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they most certainly will not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals.

175. But suppose now that the computer scientists do not succeed in developing artificial intelligence, so that human work remains necessary. Even so, machines will take care of more and more of the simpler tasks so that there will be an increasing surplus of human workers at the lower levels of ability. (We see this happening already. There are many people who find it difficult or impossible to get work, because for intellectual or psychological reasons they cannot acquire the level of training necessary to make themselves useful in the present system.) On those who are employed, ever-increasing demands will be placed; They will need more and more training, more and more ability, and will have to be ever more reliable, conforming and docile, because they will be more and more like cells of a giant organism. Their tasks will be increasingly specialized so that their work will be, in a sense, out of touch with the real world, being concentrated on one tiny slice of reality. The system will have to use any means that I can, whether psychological or biological, to engineer people to be docile, to have the abilities that the system requires and to "sublimate" their drive for power into some specialized task. But the statement that the people of such a society will have to be docile may require qualification. The society may find competitiveness useful, provided that ways are found of directing competitiveness into channels that serve that needs of the system. We can imagine into channels that serve the needs of the system. We can imagine a future society in which there is endless competition for positions of prestige an power. But no more than a very few people will ever reach the top, where the only real power is (see end of paragraph 163). Very repellent is a society in which a person can satisfy his needs for power only by pushing large numbers of other people out of the way and depriving them of THEIR opportunity for power.

176. Once can envision scenarios that incorporate aspects of more than one of the possibilities that we have just discussed. For instance, it may be that machines will take over most of the work that is of real, practical importance, but that human beings will be kept busy by being given relatively unimportant work. It has been suggested, for example, that a great development of the service of industries might provide work for human beings. Thus people will would spend their time shinning each others shoes, driving each other around inn taxicab, making handicrafts for one another, waiting on each other's tables, etc. This seems to us a thoroughly contemptible way for the human race to end up, and we doubt that many people would find fulfilling Jives in such pointless busy-work. They would seek other, dangerous outlets (drugs,, crime, "cults," hate groups) unless they were biological or psychologically engineered to adapt them to such a way of life.

177. Needless to day, the scenarios outlined above do not exhaust all the possibilities. They only indicate the kinds of outcomes that seem to us mots likely. But wee can envision no plausible scenarios that are any more palatable that the ones we've just described. It is overwhelmingly probable that if the industrial-technological system survives the next 40 to 100 years, it will by that time have developed certain general characteristics: Individuals (at least those of the "bourgeois" type, who are integrated into the system and make it run, and who therefore have all the power) will be 237 more dependent than ever on large organizations; they will be more "socialized" that ever and their physical and mental qualities to a significant extent (possibly to a very great extent ) will be those that are engineered into them rather than being the results of chance (or of God's will, or whatever); and whatever may be left of wild nature will be reduced to remnants preserved for scientific study and kept under the supervision and management of scientists (hence it will no longer be truly wild). In the long run (say a few centuries from now) it is it is likely that neither the human race nor any other important organisms will exist as we know them today, because once you start modifying organisms through genetic engineering there is no reason to stop at any particular point, so that the modifications will probably continue until man and other organisms have been utterly transformed.

178. Whatever else may be the case, it is certain that technology is creating for human begins a new physical and social environment radically different from the spectrum of environments to which natural selection has adapted the human race physically and psychological. If man is not adjust to this new environment by being artificially re-engineered, then he will be adapted to it through a long an painful process of natural selection. The former is far more likely that the latter.

179. It would be better to dump the whole stinking system and take the consequences.

STRATEGY

180. The technophiles are taking us all on an utterly reckless ride into the unknown. Many people understand something of what technological progress is doing to us yet take a passive attitude toward it because they think it is inevitable. But we (FC) don't think it is inevitable. We think it can be stopped, and we will give here some indications of how to go about stopping it.

181. As we stated in paragraph 166, the two main tasks for the present are to promote social stress and instability in industrial society and to develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology and the industrial system. When the system becomes sufficiently stressed and unstable, a revolution against technology may be possible. The pattern would be similar to that of the French and Russian Revolutions. French society and Russian society, for several decades prior to their respective revolutions, showed increasing signs of stress and weakness. Meanwhile, ideologies were being developed that offered a new world view that was quite different from the old one. In the Russian case, revolutionaries were actively working to undermine the old order. Then, when the old system was put under sufficient additional stress (by financial crisis in France, by military defeat in Russia) it was swept away by revolution. What we propose in something along the same lines.

182. It will be objected that the French and Russian Revolutions were failures. But most revolutions have two goals. One is to destroy an old form of society and the other is to set up the new form of society envisioned by the revolutionaries. The French and Russian revolutionaries failed (fortunately!) to create the new kind of society of which they dreamed, but they were quite successful in destroying the existing form of society.

238 183. But an ideology, in order to gain enthusiastic support, must have a positive ideals well as a negative one; it must be FOR something as well as AGAINST something. The positive ideal that we propose is Nature. That is , WILD nature; those aspects of the functioning of the Earth and its living things that are independent of human management and free of human interference and control. And with wild nature we include human nature, by which we mean those aspects of the functioning of the human individual that are not subject to regulation by organized society but are products of chance, or free will, or God (depending on your religious or philosophical opinions).

184. Nature makes a perfect counter-ideal to technology for several reasons. Nature (that which is outside the power of the system) is the opposite of technology (which seeks to expand indefinitely the power of the system). Most people will agree that nature is beautiful; certainly it has tremendous popular appeal. The radical environmentalists ALREADY hold an ideology that exaHs nature and opposes technology. [30] It is not necessary for the sake of nature to set up some chimerical utopia or any new kind of social order. Nature takes care of itself: It was a spontaneous creation that existed long before any human society, and for countless centuries many different kinds of human societies coexisted with nature without doing it an excessive amount of damage. Only with the Industrial Revolution did the effect of human society on nature become really devastating. To relieve the pressure on nature it is not necessary to create a special kind of social system, it is only necessary to get rid of industrial society. Granted, this will not solve all problems. Industrial society has already done tremendous damage to nature and it will take a very long time for the scars to heal. Besides, even pre-industrial societies can do significant damage to nature. Nevertheless, getting rid of industrial society will accomplish a great deal. It will relieve the worst of the pressure on nature so that the scars can begin to heal. It will remove the capacity of organized society to keep increasing its control over nature (including human nature). Whatever kind of society may exist after the demise of the industrial system, it is certain that most people will live close to nature, because in the absence of advanced technology there is not other way that people CAN live. To feed themselves they must be peasants or herdsmen or fishermen or hunter, etc., And, generally speaking, local autonomy should tend to increase, because lack of advanced technology and rapid communications will limit the capacity of governments or other large organizations to control local communities.

185. As for the negative consequences of eliminating industrial society -­ well, you can't eat your cake and have it too. To gain one thing you have to sacrifice another.

186. Most people hate psychological conflict. For this reason they avoid doing any serious thinking about difficult social issues, and they like to have such issues presented to them in simple, black-and-white terms: THIS is all good and THAT is all bad. The revolutionary ideology should therefore be developed on two levels.

187. On the more sophisticated level the ideology should address itself to people who are intelligent, thoughtful and rational. The object should be to create a core of people who will be opposed to the industrial system on a rational, thought-out basis, with full appreciation of the problems and ambiguities involved, and of the price that has to be paid for getting rid of the system. It is particularly important to attract people of this type, 239 as they are capable people and will be instrumental in influencing others. These people should be addressed on as rational a level as possible. Facts should never intentionally be distorted and intemperate language should be avoided. This does not mean that no appeal can be made to the emotions, but in making such appeal care should be taken to avoid misrepresenting the truth or doing anything else that would destroy the intellectual respectability of the ideology.

