Document View - ProQuest

http://proquest.umi.com.monstera.cc.columbia.edu:2048/pqdweb?inde...

Databases selected: Multiple databases...

POWER AND REPRESSION

Geoffrey R Skoll . The American Journal of Semiotics. Kent: 1991. Vol. 8, Iss. 3; pg. 5, 25 pgs
Full Text (9497 words)

Copyright Semiotic Society of America 1991 Foucault has argued that power has been misunderstood in merely its repressive form, whereas it ought to be understood as both creating objects of knowledge as well as repressing them. This paper argues that Foucault has a limited conception of repression derived from structuralist formulations, and that therefore his argument about power and repression is misplaced. Instead, power should be understood as the process whereby the semiotic mechanism of repression is seized by those who would exert power in social relations. Repression, then, is a necessary part of the power to create consciousness in symbolic semiosis. Introduction The apparently trivial practice of drinking coffee in a residential drug treatment facility1 allows analysis of the interpenetration of a variety of discursive practices as they relate to the distribution of power in a social micro-system. The residents of this social establishment (those receiving treatment) are told that their experience of dependency on the institution and its staff is the result of personal failings, the same personal failings that led to their addiction to drugs: they are told that they are dependent people. Their disadvantageous economic position (they are all indigent) and their politico-legal subordination (almost all are in the facility as an alternative to imprisonment), if they are mentioned at all, are defined as consequences of the same personal failings. The link between the residents' experience (feelings) of dependency and their economic, political, and legal oppression is not part of the public consciousness in the institution. Experience and symbols are detached, or, more accurately, the connections between them are repressed. In very immediate, everyday occurrences, this repression and displacement of dependency are illustrated by coffeedrinking practices. Coffee for the facility is purchased with food stamps, which the residents receive because of their indigency. The drinking of this coffee is, however, highly regulated: it is restricted for residents while it is unrestricted for staff members. Although the residents are aware that their food stamps buy the coffee, they do not connect this fact with control over it. This particular detachment of knowledge from objective, symbolic, and public expression is a hallmark of repression bent to the end of social domination. The effectiveness of this repression derives collaterally from the fact that the drug attributes of coffee (its caffeine and concomitant stimulating effects) are never discussed. Since all drugs presumably are forbidden in the facility, coffee can not "be" a drug. This interruption of meaning, separating ownership and control of coffee, does not preclude granting the act of drinking coffee a special meaning in the facility. Among residents, coffee drinking is a privilege that one earns, one of a number of such privileges accorded to those residents who demonstrate that they are (as it is called) "making progress in treatment". For the most part, "making progress in treatment" is a matter of abiding by the myriad rules for living, which are applied to almost every conceivable activity of residents. "Progress in treatment" is the general measure imposing a status hierarchy on the residents, in which those at the top have the most privileges and are subject to fewer restrictive rules, while those at the bottom have few privileges and are subject to more rules. The act of drinking coffee is, therefore, emblematic of one's position in the status hierarchy. Residents oppose domination and control by breaking the coffee-drinking rules. If they are caught, they are punished. For minor infractions, such as failure to wash and put away one's cup, the punishment usually is a "coffee ban" for some period of time. Repeated coffee delicts result in more extended "bans", or the suspension of other, similar privileges. Residents who are caught breaking other rules may have their coffee privileges suspended as part of a more general suspension of license. The rationalization for such punishment hinges on the notion that breaking the rules pertaining to coffee (or any other rules of everyday behavior) is a sign of the residents' common character flaws, and of their "dope fiend" way of life. Thus, the residents' opposition to control is turned into an affirmation of their subordination. Repression of the economic facts (i.e., food stamps) is effective because it is associated with repressing the drug attribute of coffee, and both of these aspects of coffee are associated with the overall economic, political, and legal oppression of the residents. Moreover, by breaking coffee-drinking rules, residents become subject to demotion in the status hierarchy, and thus affirm the imposed micro-social structure. The net effect of the repressions, displacements, and even oppositions is to support the pattern of power relations within this social establishment. Furthermore, the very existence of the institution supports the oppression of the residents, who are members of the underclass in the wider

1 of 11

12/07/2009 01:46 p.m.

Document View - ProQuest

http://proquest.umi.com.monstera.cc.columbia.edu:2048/pqdweb?inde...

