Who Was Michel Foucault?
Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a French philosopher and theorist, best known for criticising institutions and power structures. He examined how knowledge, how we discuss things and discipline shapes human behaviour. His most influential works include Discipline and Punish, The History of Sexuality, and Madness and Civilisation. In each of these texts, he explores how society has control not through law, but instead normalising behaviour and surveillance. Foucault Society Must Be Defended is another significant work, which I shall explain today.
What is Foucault Society Must Be Defended About?
Society Must Be Defended is Foucault’s argument that political power can be understood by understanding war. He states that “politics is the continuation of war by other means“, inverting the claim by Carl von Clausewitz.
Rather than viewing society as a place of order, Foucault argues (and I agree) that is is a terrain where power is both enforced and resisted by various groups. Society Must Be Defended contends that the language of war, race and struggle is embedded in our institutions and history.
Read Society Must Be Defended here.
Key Themes and Arguments
Power as War and Struggle
Foucault sees history as a series of battles, not simple scientific developments as Western society likes to frame it. Political power, to Michel, is the outcome of conflicts between races, classes, or groups.
This genealogical approach (studying family descent) uncovers the continuing violence in supposedly peaceful societies. Power operates as a struggle on purpose in order to maintain hierarchies.
Race and ‘Biopolitics’
One of the most important of Foucault’s concepts is biopolitics – how states manage populations via regulating life and death. He tells us racism is a tool for state power as it creates divisions in society. The state legitimises violence by pretending certain groups are threats to the wider population.
“The State’s function is no longer to fight the enemy outside; its role is to eliminate the danger within” – Foucault
Foucault Society Must Be Defended Genealogy and History
In Society Must Be Defended, he shows us his method of genealogy – a history of the present that traces how ideas came to be. He critiques the myth of a unified social contract (see Rousseau), arguing that society is made through conflict, masked by legal action.
Sovereign power changed to biopolitical power. History has shaped society from having a right to take or give life to governing every action of the individual. Whether that be populations, heath, hygiene or social norms, according to Foucault, our every choice is controlled.
Why Foucault Society Must Be Defended Matters
Foucault’s analysis of society is very relevant today. Our politics is racialised and surveillance is growing. His concepts (above) help us understand how the state exercises control over us.
States today use race to target hatred – if you hate each other, you are too busy to hate those who govern you. His biopolitics was seen during the COVID pandemic – with laws in place to protect populations. Foucault tells us we must critique “truths” and trace how they serve the power structures.
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