188. On a second level, the ideology should be propagated in a simplified form that will enable the unthinking majority to see the conflict of technology vs. nature in unambiguous terms. But even on this second level the ideology should not be expressed in language that is so cheap, intemperate or irrational that it alienates people of the thoughtful and rational type. Cheap, intemperate propaganda sometimes achieves impressive short-term gains, but it will be more advantageous in the long run to keep the loyalty of a small number of intelligently committed people than to arouse the passions of an unthinking, fickle mob who will change their attitude as soon as someone comes along with a better propaganda gimmick. However, propaganda of the rabble-rousing type may be necessary when the system is nearing the point of collapse and there is a final struggle between rival ideologies to determine which will become dominant when the old world-view goes under.

189. Prior to that final struggle, the revolutionaries should not expect to have a majority of people on their side. History is made by active, determined minorities, not by the majority, which seldom has a clear and consistent idea of what it really wants. Until the time comes for the final push toward revolution [31 ], the task of revolutionaries will be less to win the shallow support of the majority than to build a small core of deeply committed people. As for the majority, it will be enough to make them aware of the existence of the new ideology and remind them of it frequently; though of course it will be desirable to get majority support to the extent that this can be done without weakening the core of seriously committed people.

190. Any kind of social conflict helps to destabilize the system, but one should be careful about what kind of conflict one encourages. The line of conflict should be drawn between the mass of the people and the power-holding elite of industrial society (politicians, scientists, upper-level business executives, government officials, etc .. ). It should NOT be drawn between the revolutionaries and the mass of the people. For example, it would be bad strategy for the revolutionaries to condemn Americans for their habits o1 consumption. Instead, the average American should be portrayed as a victim of the advertising and marketing industry, which has suckered him into buying a lot of junk that he doesn't need and that is very poor compensation for his lost freedom. Either approach is consistent with the facts. It is merely a matter of attitude whether you blame the advertising industry for manipulating the public or blame the public for allowing itself to be manipulated. As a matter of strategy one should generally avoid blaming the public.

191. One should think twice before encouraging any other social conflict than that between the power-holding elite (which wields technology) and the general public (over which technology exerts its power). For one thing, other conflicts tend to distract attention from the important conflicts (between power-elite and ordinary people, between technology and nature); 240 for another thing, other conflicts may actually tend to encourage technologization, because each side in such a conflict wants to use technological power to gain advantages over its adversary. This is clearly seen in rivalries between nations. It also appears in ethnic conflicts within nations. For example, in America many black leaders are anxious to gain power for African Americans by placing back individuals in the technological power-elite. They want there to be many black government officials, scientists, corporation executives and so forth. In this way they are helping to absorb the African American subculture into the technological system. Generally speaking, one should encourage only those social conflicts that can be fitted into the framework of the conflicts of power·-elite vs. ordinary people, technology vs nature.

192. But the way to discourage ethnic conflict is NOT through militant advocacy of minority rights (see paragraphs 21, 29). Instead, the revolutionaries should emphasize that although minorities do suffer more or less disadvantage, this disadvantage is of peripheral significance. Our real enemy is the industrial-technological system, and in the struggle against the system, ethnic distinctions are of no importance.

193. The kind of revolution we have in mind will not necessarily involve an armed uprising against any government. It may or may not involve physical violence, but it will not be a POLITICAL revolution. Its focus will be on technology and economics, not politics. [32]

194. Probably the revolutionaries should even AVOID assuming political power, whether by legal or illegal means, until the industrial system is stressed to the danger point and has proved itself to be a failure in the eyes of most people. Suppose for example that some "green" party should win control of the United States Congress in an election. In order to avoid betraying or watering down their own ideology they would have to take vigorous measures to turn economic growth into economic shrinkage. To the average man the results would appear disastrous: There would be massive unemployment, shortages of commodities, etc. Even if the grosser ill effects could be avoided through superhumanly skillful management, still people would have to begin giving up the luxuries to which they have become addicted. Dissatisfaction would grow, the "green" party would be voted out of of fice and the revolutionaries would have suffered a severe setback. For this reason the revolutionaries should not try to acquire political power until the system has gotten itself into such a mess that any hardships will be seen as resulting from the failures of the industrial system itself and not from the policies of the revolutionaries. The revolution against technology will probably have to be a revolution by outsiders, a revolution from below and not from above.

195. The revolution must be international and worldwide. It cannot be carried out on a nation·by-nation basis. Whenever it is suggested that the United States, for example, should cut back on technological progress or economic growth, people get hysterical and start screaming that if we fall behind in technology the Japanese will get ahead of us. Holy robots The world will fly off its orbit if the Japanese ever sell more cars than we dol (Nationalism is a great promoter of technology.) More reasonably, it is argued that if the relatively democratic nations of the world fall behind in technology while nasty, dictatorial nations like China, Vietnam and North Korea continue to progress, eventually the dictators may come to dominate the world. That is why the industrial system should be attacked in all 241 nations simultaneously, to the extent that this may be possible. True, there is no assurance that the industrial system can be destroyed at approximately the same time all over the world, and it is even conceivable that the attempt to overthrow the system could lead instead to the domination of the system by dictators. That is a risk that has to be taken. And it is worth taking, since the difference between a "democratic" industrial system and one controlled by dictators is small compared with the difference between an industrial system and a non-industrial one. [33] It might even be argued that an industrial system controlled by dictators would be preferable, because dictator-controlled systems usually have proved inefficient, hence they are presumably more likely to break down. Look at Cuba.

196. Revolutionaries might consider favoring measures that tend to bind the world economy into a unified whole. Free trade agreements like NAFT A and GATI are probably harmful to the environment in the short run, but in the long run they may perhaps be advantageous because they foster economic interdependence between nations. I will be eaier to destroy the industrial system on a worldwide basis if he world economy is so unified that its breakdown in any on major nation will lead to its breakdwon in at industrialized nations. the long run they may perhaps be advantageous because they foster economic interdependence between nations. It will be easier to destroy the industrial system on a worldwide basis if the world economy is so unified that its breakdown in any one major nation will lead to its breakdown in all industrialized nations.

197. Some people take the line that modern man has too much power, too much control over nature; they argue for a more passive attitude on the part of the human race. At best these people are expressing themselves unclearly, because they fail to distinguish between power for LARGE ORGANIZATIONS and power for INDIVIDUALS and SMALL GROUPS. It is a mistake to argue for powerlessness and passivity, because people NEED power. Modern man as a collective entity--that is, the industrial system--has immense power over nature, and we (FC) regard this as evil. But modern INDIVIDUALS and SMALL GROUPS OF INDIVIDUALS have far less power than primitive man ever did. Generally speaking, the vast power of "modern man" over nature is exercised not by individuals or small groups but by large organizations. To the extent that the average modern INDIVIDUAL can wield the power of technology, he is permitted to do so only within narrow limits and only under the supervision and control of the system. (You need a license for everything and with the license come rules and regulations). The individual has only those technological powers with which the system chooses to provide him. His PERSONAL power over nature is slight.

198. Primitive INDIVIDUALS and SMALL GROUPS actually had considerable power over nature; or maybe it would be better to say power WITHIN nature. When primitive man needed food he knew how to find and prepare edible roots, how to track game and take it with homemade weapons. He knew how to protect himself from heat, cold, rain, dangerous animals, etc. But primitive man did relatively little damage to nature because the COLLECTIVE power of primitive society was negligible compared to the COLLECTIVE power of industrial society.