society. In this drug treatment facility the everyday enactments of power relations are integrated with (and supportive of) the systems and patterns of power relations in the political economy, as well as with other apparatuses of the state-e.g., the courts, police, local, state, and federal governments, etc. Connections among the quotidian and the systemic are difficult to discern because of the repressions that result in displacement, disguise, and distortion. Resistance in the psychoanalytic sense (resistance to the undoing of repression) is massive because repression at the micro-level is tied to an entire system of domination and control. To undo repressions concerning coffee-drinking practices would be propaedeutic to undoing them systematically. At various nodal points in the systems of power, persons in the superordinate position often participate blindly in oppressive practices. In the case of this establishment, the staff members are subject to many of the same repressions as the residents, and in fact tend to believe that what they do liberates the residents. However, their beliefs do not alter their participation in systematic practices of domination. A theory of power Foucault (1980 [1977a]) asserts that repression (in Freud's psycho-analytic sense) is a special case of the operation of power. He says that in the liberal Western tradition, power and repression have been linked such that power is thought to be a form of prohibition-a nay-saying, negation, or condemnation. This viewpoint, according to Foucault, misrepresents and diminishes the meaning of power, Foucault wishes to correct this one-sided understanding of power by bringing out its productive and creative implications. Power, in Foucault's sense, not only subjugates or represses objects, but it also creates them. Foucault specifically excludes physical force from his theory of power; indeed he claims that power and freedom are mutually necessary. He explains his position as follows: When one defines the exercise of power as a mode of action upon the actions of others, when one characterizes these actions by the government of men by other men-in the broadest sense of the term-one includes an important element: freedom. Power is exercised only over free subjects, and only insofar as they are free. By this we mean individual or collective subjects who are faced with a field of possibilities in which several ways of behaving, several reactions and diverse comportments may be realized. Where the determining factors saturate the whole there is no relationship when man is in chains. (In this case it is a question of a physical relationship of constraint.) . . . The relationship between power and freedom's refusal to submit cannot therefore be separated. (Foucault 1983: 221) Foucault's conceptualization of power seems apropos for the kind of social relations observable in the drug treatment facility. There is no saturation of determining factors, there is no physical constraint, and the residents have a field of options for actions. Especially fitting is Foucault's characterization of the predominant form of power in contemporary, Western societies, one that he calls "pastoral". This is, of course, a secularized form of pastoral power, but its aims are similar to those of ecclesiastical institutions of previous centuries. Characteristics of pastoral power are (i) an ultimate aim to insure individual salvation; (2) agents who are potentially willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the flock; (3) devotion to care of individuals throughout their lives; and (4) knowledge of the inside of people's minds. Foucault notes that in its contemporary, secular form, pastoral power relies on an individualizing tactic associated with such institutions as those of the family, medicine, psychiatry, education, and employment. The drug treatment facility, although a direct apparatus of the state, partakes of and models itself on those institutions specifically mentioned by Foucault. It claims to offer a community structured like a family. It claims to treat a disease-i.e., drug addiction. Its methods of treatment are directed at the minds of residents; in this respect it resembles psychiatry. And it resembles the institution of employment in that what is called "therapeutic work" is an important component of the treatment program. It would seem, then, that Foucault's theory of power provides an appropriate and instructive framework for analyzing the power relationships and the exercise of power in this particular institutional site. However, the governance, control, or domination of residents very much depends on the manipulation of ideas, so that one can equally describe it as ideological. The most salient of these ideas are those that define the social identities of the residents. According to the facility's ideology, the residents are people who have been socialized improperly so that their personalities contain a common flaw. Although the flaw is never explicidy defined or described, it is supposed to be the cause of certain characteristic behavioral manifestations. Among these are emotional dependency, irresponsibility, poor impulse control, and a self-centered lack of regard for others. This is the addict-resident identity to which all residents are assumed to conform. The program of treatment is designed to correct or cure this personality flaw, and program components (rules for behavior) are directed toward this end. Crucial to the practical implementation of this ideology is that the residents are not allowed to establish alternative social identities. Attempts to do so are interrupted by the counselors, and often the residents are punished by withdrawal of privileges. Of particular note in this regard is that identities built around racial-ethnic identifications, gender solidarity, or membership in a social class are denied any validity and are special targets of interruption by the counselors.

2 of 11

12/07/2009 01:46 p.m.

Document View - ProQuest

http://proquest.umi.com.monstera.cc.columbia.edu:2048/pqdweb?inde...

The effect of these practices is to construct a particular kind of subject (the addict-resident). The quality of this construction is reciprocal, dialectical, or "structurating" (Giddens 1984) in that it emerges from the behavior of the residents (both that which conforms to the rules and that which conflicts with them). Residents' behavior articulates, or fits with, the ideology and practices of the treatment program-i.e., the residents and the program "structurale" one another. This "structurating" process is, I think, very much in keeping with Foucault's concept of the process of power. But Foucault makes a point of denying any affinity between his theory of power and the (Marxist) conception of ideological domination. I think I would distinguish myself from both the Marxist and the para-Marxist perspectives. As regards Marxism, I'm not one of those who try toelicit the effects of power at the level of ideology. . . . Because what troubles me with these analyses which prioritize 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 on. (Foucault 1980: 58, 1975) Furthermore, Foucault objects to the psychoanalytic notion of repression in conjunction with Marxist social analytics. He has in mind the Frankfurt School tradition as he goes on to cite one of its theorists: I would also distinguish myself from para-Marxists like Marcuse who give the notion of repression an exaggerated role-because power would be a fragile thing if its only function were to repress, if it worked only through the mode of censorship, exclusion, blockage and repression. . . . Far from preventing knowledge, power produces it. ... That is why the notion of repression which mechanisms of power are generally reduced to strikes me as very inadequate and possibly dangerous. (1980: 59) Despite Foucault's objections to the concepts of ideology and repression, the analysis of power, as it is exercised in the drug treatment facility, requires their inclusion. The control of residents is ideological, and it does depend on repression. Foucault does not want to use the concept of ideology, because he says it presupposes a human subject endowed with a pre-existing (i.e., existing before the effects of power) consciousness. He eschews the concept of repression, seeing it as a negative force only, one that does not account for a power that creates desire. While Foucault is at pains to assert that his theory of power is a matter of the actions of some persons on the actions of others (i.e., not on the persons themselves), this formulation excludes mediation of people's actions through meaningful signs. It is as if human conduct were composed of concatenated reflexes, rather than mediated by systems of symbols, which in turn are linked to sets of assumptions and presuppositions about the nature of reality and what is important about that reality. Foucault's analytic approach is extremely useful when applied to the drug treatment center, because it helps to highlight the fact that participants are actively engaged in creating new meanings, and that these new meanings emerge from exercises of power. However, his exclusion of ideology and repression detracts from our understanding of the situation. I propose that a semiotic interpretation of the Freudian concept of repression helps provide a more complete analysis. Repression is a mechanism of semiosis. In a general sense of repression, it is the mechanism of selection for situated meanings. However, dynamic repression, which is equivalent to Freud's "repression proper", entails a clash of forces. Freud tended to focus on the psychological site of this clash (although he certainly addressed its socio-cultural connections), but the site of the clash does not exhaust its description. Because repression is a mechanism of semiosis, it is not restricted to psychological semiosis but occurs everywhere and in the same way. Therefore, it is just as appropriate to identify repression in social communication as in psychological processes without having to separate the psychological from the social. Repression Both Foucault and those from whom he distinguishes himself use repression in the psychoanalytic sense-i.e., they do not mean by it coercion or violence as in everyday talk of political or social repression. While Freud's formulation of repression is often understood (I would say "misunderstood") in terms that are psychologistic-or, in other words, in terms that presuppose a human subject and pre-existing consciousness-I will argue that Freud's idea of repression need not require such presuppositions. Instead, Freudian repression is understood most productively as a mechanism having to do with sign relations, or the process of semiosis. Freud's formulation of the mechanism of repression is protean and almost impossible to discuss without reference to such concepts as consciousness and unconsciousness with their attendant dangers of vagueness and mystery. Freud (191 $b) placed two conditions on the concept of consciousness that help to do away with much of the mystification: to be "conscious" a presentation must (1) be perceptible through the sensory apparatus and (2) be in symbolic form (he used the term "words", but I think this can be expanded to any symbol system).2 Thus, semiotic processes that do not meet these criteria cannot be conscious. For example, an encounter with streptococci is unconscious, but that semiotic process can be made conscious when we refer to that semiotic process by means of a symbolic sign relation-i.e., when we call it "tonsillitis". In later works, Freud (1923 and 1932, Lecture XXXI) discussed the "latent" unconscious. This he used to denote a mental process (here, a semiotic process) that is not conscious-i.e., not perceived or in symbolic form-but is not repressed. An example would be "mental arithmetic": it is not conscious until we write it or say it, but neither is it repressed. The test of whether it is repressed is its expression, for example:

