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I went to a couple lectures on Foucault given by my thesis supervisor, because one can never know too much about this brilliant man. Here are some notes/thoughts.
Foucault thinks that sex is a master key of a person; he claims it is the way a person is understood.
Management of life and body:
institutions
centralization
panopticon
time is hyperstructured
Disciplinary power does not stand in opposition to pleasure. Under surveillance, the pleasure of evading surveillance and that of being surveyed arise. Facebook is a great example.
Annoyed at the realization to what extent I am a docile body. So amenable to power, knowing it so well, playing so well by the rules of the game, even when they shift. So rational, so keen, so hyperconscious of myself and my presentation of self. Disciplinary power is strong in me. The feeling of being a fraud because of being aware of the unwritten rules, and being aware of using them to my benefit. In order to be genuine, we must be unwitting—something I am not.
The shift from repressive to disciplinary power is analogous to the shift from physical colonization to economic colonization; the move toward less violent and more efficient control of areas.
Power as productive: disciplinary power that says “yes, but”; cooptation, incorporation, normalization. Very hard to fight, to resist. Mostly because disciplinary power is such that we don’t want to counter it, but play its game. The Rebel Sell, which explains how the argument of counterculture breaks down in the face of (or, more accurately, is coopted by) capitalism, describes this kind of power. It’s why buying local, organic heirloom tomatoes or underground punk albums is not affront to capitalism, but a perpetuation of it. The consumption of things that are obscure or not massively produced does not challenge the dominant economic system; such consumption simply opens new venues for market enterprise.
“Indeed, all Jews who are preoccupied with fashioning a Jewish life have a stake in understanding the Halakhah. Regardless of their definition, secular or religious, all forms of contemporary Jewish life must arise out of a confrontation with the past. Whether one lives in harmony with tradition or in tension with it, one must contend with that tradition. Comprehending the Halakhah is necessary for a Jewish life, whether one seeks to follow Jewish law or depart from it.”
From Women and Jewish Law, by Rachel Biale.
I had a conversation recently in which someone asked me why I was interested in converting to Judaism instead of just studying it if my intentions were to live mostly secularly. My response had been that if something is yours, it is yours to follow or to fuck with. This excerpt speaks to part of what I meant.
This talk is one of the most meaningful things I’ve come across in the past few months. The message it conveys is one that is well suited to everyone’s life at every moment; for me right now it speaks to my feeling so scared and stuck with a lot of my family, many of whom I haven’t spoken to in years. It also speaks to what I want to do in my relationship with Mike, where there is so much at stake, so many thorny issues to lean into, and so much to create and love.