199. Instead of arguing for powerlessness and passivity, one should argue that the power of the INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM should be broken, and that this will 242 greatly INCREASE the power and freedom of INDIVIDUALS and SMALL GROUPS.

200. Until the industrial system has been thoroughly wrecked, the destruction of that system must be the revolutionaries' ONLY goal. Other goals would distract attention and energy from the main goal. More importantly, if the revolutionaries permit themselves to have any other goal than the destruction of technology, they will be tempted to use technology as a tool for reaching that other goal. If they give in to that temptation, they will fall right back into the technological trap, because modern technology is a unified, tightly organized system, so that, in order to retain SOME technology, one finds oneself obliged to retain MOST technology, hence one ends up sacrificing only token amounts of technology.

201. Suppose for example that the revolutionaries took "social justice" as a goal. Human nature being what it is, social justice would not come about spontaneously; it would have to be enforced. In order to enforce it the revolutionaries would have to retain central organization and control. For that they would need rapid long-distance transportation and communication, and therefore all the technology needed to support the transportation and communication systems. To feed and clothe poor people they would have to use agricultural and manufacturing technology. And so forth. So that the attempt to insure social justice would force them to retain most parts of the technological system. Not that we have anything against social justice, but it must not be allowed to interfere with the effort to get rid of the technological system.

202. It would be hopeless for revolutionaries to try to attack the system without using SOME modern technology. If nothing else they must use the communications media to spread their message. But they should use modern technology for only ONE purpose: to attack the technological system.

203. Imagine an alcoholic sitting with a barrel of wine in front of him. Suppose he starts saying to himself, "Wine isn't bad for you if used in moderation. Why, they say small amounts of wine are even good for you lit won't do me any harm if I take just one little drink ... " Well you know what is going to happen. Never forget that the human race with technology is just like an alcoholic with a barrel of wine.

204. Revolutionaries should have as many children as they can. There is strong scientific evidence that social attitudes are to a significant extent inherited. No one suggests that a social attitude is a direct outcome of a person's genetic constitution, but it appears that personality traits tend, within the context of our society, to make a person more likely to hold this or that social attitude. Objections to these findings have been raised, but objections are feeble and seem to be ideologically motivated. In any event, no one denies that children tend on the average to hold social attitudes similar to those of their parents. From our point of view it doesn't matter all that much whether the attitudes are passed on genetically or through childhood training. In either case the ARE passed on.

205. The trouble is that many of the people who are inclined to rebel against the industrial system are also concerned about the population problems, hence they are apt to have few or no children. In this way they may be handing the world over to the sort of people who support or at least accept the industrial system. To insure the strength of the next generation of revolutionaries the present generation must reproduce itself abundantly. 243 In doing so they will be worsening the population problem only slightly. And the most important problem is to get rid of the industrial system, because once the industrial system is gone the world's population necessarily will decrease (see paragraph 167); whereas, if the industrial system survives, it will continue developing new techniques of food production that may enable the world's population to keep increasing almost indefinitely.

206. With regard to revolutionary strategy, the only points on which we absolutely insist are that the single overriding goal must be the elimination of modern technology, and that no other goal can be allowed to compete with this one. For the rest, revolutionaries should take an empirical approach. If experience indicates that some of the recommendations made in the foregoing paragraphs are not going to give good results, then those recommendations should be discarded.

TWO KINDS OF TECHNOLOGY

207. An argument likely to be raised against our proposed revolution is that it is bound to fail, because (it is claimed) throughout history technology has always progressed, never regressed, hence technological regression is impossible. But this claim is false.

208. We distinguish between two kinds of technology, which we will call small-scale technology and organization-dependent technology. Small-scale technology is technology that can be used by small-scale communities without outside assistance. Organization-dependent technology is technology that depends on large-scale social organization. We are aware of no significant cases of regression in small-scale technology. But organization-dependent technology DOES regress when the social organization on which it depends breaks down. Example: When the Roman Empire fell apart the Romans' small-scale technology survived because any clever village craftsman could build, for instance, a water wheel, any skilled smith could make steel by Roman methods, and so forth. But the Romans' organization-dependent technology DID regress. Their aqueducts fell into disrepair and were never rebuilt. Their techniques of road construction were lost. The Roman system of urban sanitation was forgotten, so that until rather recent times did the sanitation of European cities that of Ancient Rome.

209. The reason why technology has seemed always to progress is that, until perhaps a century or two before the lndustnal Revolution, most technology was small-scale technology. But most of the technology developed since the Industrial Revolution is organization-dependent technology. Take the refrigerator for example. Without factory-made parts or the facilities of a post-industrial machine shop it would be virtually impossible for a handful of local craftsmen to build a refrigerator. If by some miracle they did succeed in building one it would be useless to them without a reliable source of electric power. So they would have to dam a stream and build a generator. Generators require large amounts of copper wire. Imagine trying to make that wire without modern machinery. And where would they get a gas suitable for refrigeration? It would be much easier to build an icehouse or preserve food by drying or picking, as was done before the invention of the refrigerator.

210. So it is clear that if the industrial system were once thoroughly broken down, refrigeration technology would quickly be lost. The same is true of other organization-dependent technology. And once this technology 244 had been lost for a generation or so it would take centuries to rebuild it, just as it took centuries to build it the first time around. Surviving technical books would be few and scattered. An industrial society, if built from scratch without outside help, can only be built in a series of stages: You need tools to make tools to make tools to make tools .... A long process of economic development and progress in social organization is required. And, even in the absence of an ideology opposed to technology, there is no reason to believe that anyone would be interested in rebuilding industrial society. The enthusiasm for "progress" is a phenomenon particular to the modem form of society, and it seems not to have existed prior to the 17th century or thereabouts.

211. In the late Middle Ages there were four main civilizations that were about equally "advanced": Europe, the Islamic world, India, and the Far East (China, Japan, Korea). Three of those civilizations remained more or less stable, and only Europe became dynamic. No one knows why Europe became dynamic at that time; historians have their theories but these are only speculation. At any rate, it is clear that rapid development toward a technological form of society occurs only under special conditions. So there is no reason to assume that long-lasting technological regression cannot be brought about.

212. Would society EVENTUALLY develop again toward an industrial-technological form? Maybe, but there is no use in worrying about it, since we can't predict or control events 500 or 1,000 years in the future. Those problems must be dealt with by the people who will live at that time.

THE DANGER OF LEFTISM

213. Because of their need for rebellion and for membership in a movement, leftists or persons of similar psychological type are often unattracted to a rebellious or activist movement whose goals and membership are not initially leftist. The resulting influx of Iettish types can easily turn a non-leftist movement into a leftist one, so that leftist goals replace or distort the original goals of the movement.

214. To avoid this, a movement that exalts nature and opposes technology must take a resolutely anti-leftist stance and must avoid all collaboration with leftists. Leftism is in the long run inconsistent with wild nature, with human freedom and with the elimination of modern technology. Leftism is collectivist; it seeks to bind together the entire world (both nature and the human race) into a unified whole. But this implies management of nature and of human life by organized society, and it requires advanced technology. You can't have a united world without rapid transportation and communication, you can't make all people love one another without sophisticated psychological techniques, you can't have a "planned society" without the necessary technological base. Above all, leftism is driven by the need for power, and the leftist seeks power on a collective basis, through identification with a mass movement or an organization. Leftism is unlikely ever to give up technology, because technology is too valuable a source of collective power.