3 of 11

12/07/2009 01:46 p.m.

Document View - ProQuest

http://proquest.umi.com.monstera.cc.columbia.edu:2048/pqdweb?inde...

6x9=42 In this example, of course, we can see repression at work. A final distinction provides support for my argument that repression is best understood as a semiotic mechanism. A reviewer of this essay raised the objection that American Indians were "unconscious" of horses until the Spanish reintroduced them to the Western hemisphere, but that it would be ridiculous to say that this knowledge had been repressed. In fact, the Indians could not be said to be either conscious or unconscious of horses before the Spanish, because the Indians had no semiotic connection with horses. "Consciousness", "unconsciousness", and "repression" presuppose a semiotic connection. Repression operates by disconnecting attachments, specifically attachments to symbols; or, more accurately, it interrupts the relational bonds among object, sign, and interprtant established by the interpretive act. This interpretive act is the production of symbols-a speaking, a writing, etc. An example of this was offered by Buyssens (cited in Eco 1986: 21): ". . . an arrow, isolated from the context of the street sign, does not allow for the concretization of a 'state of consciousness' ". That is, once the attachment between the arrow and the street sign is broken, its symbolic value is no longer available. Now, of course, the arrow is free to enter into other sorts of attachment, but until it does, it cannot be said that we are conscious ofit. This is what Freud (1915b) meant when he required that conscious ideas be attached to words. Freud pointed out that consciousness is a matter of connection between an object presentation and a word, and that repression breaks this connection. Also helpful here is Freud's notion of "hypercathexis" by which he means that conscious ideas are not only invested with psychological energy, but they are, as it were, over-invested-a condition which might be commonly understood as attention. This over-investment can be put into a semiotic framework by noting that symbolic sign relations are those that involve double-bonding. Not only are object and sign related according to an interpretant, but symbolic sign relations bind object and interpretant by virtue of a symbol. Signs are concrete, material things (what else could they be?), but it is only in symbolic semiosis that it is proper to say that one is conscious of a sign. Other encounters with signs, encounters which are not symbolized, are certainly communicative, but these would be encounters only with brute reality. Take, for example, liver functions. These go on usually without any conscious awareness of them. These processes are semiotic, as the liver functions are certainly communicative with other organs and physiological processes, but they are not symbolized, and hence not conscious. One can become conscious of liver functions when one has a liver disease that is put into symbolic form through the discourses of medicine. The act qfsymbolization is required for consciousness. One can say, then, that repression interrupts the act of symbolization. Although there are certainly other kinds of symbols, linguistic symbols permit me to demonstrate how repression can be understood socially as well as psychologically with a semiotic model of communication. Franz Boas (1911) observed that cultural systems selectively permit certain connections among ideas, and this selection is what constitutes the lexicon of a particular language. Although he did not dwell on the fate of ideas that are not so selected, one can imagine them in a kind of free-floating limbo, much like the arrow detached from the street sign. The selective process is necessary to bring such free-floating ideas into a symbolic relation. I submit that Boas's cultural selection is the same mechanism as Freud's repression, that both act on the semiotic process in the same way, and that the only difference between them is a change in venue. Language is a symbolic semiotic-that is, an order of signs at the symbolic level-and it is a human institution. Both of these characteristics constrain what can be done with language. Specifically, they constrain the performance of talk: speakings are performed the way they are because signs as symbols entail a triadic process among object, sign, and interpretant; and this process is apprehended as a unity by those participating in the production of symbolic performances. These constraints are necessary for meaningful communication, and repression is pivotal in the constraining process. Furthermore, speaking performances are institutionalized in all human societies so that participants in a society are constrained by their respective language institutions. It is in the institutional sphere or aspect of communication where we can most readily see the effects of social power in shaping the kinds of constraints in a particular society. In the case of the drug treatment facility, certain aspects of coffee can be said to be repressed because no one talks about them. At the same time, these aspects are semiotically connected: everyone in a sense "knows" that the residents' food stamps are used to buy the coffee, and everyone "knows" that coffee is a drug. Therefore, one can infer that there is some force excluding these relationships from symbolic expression. Power and symbols In his essay "The Subject and Power", Foucault proposes a project for human liberation. He suggests that the contemporary problem is to find a way out of the "simultaneous individualization and totalization of modern power structures" (1982: 216). He then goes on to say that a step in the direction of such liberation is a proper analysis of the social situation, and as part of the analysis it is necessary to distinguish between power relations and communicative relationships based on symbol systems. So far, it is hard to find fault in his argument, but then I think his exposition takes a problematic turn, for he says, "Whether or not they pass through systems of communication . . ." (1982: 217). A little later he says that, ". . . what defines a relationship of power is that it is a mode of action which does not act directly and

4 of 11

12/07/2009 01:46 p.m.

