The 'Paradox' of Knowledge and Power. Reading Foucault On A Bias

The "Paradox" of Knowledge and Power: Reading Foucault on a Bias Author(s): Tom Keenan Source: Political Theory, Vol.
15, No. 1 (Feb., 1987), pp. 5-37 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/191718 . Accessed: 04/03/2014 15:47
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FOUCAULTIANPOLITICS
I. THE "PARADOX" OF KNOWLEDGE AND POWER: ReadingFoucault on a Bias

TOM KEENAN Yale University
tothink atthe What ifthought freed itself from common sense anddecided only ofitssingularity? Whatifit mischievously thebiasof extreme point practiced inthe ifit ofcomplacently itscitizenship doxa?What paradox, instead accepting ofsearching instead outthecommon elements thought difference differentially, difference?' underlying
In a series ofimportant someof articles overthepastseveral years, MichelFoucault'sbest interpreters have repeatedly returned to a powerful, andparadoxical, criticism. Foucault, thanks tohisinnovative rethinking of theinterplay between relations of force (power)and relations ofcognition (knowledge) under theterm power-knowledge, hasremoved the thepractical ofthe Too basisfor political linkage two. itseems, is notenough. much, This objection is forcefully in Jurgen summarized Habermas's economical little formula: "Why fight?" Habermas feels that Foucault "cannot answer" this question, the"question ofthenormative basisof his ofhis critique," precisely onaccount suspicions about the implication ofknowledge inpower relations of (for instance, the "normalizing" aims
A UTHOR'S NOTE: A version at a of thisarticlewas initially written for and delivered panel called "The Paradox of Knowledgeand Power" at the 1985 AmericanPolitical Science Association meeting.Thanks to those on thepanel-Fred Dallmayr,Folke Lindahl,Diane Rubenstein, and StephenSchneck-and to Bill Connolly,Tom Dumm, and Elissa Marder comments. for their
POLITICAL THEORY, Vol. 15 No. 1, February19875-37
? 1987Sage Publications, Inc.
POLITICALTHEORY / FEBRUARY1987
Foucault's power-knowledge stems networks). from predicament what to find Habermas seems an admirable Foucault's gesture: consistent refusal "to givea statusto the other" the other and its (to install of thesame,thusreducing knowledge as thenegation itsalterity to or integrable manageable in order "to defend proportions) himself a naturalistic against which idealizes metaphysics into counter-power a pre-discursive referent."2 Foucault Having doneso, however, cannot explain howonegets to the"fight" offorce inresistance) (theexercise from some"why" (a right basedin reason ortruth). Where Foucault would seem tohave andpower linked astightly knowledge as possible, a gapor"aporia" opens thethought ofpower-knowledge.3 up,inside Nancy Fraser diagnoses theproblem as "normative confusion." She is willing, perhaps moreso thanHabermas, to takeup Foucault's "empirical intothepositivity insights" ofpower butshealso relations, worries about the tendency of theseunderstandings to turnon themselves andundercut their owndeployment. Theproblem is again oneofcrossing a gap:Fraser toknow wants "how[Foucault] gotfrom the suspension ofthe question ofthe ofmodern legitimacy to[his] power engagedcritique of bio-power." While raising the prospect that Foucault thinks heis"politically engaged yet still somehow normatively neutral," she does not thinknormless engagement possible:His "rejection ofhumanism ... puts Foucault inthe paradoxical position of unable being to account fororjustify thesorts ofnormative political judgments he makesall thetime-for example, 'discipline' is a bad thing." Again, theaporiaseems to neutralize or anarchize action by disconnecting knowledge from thenorms that translate itinto force.4 Charles Tayloragrees thatthisposition is paradoxical. Foucault obviously disjoints what Taylor callsthe "standard link" between power and knowledge and undermines "the familiar terrain [of] an old Enlightenment-inspired combination."This standard view of the combinationfounds thegesture ofpolitical critique intheessentially cognitive nature ofpower: Power, understood as domination orthe imposition of constraint, works by"fraud, illusion, false pretences," bypreventing our purposesand desiresfromreaching fulfillment (or perhapseven formulation) and thenmasking thatfact.Becausedissimulation is essential to theexercise ofpower, truth or knowledge (determined as unconcealment) canreverse anderase the imposed errors andwith them the domination: "Thenegation ofthe one(domination) makes essential use of thenegation of theother (disguise)." Becausepoweralready (ab)usesknowledge, critique can deploy against it"a truth that frees
us. "5
Keenan/ READINGFOUCAULTON A BIAS
Foucault reverses andthreatens tounhinge this ifnegative, essential, within distinction articulation. thetruth-error of He brackets "regimes ofpower. to theexercise He takes truth," andbinds these regimes the a little too far, and apparently cognitive "essence" ofpower perhaps, intoa converts a critical ordialectical negation (basedon opposition) on the"close sterile Becausehe insists hierarchy, evenan identity. intrication" ofdominance," of"truth," rather than "with error, systems he can onlysee "truth as subordinated to power," as "imposed bya of power," regime with so that"theregime is identified its entirely truth." Hencethefamiliar scheme finds itself inverted in a imposed classic Foucaultian theimposition oftheone(domination) chiasmus: of theother makesessential use of theimposition And the (truth). reverse no longer holds-"unmasking canonly destabilize we [power]; cannot bring about a new lessmendacious stable, freer, form ofitbythis route."6 Thisposition leavesTaylor there is because disconcerted, though, "unmasking." Foucault'sworkdoes offer important insights into modern politics;indeed,his analysesare actively and effectively inscribed incontemporary struggles (recall theinfamous "insurrection ofsubjugated ButFoucault knowledges'). won't endorse these knowledgesas norms, as grounds for a programmatic political struggle, nor will hefind inthem anyGoodtobe universally affirmed. Participating in struggles certainly involves knowledge, but the content of the does notvalidate thestruggle. knowledge He offers butnot insights, whatTaylor callsa "critique," thenegation where or overcoming of what iscriticized a good," "promotes where the unmasking isthe "route" tobetter forms ofpower. Foucault worries about insurrections posed in terms ofthetruth that frees us. Andthis resistance to totalization, to some affirming over powers others basedontheir relative "gain intruth or freedom," in turn disorients Taylor. It leadshimto thebreaking "thebreakin Foucault's point, thought, thepointthatdisconcerts, where headopts a Nietzschean-derived ofneutrality stance between the different historical ofpower, systems andthus seems to neutralize the evaluations that ariseoutofhisanalyses."7 Foucault's ofthepower-knowledge neutralization link onthis level, even as onanother heseemingly intricates them tothe point ofidentity, disturbs these three critics. Therigor oftheir work is toletus measure just what is at stake in the "standard link." Foucault'sstrange hyperbolization andneutralization leaves him ina difficult predicament,
as Taylorseesit:"He dashesthehope ... thatthere is somegood wecan as a result affirm oftheunderstanding [his]analyses giveus. Andbythe
POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY1987
heseems toraise a question ofwhether ornot there issuch a same token as a wayout.Thisis rather thing paradoxical...."8 tothe ofthe issues that andthe others Itisa testimony urgency Taylor inthis but rather tolinger choose not hopeless aporetic paradox, present Either Foucault resolution: has it as a question immediate requiring ofpowerand knowledge, or he is definitions rewritten thestandard field"9 forthese "semantic As thepossibility of another incoherent. If is unavoidable. familiar is notraised, theconclusion philosophemes linked Foucault cannot "free hisposition ofthisparadox, seemingly thenhis "position withtheimpossible attempt to standnowhere," isincoherent."''0 noway out. ultimately Paradox, aporia: hopes dashed, takethem at their We canendorse these butnot conclusions, word, thereasoning on that leadstothem. Letus agree that Foucault's work forms or localcenters tells thestory ofa certain ofpower-knowledge incoherence, a difficulty ofcoincidence, a break evenas it unhinging, insists that more than a dashkeeps andknowledge nothing power apart. But theparadoxdoes not arisefrom or confusion, irresponsibility, oreven from what calls "the evasion, Taylor injudiciously fog emanating from Parisin recent Foucault was right he decades."'"I Perhaps when inLa volonte islikely warned that "this toleadtoa desavoir word power ofmisunderstandings."'2 number Where there is incoherence, itdoes notcome about orhierarchizes because Foucault indentifies power and orbecause heresists knowledge, affirmations, butrather because hehas puttheexisting "semantic fields" ofpower and knowledge, and with in a of the their them inquestion . .. because, "word," relations, dash, the- that andknowledge. andjoinspower separates Now if thisineffaceably material little placeholder "dashes[our] for the familiar if it todeface hopes" (negative) combination, seems the of a good future picture we can affirm with(in) ourpresent underifitsparadox oraporia leaves uswith noway standing, then itisno out, accident thatthisdifferance of therelation comesto be thought in 13 rhetorical aporia)andtemporal (affirmation, hope)terms. (paradox, Formuch ofWestern thought, theburden ofmaking the passage from topower knowledge andbackhasfallen ondiscourse, language insofar as itisrhetorical-trope andpersuasion, cognitive andactive, constative andperformative. Andthecrossing within rhetoric in inevitably raises itsturn(s) the problem oftime andtiming. Onething isclear-wecannot to address these thepresupposed begin questions without suspending semantic of"power" fields and"knowledge," without reading the dash, itsrhetoric, itstemporality, itsmilitant materiality.
Keenan
/ READING
FOUCAULT ON A BIAS
Whatis a paradox?And whatis at issuein calling thepowerto address thisrequires a knowledge relation paradoxical? Beginning thequestion ofparadox detour the ofrhetoric, because is field through ifnotrhetorical. nothing We understand rhetoric hereas a wayof approaching language that emphasizes thestrange interplay between itscognitive possibilities and itsactive (constative, informative, descriptive statements) capaor perlocutionary bilities (itspragmatic, performative, forces) or,in otherwords,the intersection and interference between tropeand 14 persuasion. Whatis a trope? In the section on rhetoric at thebeginning of tothe Raymond Foucault turns rhetorician Roussel, eighteenth-century interms Dumarsais todefine ofits"internal as a language movement," orphrase canbe detached inwhich a word oftransformations system from one meaning or signification to settle on another, "as ifit had turned on itself to tracearounda fixedpointa wholecircleof "'words are as they possibilities (the 'meaning,' said)."ForDumarsais, often turned from totake ona away [detournes] their primitive meaning new onewhich itbut more orlessdiverges from that still hasa relation to it.Thisnew meaning ofwords iscalled their tropological meaning, and we call thisconversion, thisdetour whichproduces it, a trope.'" Foucault "itis inthis addsthat spaceofdisplacement 'turn' (the [tour] andthe'detour,' as Dumarsais all thefigures ofrhetoric are says)that Thusin Aristotle's "Achilles is a lion,"thewordlionis example metaphorically detached from its referent four-legged wild andreapplied totheHomeric thefixed hero, turned around axisofresemblance that the two creatures in terms of their compares sharedstrength and Thetrope ferocity. makes something known, provides knowledge about thatcan be verified Achilles or falsified, and expands thereserve of possible Lion meanssomething descriptions. new,now,butit only meansit to theextent thatit preserves its bond to the"primitive The resourcefulness meaning." turns by whichlanguage "its own intowealth" poverty inthis economy ofreuse works on a principle of substitution: Words stand infor change places, eachother, cross over from one meaning to another. The hegemony ofmeaning is farfrom On thecontrary, being questioned: rhetoric is designed to exploit the ofwords to expand exchangeability thehorizon ofmeaning.
born."15
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POLITICALTHEORY I FEBRUARY1987