215. The anarchist [34] too seeks power, but he seeks it on an individual or small-group basis; he wants individuals and small groups to be able to control the circumstances of their own lives. He opposes technology because 245 it makes small groups dependent on large organizations.

216. Some leftists may seem to oppose technology, but they will oppose it only so long as they are outsiders and the technological system is controlled by non-leftists. If leftism ever becomes dominant in society, so that the technological system becomes a tool in the hands of leftists, they will enthusiastically use it and promote its growth. In doing this they will be repeating a pattern that leftism has shown again and again in the past. When the Bolsheviks in Russia were outsiders, they vigorously opposed censorship and the secret police, they advocated self-determination for ethnic minorities, and so forth; but as soon as they came into power themselves, they imposed a tighter censorship and created a more ruthless secret police than any that had existed under the tsars, and they oppressed ethnic minorities at least as much as the tsars had done. In the United States, a couple of decades ago when leftists were a minority in our universities, leftist professors were vigorous proponents of academic freedom, but today, in those universities where leftists have become dominant, they have shown themselves ready to take away from everyone else's academic freedom. (This is "political correctness.") The same will happen with leftists and technology: They will use it to oppress everyone else if they ever get it under their own control.

217. In earlier revolutions, leftists of the most power-hungry type, repeatedly, have first cooperated with non-leftist revolutionaries, as well as with leftists of a more libertarian inclination, and later have double-crossed them to seize power for themselves. Robespierre did this in the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks did it in the Russian Revolution, the communists did it in Spain in 1938 and Castro and his followers did it in Cuba. Given the past history of leftism, it would be utterly foolish for non-leftist revolutionaries today to collaborate with leftists.

218. Various thinkers have pointed out that leftism is a kind of religion. Leftism is not a religion in the strict sense because leftist doctrine does not postulate the existence of any supernatural being. But for the leftist, leftism plays a psychological role much like that which religion plays for some people. The leftist NEEDS to believe in leftism; it plays a vital role in his psychological economy. His beliefs are not easily modified by logic or facts. He has a deep conviction that leftism is morally Right with a capital R, and that he has not only a right but a duty to impose leftist morality on everyone. (However, many of the people we are referring to as "leftists" do not think of themselves as leftists and would not describe their system of beliefs as leftism. We use the term "leftism" because we don't know of any better words to designate the spectrum of related creeds that includes the feminist, gay rights, political correctness, etc., movements, and because these movements have a strong affinity with the old left. See paragraphs 227-230.)

219. Leftism is totalitarian force. Wherever leftism is in a position of power it tends to invade every private corner and force every thought into a leftist mold. In part this is because of the quasi-religious character of leftism; everything contrary to leftists beliefs represents Sin. More importantly, leftism is a totalitarian force because of the leftists' drive for power. The leftist seeks to satisfy his need for power through identification with a social movement and he tries to go through the power process by helping to pursue and attain the goals of the movement (see paragraph 83). But no matter how far the movement has gone in attaining its 246 goals the leftist is never satisfied, because his activism is a surrogate activity (see paragraph 41). That is, the leftist's real motive is not to attain the ostensible goals of leftism; in reality he is motivated by the sense of power he gets from struggling for and then reaching a social goa1.[35]

Consequently the leftist is never satisfied with the goals he has already attained; his need for the power process leads him always to pursue some new goal. The leftist wants equal opportunities for minorities. When that is attained he insists on statistical equality of achievement by minorities. And as long as anyone harbors in some corner of his mind a negative attitude toward some minority, the leftist has to re-educated him. And ethnic minorities are not enough; no one can be allowed to have a negative attitude toward homosexuals, disabled people, fat people, old people, ugly people, and on and on and on. It's not enough that the public should be informed about the hazards of smoking; a warning has to be stamped on every package of cigarettes. Then cigarette advertising has to be restricted if not banned. The activists will never be satisfied until tobacco is outlawed, and after that it will be alco hot then junk food, etc. Activists have fought gross child abuse, which is reasonable. But now they want to stop all spanking. When they have done that they will want to ban something else they consider unwholesome, then another thing and then another. They will never be satisfied until they have complete control over all child rearing practices. And then they will move on to another cause.

220. Suppose you asked leftists to make a list of ALL the things that were wrong with society, and then suppose you instituted EVERY social change that they demanded. It is safe to say that within a couple of years the majority of leftists would find something new to complain about, some new social "evil" to correct because, once again, the leftist is motivated less by distress at society's ills than by the need to satisfy his drive for power by imposing his solutions on society.

221. Because of the restrictions placed on their thoughts and behavior by their high level of socialization, many leftists of the over-socialized type cannot pursue power in the ways that other people do. For them the drive for power has only one morally acceptable outlet, and that is in the struggle to impose their morality on everyone.

222. Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized type, are True Believers in the sense of Eric Hoffer's book, "The True Believer." But not all True Believers are of the same psychological type as leftists. Presumably a truebelieving nazi, for instance is very different psychologically from a truebelieving leftist. Because of their capacity for single-minded devotion to a cause, True Believers are a useful, perhaps a necessary, ingredient of any revolutionary movement. This presents a problem with which we must admit we don't know how to deal. We aren't sure how to harness the energies of the True Believer to a revolution against technology. At present all we can say is that no True Believer will make a safe recruit to the revolution unless his commitment is exclusively to the destruction of technology. If he is committed also to another ideal, he may want to use technology as a tool for pursuing that other ideal (see paragraphs 220, 221 ).

223. Some readers may say, "This stuff about leftism is a lot of crap. I know John and Jane who are leftish types and they don't have all these 247 totalitarian tendencies." It's quite true that many leftists, possibly even a numerical majority, are decent people who sincerely believe in tolerating others' values (up to a point) and wouldn't want to use high-handed methods to reach their social goals. Our remarks about leftism are not meant to apply to every individual leftist but to describe the general character of leftism as a movement. And the general character of a movement is not necessarily determined by the numerical proportions of the various kinds of people involved in the movement.

224. The people who rise to positions of power in leftist movements tend to be leftists of the most power-hungry type because power-hungry people are those who strive hardest to get into positions of power. Once the power-hungry types have captured control of the movement, there are many leftists of a gentler breed who inwardly disapprove of many of the actions of the leaders, but cannot bring themselves to oppose them. They NEED their faith in the movement, and because they cannot give up this faith they go along with the leaders. True, SOME leftists do have the guts to oppose the totalitarian tendencies that emerge, but they generally lose, because the power-hungry types are better organized, are more ruthless and Machiavellian and have taken care to build themselves a strong power base.

225. These phenomena appeared clearly in Russia and other countries that were taken over by leftists. Similarly, before the breakdown of communism in the USSR, Iettish types in the West would seldom criticize that country. If prodded they would admit that the USSR did many wrong things, but then they would try to find excuses for the communists and begin talking about the faults of the West. They always opposed Western military resistance to communist aggression. Lettish types all over the world vigorously protested the U.S. military action in Vietnam, but when the USSR invaded Afghanistan they did nothing. Not that they approved of the Soviet actions; but because of their leftist faith, they just couldn't bear to put themselves in opposition to communism. Today, in those of our universities where "political correctness" has become dominant, there are probably many Iettish types who privately disapprove of the suppression of academic freedom, but they go along with it anyway.

226. Thus the fact that many individual leftists are personally mild and fairly tolerant people by no means prevents leftism as a whole form having a totalitarian tendency.