Document View - ProQuest

http://proquest.umi.com.monstera.cc.columbia.edu:2048/pqdweb?inde...

immediately on others. Instead it acts upon their actions . . ." (1982: 220). My objection to Foucault at this point does not pertain to his definition of power, although it seems more like a description than a definition. My objection is his implicit claim that, although mediated, power can operate without communication. Power could possibly operate outside of communication if it had some mystical property or relationship with its own effects. However, it is unlikely that Foucault is making any such claim. What is more probable is that power, according to Foucault, can operate in ways that are not, or not fully, symbolized. If this is indeed what Foucault means then I would agree completely. I would add, however, that repression is what makes it possible for power to be exercised without complete symbolic representation. Or, the mechanism of repression is a necessary condition for ideological domination. One of the difficulties in analyzing symbol systems, especially linguistic symbols, is that they tend to have multiple semantic functions, and the systems themselves tend to have an encyclopedic order. Both characteristics offer analytic difficulties, both interact with power relations among people, and both are affected by repression. One of the important stumbling blocks in the way of analysis is the fact that linguistic systems have multiple functions. Because Euro-American linguists and other intellectuals have tended to elevate the propositional or informational function of language, other functions tend to be treated as relatively unimportant, noise in the main channel of communication. Non-European languages, such as the Navajo, for example, tend to treat informational content as chatter, while the principal importance of speech is believed to be its world-creating capacity (Witherspoon 1977). West Indian Creole speakers, on the other hand, are especially attendant to the way talk orders social interaction (LePage andTabouret-Keller 1985). Another kind of situation in our own culture that emphasizes the relationship as a semantic function is psychoanalysis. In clinical analysis, the analysand amy be imparting some information about the world "out there", while it is the analyst's job to listen for the commentary on the relationship between the analyst and analysand. More often than not the analysand begins by treating the analysis as a confessional, while the analyst investigates this confessional maneuver as a convergence between the pastoral style of social power (Foucault 1982) and the personal history of the analysand. Linguistic communication always operates with multiple functions, but some of these functions will be submerged while others are elevated. Moreover, the mix of the relative functions is dynamic and situationally dependent. Each function orders some context in particular ways; each has ways of creating objects of knowledge for different contexts. The institutionalization of language (and other communicative systems) results in the patterning of elevation and submergence of different semantic functions. Thus, the world-creating function is predominant (in terms of values) among the Navajo, the relational function is predominant in the West Indies, and the relational function that is so important in the psychoanalytic situation is antagonistic to the predominant function in EuroAmerican society. In the drug treatment facility, special meanings for coffee are produced in a semiotic web of social relational meanings. Drinking coffee is a privilege afforded to residents, a license with a hierarchy of restrictions which corresponds to a moral hierarchy of residents. The moral hierarchy represents a continuum: those at the bottom are unreformed "dope fiends". Moving up the hierarchy, one encounters residents who have made various degrees of "progress in treatment". Counselors regulate these and other hierarchies among residents by their pronouncements of judgment regarding advances in the treatment of drug addiction. These specific relational meanings could not be produced effectively (i.e., they might be produced, but they would be treated with jocular abandon) were it not for the repression of other meanings of coffee, most notably that residents' food stamps are used to purchase it and that it has drug properties. Neither of these is secret. Residents are well aware that they receive food stamps, since they have to complete documents attesting to their indigency in order to qualify for them. They also know that the food stamps are sent directly to the administration of the facility and that they are used to purchase food, including coffee. They are similarly cognizant that coffee possesses drug properties as evidenced by casual comments about "getting a buzz" from coffee. However, public discussion of this knowledge is forbidden in relation to coffee-drinking rules. Public talk is both required of residents and closely monitored by counselors, because it is considered a crucial ingredient for the treatment of drug addiction. But, as soon as a resident would veer from prescribed topics (typically those related to their own moral failings) and toward critical observations about the management of the treatment center, counselors are quick to interrupt. The counselors characterize directions of discourse such as these as resisting or at least evading treatment. The charge of resisting treatment is serious business for residents, because most of them are in the facility as an alternative to incarceration. They must demonstrate "progress in treatment" or risk prison. Therefore, they do not talk about the coffee economy or its drug attribute. These meanings are repressed, and this repression allows the special, relational meanings of coffee to be elevated to public consciousness. One set of semiotic relations is submerged as an integral and necessary part of elevating another semiosic sector of meaning. Repression is a necessary part of the semiotic mechanism in that it selects from an encyclopedic field. Eco (1986) distinguishes between dictionaries and encyclopedias. Dictionaries arrange words in accordance with their relationships to other words; they arrange them as systems of signifiers. However a lexicon may be graphically situated (the dictionary is alphabetical), it is logically structured as a Porphyryan tree: it is bidimensional hierarchy of classes. A well-known example of this logical structure is the Linnean taxonomy of living organisms. Therefore, it is no accident that structural linguists continue to rely on Porphyryan trees for their descriptions and analyses of language; it derives from their conception of language as a system of signifiers based on a dyadic relation between signifier and signified.

5 of 11

12/07/2009 01:46 p.m.

Document View - ProQuest

http://proquest.umi.com.monstera.cc.columbia.edu:2048/pqdweb?inde...