ofparadox Theeconomy is exemplary, inthat itrecovers then, the of a connection negativity forthepurpose of conveying a positive Theturn noton a comparisonmeaning more emphatically. depends resemblance, onthe orcomprehension-but absence ofsuch contiguity, axes, on the lack of connection, on opposition. So whenPierre Fontanier, intheninteenth early cametoupdate Dumarsais's century, heincluded of treatise, the which figure hisprecursor paradoxisme, had omitted, with this definition:
anartifice oflanguage bywhich ideas andwords which areordinarily and opposed self-contradictory findthemselves reconciled and combined suchthat, while toconflict seeming andmutually exclude eachother, they strike the intellect with their mostsurprising agreement and produce the truest, deepest, and most energetic meaning.
Fontanier summarized to etymology: by reference FromtheGreek para,against orcounter to,anddoxa,opinion orbelief, a paradox isan ideathat contradicts a more generally accepted The idea,on purpose. trope "links together words which apparto and,iftaken literally [a la really wouldcontradict lettre], and thanks to thisvery themselves, through or underlying contradiction, implied intermediary ideas,. . . it to a more admirably escapes perfect harmony."'6 Richard Lanham has recently proposed thiseconomical definition: "a seemingly selfcontradictory which yetis shownto be (sometimes statement, in a surprising way)true."'7 Common to these definitions is notonlythepersuasive effect of surprise produced bythetrope butthedialectical trick with itis which Therhetorical accomplished. paradox presents an opposition in order todissolve it.Theoperation isbasedon a binary system: appearance or semblance oressence, reality, explicit orimplicit, false ortrue, where the extremity oftheopposition on thelevel ofthefirst term (literal) leads onetograsp a unity onthe level ofthe second (figurative). Paradox, for therhetoricians, is a matter ofappearance ("seeming') anditserasure, andthetrope works byexaggerating theappearance (ofconflict) and thenremoving it. Because the ideas or wordsare symmetrically opposed, one can taketheother as itsownnegation and reveal the underlying (presupposed butnotyetexplicit) mediations thatbring them Butthe together. paradox isrequired inorder tobring the conflict to the pointof self-resolution. Becauseone wants so muchto say "either-or," tohold tothe doxathat onemust betrue andthe other false, theexperience of thetruth of theparadoxforces theacceptance of thetranscendence "both-and," of exclusion. The contradiction heals
Keenan
/ READING
FOUCAULT ON A BIAS
II
itself, once its differences find for the of mediation; Fontanier, questions are"howtore-establish paradox onebythe excess oftheother?," "will in order we find, to supplement [thegap] between them, something implied which re-connects one to theother, their effacing contrariety andincompatibility?" In a true a paradox oftruth, the paradox, answer willbe yes.Thentheparadox, can stepasideto always self-effacing, allow the truth ofharmony topresent itsmore underlying union. perfect The conflict is a steptoward an instrument ofthetruth ofthe unity, all the morepowerful sinceit proceeds whole,a transference by areatleast there two But, rhetorically speaking, paradoxes. Buried in oralongside eachofthese isanother, more version definitions of radical, thecontradiction where thedifference cannot be eradicated or inteto itas therisk grated. Fontanier offailing to read refers ofliteralism, figuratively: Reada la lettre, tosomething without recourse a "implied," contradiction will reveal"nothing but puregibberish [galimatias], but a bizarreand monstrous nothing of discordant coupling and senseless words desens], orofwords atcross-purposes [vide [a contresensj."'9 Thisparadoxsuffers a kindofcommunication from breakdown:The different terms can find no common no shared ground, no third center, term ortongue intowhich can be translated they and their differences overcome. What islost, without recourse tosemblance, istheability torecover thecontradiction as a symmetrical toshow one, that itnever really wasa contradiction butonly anagreement to waiting be uncovered, a meaning to be forcefully waiting underlined. Without the negativity of appearance, Fontanier suggests, there is onlythe absence[vide] of meaning, or worse,contre-sens, activeconflict, countersense, something working against orinterfering with meaning. inthe Where, caseofthe aesthetic paradox, the excess ofoneestablished theother, and thegap became themeasure, heretheexcessis itself excessive. Thecoupling is forced: Where it ought to provide justthe extra tosecure energy theeffect ofunification, here itproves unrecoverable. Thenegative appearance that inthe first casedrives the conflict towardharmony cannotbe overcome. The transfer interferes. The either-or persists, andresists notonly itscollapse into both-and butalso anydecision between the terms. They remain linked, butincompatible, without common reasonor truth to unite them. Sincethisparadox cannot be erased intheexperience ofcontradiction, butwasdesigned from thestart to be erased, it can onlybe excluded as monstrosity, stuttered nonsense or antisense.
18 negation.
12
Theconflict between these definitions is structured likea paradox, butwhich one?Thisparadoxofparadoxreminds us thatwe cannot ourdifferences, always and sinceparadoxalways overcome requires itwill behaunted threat that the difference difference, always bythe will not go away,thatthenecessary "excess"or dividewillremain, to overflow thebounds ofsymmetry. that can hinge, Thisdifference and the orbetter, that cando neither unhinge, Buthowcan relation, simply. wetellthedifference between thedifferences-between theexcess that reestablishes a relation and the excessthatleavesthe connection theexemplars monstrously open-when ofourdecision itself are what wemust decide between? Andwemust Eachparadox decide: isprecisely theerror denounced andcannot tolerate thecoincidence. bytheother Thissecond order oraporia, theparadox paradox ofparadox, would thus name thedifficulty andnecessity ofdistinguishing these moments of transference and interference, or paying heedto thedemands of unification cognitive of contradiction?) (whatis the truth without effacing the active interference oflanguage (the "monstrous of coupling discordant andsenseless inother oflanguage words"), as atonce words, andneither knowledge andpower, ofword as meaning andas force atan unrecoverable from meaning, andas neither. "Atonce"?20
I read-andI know When ithasbeen attributed tome-thethesis "knowledge is or"power power," isknowledge," I begin tolaugh, since studying their relation is Ifthey precisely my problem. were I would identical, nothave tostudy them andI would bespared a lotoffatigue as a result. Thevery fact that I posethe question of their relation proves clearly that I do notidentify them.21
What isatstake inthe "paradox" ofpower-knowledge, wewill argue, is nothing more,but also nothing less, than the rhetoric and the ofthedashthat temporality joinsand separates knowing anddoing, cognition andforce. Butwhat sort ofparadox is it? Fraser, Habermas, and Taylor find it impossible, confused, incoherent. ButFoucault's critics arecertainly nottheonly onestobecome transfixed by hisreelaboration of theproblem.22 Thereis abundant evidence on all sidesof theinvestments madein securing thelinks between cognition andaction, as wellas oftheforce ofa reassuring or orthodox view ofthe relation. Thedifficult dashthat joinsandseparates thetwowords has cometo function as a kinda phantasmatic blank to be filled space, inwith thehopesanddesires oftheinterpreter.23
13
more to Foucault share theobsession butare Readers sympathetic sometimes lesselegant. Garth GillanandCharles to take Lemert, just oneexample, treat as Foucault's "the "power-knowledge" proper name, with which heisuniquely identified." Andthe dashbetween concept the oreventhesamething. words means that are"fused" simply "To they
know is to exercisethe power of . . . domination;hence, power[disciplinary] knowledgeis a power." "Knowledgemust be power."
"This knowledge." "Cognitive relations of power." are theexercise
"The effectiveness of poweris knowledge. And theeffectiveness of is ... power."124 knowledge not Thisis probably notwhat andcertainly Foucault hadinmind, whathis textssay.As he pointed out in one of his lastinterviews, "ifI had to a question responding aboutthese kinds ofinterpretation, said,ormeant tosay, that I would havesaidit, knowledge waspower, andhaving more to say-once they saidit,I wouldhavehadnothing I work were so hardat showing their should different identified, why relations?"25 What is atstake is "the oftheir relation" question as such. The dash is not a signof equivalence, nor does it marka covert dissimulation. Itwilltaketime, butwewillargue that itis a mark ofa linguistic, discursive, rhetorical predicament, an unfolding political paradox. Foucault usedthephrase for pouvoir-savoir (perhaps the first time) as the"working in thecourse he gaveat theCollege hypothesis" de for France 1971-1972. Hiscourse from description made the stakes clear thestart:
Relations ofpower (with the that them struggles traverse andthe institutions that maintain do notmerely facilitate orobstruct them) arecontent knowledge; they neither tofavor orstimulate it,nor tofalsify orlimit it;... the problem isthus not todetermine how solely power subordinates itserve knowledge andmakes its ends norto determine howitsuperimposes itself on it andimposes on itideological contents and limitations. No knowledge can be formed without a system of communication, ofrecording, ofaccumulation, ofdisplacement-which isitself a form ofpower. .. . No power, on theother hand, can be exercised without the orretention extraction, appropriation, distribution, ofknowledge. Atthis level,
there is notlearning on one sideand society on theother, [connaissance] orscience and thestate,butrather thefundamental forms of"pouvoir-savoir."26
The hypernegativity of this introduction-its insistence on the ofneither-nor rhetoric andrejection ofa two-sided both-and-and the ultimate condensation ofthequestion oftherelation intheenigmatic dash,shouldhavewarned thestart thosewhohopedto awayfrom
14
POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY 1987
ofsubordination orsuperimposition. initthe familiar schemas recognize out a bit more in Surveiller Foucault Andwhen spelled things etpunir, under theheading therelation wasonly complicated byitstreatment of intertwine. "A knowledge "s'entre-lacer," tointerlace, entangle, [savoir] Thestakes oftheentanglement ina hesitant punish."27 were translated butnevertheless mode: imperative
there can a whole tradition that lets usimagine that Perhaps ... wemust abandon can be knowledge where aresuspended andthat only relations power knowledge Wemust ofitsinjunctions, itsdemands, anditsinterests.... only develop outside . . .; thatpower and knowledge admit rather that power produces knowledge orimplicate oneanother; that there isnopower relation without directly imply the noris there correlative constitution ofa field ofknowledge, that does knowledge notpresuppose at thesametimepower relations. These[are] and constitute "power-knowledge" relations.28
ofthepower[pouvoir]to ... is formed and entangled with thepractice
The polemical, of the and political, burden both philosophical insome pouvoir-savoir entanglement orknot cannow begrasped detail. Foucault demands that wegive and up thethought that power (ilfaut) arenotalways ineachother. knowledge already There is no implicated or exclusion, exteriority no outside(hors de) of uncontaminated nomargin, innocence, nofree oneinwhich the other spacealongside can playunaffected. Neither do they cometogether overtime, as iffirst independent andthen joined.Neither power norknowledge relations operate without having already presupposed the operation ofthe other. Just as onecannot truth speaka to power that woulditself be free of power relations, so too effects ofpower arenotmerely theaccidental ofthe by-products independent constitution ofknowledge. Power does notwork simply byimposing constraints orcontents onknowledge, just as knowledge doesnotmerely mask, serve, orexposepower. Power's rolecannot be limited to facilitation norto obstruction-while such effects do occur, thefundamental ofpower mechanisms relations are notnegative. The exteriority required forsuchstructures is lacking. Thus, where knowledge isconcerned, power relations do notsimply say "no." On the contrary, according to Foucault'shypothesis, they incite stimulate, excite, knowledge. Powerandknowledge aretangled up in theknotof a "not-without." Each presupposes theother: no without knowledge power, no power without knowledge. No outside, no priority. Thislogic (such as itis)ofthe "not-without" reappeared inLa volonte de savoir, where Foucault calleditthe"rule ofimmanence": "between
