Michel Foucault (1926-84) was a French thinker, one of the “postmodernists”. Not really a philosopher so much as a cultural critic. With his bald head and thick glasses, he certain cut a striking image. But what exactly did he stand for?
His key idea
He wrote in a meandering style (what the English might uncharitably call ‘verbal diarrhea’). We get an idea of his terrain by glancing at the titles of his main publications from the ‘60s and ‘70s:
- “Madness and Civilisation – a history of insanity in the Age of Reason” (“Histoire de la folie à l’âge Classique”)
- “Discipline and Punish – the Birth of the Prison” (“Surveiller et Punir – Naissance de la prison”)
- “The History of Sexuality” (“Histoire de la sexualité”)
- “The Order of Things – an archaeology of the human sciences” (“Les Mots et les choses – une archéologie des sciences humaines”
The key idea was the interconnectedness of power and knowledge – or more specifically institutionalised scientific knowledge. So he felt that social theories (like biology, psychology etc) were instruments of the powers-that-be in order to exert social control. He was a man of the left, and presumably Marx’s view that the ideas of a society spring from the power structure chimed with him.
Examples
For many topics such as the treatment of “mad” people, he would look back to Medieval times almost as a golden age representing honest human relations, and compare that with the situation today. He argued that modern society studies these groups, labels them and controls them. Foucault’s analysis was deep and subtle, so the following examples are really caricatures of what he said:
1/ Mad people
- Before: madness was part of the human experience. Wisdom was even sometimes ascribed to them, hence the fool who could speak uncomfortable truths
- Now: they are condemned as mentally ill and are isolated in asylums where they are medicalised
2/ Criminals
- Before: they were physically punished (torture, executions) as a deterent
- Now: psychology and criminology diagnoses their “deviance” and controls them through prisons and rehabilitation programs
3/ Children
- Before: they were part of the family structure without distinct treatment. They were young adults and dressed as such
- Now: Educators and psychologists define what’s “normal” and intervene if children stray
4/ Sexuality
- Before: sexual acts were just actions – some were sinful at a superficial level
- Now: science sets up categories of “homosexual”, “pervert”, “sex addict” etc, treating these as conditions to be studied or corrected
Foucault rejected the view that the recent sexual revolution liberated people from repression. Sex was always talked about, studied and classified – just in other ways. The Church or the Law used to regulate sexual behaviour. Now we say people are “liberated”, but they are still subject to the pressure of experiencing sex in “normal” ways.
5/ The sick
- Before: illness was natural or spiritual condition, and doctors didn’t have much to add
- Now: medicine classifies people as “healthy” or “sick” (“hysteric”, “hypochondriac” etc) and doctors both control and dictate the way we see these conditions
6/ The poor
- Before: poverty was a misfortune – or fate. Religious charity played its role
- Now: the social sciences classify the poor as “deserving” or “undeserving”, and apply policies to regulate their behaviour (the workhouses of the past, welfare programs today)
To hear from the man himself, you might try wading through the 20 or so pages of his article “The Subject and Power” summarising his thoughts, or sample some of his many interviews on YouTube – there’s a nice one with Noam Chomsky on human nature.