The reason this model is important with respect to the concept of repression is that in a dyadic model, repression would have to be an external force with only negative effects. The dyadic model implies a structure composed of the relations among signs. The signs themselves, amalgams of signifieds and signifiers, are reified; they are made into things. Therefore repression would have to be some force external to this sign system that submerges or hides these pre-existing signs. The problem with using the lexical arrangement for analyzing anything external to the lexicon (the system of signifiers) is that the order melts away: The tree of genera and species, the tree of substances, blows up in a dust of differentiae, in a turmoil of infinite accidents, in a non-hierarchical network of qualia. The dictionary dissolves into a potentially unordered and unrestricted galaxy of pieces of world knowledge. The dictionary thus becomes an encyclopaedia, because it was in fact a disguised encyclopaedia. (Eco 1986: 68) There is no doubt that Foucault was aware of the significance of encyclopedias, since he began The Order of Things (1973) with a passage from Borges about a Chinese encyclopedia: This passage quotes a "certain Chinese encyclopaedia" in which it is written that "animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camel hair brush, (1) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies". (Foucault 1973: xv) The encyclopedic order is intrinsically tied to a semiotic (i.e., triadic) model of signs: ". . . an encyclopaedia-like representation assumes that the representation of content takes place only by means of interpretants, in a process of unlimited semiosis" (Eco 1986: 68). Languages are encyclopedia-like because a symbolic kind of sign relation is triadic. According to the semiotic theory of C. S. Peirce, a symbolic sign relation is one in which an object and that which represents the object (the sign) are bound together only because an interpretant represents them as related (Parmentier 1985).3 In other words, in order for a sign relation to be symbolic, it requires an interpretive act. A corollary of Peirce's definition of a symbolic sign relation is that the relations between object, sign, and interpretant are dynamic (i.e., the relations should be understood as a process rather than a structure), and this sign process is theoretically unlimited, because what is an object at one moment becomes a sign in the next, and an interpretant in the next. Encyclopedias are theoretically overcoded (Eco 1976), theory laden, or overdetermined in the psychoanalytic sense. For every text there is a potentially infinite encyclopedia in the background. Therefore, to make any particular text situationally relevant, some elements of the encyclopedia must be removed. Moreover, repression must operate because every text that also becomes part of the encyclopedia casts in doubt the previous structure of the encyclopedia itself (Eco 1986: 83). Using Peirce's semiotic model of symbol systems, there is no presupposition of a subject, nor of consciousness. Subjects and their consciousness are created in the interpretive act of forming symbolic sign relations. I think this is exactly the kind of process that fits with Foucault's theory of power, but this semiotic model requires repres.sion, and it entails an encyclopedic field, a phenomenon that is equivalent to an ideology. It is an ethnological truism that all human relations are relations of power; and it is a semiotic truism that all human actions are communicative. Finally, all culturally implicated action (which is to say, again, all human action) is part of and affects the cultural encyclopedia. Therefore, human interaction always involves power and must make use of the mechanism of repression. What we find is that cultural encyclopedias-Chinese or Britannica-follow the patterns of power that predominate in a particular culture. It is the patterned and reduplicating nature of the pattern that makes repression appear to be a negative, oppressive force against those persons who are subordinated to others. Repression and surplus repression In characterizing Freud's concept of repression, Foucault makes a mistake similar to that of Marcuse: both of them confuse and equate inhibition with repression. In the case of Marcuse, this confusion led him to propose the term "surplus-repression" to designate impulse control originating from the needs of the ruling class. This kind of repression is "surplus", according to Marcuse, because it is over and above those impulse controls necessary for egalitarian social cooperation (Marcuse 1974 [1966/1955]). Inhibition is that process whereby an impulse is prohibited from being expressed in action (Freud 1926); repression, on the other hand, bars the idea of an impulse from conscious representation (Freud 1915a). Marcuse confusingly called drive or impulse inhibition "basic repression"; but this is an improper use of the term "repression". Drives cannot be repressed; only their derivatives, their ideational representatives, can be repressed. Drives are, however, subject to inhibition (and those logically consequent mechanisms of inhibition such as displacement, inversion of aim, etc. [Freud 1926]). Indeed, it is inhibition that makes them drives (i.e., psychological processes) as opposed to true instincts-those processes that predominantly determine the behavior of non-human animals. Neurotic symptoms illustrate the difference between an inhibition that prevents action on an impulse and repression, which prevents an act of symbolization. A neurotic symptom, say a hysterical anesthesia, is a sign of an impulse and its

6 of 11

12/07/2009 01:46 p.m.

Document View - ProQuest

http://proquest.umi.com.monstera.cc.columbia.edu:2048/pqdweb?inde...

inhibition; but this sign is not a symbolic sign relation. The neurotic sufferer is not conscious of the connection between the symptom, the impulse, and the inhibition of the impulse. For instance, the neurotic is not conscious of the connection between the anesthesia, the desire to sleep with a best friend's spouse coupled with the wish that the friend would die, and the moral inhibition against carrying out these wishes. The neurotic does not go around proclaiming these desires; instead he or she develops a symptom. An act of symbolization is a detour in the course of an impulse. This detour presupposes an inhibition where part of the energy of the impulse is redirected toward the act of symbolization. Repression interrupts, or short-circuits, this detour. In one sense, then, all repression is "surplus", because repression bars the way to symbolic representation, and all symbol systems are, by definition, social. I think what Marcuse was trying to get at with his notion of "surplus repression" was repression that followed the patterns of power in a given society. In this interpretation, "surplus repression" refers to instances and patterns of repression that serve the interests of the ruling class. "Basic repression" then could be understood as instances or patterns of repression that are power-neutral; repression, that is, that allows specific meanings in situated discourse by shaving away and treating as irrelevant the multiplicity of meanings that is characteristic of symbolic sign relations. This is where repression can be understood as a necessary mechanism of semiosis. Repression is an inevitable part of the human condition. It is what allows highly specific and segmental acts (Devereux 1979), it is the basis for presupposition in discourse (Grice 1975, 1978, 1981), and it is a condition of the partial inter-subjectivity negotiated among interlocutors within some here and now (Rommetveit 1979). Repression is a requisite brake on the process of unlimited semiosis (Eco 1976) in that "Semantic disclosures have a double role: they blow up certain properties (making them contextually relevant or pertinent) and narcotize some others" (Eco 1979: 23). Without repression, there would be no way to highlight specific meanings in situated discourse. There is an important caveat about "power-neutral" repression. This is the point at which a social analyst should be suspicious, because the question arises whether any repression is really power-neutral. The selective process of repression that determines what shall be allowed symbolic representation is what shapes our understanding (consciousness) of contextual, situational relevance and ultimately what shapes our understanding of reality. For instance, in the drug treatment facility, coffee drinking occasionally came under discussion in terms of modifying some of the rules. When I asked the residents why they did not include in their discussions the question of their food stamps, or the drug aspect of coffee, they told me such issues were "irrelevant". A related point is brought to mind through a structuralist understanding of symbol systems, especially linguistic ones. These structuralisms treat language and other forms of communication systemically, or, as in Eco (1976), as S-codes or syntax codes. Such systems are distinct, coherent structures based on rules for grounding information in arbitrary relationships between signifieds and signifiers. Such an approach to language lends itself to Wittgenstein's (1958:sec. 404-405) characterization of language games. The problem is that the games are fixed. While structuralism attends to the rules of the game, it must content itself with tinkering with those rules if the effects of social inequality are to be ameliorated. In his histories of prisons (1979) and sex (1980), Foucault has recorded the results of tinkering with the rules. The image that comes to mind is a game of roulette in which a few players win consistently. Well-meaning advocates of fair play keep changing the rules, while the problem is that the roulette wheel is tilted-i. e., the problem is internal to the mechanism of the game. Consistent winners are merely seizing the opportunity afforded by the fixed game. What is crucial for understanding human communication, especially in its most elaborated form-that of language-is to recognize that talk is not just the activation of an S-code, but that it is also a social institution. Not only are language games fixed as in tilted roulette wheels or decks of marked cards, but they are fixed according to a normative order. The normative is built into the semiotic triad. To engage in linguistic signifying is to engage with the moral order; it is to participate in an institution in which voices contend with one another to determine the rules of the game. Viewing language simply as a system or code abstracts it from the moral order and obscures its institutional character; it also neglects the normative as an aspect of the semiotic triad. Without appreciating the moral force that is implicit in human communication, repression can be seen as an external epiphenomenon. Based on his comments about it, this is the way Foucault sees repression-namely, from the perspective of structuralist assumptions. Between our engagement with the world (our material practices) and our conscious (i.e, symbolic) representations of that engagement stands ideology. Ideology is the systematic symbolic form of the "rules of the game of reality". Ideology provides the framework according to which we decide what is "relevant", "true", or "real" in any particular situation. And so it is to a consideration of ideology that we now turn. Ideology Human action is powered by drives; it is not instinctual. Moreover, the drives are blind; they do not recognize any distinction between real, material satisfaction and hallucinatory satisfaction (Freud 1923). To obtain real satisfactions, people operate according to the dictates of what they perceive to be reality; or, in other words, people do what they believe they must do. Hegemony, or ideological domination, is a concept that summarizes the process by which people come to believe in imperatives. It is a concept developed by Antonio Gramsci (1971) to explain domination in liberal democracies where social order is largely dependent on consent. In this respect, Gramsci's theoretical efforts parallel those of Foucault.