15
isnoexteriority ofpower there andstrategies techniques ofknowledge ofa field ofknowledge on depends Theconstitution [nulle exteriorite]." of a possible theinstitution objectwithin powerrelations, and,vice ofbeing invested takes iscapable by only what as itstarget versa, power The force ofthisstructure ofco-implication and relations. cognitive between difference substantive any threatens toeliminate presupposition power andknowledge.29 this iswell ofreversal known, attempted Foucault's rhetoric Although "tradition's" invert the lines doesnotsimply models, erasure ofborder ofpower There butnottheconversion them. is a turning, butexceeds notoutofeachother. intoeach other, and certainly and knowledge between While erases theexteriority oftheopposition power Foucault them as closely as a dash willallow,the intricates and knowledge, in turn ofopposition) oftheir account complicity (oftheeffacement the Theerasure ofthe as itovercomes other. disjunction reiterates a new or theexcessofan leavesnothing buttheresidue erasure attempted knotted a divided mutual "interiority" marked bya dashinthe interior, here,but not the Thereis an "interior" space of the intertwining. oftheexterior, nottheinside oftheoutside. ortheopposite antithesis In leavesa dash,a "difference." Thedoubleerasure Whatremains? Nulle the difference there wouldbe no articulation. fact,without with "articulated exteriorite', andknowledge arenevertheless power but in"incessant onthe comings eachother basisoftheir difference," linked The stabilization. that refuse incessantes]" andgoings [alliesetvenues "In"it, tensed. multiply "interior" isdifferentiated, folded andpocketed, on each are somehow superimposed relations power and knowledge either or beingreducible makeeach other without possible, other, not identical-tothe other.Difference subordinate-and certainly as muchas without or precedence. identity Resisting exteriority and knowledge as their hinge, power with their difference opposition, eachother-but eachother, eachother, inside into get inhabit parasitize a double the other. Each is Neither one, without inside without outside. theother's oftheir coincidence, andgoings inside: such arethecomings "30 their "immanence. that itis Whatmakes structure possible, to theextent this difficult easy-answer: doesnotmean, Foucault hasa direct-which possible? what is said,ce quese dit.Quickly, wecouldsay:Discourse discourse, thedifference. makes "Itis within that andknowledge discourse power cometo articulate theexample, privileged by Consider themselves." invested at once ofconfession an event inlanguage [I'aveu], Foucault, ofpower and ofknowledge. ofknowledgeIt is a "form byrelations
16
"a technique power": for truth" that "unfolds within a power producing Anditisdiscursive-not relationship." but byaccident, necessarily. One cannot confess without orwriting, without language, speaking without the ofutterance. like toignore event Asmuch as onemight this linguistic it cannotbe evaded:The differential moment, relations of powerbylinguistic structures andevents.31 Butiftheanswer to thequestion "where and when arepower and knowledge is "indiscourse," articulated?" of what doesthe discursivity Whatis discourse suchthat thevertiginous structure in (condensed the dash)ofdifference without ofthe andgoings of exteriority, comings thedoublereversed For starters, discourse does is possible? interior, something: c'estfairequelquechose,"as Foucaultsays in "parler, L'archeologie "tospeak dusavoir, is todo something, todo something other thanexpress whatone thinks [or] translate whatone knows." "Discourses aremadeofsigns, butwhat do ismore they than usethese todesignate signs things." So the ofdiscourse analysis must itas address an "operation," a "technology," and "not at all [as] a system of "32 representations. Thatoperation is extraordinarily complex, as might be expected. Return tothe confession, that peculiar ritual ofdiscourse toa addressed
thecoincidence A rhetoric, imply? a temporality, and . . . a fragility. knowledge are entangled notwithout, made possible within, discourse,
thatrequires that tworadically different gestures (one:theavowal, a matter onlyof performance, to be judged simply in terms of its accomplishment or failure; the other:the avowed,a questionof tobejudged knowledge, interms ofitstruth value) coincide inthe same utterance, places strange burdens onthe language that must articulate it. What isthe tense, the timing, orthe tension, ofanabysmal utterance like "if I tellthetruth aboutmyself, as I am now doing"(as Foucault precisely putit in an interview)?33 WhatI can saythis, and when? A performative doesnot have todescribe itself, but this onedoes:Notonly doesitdo what itsays, but itsays what itdoesitsays. Andthe constative is theperformative saying doing-itmakes thedescription possible by itdoesisnothing doing it,andwhat other than describe itself doing, the performative. ThustheI hastomultiply itself, cite itself, andcite itself citing: as I amdoing now.Thetemporal structure ofthis "now," which gives thetime within the"same" utterance for atleast twoIs,requires a kindof internal hinge or fold, exceeds thepresent (thefirst person
demandthatit be at onceperformative ("j'avoue, I confess. . .") and constative . . that my truth is. . .'). The rhetoricity ofa speechactivity (".
Keenan / READING FOUCAULT ON A BIAS
17
present) on whichit seemsto depend.34 The present of theconfession divides itselfand its subject: Hence the inevitableproblem,which Foucault says attended of confesnecessarily upon thegeneralization sional techniquesor rhetorics, of "the presenceof consciousnessto itself" and thejeopardyinto whichit is put by thematerial event(the of language said. The subject differs "itself"in the "same" Mnonce) utterance, buttheutterance mustalso allowtheconfession to takeplace, as a "ritual of discourse wherethe subject who speaks [qui parle] coincideswiththe subjectof the utterance [de l'enonce]." Discourse mustbe denseenough,sufficiently to enable thedifferent interfolded, speechacts,withtheir Is and times, uncoordinated to coincideand to remain different.35 Butthenecessity ofthesefolds,ofinternal differentiation, thatdiscoursemaynot be exactlya locus of stability. suggests Foucault did not hesitateto draw out the implicationsof the the difference, of the dash in "power-knowledge," discursivity, to a radicalpoint:The complexrhetoricity and temporality openedup inthe discursive ritualwherepower and knowledgeare entangled puts the ofthatarticulation possibility in question.This is perhapsthethought avoided by manyof his interpreters, ifnot by Foucault:
It is within discourse thatpowerand knowledge cometo articulate themselves. And for this veryreason, we mustconceive discourseas a seriesof discontinuous segments, whosetacticalfunction is neither uniform norstable.... We mustallow for a complex and unstable play in which discourseis perhaps at once the instrument and effect ofpower,butalso an obstacle, a stumbling-block, a pointof resistance.36
Because theyrequirelanguageto happen-its rhetoric and itstemporality-the relations of power and of knowledge can always be as can therelation disengaged, between powerand knowledge. Because the articulation betweenpowerand knowledge is discursive, thenthe linkcan neverbe guaranteed. The same discoursethattransports the relationcan undermine, block,distort, disable it. If thevehicleof the coincidenceis discourse,the transference betweenthe two cannotbe totalized, unified, integrated, or otherwise stabilized. It is unpredictable. When discourse must be thoughtof as a "series of discontinuous segments," interference always already remainsa possibility and a threat. The play(jeu) ofthedifference, notboundto itself byexteriority or ultimatecontinuity, opens the relationto the chance or alea of disarticulation.
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POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY 1987 Discourse transports [vehicule]and producespower;it reinforces it, but it also it fragile or breakableand makesit possibleto undermines it,exposes it,renders thwart it.37
The link betweenknowledgeand power can always not take place, because of its place. The discourse that makes it possible also undermines becausepowerand knowledge it,precisely aredifferent: not identical, without or priority, exteriority heterogeneously interiorized. Coincidenceis not copresence,so thatthe difference that allows the articulatiom, as opposed to identity or exteriority, clearsa space and a timefora certain disjunction. In a sense,thequestionoftherelation between powerand knowledge has received twoanswers: "articulation," so interlocked thatwe cannot take for grantedthe possibility of tellingthem apart, and "heteroso different geneity," thatwe cannotnotdistinguish them. And thetwo dependon each other. thedifference Telling becomesurgently necessary (and Foucault's texts militateagainst this error of confusion as rigorously as possible)to theprecise extent thatitis radically impossible (it is thesame rigorof thesetextsto refuse the opposition).The texts erasethedifference they insist on,and erasetheir insistence inreiterating thedifference. In a phrase,theproblemhereis notjust thatthesetwo conclusions mustbothbe drawnfrom Foucault'stexts, or thatthey coexistin some ambiguity or"seeming" paradox,butthat areat odds,cutobliquely they acrosseach other. We cannotsimply decidebetween them, or forboth. To choose one version oftherelation-transference or interference-is to commit theerror exactly theother version has alreadyundone.This leavesus reading thedash betweenpouvoir and savoir.The "answer" to thequestionoftherelation is themeaningless little syntactical plugthat holds thewordstogether and apart.The relation remains in question, dividedbetween the asymmetrical answersFoucault's textsoffer. The difference is not merely betweeninterfering answers, but betweenan answer(thereis a relation, governed by such and such a law) and an interference with thevery possibility of an answer. This interference of interference, whichis not symmetrical, cannot be mistakenfor the semantic richness of thequestionor theparadoxicalprofundity of the aesthetic situation. It is strictly undecidable and wrapsthereaderofthe question into an uncomfortable double bind: The dash of pouvoirsavoirmust,and cannot,be read,otherthanas thematerial marker of an unreadablegap.
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the coincidence isalready Inother if sodifficult that itanswers words, to no other law thanthatofceaseless, twisting, comings-and-goings, thevehicle thentherupture thatthreatens cannot or breakdown be structured as a simplefailure but insteadas the possibility of an uncontrolled acceleration or spin. It is this possiblespin,within language, thatwe wouldcall rhetoric, a paradoxof paradox.Its infolded make as the timing andspacing coincidence politics, stuttering ofpower anddoing, anddangerous. andknowledge, knowing possible,
somuch todefine Theproblem isnot a political comes down toa "position" (which on a pre-constituted choice buttoimagine andbring into existence chessboard) new ofpoliticization.38 schemas
Politically speaking, where doesthis leaveFoucault? In an aporia of hopeless a paradox ofnormless neutrality, engagement, an"impossible tostand attempt nowhere"? Ifthe that very structure makes the passage between power andknowledge alsothreatens possible itwith disarticudiscontinuity, andheterogeneity, lation, what ofpolitics sort ispossible? Can therhetorical andtemporal paradox beerased-canFoucault free his "position" of paradox?Or would thatbe to efface the very andnecessity, ofpolitics as such? possibility, Letus practice the peculiar ofparadox bias,theslant, andapproach these questions obliquely. Politically. In thelastdaysofDecember 1981, Jacques Derrida, visiting Prague to meet with dissident philosophers, was arrested andjailedforthree daysbyCzechauthorities. After hisrelease, hewasasked bycolleagues inParistodraw a lesson inthe politics ofphilosophy from the episode, andwearetoldthat
other among he insisted things, on thedifficulty there is in making an ethicothe resistance political gesture ofthe (supporting Prague who philosophers, demand respect forhuman rights [les droits de l'Homme] and articulate thatwith a of thesubject, philosophy theperson, individual liberty, etc.)coincide with a laborgoverned philosophical bythenecessity ofdeconstructing precisely such philosphemes.39