227. Our discussion of leftism has a serious weakness. It is still far from clear what we mean by the word "leftist." There doesn't seem to be much we can do about this. Today leftism is fragmented into a whole spectrum of activist movements. Yet not all activist movements are leftist, and some activist movements (e.g .. , radical environmentalism) seem to include both personalities of the leftist type and personalities of thoroughly un-leftist types who ought to know better than to collaborate with leftists. Varieties of leftists fade out gradually into varieties of non-leftists and we ourselves would often be hard-pressed to decide whether a given individual is or is not a leftist. To the extent that it is defined at all, our conception of leftism is defined by the discussion of it that we have given in this article, and we can only advise the reader to use his own judgment in deciding who is a leftist.

228. But it will be helpful to list some criteria for diagnosing leftism. These criteria cannot be applied in a cut and dried manner. Some individuals 248 may meet some of the criteria without being leftists, some leftists may not meet any of the criteria. Again, you just have to use your judgment.

229. The leftist is oriented toward largescale collectivism. He emphasizes the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. He has a negative attitude toward individualism. He often takes a moralistic tone. He tends to be for gun control, for sex education and other psychologically "enlightened" educational methods, for planning, for affirmative action, for multiculturalism. He tends to identify with victims. He tends to be against competition and against violence, but he often finds excuses for those leftists who do commit violence. He is fond of using the common catch-phrases of the left like "racism, " "sexism, " "homophobia, ""capitalism,""imperialism," "neocolonialism ""genocide," "social change," "social justice," "social responsibility." Maybe the best diagnostic trait of the leftist is his tendency to sympathize with the following movements: feminism, gay rights, ethnic rights, disability rights, animal rights political correctness. Anyone who strongly sympathizes with ALL of these movements is almost certainty a leftist. [36]

230. The more dangerous leftists, that is, those who are most power-hungry, are often characterized by arrogance or by a dogmatic approach to ideology. However, the most dangerous leftists of all may be certain oversocialized types who avoid irritating displays of aggressiveness and refrain from advertising their leftism, but work quietly and unobtrusively to promote collectivist values, "enlightened" psychological techniques for socializing children, dependence of the individual on the system, and so forth. These crypto-leftists (as we may call them) approximate certain bourgeois types as far as practical action is concerned, but differ from them in psychology, ideology and motivation. The ordinary bourgeois tries to bring people under control of the system in order to protect his way of life, or he does so simply because his attitudes are conventional. The crypto-leftist tries to bring people under control of the system because he is a True Believer in a collectivistic ideology. The crypto-teftist is differentiated from the average leftist of the oversocialized type by the fact that his rebellious impulse is weaker and he is more securely socialized. He is differentiated from the ordinary well-socialized bourgeois by the fact that there is some deep lack within him that makes it necessary for him to devote himself to a cause and immerse himself in a collectivity. And maybe his (well-sublimated) drive for power is stronger than that of the average bourgeois.

FINAL NOTE

231. Throughout this article we've made imprecise statements and statements that ought to have had all sorts of qualifications and reservations attached to them; and some of our statements may be flatly false. Lack of sufficient information and the need for brevity made it impossible for us to fomulate our assertions more precisely or add all the necessary qualifications. And of course in a discussion of this kind one must rely heavily on intuitive judgment, and that can sometimes be wrong. So we don't claim that this article expresses more than a crude approximation to the truth.

232. All the same we are reasonably confident that the general outlines of the picture we have painted here are roughly correct. We have portrayed leftism in its modern form as a phenomenon peculiar to our time and as a 249 symptom of the disruption of the power process. But we might possibly be wrong about this. Oversocialized types who try to satisfy their drive for power by imposing their morality on everyone have certainly been around for a long time. But we THINK that the decisive role played by feelings of inferiority, low self-esteem, powerlessness, identification with victims by people who are not themselves victims, is a peculiarity of modern leftism. Identification with victims by people not themselves victims can be seen to some extent in 19th century leftism and early Christianity but as far as we can make out, symptoms of low self-esteem, etc., were not nearly so evident in these movements, or in any other movements, as they are in modern leftism. But we are not in a position to assert confidently that no such movements have existed prior to modern leftism. This is a significant question to which historians ought to give their attention.

NOTES

1. (Paragraph 19) We are asserting that ALL, or even most, bullies and ruthless competitors suffer from feelings of inferiority.

2. (Paragraph 25) During the Victorian period many oversocialized people suffered from serious psychological problems as a result of repressing or trying to repress their sexual feelings. Freud apparently based his theories on people of this type. Today the focus of socialization has shifted from sex to aggression.

3. (Paragraph 27) Not necessarily including specialists in engineering "hard" sciences.

4. (Paragraph 28) There are many individuals of the middle and upper classes who resist some of these values, but usually their resistance is more or less covert. Such resistance appears in the mass media only to a very limited extent. The main thrust of propaganda in our society is in favor of the stated values.

The main reasons why these values have become, so to speak, the official values of our society is that they are useful to the industrial system. Violence is discouraged because it disrupts the functioning of the system. Racism is discouraged because ethnic conflicts also disrupt the system, and discrimination wastes the talent of minority-group members who could be useful to the system. Poverty must be "cured" because the underclass causes problems for the system and contact with the underclass lowers the moral of the other classes. Women are encouraged to have careers because their talents are useful to the system and, more importantly because by having regular jobs women become better integrated into the system and tied directly to it rather than to their families. This helps to weaken family solidarity. (The leaders of the system say they want to strengthen the family, but they really mean is that they want the family to serve as an effective tool for socializing children in accord with the needs of the system. We argue in paragraphs 51,52 that the system cannot afford to let the family or other small-scale social groups be strong or autonomous.)

5. (Paragraph 42) It may be argued that the majority of people don't want to make their own decisions but want leaders to do their thinking for them. There is an element of truth in this. People like to make their own decisions in small matters, but making decisions on difficult, fundamental questions require facing up to psychological conflict, and most people hate 250 psychological conflict. Hence they tend to lean on others in making difficult decisions. The majority of people are natural followers, not leaders, but they like to have direct personal access to their leaders and participate to some extent in making difficult decisions. At least to that degree they need autonomy.

6. (Paragraph 44) Some of the symptoms listed are similar to those shown by caged animals.

To explain how these symptoms arise from deprivation with respect to the power process:

Common-sense understanding of human nature tells one that lack of goals whose attainment requires effort leads to boredom and that boredom, long continued, often leads eventually to depression. Failure to obtain goals leads to frustration and lowering of self-esteem. Frustration leads to anger, anger to aggression, often in the form of spouse or child abuse. It has been shown that long-continued frustration commonly leads to depression and that depression tends to cause guilt, sleep disorders, eating disorders and bad feelings about oneself. Those who are tending toward depression seek pleasure as an antidote; hence insatiable hedonism and excessive sex, with perversions as a means of getting new kicks. Boredom too tends to cause excessive pleasure-seeking since, lacking other goals, people often use pleasure as a goal. See accompanying diagram. The foregoing is a simplification. Reality is more complex, and of course deprivation with respect to the power process is not the ONLY cause of the symptoms described. By the way, when we mention depression we do not necessarily mean depression that is severe enough to be treated by a psychiatrist. Often only mild forms of depression are involved. And when we speak of goals we do not necessarily mean long-term, thought out goals. For many or most people through much of human history, the goals of a hand-to-mouth existence (merely providing oneself and one's family with food from day to day) have been quite sufficient.