7 of 11

12/07/2009 01:46 p.m.

Document View - ProQuest

http://proquest.umi.com.monstera.cc.columbia.edu:2048/pqdweb?inde...

The source for Gramsci's concept is The German Ideology by Marx and Engels: The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas. . . . The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relations. . . . (Marx and Engels 1976: 59) To fit with the present discussion, I would modify Marx and Engels's "ideal expression" to "symbolic expression". Gouldner notes that the ruling ideas take the form of ideologies in modernistic, scientific societies because of their seeming reliance on objective truth: Ideologies, then, are belief systems distinguished by the centrality of their concern for What Is and by their worldreferencing "reports". Ideologies are essentially public doctrines offering publicly doctrines offering publicly scrutable evidence and reasoning on their behalf; they are never offered as secret doctrines. . . . Ideologies are intended to be believed in by those affirming them publicly and by all men, because they are "true", and they thus have a universal character. . . . With the waning of traditionalism, there is now an increasing struggle over "ideas". This means a greater struggle over which definitions of social reality (or reports) and which moral rules (or commands) are dominant. Social struggle in part takes the form of contention about What Is and what should be done about it. (Gouldner 1976: 33-34) The concept of hegemony or ideological domination takes into account social struggle as an intrinsic part of the formation of ideology. A dominant ideology is never simply arrived at; it emerges from social struggle. A heuristically useful discrimination within the concept of ideological domination pertains to its modes of operation. In one mode, it defines the terms of argument over particular social circumstances. In this sense, it defines and frames problems that become matters of social conflict. This mode allows-in fact, requires-critique of discourses about "What Is and what should be done about it". There is room for maneuver in the negotiation of objective truth. Here, ideology gives a framework or model for inquiry, debate, and conflict about truth and reality. In its other mode, however, ideology is that which lays down the grid of truth conditions. It does not just describe "What Is"; it tells us how to go about determining "What Is". In this mode, ideology cannot be questioned or critiqued, because questions and criticisms cannot be formulated outside the grid of truth conditions. It determines that which can be taken to be objective by laying down ways of determining the truth of matters. For any given action or thing in the material world, ideology is the gatekeeper for its objectivity. For example, to say that I have a pain can only make sense according to ideologically determined conditions for ascertaining the truth of my statement, and not according to whether some biophysical event has transpired. Under a different ideology, biophysical processes might be irrelevant; under some systems of truth, the relevant matter would be the ill will of some sorcerer toward me. In all hierarchically ordered societies, repression will have the appearance of oppression, but this should not be read as mere appearance. The oppressive appearance of repression is politically significant even if it is semiotically necessary. In those hierarchical societies that are technologized, capitalistic, and Western-that is to say, modernist-the oppressive nature of repression takes particular, institutionalized forms. Of course, not all instances of repression oppress just as not all instances of the exercises of power oppress. For the social analyst, it is important to identify which instances of power are oppressive, and this is not an easy task, because those who dominate power relations seize upon the mechanism of repression to cloak, disguise, and distort the patterns and effects of their power. In addition, neither power nor repression is absolute; there is always opposition to oppression. The question is not whether there is opposition; the question concerns the political effectiveness of opposition. Moreover, repression and power cannot be separated from ideology, because ideology provides the field for objective meanings. Within an ideological field the effect of repression on the exercise of power is not inconsiderable, because repression can change the meaning of power. This is where the semiosic (meaning-creating) properties of repression are most apparent. An appropriate image is the production of a bas-relief; repression is that which carves away the medium, elevating that which the artist wishes to depict. In the treatment facility, the economic and psychotropic meanings associated with coffee are repressed in order to bring into relief social relational meanings that are particular to the situation. These particular social relational meanings are crucial linkages in a broader ideological field having to do with the position of drug addicts in American society, concepts of personhood and personality, theories of behavioral change, etc. Micro/macro relations and the integration of power The integration of the microsocial with the macrosocial is not foreign to Foucault's point of view: But what makes the domination of a group, a caste, a class, together with the resistance and revolts which that domination comes up against, a central phenomenon in the history of societies is that they manifest in a massive and universalizing form, at the level of the whole social body, the locking together of power relations with relations of strategy and the results proceeding from their interaction. (Foucault 1982: 226) These relations of strategy of which Foucault writes depend on the shrewd manipulation of the mechanisms of semiosis, not the least of which is repression. As a result of such strategic manipulation, the effectiveness of local oppositions can only be evaluated with respect to the entire system of power relations. And these power relations are not just interlocking units and subsystems, but they are arranged hierarchically. Power is an aspect of all human relations, and in this respect it