The questions thathave recurrently structured our reading find themselves addressed herewith considerable force, andrepeat themselves: Howdoesknowledge ("the necessity ofdeconstruction') coincide
20
with theactionorpowerofan ethico-political Where and when, gesture? if it can, does thiscoincidenceoccur?,and what are the stakesof its is itdifficult? It itdoes,howand why Whatis thelaw, (non)occurrence? in itsdifficulty? and theforce, ofthecoincidence or at least difficult, to make It may seem surprising or unjustified, Derridaand Foucaultcoincidearoundthisquestionoftheir knowledge and their power, especially given their explicit and very public the rhetorical differences, but in fact the structure only reiterates problematic ofouressayonce more.After all, as ShoshanaFelmanhas pointedout, "systems of thought are not necessarily opposed in the same way theirauthorsare: it is always possible to have chosen the To be sure,differences, wrongadversary. sometimes radicalones, do exist:butthesedifferences, often eludethesimple beingasymmetrical, structure of opposition."40 Let us put thisasymmetry to thetestof example. Foucault has his own difficult A fewmonthspriorto Derrida's Prague coincidences. on June19, 1981,at a pressconference in theGenevaIntercontiaffair, nental Hotel, Foucault joined withactivists fromtwo international "humanitarian" organizations(Medecins du Monde and Terre des in the"ComiteInternational Hommes)and others, le Piraterie" contre (CICP), to announce a new human rightsinitiative in defenseof Vietnamese boatpeople.Western officials and Vietnamese eyewitnesses describedtens of thousandsof people, fleeingVietnambut not yet as refugees received intheGulfofThailandby elsewhere, beingattacked pirates, and kidnapped, raped,tortured, In theface of and murdered. inactionby governments and the incapacity of existing international organizations,said the actor Yves Montand, "we cannot let this massacrehappen." So, underthe sign of a Rilke verse reading"all terrifying things / areperhapsonlyhelpless things /awaiting ourhelp," theCICP proposedsending a fleet ofnongovernmental navalvesselsa newshipofitsown-into thearea to protect including theboat people and dissuadethepirates.Foucault,who frequently involved himself in thesedoctors'unorthodoxpolitico-humanitarian initiatives, used the to theorizethe gestureof the action itself.He never opportunity publishedhis statement, but after his deaththenewspaper Liberation did, callingit "Face aux gouvernements, les droitsde l'Homme."The brief textmaysurprise readers:41
We are hereonlyas private individuals, whohave no other claimto speak,and to thana certain speak together, shareddifficulty in accepting whatis happening.
Keenan
/ READING
FOUCAULT ON A BIAS
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I knowfullwell,and we haveto facefacts, thatthere is notmuchwe can do about thereasonswhichlead menand womento prefer their countries overliving leaving in them.That factis simply beyondour reach. us? No one. And thatis precisely whatestablishes Who, then,has commissioned ourright. It seemsto methatwe must bearinmind three I believe, principles which, guide this initiative, like the many otherswhichhave precededit (the Ile de Lumiere,the Cap Anamour,and Avion pour le Salvador, but also Terredes Hommes,Amnesty International). 1.-There exists an international whichhas its rights, citizenry, whichhas its duties,and whichpromisesto raise itself up againsteveryabuse of power,no matter who the authoror thevictims. After all, we are all governed and, to that extent, in solidarity. 2.-Because they claimto concern themselves oftheir withthewelfare [bonheur] havearrogated to themselves societies, governments theright to drawup a balance sheet,to calculate the profits and losses, of the human misfortune [malheur] provokedby theirdecisionsor tolerated by theirnegligence. It is a dutyof this international citizenry alwaysto makean issueofthismisfortune, to keepitin the is nottruethatthey eyesand earsofgovernments-it are notresponsible. People's misfortune mustnever be a silent ofpolitics. It founds remainder an absoluteright to riseup and to addressthosewho hold power. 3.-We mustreject thedivisionoftaskswhichis all too often offered: individuals can getindignant and speak out,whileitis governments which reflect and act. It is true that good governments like the hallowed indignationof the governed, itremains provided lyrical. I believe thatwemust realizehowoften, itisthe though, rulers whospeak,whocan onlyand wantonlyto speak.Experience showsthatwe can and must thetheatrical reject roleofpureand simpleindignation which we are offered. Amnesty Terre des Hommes, Medecins du Monde are International, initiatives whichhavecreateda newright: theright ofprivate individuals actually to intervene in the order of politicsand international The will of strategies. individuals must inscribe itself in a reality overwhich governments havewanted to reserve a monopoly forthemselves-a monopolywhichwe mustuprootlittle by little every day.
"rights" and "duties"-certainly recall those oftheWestern humanist tradition thatFoucault is widely believed to have"rejected" (Nancy Fraser). Individuals, as citizens, haverights andobligations [droits et devoirs]42 or in thefaceofabusive against rulers-governments that haveattempted toreserve tothemselves thepower tospeakandtoact. Thisnongovernmental citizenry can andmust intervene, verbally and actively, andnotmerely get indignant, against abuses ofpower: here, in order toassert andtoaddress the misfortune ofothers (suchas the boat people). Andthat responsibility includes assigning the responsibility for
be une Nouvelledeclaration des Droitsde l'homme`? Itsprinciples-its
Wasitunjust ofthis text's posthumous editor tosuggest that it"could
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howthey misfortune to governments, no matter to accountfor attempt it,to explain it away, or otherwise to evade it. But another, unprecedented, intervention is also required: actually, inventing effectivement, and undertaking strategies ofacting ininternational andtactics politics, where governments havehitherto at oncemonopolized and squandered therights and meansto act.Theirarrogation ofspeechand actionmust be wrestedaway, by reordering or reinscribing politicalreality-by claiming theright to do, and doing,whatthey willnot.43 Iftheseterms are standard, or style therhetorical strategies with(in) which they aredeployed Thisdeclaration arenotso familiar. reinscribes its all-too-easily with some ratherunorrecognizedphilosophemes thodoxgestures thatdisplacetheself-evidence oftheir context. In this regard,Foucault followsa peculiarcourse,one thatwould appear at first to be negative but thatwe will argueis rather, not positive,but The firstsentenceexemplifies It mimesa affirmative. this strategy. certain a presentation ofcredentials, self-positioning, an establishment of a rightor claim [titre]to speak, only to removeit or relocateit otherwise: Whatentitles us to do this? "We haveno other claimto speak than . . . a difficulty," a difficulty withwhat is happening, withthe present and theprospect thatitwillbe thefuture too. Difficulty entitles: nota position, noreventhelack of a position, buttheaffirmation of a within thepresent. difficulty No soonerdoes theaffirmation sayitsyes, initiate itself intothedifficulty, thanitis echoedbythesecondyes of a pledge."Thisinternational citizenry. . . promises [engage]to raiseitself up againstevery abuse of power."The initiative affirmation takesthe performative character of a promise,a future-oriented speechact that does whatitsays.Once thedifficulty-in itsintolerable and irreducible difficulty-is affirmed, theinitiative cosignsitself witha promise that projectsit(self)and opens (into) a future, a pledge that binds the in thepresent difficulty onto an unforeseeable future createdin theact. The declaration is thispromise, thisengagement, and thepromise is the of thedifficulty affirmation, and its future. The promiserequiresthe declaration: Whatit saysit does it could notdo without saying. This complicated little textsubmits itsrights and obligations to the same initiative rhetoricof difficulty. The citizenry must resistthe reduction ofothers' misfortune to unreste muet, a mute traceorleftover ofpoliticsand itscalculations. The threat ofthedoubleeffacement, the chance that misfortune will be left wordless,and not simplythe misfortune itself, calls forits activeand insistent assertion. "People's misfortune mustnot be allowedto be a silentremainder of politics.It
23
to riseand to addressthosewho hold power." foundsan absoluteright insists theimperative thatitbe thepossibility ofthateffacement Against The gesture ofaddress addressed,a dutyto act,to speak,and to write. theright to memory ofa future where itmight survival, a reste, affirms The nameandthetrace silenced. otherwise be effaced, and itseffacement so thatthepeopleof must be preserved, keptinwordand actofmemory, oblivion be erasedinthesilent, calculated, thenamewillnotthemselves of the of politics.What remainsafterthe calculation,the remainder remnant and uneliminable an unmasterable operation,is misfortune: and createsan thatin its stubborn excess "foundsan absoluteright" to respond. obligation, havenotdelegated thisnobletaskor The misfortunate ones,though, or the authority to perform it to anyone,have not ceded theirrights have not chosen (what remainsof) theirvoices to this committee, behalf.They,and Foucault or anyoneelse in Genevato speak on their In then? their "founded," reasons,are beyondreach.Whereis thisright us to thenameofwhomorwhatis itexercised? "Who has commissioned whatestablishes our right."' C'est do this? No one. And thatis precisely cela justement is no one, quifait notredroit.Personne.Because there thereis a right.The committee to which (like the otherinitiatives or elected, represents no one,has no mandate Foucaultrefers) was never There is no originalowneror possessorof rights, no selfauthority. and in its (temporary presentsource here mediatedor represented ultimately accidental)absence. Uprootingthe monopolyclaimed by thosewhohavebeendelegated (we areall thatauthority andthoserights the initiativeof the initiatives, theirinstitutive already governed), haspragmatically "created," effectivement, thisnewright: performance, to speak and to intervene, outsideor beyondthislogic of delegation, is no one.In a gesture where there notunlike theone Derridahas calleda de the it, initiates its"newright," makesor creates coup droit, initiative based on no one: No one "articulates and conjoinsthetwo discursive theto-beand theought-to-be, constative and prescriptive, modalities, The factand right No one . . . makes our right. [lefaitet le droit]." enacts the the intervention, createsthe right to intervene, invention, to act,initiates to initiate.44 right theright Is ita "norm"? How can we readthisdirect, Whatis this"newright"? ifcomplicated, witha warped ofan ethico-political gesture articulation of rights vocabulary and obligations? The reading is particularly difficult given Foucault's elaborate the apparently critiquethat "rejectionist" critiqueof the termright,
24
leads his interpreters to worry about "normative" aporias and confusions. His insistencehere on a "founded" "absolute right"seems retrograde(i.e., limited to an Enlightenment-inspired critique of governments of therights bytheassertion of a misfortunate humanity theyhave triedto forget)and perhapsembarrassing. Is not Michel Foucault themostcommitted opponentof thediscourseof rights, the operatorofthetheoretical guillotine thatdecapitates notonlytheking as political power principlebut the individual,the human,and the humanism ofhumanrights as well?Was notman'sfaceerasedfrom the sand at theedge ofthesea in thefinalwordsofLes motset les choses? Doesn't "right" belongprecisely to thejuridicalvocabulary ofpoweras out of which Foucault triedto twist?Did not "powersovereignty knowledge" replace"right"? Doesn't "right" as theobjectof presuppose its legitimation or the targetof its claims exactlythe conceptionof poweras negative, repressive, which interdictive, against Foucaulttried to rethink poweras positive, provocative, and productive the (ofexactly subject,indeedthatwouldclaimitsrights and thussecurethatplayof power)?Did not Foucault contendthatright in theWestis theKing's right and demandwithdistinctive epigrammatic economy thatwe "cut offtheKing'shead"?45 The answerto thesequestionsis of courseyes. Again and again. Foucaultmeasured hisdistance from and suspicions ofa theory ofright mostextensively in two 1976lectures at theCollege de France."Right shouldbe viewed," he said,"notinterms oflegitimacy to be established, but in terms of themethods of subjugation thatit insitigates."46 His philosophical objections to thediscourse ofright tooktheform of a certainhesitationwith regardto the thoughtof the proper that underwrites it. Rightis proper to Man as such:as man,manhas rights, man's own rights. This property dependsin its turnon a thought of presence. Possessionrequires thepresence of thesubjectto itself; selfpossessionfoundsall otherproperty and proprieties. On that basis, rights can also be delegated, or represented. transferred, The discourse ofright elaboratestherulesgoverning suchexchanges, ina culminating of politicalrepresentation. theory "Power is takento be a right," said Foucault,