7. (Paragraph 52) A partial exception may be made for a few passive, inward looking groups, such as the Amish, which have little effect on the wider society. Apart from these, some genuine small-scale communities do exist in America today. For instance, youth gangs and "cults". Everyone regards them as dangerous, and so they are, because the members of these groups are loyal primarily to one another rather than to the system, hence the system cannot control them. Or take the gypsies. The gypsies commonly get away with theft and fraud because their loyalties are such that they can always get other gypsies to give testimony that "proves" their innocence. Obviously the system would be in serious trouble if too many people belonged to such groups. Some of the early-20th century Chinese thinkers who were concerned with modernizing China recognized the necessity of breaking down small-scale social groups such as the family: "(According to Sun Yat-sen) The Chinese people needed a new surge of patriotism, which would lead to a transfer of loyalty from the family to the state ...(According to Li Huang) traditional attachments, particularly to the family had to be abandoned if nationalism were to develop to China." (Chester C. Tan, Chinese Political Thought in the Twentieth Century," page 125, page 297.)

8. (Paragraph 56) Yes, we know that 19th century America had its problems, and serious ones, but for the sake of breviety we have to express ourselves in simplified terms. 251 9. (Paragraph 61) We leave aside the underclass. We are speaking of the mainstream.

10. (Paragraph 62) Some social scientists, educators, "mental health" professionals and the like are doing their best to push the social drives into group 1 by trying to see to it that everyone has a satisfactory social life.

11. (Paragraphs 63, 82) Is the drive for endless material acquisition really an artificial creation of the advertising and marketing industry? Certainly there is no innate human drive for material acquisition. There have been many cultures in which people have desired little material wealth beyond what was necessary to satisfy their basic physical needs (Australian aborigines, traditional Mexican peasant culture, some African cultures). On the other hand there have also been many pre-industrial cultures in which material acquisition has played an important role. So we can't claim that today's acquisition-oriented culture is exclusively a creation of the advertising and marketing industry. But it is clear that the advertising and marketing industry has had an important part in creating that culture. The big corporations that spend millions on advertising wouldn't be spending that kind of money without solid proof that they were getting it back in increased sales. One member of FC met a sales manager a couple of years ago who was frank enough to tell him, "Our job is to make people buy things they don't want and don't need." He then described how an untrained novice could present people with the facts about a product, and make no sales at all, while a trained and experienced professional salesman would make lots of sales to the same people. This shows that people are manipulated into buying things they don't really want.

12. (Paragraph 64) The problem of purposelessness seems to have become less serious during the last 15 years or so, because people now feel less secure physically and economically than they did earlier, and the need for security provides them with a goal. But purposelessness has been replaced by frustration over the difficulty of attaining security. We emphasize the problem of purposelessness because the liberals and leftists would wish to solve our social problems by having society guarantee everyone's security; but if that could be done it would only bring back the problem of purposelessness. The real issue is not whether society provides well or poorly for people's security; the trouble is that people are dependent on the system for their security rather than having it in their own hands. This, by the way, is part of the reason why some people get worked up about the right to bear arms; possession of a gun puts that aspect of their security in their own hands.

13. (Paragraph 66) Conservatives' efforts to decrease the amount of government regulation are of little benefit to the average man. For one thing, only a fraction of the regulations can be eliminated because most regulations are necessary. For another thing, most of the deregulation affects business rather than the average individual, so that its main effect is to take power from the government and give it to private corporations. What this means for the average man is that government interference in his life is replaced by interference from big corporations, which may be permitted, for example, to dump more chemicals that get into his water supply and give him cancer. The conservatives are just taking the average man for a sucker, exploiting his resentment of Big Government to promote the 252 power of Big Business.

14. (Paragraph 73) When someone approves of the purpose for which propaganda is being used in a given case, he generally calls it "education" or applies to it some similar euphemism. But propaganda is propaganda regardless of the purpose for which it is used.

15. (Paragraph 83) We are not expressing approval or disapproval of the Panama invasion. We only use it to illustrate a point.

16. (Paragraph 95) When the American colonies were under British rule there were fewer and less effective legal guarantees of freedom than there were after the American Constitution went into effect, yet there was more personal freedom in pre-industrial America, both before and after the War of Independence, than there was after the Industrial Revolution took hold in this country. We quote from "Violence in America: Historical and Comparative perspectives," edited by Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, Chapter 12 by Roger Lane, pages 476-478: "The progressive heightening of standards of property, and with it the increasing reliance on official law enforcement (in 19th century America) ...were common to the whole society ...[T]he change in social behavior is so long term and so widespread as to suggest a connection with the most fundamental of contemporary social processes; that of industrial urbanization itself. .."Massachusetts in 1835 had a population of some 660,940, 81 percent rural, overwhelmingly preindustrial and native born. It's citizens were used to considerable personal freedom. Whether teamsters, farmers or artisans, they were all accustomed to setting their own schedules, and the nature of their work made them physically dependent on each other ...Individual problems, sins or even crimes, were not generally cause for wider social concern .."But the impact of the twin movements to the city and to the factory, both just gathering force in 1835, had a progressive effect on personal behavior throughout the 19th century and into the 20th. The factory demanded regularity of behavior, a life governed by obedience to the rhythms of clock and calendar, the demands of foreman and supervisor. In the city or town, the needs of living in closely packed neighborhoods inhibited many actions previously unobjectionable.

Both blue- and white-collar employees in larger establishments were mutually dependent on their fellows. as one man's work fit into another's, so one man's business was no longer his own. "The results of the new organization of life and work were apparent by 1900, when some 76 percent of the 2,805,346 inhabitants of Massachusetts were classified as urbanites. Much violent or irregular behavior which had been tolerable in a casual, independent society was no longer acceptable in the more formalized, cooperative atmosphere of the later period ...The move to the cities had, in short, produced a more tractable, more socialized, more 'civilized' generation than its predecessors."

17. (Paragraph 117) Apologists for the system are fond of citing cases in which elections have been decided by one or two votes, but such cases are rare.

18. (Paragraph 119) "Today, in technologically advanced lands, men live very similar lives in spite of geographical, religious and political differences. The daily lives of a Christian bank clerk in Chicago, a Buddhist bank clerk in Tokyo, a Communist bank clerk in Moscow are far more alike than the life any one of them is like that of any single man who lived a thousand years 253 ago. These similarities are the result of a common technology ..." L. Sprague de Camp, "The Ancient Engineers," Ballentine edition, page 17.

The lives of the three bank clerks are not IDENTICAL. Ideology does have SOME effect. But all technological societies, in order to survive, must evolve along APPROXIMATELY the same trajectory.

19. (Paragraph 123) Just think an irresponsible genetic engineer might create a lot of terrorists.

20. {Paragraph 124) For a further example of undesirable consequences of medical progress, suppose a reliable cure for cancer is discovered. Even if the treatment is too expensive to be available to any but the elite, it will greatly reduce their incentive to stop the escape of carcinogens into the environment.

21. (Paragraph 128) Since many people may find paradoxical the notion that a large number of good things can add up to a bad thing, we will illustrate with an analogy. Suppose Mr. A is playing chess with Mr. B. Mr. C, a Grand Master, is looking over Mr. A's shoulder. Mr. A of course wants to win his game, so if Mr. C points out a good move for him to make, he is doing Mr. A a favor. But suppose now that Mr. C tells Mr. A how to make ALL of his moves. In each particular instance he does Mr. A a favor by showing him his best move, but by making ALL of his moves for him he spoils the game, since there is not point in Mr. A's playing the game at all if someone else makes all his moves.

The situation of modem man is analogous to that of Mr. A. The system makes an individual's life easier for him in innumerable ways, but in doing so it deprives him of control over his own fate.