8 of 11

12/07/2009 01:46 p.m.

Document View - ProQuest

http://proquest.umi.com.monstera.cc.columbia.edu:2048/pqdweb?inde...

is neutral. But power is also patterned, and in its patterned form it is anything but neutral. To illustrate by contrast, the Fregean example of the morning star-evening star problem4 is a neutral instance of repression, although it is only neutral because it is an abstraction divested of concrete social circumstance. The astronomer who uses the term "morning star" is repressing the knowledge of the referent for purposes of situated discourse. Two points are relevant here. First, repression assumes knowledge (actually, semiotic relations): if the astronomer did not have knowledge of the referent, one could not say that he or she was repressing it. In the same way, the residents of the drug treatment facility have knowledge of their economic, political, and legal circumstances. They also know that their food stamps buy the coffee, and they know that coffee could be construed as a drug. It is just that they do not talk about this knowledge in connection with the everyday oppressions in the facility. Repression has to do with matters of consciousness, not knowledge. If a thing is not talked about, it cannot be said to be conscious since consciousness, at least in Freud's usage, requires perceptible symbolization. The difference between the astronomical example and the coffee example does not lie with the mechanism of repression but rather with the seizure of the mechanism for purposes of social control. This is the second relevant point, and the one that distinguishes the two examples. Repressing the referent for "morning star" interrupts the process of unlimited semiosis by breaking the semiotic chain, but this interruption is easily undone because there is no force keeping the knowledge out of talk and thus out of consciousness. This is the kind of situation for which Freud used the term "preconscious", or "latent unconscious". In contrast, there are forces that keep the residents in the drug treatment facility from talking about the economy and drug attributes of coffee. Here, power, a social phenomenon, is exercised to maintain the repression. Whether or not an astronomer speaks of the referent for "morning star" is not politically significant, at least within the bounds of the abstract Fregean example. Whether or not residents in the treatment facility speak about the fact that their resources are used to buy coffee is politically significant. They are restrained from such talk as they are restricted in their coffee drinking. Repression about coffee appears to be a negation, denial, and oppression because it is linked to the exercise of power. No such linkage occurs in the astronomical example; repression here is a neutral mechanism of the semiotic process. When Foucault points out (rightly, I think) that power not only subjugates but also creates objects of knowledge, is he not saying that human knowledge depends on human relations and that human relations include matters of power? What is politically significant, however, is that some objects of knowledge are consistently elevated at the expense of competing, alternative, or just plain different objects of knowledge. These are the cases that are of interest to critical analysts. The difficulty with Foucault's formulation of power is that he does not distinguish between the capacity to create objects of consciousness and the exercise of that capacity. The reason that he does not do so is that he operates with a structural as opposed to semiotic model of sign relations. In the structural model there can be no distinction between the dynamically unconscious (i.e., the repressed) and that which is simply not represented (the "descriptive" unconscious). In the structural model, repression intervenes between the signifier and signified, thereby destroying the sign relation. In the semiotic model, repression does not destroy the sign relation but makes it sub-symbolic, thus removing it from consciousness; but the sign relation still remains. The whole notion of repression requires a clash between an act of symbolization and something that interrupts that action. The only thing that can interrupt in this manner is the moral order that rests on social forms. Thus, the clash is between a human action of symbolization and another human action that interrupts the first. Foucault's "power" refers to the manner by which the two sites are articulated. The study of the micro, or capillary, relations of power in the drug treatment facility implicitly raises the question of why the residents are controlled in the way and to the extent that they are. It is all well and good to elucidate the workings of power in this one, small institutional site, but these workings do not "just happen". They happen there because of pressures exerted on that facility by the courts and penal system and by the welfare system. They happen because it is in the interests of powerful people to control the kinds of people who are in the facility. They happen because the multi-billion dollar, international drug industry relies on such treatment facilities to help regulate the market and to keep consumers (and functionaries in the lowest levels of the marketing structure) in a subordinate position. They happen because the United States government uses the international drug trade to effect foreign policy. Etc. Conclusion Foucault's theory of power is useful for analyzing the domination of residents in a drug treatment facility. By analogy and extension, his theory can be applied to other institutional sites in our society. Especially useful is his notion of pastoral power in which particular kinds of human subjects are created who need individualized "guidance". To effect this "guidance" the pastor (in the case at hand, the drug counselors) must get inside the minds of those in the flock. Various disciplines (I intend both the academic and regulatory meaning) are created as part of this pastoral power-e.g., psychology and psychiatry, education, philosophical anthropology, and a host of other discourses of human hygiene. These disciplines and their subjects (the modern person) are created by the exercise of power. This is precisely what Foucault means when he refers to the creative effects of power.

9 of 11

12/07/2009 01:46 p.m.

Document View - ProQuest

http://proquest.umi.com.monstera.cc.columbia.edu:2048/pqdweb?inde...