whichone is able to possesslikea commodity, and whichone can in consequence transfer or alienate, either wholly or partially, through a legalactthatestablishes a right, such as takesplace through cessionor contract.
This meansthatthetheory ofright can be putintoplaybothin defense of,and intheassaulton,kings and their sovereignty. "The essential role
25
frommedievaltimesonwards,was to fix the of the theoryof right, legitimacy of power." To that extent,says Foucault, its "essential intrinsic thedomination to function" was nothing other than"to efface or by putting limitson the king'sor the power,"eitherbyjustifying to regimes that state'spower. Challengesmade in the name of rights abused them,said Foucault elsewhere, "did not put in questionthe ofpowerand thatpoweralways thatright principle shouldbe theform had to be exercised in theform of right."47 of Foucault proposedundoing,reversing, exposingtheelimination to show"how right thefactofdomination in thetheory ofright, is,in a needs of thisdomination-whichscarcely generalway,theinstrument in which to whichand theforms saying-but also to show theextent notofsovereignty but right and brings intoplayrelations ... transmits to ofdomination." "Mygeneral project," hesaid,""has been,inessence, ofright, reverse themodeofanalysis followed discourse ... bytheentire or to invert it"-to show,not whichrights (whether divine, individual, butrather, howforce and authorized, human)are legitimate, justified, in thenameof "right."48 relations have beenenabledand naturalized This inversion, though,undid more than just the effacement of It undidthevery The "avoidance"of domination. oftheanalysis. terms the question of the legitimate rightto exercise power, in favor of offorce specifying justwhatasymmetries "right" madepossible, led the therulesof right which analysisto "thepointwherepowersurmounts " Theseso-called and delimit itand extends organize itself beyond them. mechanisms of power,"Foucault said in La volontede "disciplinary to representation The discourseof savoir, are "irreducible by right." right is "absolutely heterogenous to new procedures of power,which operatenotbyright butbytechnique, notbylaw butbynormalization, not by punishment but by control, whichare exercisedon levelsand forms whichexceed[debordent] thestateand itsapparatuses."49 Yet the discourse of rightcontinuesto provide the "code" for or analyzing interpreting themechanisms ofa powerthathas overrun or exceededitsconceptuallimits, intoa "horizonwhichof necessity had incommon nothing with theedifice ofright." But,inspiteofthefact that ofthe in theterminology to describe disciplinary poweris "impossible ofsovereignty," theory right continues to serveas themodelorcode for itsinvestigation and legitimation. Foucault's"inversion" aimsto expose theunreliability ofthis code: "A system ofright [has been]superimposed upon themechanisms ofdiscipline insucha wayas to concealitsactual theelement ofdomination procedures, inherent initstechniques, and to of the State, the guaranteeto everyone, by virtueof the sovereignty
26
exercise of his proper sovereignrights."Modern democracieshave taken over the code of rightwhile operatingnew mechanismsof discipline: On theone hand,there areno kingsbutonlythenetworks of "a discourse... based on disciplinary whileon theother, quadrillage, publicright, whoseprinciple ofarticulation is ... thedelegative status of each citizen." But right (whethermonarchic or democratic) and disciplineare "incompatible," "radicallyheterogenous." "Although right is a necessary companionto thisquadrillage, itcannotin anycase be transcribed intoit."'50 Theircoincidence orsuperimposition, "notso much thelinking as the perpetual exchange and encounter ofmechanisms ofdiscipline with the ofright,"51 principle provesdifficult fortheanalysis ofand thestruggles against existing powerrelations. For thediscourse ofright-precisely to theextent thatitis simply inverted or undoneand itseffacement ofthe imbalanceofpowerrelations madelegible-reasserts comesback itself, to haunttheanalysisand thestruggle as an unreliable butunshakable code. The reversal, whilebringing thefactof domination to lightand to thedisciplines' pointing debordement of the rulesof right, cannot prevent itsrecurrence and indeedthreatens to retain thevery terms that it had exposed as inadequate.
Against disciplinary mechanisms ... wefind ouselves ina situation where the only apparently solidrecourse available forus today liesprecisely in a return to the ofright....When theory onewants today toobject insome way tothe disciplines andallofthe effects ofpower andknowledge that arelinked tothem, what isitthat onedoes, concretely, inreallife, what do the Syndicat de la Magistrature orother similar institutions do,ifnotprecisely invoke this right, this famous formal right ... ? ButI believe that wefind ourselves ina kind ofblind alley [vicolocieco] here.52
The extreme difficulty ofthis"blindalley"is notmerely thatthere is no way out,thatthepath is closed offat one end. In thatsituation, it would suffice to reverse merely directions, learnfromone's mistakes, and find a newalley.The blindFoucaultfinds us inis complicated bythe factthatwe have no place or roomto turn, thatwe are in a senseblind (to) ourselves: Faced withtheirreducibility of discipline to right, with theirradical heterogeneity, what do we do in our struggle against if not invokethisvery, disciplines incompatible, right? Foucault may pose this as a "rhetorical question,"as it were,but it should not be takenlightly. He provides no answer, and notbecausetheanswer is too obvious. The predicament we are written into by "right" is not easily escaped or even avoided. The disciplines have theorized and codified
27
in the incommensurable themselves We know, languageof right. thecodeis inadequate, that inerror, negatively, andthat itsinversion andexposure isnecessary. fails toexorcise Butthe reversal the code, and to deployit (reversed attempts or not) against thedisciplines only tighten the Theheterogeneity bind. ofthe anditsonly problem available answer provokes a kindof mutual interference and multiplies the thedisciplines, difficulty. Against theonly to the recourse is a return very codeofright that theanalysis ofthose hasdiscredited, disciplines the in of the doubling blindness and Thisvicolo ciecoisstructured alley. like a vicious the circle, inwhich accelerating predicament eachsolution to a problem us to it at an increased returns levelofdifficutly. The ofthe blindness andis inturn alley incites, ourown hyperactivated by, blindness: inscribes Right us ina double a double a double bind, blind, blind alley. In a sensitive reading ofthisproblem, Habermas has accurately if critically characterized Foucault's here predicament as another aporia. He appreciates theattempt toresist a simple inversion ofthediscourse ofhuman "Thehumanistic rights: . .. which critique basesitself onthe ofreinforcing danger the humanism that hasbeen from brought heaven down to earthand has congealed intoa normalizing force." This hesays, objection, suffices as long as thepoint ismerely tactical, "ifthe onlyconcern is themobilization of counterpower," butit does not answer thequestion: "Why fight?" since the Still, "answer" would have toprovide new standards anda rationale for ofjustice there isa struggle, certain to Foucault's necessity hesitation inthedoubleblind alley: "If onetries toobtain theimplicitly usedstandards outoftheindictments thedisciplinary against powers, oneencounters known determinations from theexplicitly rejected normativistic language game."53 Given this aporia-theunreliability andunavoidability oftheterm right-one might expect Foucault simply to reach foranother vocaba codeproper ulary, to discipline normalization, (technique, control, and so on), responding to his ownimperative: "We mustbuildan ofpower " analytic which will nolonger take right as itsmodel andcode. But Foucaulttakesthe predicament seriously: Havingrevealed a "position" tobeaporetic, onecannot simply change language games and maketheaporiavanish. An aporia(from a-poros, without passage, impassable) is something onecannot getoutof,anditis precisely this radical ofpossible absence choices that characterizes thedoubleblind
obsoletecontrast between legitimate and illegitimate powers,. . . etc., and fights againstinstancesof exploitation [or] . . . repression is in
28
alley. The difficulty is not one of political naivete,simplicity, or ignorance,and cannot be dissolvedwitha technical, terminological measure. Thus,inthefinal ofthesamelecture whosehorizon paragraph necessarily had nothing in commonwithright, Foucault surprisingly or only alternative concludedthattherewas no alternative to right, rights. Even ifhe had tried to overturn theclassical or turnaway from ofsovereignty, right thisreversal in a doublegesture, was onlyone turn witha different coincident a reinscription of the"same" mo(ve)ment, term towarda newpossibility: "One shouldturn ofa ... inthedirection newright, one whichmustindeedbe anti-disciplinary, butat thesame timeliberated from theprinciple of sovereignty."54 At whattime?How is thispossible?Whatis thedifference between the"right" ofthe"entire discourse ofright" to be undoneand the"right" ofthe"newright" to be actively putbackintoplay?How does Foucault negotiate thetwisting intoand out of right? We shouldnot hesitate to assimilatethe "new right"of thislectureto the one(s) enunciatedor inGeneva.Butthatgoesno distance initiated toward Foucault's "freeing position of the paradox" involvedin at once makingthe practical gesture withthe word "right" and submitting the verysame word to the theoreticaland rhetoricalwork of decapitation,undoing,and reinscription. How can we(not) maketheethico-political ofsupporting gesture the resistanceand protestof people, withits reference to les droitsde l'Homme,coincidewiththephilosophical necessity of problematizing or"eschewing"55 themodelofrights, thevery inwhich terms thegesture is made?
Right(rectum) is, as the straight, opposed notonly to the curved, butalsotothe oblique.56
Whatifpolitics had no choicebutto practice thebias-as prejudice, as as cut acrossthegrain-of paradox? sidestep, Needless to say, we are not proposingFoucault's "new right" as a or a theoretical model,a formula, exampleto be reapplied elsewhere, as ifwecould analyzethe(political orphilosophical) difficulties ofan "old" term and thenreplaceitwitha newone thatwoulddo itsjob better. It is neither philosophically norpolitically correct(ed). The right enunciated
29