22. (Paragraph 137) Here we are considering only the conflict of values within the mainstream. For the sake of simplicity we leave out of the picture "outsider'' values like the idea that wild nature is more important than human economic welfare.

23. (Paragraph 137) Self-interest is not necessarily MATERIAL self-interest. It can consist in fulfillment of some psychological need, for example, by promoting one's own ideology or religion.

24. (Paragraph 139) A qualification: It is in the interest of the system to permit a certain prescribed degree of freedom in some areas. For example, economic freedom (with suitable limitations and restraints) has proved effective in promoting economic growth. But only planned, circumscribed, limited freedom is in the interest of the system. The individual must always be kept on a leash, even if the leash is sometimes long( see paragraphs 94, 97).

25. (Paragraph 143) We don't mean to suggest that the efficiency or the potential for survival of a society has always been inversely proportional to the amount of pressure or discomfort to which the society subjects people. That is certainly not the case. There is good reason to believe that many primitive societies subjected people to less pressure than the European society did, but European society proved far more efficient than any primitive society and always won out in conflicts with such societies because of the advantages conferred by technology. 254 26. (Paragraph 147) If you think that more effective law enforcement is unequivocally good because it suppresses crime, then remember that crime as defined by the system is not necessarily what YOU would call crime. Today, smoking marijuana is a "crime," and, in some places in the U.S .. , so is possession of ANY firearm, registered or not, may be made a crime, and the same thing may happen with disapproved methods of child-rearing, such as spanking. In some countries, expression of dissident political opinions is a crime, and there is no certainty that this will never happen in the U.S., since no constitution or political system lasts forever.

If a society needs a large, powerful law enforcement establishment, then there is something gravely wrong with that society; it must be subjecting people to severe pressures if so many refuse to follow the rules, or follow them only because forced. Many societies in the past have gotten by with little or no formal law-enforcement.

27. (Paragraph 151) To be sure, past societies have had means of influencing behavior, but these have been primitive and of low effectiveness compared with the technological means that are now being developed.

28. (Paragraph 152) However, some psychologists have publicly expressed opinions indicating their contempt for human freedom. And the mathematician Claude Shannon was quoted in Omni (August 1987) as saying, "I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans, and I'm rooting for the machines."

29. (Paragraph 154) This is no science fiction! After writing paragraph 154 we came across an article in Scientific American according to which scientists are actively developing techniques for identifying possible future criminals and for treating them by a combination of biological and psychological means. Some scientists advocate compulsory application of the treatment, which may be available in the near future. (See "Seeking the Criminal Element'', by W. Wayt Gibbs, Scientific American, March 1995.) Maybe you think this is OK because the treatment would be applied to those who might become drunk drivers (they endanger human life too), then perhaps to peel who spank their children, then to environmentalists who sabotage logging equipment, eventually to anyone whose behavior is inconvenient for the system.

30. (Paragraph 184) A further advantage of nature as a counter-ideal to technology is that, in many people, nature inspires the kind of reverence that is associated with religion. so that nature could perhaps be idealized on a religious basis. It is true that in many societies religion has served as a support and justification for the established order, but it is also true that religion has often provided a basis for rebellion. Thus it may be useful to introduce a religious element into the rebellion against technology, the more so because Western society today has no strong religious foundation.

Religion, nowadays either is used as cheap and transparent support for narrow, short-sighted selfishness (some conservatives use it this way), or even is cynically exploited to make easy money (by many evangelists), or has degenerated into crude irrationalism (fundamentalist Protestant sects, "cults"), or is simply stagnant (Catholicism, main-line Protestantism). The nearest thing to a strong, widespread, dynamic religion that the West has 255 seen in recent times has been the quasi-religion of leftism, but leftism today is fragmented and has no clear, unified inspiring goal.

Thus there is a religious vaccuum in our society that could perhaps be filled by a religion focused on nature in opposition to technology. But it would be a mistake to try to concoct artificially a religion to fill this role. Such an invented religion would probably be a failure. Take the "Gaia" religion for example. Do its adherents REALLY believe in it or are they just play-acting? If they are just play-acting their religion will be a flop in the end.

It is probably best not to try to introduce religion into the conflict of nature vs. technology unless you REALLY believe in that religion yourself and find that it arouses a deep, strong, genuine response in many other people.

31. (Paragraph 189) Assuming that such a final push occurs. Conceivably the industrial system might be eliminated in a somewhat gradual or piecemeal fashion. (see paragraphs 4, 167 and Note 4).

32. (Paragraph 193) It is even conceivable (remotely) that the revolution might consist only of a massive change of attitudes toward technology resulting in a relatively gradual and painless disintegration of the industrial system. But if this happens we'll be very lucky. It's far more probably that the transition to a nontechnological society will be very difficult and full of conflicts and disasters.

33. (Paragraph 195) The economic and technological structure of a society are far more important than its political structure in determining the way the average man lives (see paragraphs 95, 119 and Notes 16, 18).

34. (Paragraph 215) This statement refers to our particular brand of anarchism. A wide variety of social attitudes have been called "anarchist," and it may be that many who consider themselves anarchists would not accept our statement of paragraph 215. It should be noted, by the way, that there is a nonviolent anarchist movement whose members probably would not accept FC as anarchist and certainly would not approve of FC's violent methods.

35. (Paragraph 219) Many leftists are motivated also by hostility, but the hostility probably results in part from a frustrated need for power.

36. (Paragraph 229) It is important to understand that we mean someone who sympathizes with these MOVEMENTS as they exist today in our society. One who believes that women, homosexuals, etc., should have equal rights is not necessarily a leftist. The feminist, gay rights, etc .• movements that exist in our society have the particular ideological tone that characterizes leftism, and if one believes, for example, that women should have equal rights it does not necessarily follow that one must sympathize with the feminist movement as it exists today.

If copyright problems make it impossible for this long quotation to be printed, then please change Note 16 to read as follows:

16. (Paragraph 95) When the American colonies were under British rule there were fewer and less effective legal guarantees of freedom than there were after the American Constitution went into effect, yet there was more 256 personal freedom in pre-industrial America, both before and after the War of Independence, than there was after the Industrial Revolution took hold in this country. In "Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives," edited by Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, Chapter 12 by Roger lane, it is explained how in pre-industrial America the average person had greater independence and autonomy than he does today, and how the process of industrialization necessarily led to the restriction of personal freedom.

257 List of Insertions

Page 116, paragraph 2, line 6, following "facts of power": This is not to claim that there exist pure facts which are divorced from the complications of all other discourse. Neither should it be assumed, as it is within much foucauldian discourse, that facts or truths are simply the construction of the discursive realm of discourse, that "facts" are merely fabrications masking a truth which only foucauldians can hope to reveal. Rather, "facts" constitute all phenomena and points of view, a particular moment, event or knowledge at a given time. They are the stuff of truth's very production. In other words, no one and no thing exists apart from our attempts at truth. Foucauldian attempts to debunk or expose facts as mere constructs of the powers that be, are part of the "games" of truth. Thus, facts are literally always located within regimes of truth, in the sense that resistance and falsity are always and necessarily engaged in the "play" of truth.