When applied to the case study of the drug treatment facility, Foucault's theory of power is fitting and useful. However, his rejection of the concepts of ideological domination and repression do not fit with the facts of the case. Ideological domination in the facility would be clear to any observer; and in many instances it is not denied, but rather it is rationalized as being "for the good of the residents". In addition, both the ideological domination and the exercise of pastoral power would be a great deal more difficult, if not impossible, were it not for frequent acts of repression (i.e., interruptions of public talk). While Foucault bases his objections to the concepts of repression and ideology on the ground that they presume subjectivity, the presumption is not necessarily part of either concept. Instead, the presupposed human subject is an artifact of structuralist theories of language, communication, and social life. A structuralist interpretation of ideology and repression sneaks in the presupposed human subject through the back door. On the other hand, a semiotic model makes the same kinds of assumptions about subjectivity for which Foucault argues-namely, that subjectivity is contingent upon and continually created by communicative actions. With the semiotic model in mind, ideology and repression, far from being excluded from a theory of power, should be treated as an intrinsic part of it and therefore part of its creative properties.
[Footnote] NOTES 1 The description of this social establishment is based on participant-observation field research conducted over a 26-month period from 1984 to 1986. 2 Freud used the term "symbol" to refer to things that are more clearly indicated by the term "icon" as in dream "symbols" and fantasy "symbols". Thus, the famous "phallic symbol" is more properly called an icon in that its form resembles a penis. 3 Peirce's triadic model contrasts with the dyadic model of Saussure (1959/1912). Saussure's model, which forms the theoretical basis for contemporary, structural linguistics, construes (linguistic) symbols as a relation between a signifier and a signified. This model supports a conception of language as relatively autonomous, much like a dictionary. 4 The point of Frege's example was to illustrate the distinction between sense and reference. "Morning star" and "evening star" have the same referent (the planet, Venus), but the terms have different senses. [Reference] REFERENCES BOAS, Franz. 1911. Introduction to the Handbook of American Indian Languages. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. BUYSSENS, E. 1943. Le Langage et le Discours. Brussels: Office de Publicite. DEVEREUX, George. 1979. "Fantasy and Symbol as Dimensions of Reality". In R.H. Hook (ed.), Fantasy and Symbol. New York: Academic Press. ECO, Umberto. 1976. A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1979. The Role of the Reader. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1986. Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. FOUCAULT, Michel. 1973/1966. The Order of Things. New York: Vintage Books. 1967. "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx". Cahiers du Royaumont. Paris: Minuit. 1979/1975. Discipline and Punish. New York: Vintage Books. 1980. The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction. New York: Vintage Books. 1980/1977a. "Two Lectures". In Colin Gordon (ed.), Power/Knowledge. New York: Pantheon. 1980/1977b. "Truth and Power". In Colin Gordon (ed.), Power/Knowledge. New York: Pantheon. 1983/1982. "The Subject and Power". In Herbert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow (eds.), Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, second edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. FREGE, Gottlob. 1960/1892. "On Sense and Reference". In Peter Geach and Max Black (eds.), Translations from the Writings of Gottlob Frege. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. FREUD, Sigmund. 1900/1968. The Interpretation of Dreams. In James Strachey (ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vols. 4, 5. London: Hogarth Press. 1901. The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Standard Edition, vol. 6. 1915a. "Repression". Standard Edition, vol. 14. 1915b. "The Unconscious". Standard Edition, vol. 14. 1917. Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. Standard Edition, vol. 15. 1923. The Ego and the Id. Standard Edition, vol. 19. 1926. Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety. Standard Edition, vol. 20. 1933. New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. Standard Edition, vol. 22. 1940. "Some Elementary Lessons in Psycho-Analysis". Standard Edition, vol. 23. GIDDENS, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. GOULDNER, Alvin W. 1976. The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology. New York: Seabury Press. GRAMSCI, Antonio.

10 of 11

12/07/2009 01:46 p.m.

Document View - ProQuest

http://proquest.umi.com.monstera.cc.columbia.edu:2048/pqdweb?inde...

1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Edited and translated by Quinten Hoare and Geoffrey Smith. London: Lawrence Wishart. GRICE, H. Paul. 1975. "Logic and Conversation". In Peter Cole and Jerry Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics, Volume 3: Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press. 1978. "Further Notes on Logic and Conversation". In Peter Cole (ed.), Syntax and Semantics, Volume 9: Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 1981. "Presuppositions and Conversational Implicature". In Peter Cole (ed.), Radical Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. LEPAGE, Robert and Andree TABOURET-KELLER. 1985. Acts of Identity: Creole-Based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity. New York: Cambridge University Press. MARCUSE, Herbert. 1974/1966/1955. Eros and Civilization. Boston: Beacon Press. MARX, Karl and Frederick ENGELS. 1976/1864. The German Ideology. In Collected Works, vol. 5. New York: International Publishers. PARMENTIER, Richard J. 1985. "Signs' Place in Medias Res: Peirce's Concept of Semiotic Mediation". In Elizabeth Mertz and Richard Parmentier (eds.), Semiotic Mediation. New York: Academic Press. PEIRCE, Charles Sanders. 1931-1958. Collected Papers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ROMMETVEIT, R. 1979. "On Common Codes and Dynamic Residuals in Human Communication". In R. Rommetveit and R.M. Blakar (eds.), Studies of Language, Thought, and Verbal Communication. New York: Academic Press. de SAUSSURE, Ferdinand. 1959/1912. Course in General Linguistics. Edited by Charles Bally and Albert sechehaye; translated by Wade Baskin. New York: Philosophical Library. WITHERSPOON, Gary. 1977. Language and Art in the Navajo Universe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig. 1958. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell. [Author Affiliation] GEOFFREY R. SKOLL University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Indexing (document details) Author(s): Author Affiliation: Document types: Publication title: Source type: ISSN: Geoffrey R Skoll GEOFFREY R. SKOLL University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee General Information The American Journal of Semiotics. Kent: 1991. Vol. 8, Iss. 3; pg. 5, 25 pgs Periodical 02777126

ProQuest document ID: 790468631 Text Word Count Document URL: 9497 http://proquest.umi.com.monstera.cc.columbia.edu:2048/pqdweb?did=790468631&sid=30&Fmt=3&cl ientId=15403&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Copyright 2009 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. Columbia University Libraries

11 of 11

12/07/2009 01:46 p.m.