as a theoreticalpossibilityand initiatedat Geneva marks, in its other thana permanent difficulty, nothing It does political predicament. notavoidortranscend, butonlyrepeats with these difficulties. emphasis, It displaces and temporalizesits terms,and plays them out as the a claimbased intheaffirmation paradox of"right": inthe ofa difficulty presentand seconded by a promiseto a future (a double bond); a remainder threatened to a future is openedin withsilencewhoseright assertivememory; and a coup de droit,the initiation of the right to initiate, theintervention of a right to intervene, wherethere is no one. These are not classicalrights, them.They buttheyrecallor remember claim a certain right to "right": Theyguarda linkwiththatpast while or knotting twisting it almostbeyondrecognition, openingit out ofits ontoitsfuture present difficulties. folded Andthese binds paradoxically inscribe within themthattemporal predicament-aheadofand behind The double blindalley,then,cannotbe ignored:We must themselves. negotiate withtheterms we have,even"after" their problematization. Because thewordsdisperseany attempt at totalization: in thecase of right, notonlyitsrigid inscription intoa system ofclassicalsovereignty butalso thenegative workofcontrolling orevenmerely circumscribing its unreliability. We recallthe futures of a right a right beyondright, without butonlybymaking right, or gesturing reference to the"rights" we have.Thereis "no wayout,"becausethere is no "out"-not because thepresent is somehow orself-identical, self-enclosed buton thecontrary precisely becauseitdiffers itself and thusmakespolitics necessary. The onlyway out is out of politics. Whatis thelaw or theforceofpersistence and resistance thatallows thedash-whetherbetween powerand knowledge, thegesture and its orthetwo"rights"-tobe drawn, deconstruction, erased,and redrawn? What governsthe materiality of the dash that we read, efface,and rewrite as ifonlystutteringly unableeither to respect orreject it?Whatis the necessity of negotiation? The law is, accordingto Foucault, that "there is no general law indicating thetypes ofrelation."57 Perhapsonly a rhythm, theintolerable tension ofthealteration ... ofdifferent dashes. Earlierwe characterized this tensionof the "at once" as an internal heterogeneity, or an infolding. Politics,though,demands that this infolding be unfolded, thatitbe deployed acrosstime. Foucaultsuggests thisintwodiscussions ofthepolitical usesof"rights": On defending gay rights, "itis important to havethepossibility-andtheright-tochoose yourownsexuality.... Still,I think we haveto go a stepfurther....Not onlydo we haveto defend butwe haveto affirm ourselves, ourselves."58
30
That is to say, affirm that can only be affirmed something and not defended-because itis not(yet).Likewise,on rights in prison:"There are immediate measures to take ... [aimedat] eliminating all abuses of rights in thewaythelaw is applied... butthen[ensuite]-or rather, at once [tout de suite]-it's a question of takingit all up again at the roots.... We must nowto rethink theentire try notat all to avoid thing: itsreality, butrather never to acceptanything as given."'59 'self-evident' That can onlyhappen in a future, but a future thatis inscribed as a difference within thenonpresence ofthepresent, a rhythm modulating and openingthe present to a difference thatseemsto incapacitate its presenteven as it hyperactivates the futurealreadywithinit.60 The terms, though,cannot be foundanywhere else. The paradox repeats itself: "on peutetreen faceet debout,"'61 butnotwithout The difficulty. politics is inthenegotiation ofthedifference between and toutde ensuite oftheaffirmative suite,intheinscription intothedefense. "stepfurther" Hence Foucault's formulation of the temporaltask of political criticism:
It is fruitful in a certainway to describethat-which-is by makingit appear as thatmight something notbe, or thatmight notbe as itis, . . . byfollowing linesof in thepresent, fragility in managing to graspwhyand howthat-which-is no might longerbe thatwhichis.
"The present," thatis to say,"is a timelike no other, or rather, a time whichis neverquitelike any other."162 This thought of divisions"within" thepresent, itsinternal displacement or fragility, opens politicsonto its futures. It disqualifiesthe metaphoric extension by "likeness"of the present into a future all its own, imaginedas enough"like" thispresent to replaceit. (It is in this sensethatwetakeFoucault'sclaimthat"imaginer unautre systeme, cela faitactuellement encorepartiedu systeme."163) Whatopensup is a time neverquite like any other.Not thefuture of thepresent, not a future good to be hopedfor from a position (or negation) inthepresent, butthe promiseand theaffirmation ofthefuture, offutures, as other, as never quitelikeanyother, as whatis onlypossibleor,better, whatis (always) not yet possible: that which mightno longer be what is. But this negative-future-conditional eventcan just as little be passively awaited as actively imagined-it does not happen in a future present:It will alwayshavealready violently interfered with thepresence ofourpresent and our position(s) withinit. Foucault calls it thus a caesura, a
31
lineofthefuture (rhetorical) "thestraight thatagain and interruption, thickness again cutsthesmallest of thepresent."
On bothsidesofthewound,wealwaysfind thatithas already happened (and that it had already happened,and that it has alreadyhappened that it had already happened) and that it will happen again (and thatit will happen again that it happenagain): it is less a cut thanan indefinite fibrillation.
This affirmation ofthe(neverquitelikeany)other, another other than our own, and of theeventof the other, can onlybe an appeal to the futureor the excess of "anotherlaw and anotherforcebeyondthe of this present."It demands,says Foucault, "an affirmative totality thought whoseinstrument is disjunction."64 Foucault was oncebold-or ironic-enoughto call thisinterference a "truth," a readingin and of the future. "What I am trying to do is provokean interference between our reality and theknowledge of our past history," he said in an interview. "Two yearsago there was turmoil in severalprisonsin France, prisoners In two prisons, revolting. the prisoners in theircells read mybook. They shoutedthetextto other prisoners.... I hope thatthetruth of mybooks is in thefuture."65 Whereand whencould one possibly "stand"to make,or respond to, thiscall of thefuture? . . . "nowhere"?, never?Is it possible?How, by whatright, could one (not) act in sucha situation? Does thefibrillating dash prevent thispossibility, or does itmarkthetiming and thespacing of an unavoidable,howeverparadoxical, coincidenceas difficulty? Whataretherhythms and thesitesthatunfold inthedash?Whatsortof decision can be made betweena philosophicaleffort and a political in discord?Can either gesture one be forgotten and theotherpursued withimpunity, as ifeach werenotprecisely theerror denounced bythe theerror other, that itcan onlyundo?The fact that these are(notsimply) rhetorical questionsdoes not make themanyless urgent nor easierto bear. The philosophical laboris an effort ofunderstanding thatproduces a negativeknowledge concerning the risksand stakesof a set of terms (right, individual, and so on). The exposureof theunreliability ofthis discoursedemands its undoing,its reversalor decapitation.But the orderof action,thegesture of intervention in theexisting relations of is notparalyzed force, or incapacitated bythisknowledge,just as itdoes notremain untouched. A gesture is made,something gets"inscribed ina reality," peopleinterfere or"intervene, actually, intheorder ofpolitics."
32
But not without or perhapseven paradox. The interest of difficulty, is finally notsimply that he at once supports Foucault's "declaration" whilede-constituting or problematizing thembuthowhe humanrights to allow either performs their difficult coincidencewhile refusing gesture to escapeunscathed. The purity orpropriety ofthephilosophical ina struggle workis undonebythereinscription oftheterm undermined theorizedin already-deconstructed terms,while the ethico-political gesture finds itselfrobbed of any extrapoliticalor philosophical authority. So Foucaultdoes neither ofthetwothings orat leastnotinthe simply, to whichthey are accustomed. style The coincidence is difficult, and its cannotbe forgotten difficulty intheexcitement ofthecoincidence. Each moment ofthedoublegesture undoestheother; do notderive they from, nor do they ground, each other.Theyare articulated on thebasis (the nonbasis)oftheir difference, and thedifference willalwaysthreaten to turnintodisarticulation, just as theparadox willalwayshave already collapsed.The difficulty of coincidence is thenecessity of negotiation, itsinevitability andimpossibility. It ispolitical becauseitis impossible. If negotiation weremerely possible,politics wouldbe unnecessary. But there are double binds,everyday, whichis whypoliticsis difficult, and whichis whypoliticsis not programming. Difficult as it is, thecoincidencewillalwayshavealready takenplace-futureanterior-more or less,likeitor not.Butitis a coincidence, insomething liketheeveryday sense-it cannot be programmed, guaranteedin advance with any certainty, predicted, or pre-dictated. A trulytemporalpredicament: utterly without guarantees, exceptthatitwillhappen.Onlyinthissense is whatwe call the"relation"of power-knowledge a paradox: It must maintain or supportan intolerable and insupportable difference without opposition or resolution.The unpredictability, the bias or the obliquity, of therelationis therisk,thepredicament, theparadoxical chance,of politicsas of reading. It is difficult.
NOTES
1. Michel Foucault, "TheatrumPhilosophicum," Critique282 (Novembre1970), 885-908at 897-trans. by Donald Bouchardand Sherry Simon,in Language,CounterMemory,Practice(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977), 165-196at 182. This collection ofessayswillhereafter be referred to as LCMP. All quotations from French in our essayhave beensilently modified whennecessary.
33
toFoucault's Histoire delafolie that Derrida hadmade 2. Thisis anobjection very Itmight as well benoted here for Foucault endorsed. andthat early subsequently that, us, ofFoucault remain those ofJacques and the most compelling readings Derrida, "Cogito trans. and Difference, the History of Madness,"Writing by Alan Bass (Chicago: of ChicagoPress,1978), Shoshana and Madness, University 31-63; Felman, Writing and B. Massumi trans. S. Felman, byM. N. Evans, (Ithaca:Cornell University Press, in ofHistory: On SomeAporias "TheGenealogical 3. Jurgen Habermas, Writing Journal Canadian ofPower," trans. Foucault's Theory byGregory Ostrander, ofSocial
1985).
"Foucault on Modern Power: andNormative 4. Nancy Fraser, Empirical Insights "Foucault's Praxis International Confusions," 1,no. 3 (October 1981), 272-287; Body A Post-Humanist Political Rhetoric?" 61 (Fall 1983),55-70; Language: Salmagundi "Michel Foucault: A 'YoungConservative'" Ethics 96,no. 1 (October 1985), 165-184; New orDeconstructing "TheFrench Deconstruction Derrideans: Politicizing Politics," from "Foucault on These arecited 33(Fall 1984), 127-154. German Critique arguments ModenPower," 282-284, and"Young Conservative," 172. White in A strange oftheFraser-Habermas is raised version objection byStephen Review "Foucault's to Critical American Political Science Challenge Theory," 80,no.2 (June 1986), 419-432: Without any way ofconceptualizing Foucault's recommenjuridical subjectivity, dation ofcollective resistance hassuch a blind andundifferentiated character as to be almost politically with no wayof irresponsible. He provides us,ultimately, theresistance ofthewomen's movement orthePolish distinguishing Solidarity movement from, say, theKu KluxKlanorJim Jones' People's Temple. (p. 430) It is notclearwhy, after one wouldrequire especially reading Foucault, a theory of juridical subjectivity orofpower inorder to telltheKKK from Solidarity. Philosophy to perform doesnotneed these for tasks us. 5. Charles "Foucault on Freedom Taylor, andTruth," Political Theory 12,no. 2 (May1984), 152-183 at 174,152,172-173, 152, 181, emphasis added. Seealsothe exchange between William Connolly, "Taylor, Foucault, andOtherness" andTaylor, "Connolly, Foucault, andTruth," Political Theory 13,no.3 (August 1985), 365-376 and377-385. 6. Taylor, "Foucault," 175-176, emphasis added. "Foucault," 152,162,176. 7. Taylor, 8. Taylor, "Foucault," 152. 9. Taylor, "Foucault," 173. Much ofwhat isproblematic inTaylor's essays iscaptured inthis Itwould phrase. bevaluable toanalyze closely the systematic drift that takes Taylor from defining power as"domination" (the asymmetrical play ofmobile andunequal force relations) as Foucault-at leastin thetextsTaylorconsiders-does, to poweras "imposition," and thento "constraint," "prevention," "impediment," and blockage. Taylor winds upwith power understood as theimposition ofconstraint ondesire (orits formulation)-precisely the negative and"juridico-discursive" view from which Foucault tried todisengage itsanalysis. Holding tothedefinitions Foucault is trying to displace, with a phrase like"otherwise especially theterm losesall meaning" (p. 176)-misses the Thepoint point. istoput the existing "meanings" ofthe term inquestion, toargue for the andthe inadequacy politial ofthe"semantic effects field."
and Political Theory 10,no. 1-2(1986), 1-9at 7-8.
34