Page 116, footnote #7 inserted, following above paragraph: Clearly, my point contrasts with aspect!<. of Foucault's analyses of institutions where he implies a certain delineation between the structuration of truth and some other pure and ideal space. Foucault's ideas do change, and his attention shifts even within the same text. This is because his work is dedicated to the difficult questions which are so commonly ignored by social theorists who want to reduce experience into a simplistic causality. Foucault's work is rich with the complex of contradictions which are a part of the ways in which people relate to themselves and to one another. He is, of course, subject to the forces he analyses, and therefore implicated within the problematics he studies. Page 49, paragraph 2, following line 4 "conventional theories of power": This essay on governmentality is introduced at a crucial point in Foucault's intellectual development. If one is to attempt to understand Foucault's major ideas as they unfold one must recognise that "Govemmentality" leads Foucault into a more focussed consideration of power. In his essay on govemmentality Foucault disrupts the assumption that power is determinable, arguing that one must recognise that power dynamics are not as limited nor straightforward as commonly imagined.

Page 49, following paragraph 2: Early on, Foucault focuses his work on a critique of positivism, particularly the assumption that modern truth is the straightforward result of the repressive nature of power. At this time Foucault argues that truth is actually the causal product of power, controlling the development of all discourse and knowledge. He argues that what we know to be madness, the prison, prisoners, are the creation of institutional power. Discourse is therefore thought to determine its field: the objects it studies and the subjects it creates. In his earliest works, Foucault's objective is to unearth institutional powers and expose the regimes of truth they establish.

Certain directions in Foucault's earlier work carry the kind of determinism which is also inherent in positivism. Put simply, this is the assumption that power and truth are homogenous entities which operate according to a simple and straightforward rationale; and that relationality is solely based on established, rigid and legible differences between people, between regimes of truth and a certain distance that marks the possibility of going beyond them. This assumes that if one deciphers regimes of truth and of power, one may escape their grip. In "govemmentality" it is clear that Foucault is moving towards complicating his assumptions by arguing that even the attempt to escape the grip of power are part of power's very generation. He then moves towards examining power relations more closely in the following articles.

Pag.e 71, beginning of paragraph 2: Foucault's interest in ontology develops out of his epistemological approach to critiquing positivism and he moves between the two consistently throughout his career, blurring and contesting the difference. With this in mind one must also acknowledge the slippery nature of attempting to strictly define anything as ontological as opposed to epistemological. Indeed, the search for simple causes and answers is part of the way in which we deal with difficult issues, and at the same time, we can also acknowledge the complex nature of seemingly straightforward "causes" and "effects".

Page 71, paragraph 3, replace first sentence (now following above insertion): However, there are moments in Foucault's work where he undermines this attention and, in pursuing particular issues such as the positivist assumption that truth is a result of the progression of knowledge, he argues that truth is instead the construct of power/knowledge. For example, in his essay "What is Enlightenment" Foucault develops his notion of a "critical ontology" which explores the ways in which modem regimes of truth repress us . Foucault looks to Kant here to develop his critical ontology because "he is looking for a difference ... [and] it is in the reflection on 'today' as difference in history and as motive for a particular philosophical task that the novelty of this [Kant's] text appears to me to lie" (Foucault, 2000: 305- 309).

However, I argue that Foucault at his most astute questions this attitude, arguing that our notions of historical formations - delineations of time, even these are also part of regimes of truth. Our knowledge of the past, present and future are interdependent. Foucault's most nuanced work questions the common understanding, and indeed his own claim, that "all knowledge claims are located within regimes of truth". This assertion continues to suggest that there might be a static regime outside of which it is possible to imagine other historical ways of being. It does not emphasise enough the contingent nature of our imaginings of the historical, of the significance of our alterity, and of the pace and vigour of truth's production. All that it is possible to think and feel is made so by discourse, it is endlessly productive.

Foucault's "critical ontology" is thus different to the type of ontology developed in his most insightful work because this critical ontology assumes that one can think independently of modem discourse. It promotes the view that foucauldian scholars can refuse the restrictions of our subjectivity. A common foucauldian notion is that there is an outside of discourse which may be accessed by studying our limitations. Only then, in the distant future, may one hope to overcome this through rigorous critique. Thus, in "What is Enlightenment", Foucault undermines the many insights made elsewhere into the question of truth.

Like the Gruyere cheese which his work has been likened to, it is evident that one finds variable textures and certainly different approaches within Foucault's work. At certain points when his attention to the ontology of power is sharpest, Foucault prefers to explore the nature of power, pursuing the question "what is power?". Contrastingly, at other times, Foucault examines power in fixed terms, that is, he reverts to the notion that relations of power are primarily constrained by the structures in which they are exercised. For example, in the article "What is Enlightenment", Foucault argues that he is interested in the "limits imposed on us and an experiment with the possibility of going beyond them" (Foucault, 2000: 319). He assumes that these "limits" which constrain us, as subjects of power, are assumed to be of an other nature to those which can be imagined, or which Foucault himself wishes "to go beyond" (Foucault, 2000: 319).

Indeed, within this very article Foucault counters the argument that we are simply confined by discourse. He argues that discourse is endlessly productive, arguing that this is why arguments that claim to be in some way removed from discourses of truth, as "global or radical", come to be possible (Foucault, 2000: 316). What are considered to be radical or revolutionary politics are part of the very network of the forces within the field of discourse. Indeed, one of Foucault's most famous passages from The History of Sexuality: Volume I is that "there is no pure law of the revolutionary" (Foucault, 1990a: 96). The important and difficult fact is that what Foucault calls this "fantasy" of resistance, is in fact of the order of discourse where everyone and everything is interested.

Page 83, footnote number 3: Delete first two sentences.

Page 84, paragraph 1: Delete sentence line 3.

Page 56, beginning of footnote 2: Many historians work with a distinct romanticisation of the past, something Foucault calls "the repressive hypothesis". This is the notion that modern life represses its subjects and their past freedoms/virtues. This runs both ways, that is, the reference point for repression interchanges between past and present. This includes the belief that the present liberates subjects from a repressed past. Foucault calls these "enlightenment theories".

As argued above, at certain points, and especially in his work on madness, Foucault also follows the repressive hypothesis that modern ways of knowing madness have contaminated its original (past) nature. However, Foucault's interest in differentiating between a pure past, translating as "good" times, as opposed to a repressed present: the "bad", is certainly not absolute. For example, his work mid­ career on genealogy looks to the relative nature of one's attitude to the past (and future), arguing that this search for an original truth, one fixed reference point, is a product of modern scientific notions of truth and falsity. The notion of purity, he argues, is as much the product of modern desires as any assumed novel connection with an uncomplicated past.

Page 56, following first sentence (now following above insertion): Denisoff and Merton focus upon the notion of repression, asserting the belief that life in the past was "better" than it is in the present.

Page 63, paragraph 3, following first sentence: Foucault's work on power is an ontological project because it deals with the problematic of power, the being of power, the how of power, and so exhibits the force of its complexities. Foucault, himself, produces the very contradictions in his work of thought that he sees are inherent in the ways in which people relate to one another, to politics and to themselves. Foucault's work, of course, is a theory of power because, as with all analysis, all discourse, Foucault's examination of power is a part of the production of truth but is also an expression of power.

Page 179, end of page: What this means for those who wish to ward off the "dangers" of certain power relations and for those who think in terms of countering power, is that such a project is in fact an impossible one. This prescriptive desire is itself a critical part of power in which all of us engage. There is no one static power relation but instead a complex interplay of dynamics at work within all points of interaction, and one cannot assume that power is stable at one point or within one individual. In addition to the fact that "good" and "bad" are themselves unstable categories, what Foucault calls: "irreducible opposites", power is always in question and always in play (Foucault, 1990a:96). Indeed, this general compulsion to determine and contain power's use is a crucial part of power's very articulation. And the tricky issue is that power dynamics are, by nature, indeterminate. Power is inherently paradoxical, it is a continuous problematic.