10. Taylor, "Foucault," 166,181. 11. Taylor, 172. "Foucault," 12. MichelFoucault, La volonte' de savoir(Histoire de la sexualite' 1) (Paris: trans. Gallimard, 1:AnIntroduction, 1976), 121; History ofSexuality byRobert Hurley (NewYork: Vintage, 1978), 92. Hereafter VS andHS. 13. SeeTayloron 177-180. With this sentence wealsogesture temporality, "Foucault," theimportant andpolitics, toward work ofPaul de Man on rhetoric, the temporality, implications ofwhich haslargely to address. See "TheRhetoric political theory yet of Temporality," ofMinnesota Blindness and Insight (2nded.) (Minneapolis: University Press, 1983), YaleUniversity 187-228; aswell asAllegories Haven: ofReading(New Press, 1979); The Resistance toTheory (Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1986), and the forthcoming Aesthetic Ideology. 14. See de Man,Allegories ofReading; Felman, Writing andMadness, 24-25. 15. Michel Foucault, Raymond Roussel (Paris:Gallimard, 1963), 23-24; Deathand theLabyrinth, trans. byCharles Ruas(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1986), 15. 16. PierreFontanier, Les Figures du Discours, ed. by GerardGenette (Paris: Flammarion, 1977 [1821-1830]), 137, 264. 17. Richard Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 71. 18. Fontanier, Les Figures, 138, 140. See, foran example of theconsiderable pseudodialectical totalizing ofaesthetic power the paradox, work ofthe American critic Cleanth Brooks, especially "TheLanguage ofParadox" and"TheHeresy ofParaphrase," in TheWellWrought Urn (NewYork:Harcourt, Brace, 1947), 3-21, 192-214. 19. Fontanier, Les Figures, 140. 20. See theprovocative articles (which cameto myattention after this article was largely written) byRichard "Under Klein, Pragmatic Paradoxes," YaleFrench Studies 66 (1984), 91-109; Richard Klein andWilliam B. Warner, "Nuclear Coincidence andKorean Airline Disaster," Diacritics 16,no. I (Spring 1986), 2-21. 21. Michel Foucault, "Structuralism andPost-Structuralism," interview with Gerard trans. byJeremy Raulet, Harding, Telos 55 (Spring 1983), 195-211 at 210. 22. Although, compare with MarkCousins and Athar Hussain, Michel Foucault (NewYork: St.Martin's Press, 1984), 201, 227, 250."There isoneareatowhich Foucault and his commentators havegivena central prominence butwe do not,thepowerknowledge relationship" (p. 227). 23. On another rhetorical dash,also located somewhat tensely between knowledge and power, see DeborahEsch,"Towarda Midwifery of Thought: Reading Kleist's von0. . .," Textual Marquise Analysis: SomeReaders Reading, ed.byMary AnnCaws (NewYork:Modern Language Association, 1986), 144-155. 24. Garth Gillan andCharles Lemert, Michel Foucault: SocialTheory as Transgression(NewYork:Columbia University Press, 1982), x, 56,60,73,75,84,86,empahsis added. 25. MichelFoucault, "Le souci de la ve'rite'," interview withFranqois Ewald, Magazine Littiraire 207(Mai 1984), 18-23 at22.This passage isomitted from the English translation: "TheRegard for trans. Art and Text16(Summer Truth," byPaul Patton, 20-31. 1984-1985), 26. MichelFoucault, "Histoire des systems de pensee:Theories et institutions France penales,"Annuairedu 1972 Colkgede 283-286 at (Paris: Collegede France, 1972), inAngele 283,reprinted Michel Foucault Kremer-Marietti, 201(Paris:Seghers, 1974), 205at 201-202.
35
27. Michel etpunir Surveiller Foucault, (Paris: and Gallimard, 1975), 27;Discipline trans. 23.Hereafter Punish, SP andDP. byAlanSheridan (NewYork: Pantheon, 1977), 28. SP, 32; DP, 27. 29. VS, 129-130; HS, 98. 30. VS, 130;HS, 98. 31. VS, 132-133, 78-83; HS, 101, 58-61, emphasis added. 32. Michel dusavoir Foucault, L'archeologie (Paris: Gallimard, 1969), 272,67; The trans. Smith Archeology ofKnowledge, byA. M. Sheridan (NewYork: Pantheon, 1972), 209,49; VS, 92; HS, 68-69. 33. Foucault, "Structuralism andPost-Structuralism," 206. oftheOther," 34. See Jacques Inventions trans. Derrida, "Psyche: Lewis byPhilip and Catherine ed. by Wlad Godzich and Lindsay de Man Porter, Waters, Reading Reading (forthcoming). 35. VS, 86, 82; HS, 64, 61. See MichelFoucault, and Truth: The "Discourse Problematization of Parrhesia," of Fall 1983lectures at University of transcripts California at Berkeley, In these lectures Foucault ed. byJoseph Pearson. the analyzed theprecise problem oftelling thetruth aboutoneself under rhetorical figure parrhesia. Foucault infact, actinwhich characterized as a complex thesubject ofthe parrhesia, the ofthe whospeaks, andthe enunciandum" areallmade utterance, subject to "subject inan utterance oftheform "I amtheonewhothinks this andthat." coincide, Foucault argued that this is not utterance ora triple superimposition justa performative (Austin) speech act(Searle), buta "speech itsunusual version ofthe "commitment activity," given between someone andwhat heorshe not rhetorical of says"(p. 2). Soparrhesiais byvirtue some ortwisting dissimulation ofthe but rather a paradoxical "without truth, figure any figure, since itiscompletely natural. Parrhesia isthe zero ofthose rhetorical degree figures which the oftheaudience" intensify emotions (p. 9). 36. VS, 133;HS, 100-101, added. emphasis 37. VS, 133;HS, 101. 38. MichelFoucault, "'Les rapports de pouvoir passant des corps,"' ali'nterieur interview with Lucette Finas, La Quinzaine litteraire 247(1-15 Janvier 1977): 4-6;translated byLeo Marshall as "TheHistory ofSexuality" inPower/Knowledge, ed.byColin Gordon (NewYork: Pantheon, 1980),180-193 at190. This volume ishereafter cited asPK. 39. "Annexe," in Le retrait dupolitique, Travaux du centre de recherches philosophiques surle politique, ed. byJean-Luc Nancy andPhilippe Lacoue-Labarthe (Paris: 201-205 Galil6e, 1983), at 203-204, n. 1. Derrida's difficulties with theavailable political are philosophemes exemplified inhis remarks onthe inefficacy orobliteration ofthe United Nations' 1973 declaration that "apartheid is a crime against humanity" ("Racism's Last Word," trans. byPeggy Kamuf, Critical Inquiry 12,no. I [Autumn 1985], 290-299): Ifthis verdict continues tohave noeffect, itisbecause the customary discourse on man,humanism, and human rights has encountered its effective and as yet unthought thelimit limit, ofthewhole system inwhich ittakes on meaning.... the Beyond juridico-political ortheologico-political discourse, . . . itwas,itwill have tobe,itisnecessary toappeal unconditionally tothe future ofanother lawand another force lying outside [par-dela] the totality ofthis present (p. 298). 41. Michel Foucault, "Faceauxgouvernements, lesdroits de l'Homme," Liberation (30 Juin-lJuillet 1984),22. My information aboutthisinitiative comesfrom the
40. Felman, Writing and Madness,21.
36
Liberation editor's as wellas IsabelleVichniac, "Un Comite headnote, international contre la piraterie va affreter un bateaupour venirau secours des 'boat people' Juin vietnamiens,"Le "UnBateau Monde(21-22 contre lespirates," 1981), 2; P. Sabatier, Libiration "Un vraisamourai," (20-21Juin1981),15; Bernard Kouchner, Michel Foucault: Unehistoire de la verite (Paris:Editions Syros, 1985), 85-89. which is not 42. There text droit and devoir, is a slippage in Foucault's between inthat text. No doubt justified itcould itisworthwhile tokeep inmind then be,butuntil Maurice Blanchot's useful cautions abouttheir in a discussion of what difference, incidentally might beconsidered most the toFoucault's important precursor declaration, the1960 "Declaration surle droit a l'insoumission dansla guerre Le Droit a d'Alg&rie," l'insoumission ('le dossier des 121') ed. byFrancois Maspero (Paris:Maspero, 1961), 43. Although this text oneofitsrare provides theoretical Foucault's elaborations, has often militancy beenconducted under thebanner of"rights"-with thewomen's health for the movement, toabortion, tocontraception, right andtothe free useofone's with the body; for gayliberation the movement, tochoose right one's with the sexuality; labor union CFDT,for the toa healthy worker's right the Information job;with on Group for the toknow Prisons, right about prison with for conditions; the and Solidarity, rights of people livingunderPolish martial liberties law; and so on. Otherextended considerations of"rights" canbefound in"Va-t-on extrader KlausCroissant," Le nouvel observateur 679(14Novembre 1977), about the 62-63, extradition ofthe Baader-Meinhof toGermany group's after lawyer hehadsought inFrance; desouci asylum de "L'ethique soi comme pratique de liberte," interview, 6 (1984),99-116 C6ncordia at 113-116. A translation ofthelatter inPhilosophy is forthcoming andSocialCriticism. 44. Jacques Derrida, "Dclarations d'Independance," Otobiographies(Paris: Galilee, 1984), 11-32 at23,27,translated inNewPolitical Science 15(Summer, 1986), 7-15. This text hasinspired much ofouranalysis. On "rights," seealsoClaudeLefort, "Droits de 1'Homme etPolitique," L invention democratique: Leslimites deladomination totalitaire (Paris: Fayard, 1981), 45-86, translated byAlanSheridan as"Human rights andpolitics," in ClaudeLefort, The Political Formsof Modern Society, John B. Thompson, ed. MIT Press, (Cambridge: 1986): 239-272, Jean-Franqois Lyotard andJacob Rogozinski, LAutre Journal 10(Decembre "La Police dela Pensee," 27-34. Lefort's 1985), text does insufficient justice tothe "paradox" which itexactingly articulates: "the rights ofman are declared, andthey aredeclared as rights that belong toman; but, atthe same time, man appears hisrepresentatives through asthe being whose essence itistodeclare hisrights. It is impossible to detach thestatement from theutterance as soonas nobody is ableto the occupy ata distance place, from allothers, from which hewould have the authority to or ratify grant rights. Thusrights arenotsimply theobject ofa declaration, itis their essence to bedeclared" (256-257). 45. MichelFoucault, "Truth and Power,"interview withA. Fontanaand P. Pasquino, PK, 109-133 at 121, emphasis added. 46. Michel Foucault, "TwoLectures," trans. byKateSoper, PK, 78-108 at96.These lectures were first published inItalian (translated from a transcribed taperecording) as "Corsodel 7 gennaio 1976"and "Corsodel 14 gennaio1976," in MichelFoucault, del Potere: Microfisica Interventi politici, ed. by Allesandro Fontanaand Pasquale Pasquino(Torino:GiulioEinaudi,1977),163-177, 179-194. The English version is apparently translated from the Italian; the French transcripts remain unpublished. I have occasionally modified translations, inwhich cases the Italian reference isprovided. Many
90-91.
37
inVS, 107-120; canbe found ofthese arguments HS, 81-91. 47. Foucault, "TwoLectures," 88,95;VS, 116;HS, 88. 95-96. 48. Foucault, "TwoLectures," 49. Foucault, "TwoLectures," 96;VS, 118-119; HS, 89. "Corsodel 14gennaio 191-192. "TwoLectures," 50. Foucault, 105-107, 1976," "TwoLectures," 107. 51. Foucault, "Corsode 14 gennaio "Two Lectures," 52. Foucault, 107-108; Foucault, 1976," 193-194. 6-7. 53. Habermas, "Genealogical Writing," "Corso dell4gennaio 54. VS,119;HS,90;Foucault, "TwoLectures," 108; Foucault, term isimportant and Therecovery orrewriting ofthe added. 1976," 194, empahsis right infact, Foucault inthenext, ofthelecture, notcommon: andfinal, sentences explicitly what thecritical useone oftheword "no matter rules outanyrecuperation repression, for "new" receives no suchstigma, andis indeed reserved wouldmakeofit.""Right" possibilities. 55. Foucault, "TwoLectures," 102. indieRechtslehre," derSitten, Band7 56. Immanuel Kant, "Einleitung Metaphysik 34:"Das Rechte Immanuel KantsWerke, Ernst Cassirer B. Cassirer, hrsg. (Berlin: 1922), als dasGerade teils demKrummen, teils demSchiefen (rectum) wird entgegen gesetzt." 207. 57. Foucault, "Structuralism andPost-Structuralism," ofIdentity," interview with Bob 58. Michel andthePolitics Foucault, "Sex,Power, at 27. andAlexWilson, TheAdvocate 400(7 August 26-30 Gallagher 1984), "11 faut tout la loi etle prison," Liberation 59. Michel Foucault, repenser (6 Juillet 2. 1981), 60. See Michel ofmethod," interview with trans. Foucault, "Questions historians, by 8 (Spring1981),3-14at 12-13; Colin Gordon, & Consciousness "On the Ideology ofEthics," interview with P. Rabinow andH. Dreyfus, TheFoucault Genealogy Reader, ed.byPaul Rabinow at 343;"Polemics, 340-372 (NewYork:Pantheon, 1984), Politics, andProblemizations," interview with P. Rabinow andT. Zummer, trans. byLydia Davis,
Foucault Reader,381-390at 385. 61. Michel Foucault, "Est-il donc important de penser?.," interview with Didier Eribon,Liberation (30-31Mai 1981),21.
62. Foucault, "Structuralism andPost-Strucuturalism," 206. 63. Michel "Pardelalebien etlemal," interview Foucault, with lycee students, Actuel 14(Novembre 1971), 42-47 at46;"Revolutionary Action: 'Until Now,"'LCMP,218-233 at230. 64. Foucault, "Theatrum Philosophicum," 906,899;LCMP, 194,185.See note 39 above. 65. Millicent Dillon, "Conversation with Michel Foucault," TheThreepenny Review 1,no. 1 (Winter/Spring 1980), 4-5at 5.
Tom Keenan is a Ph.D. candidatein Comparative Literature at Yale University. He is currentlyfinishinga dissertation called"Fables ofResponsibility: On Politics between Literature and Philosophy "and editing a collection ofJacquesDerrida's writings on politicalquestions.

The 'Paradox' of Knowledge and Power. Reading Foucault On A Bias

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The "Paradox" of Knowledge and Power: Reading Foucault on a Bias Author(s): Tom Keenan Source: Political Theory, Vol.

I. THE "PARADOX" OF KNOWLEDGE AND POWER: ReadingFoucault on a Bias

Keenan/ READINGFOUCAULTON A BIAS

POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY1987

POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY1987

Keenan/ READINGFOUCAULTON A BIAS

"This knowledge." "Cognitive relations of power." are theexercise

POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY 1987

ofthepower[pouvoir]to ... is formed and entangled with thepractice

Keenan/ READINGFOUCAULTON A BIAS

POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY1987

Keenan / READING FOUCAULT ON A BIAS

Keenan/ READINGFOUCAULTON A BIAS

POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY 1987

be une Nouvelledeclaration des Droitsde l'homme`? Itsprinciples-its

Wasitunjust ofthis text's posthumous editor tosuggest that it"could

POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY 1987

Keenan / READING FOUCAULT ON A BIAS

POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY 1987

Keenan / READING FOUCAULT ON A BIAS

POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY 1987

Keenan / READING FOUCAULT ON A BIAS

POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY 1987

Keenan / READING FOUCAULT ON A BIAS

POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY 1987

Keenan / READING FOUCAULT ON A BIAS

POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY 1987

Keenan/ READINGFOUCAULTON A BIAS

and Political Theory 10,no. 1-2(1986), 1-9at 7-8.

POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY1987

Keenan/ READINGFOUCAULTON A BIAS

POLITICAL THEORY / FEBRUARY1987

Keenan/ READINGFOUCAULTON A BIAS

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