This brief outline of Foucault’s theory of discourse is intended to bridge other ideas that I have posted on; such as language games (Wittgenstein and Feyerabend), and recently libertarian socialism. Rather than detail the connections between the three, i’ll leave it to the reader to deduce (or to comment and enquire on). Besides I think the connection is fairly obvious.
The theory of discourse is a postmodern ethical argument concerning discourse and power. Here the term discourse means an historically evolved set of interlocking and mutually supporting statements. It is the ‘language games’ of particular intellectual disciplines, which could also be described as ‘discursive practice’. They usually accept some dominant theory/philosophy to guide them, i.e. science and rationalism. But importantly these discursive practices also include contentious political activity. In other words the discourses define and describe their antagonists, evident in concepts such as ‘irrational’, ‘criminal’, ‘insane’, ‘terrorist’. At the same time the discourse, as well as labelling those who are the archetypal anathema to its orthodoxy, also expresses the political authority of its protagonists.
Prisoner: As God is my judge, my Lord, I am not guilty.
Judge: He is not. I am. You are. Six months.
The language games that each disipline adopts enacts the authority of those empowered to use it within a particular group. Thus when I see a surgeon, his authority is enhanced by his use and application of medical knowledge and terminology. He is empowered to operate on me by my compliance, which accepts his authority in surgical discourse. The opposite would be the case if when I see the surgeon his diagnosis and prognosis was performed in accordance with the interpetation of astrological data. He may be very knowledgeable about my horoscope, but he lacks the sort of authority I would expect from a surgeon, and thus no way would I consider empowering him to anaeasthetize me and open me up! The same is true across the disciplines, thus scientists and theologians often engage in conflict because neither accepts the authority of the other to speak about the others discipline.
But discourse theory is concerned with more than just providing a critique of appropriately acquired and applied knowledge. It is concerned with the political use of authority and empowerment to subordinate, exclude and marginalize those who are defined as being outside, antagonistic, antithetical to the discipline.
We are familiar with the term ‘knowledge is power’ in Foucaults theory this can be rephrased ‘discourse is power’. Law, Penology, Medicine* are powerful discources that in some cases are rathe robviously designed to exclude and control people, such as those diagnosed as criminally insane or ill. - * Such an investigation is relevant also to Institutional Religion, Political Systems, Education, Philosophy etc.
The general juridical form that guaranteed a system of rights that were egalitarian in principle was unsupported by these fine, everyday, physical mechanisms, by all those systems of micro-power that are essentially non-egalistarian and asymmetrical that we call the ‘disciplines’ such as exams, hospitals, prisons, the regulation of workshops, schools, the army. -Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison
Consequently for postmodernists there is an imperative to identify with the victim and to analyse power from the bottom up. Foucault attempts to show that the will to exercise power beats humanitarian egalitarianism every time, and this implies the guilt even of the Enlightenment reliance upon universal principle and reason. With echoes of Feyerabend, Reason and Rationality are identified as being incipiently totalitarian, because the appeal to an always correct Reason is itself a system of control and will always exclude what it makes marginal, defining it as non-rational, irrational and the like.
Rationalism and its supporters define what constitutes Reason, but furthermore are its sole arbitors, thereby excluding and marginalising its critics, its opponents and whosoever else it decides. The tag ‘irrational’ implies a lack of authority, non-validity of argument, deprived and perhaps even depraved. Those thus labelled are therefore either to be pitied, ridiculed (commeansurable identification of religious believers with those who believe in Fairies at the bottom of the garden, for instance), ignored, excluded from meaningful dialogue (see the arguments had between El Sordo and AC1 on whether non-rational arguments including notions of sentiment and feeling can be valid or included), marginalised from the economy of discourse (which university would fund an atheist theologian, or a pseudoscientist in physics?).
The normalizing discourses, that various disciplines define and enact, go beyond merely intellectual segregation, but also in numerous situations impinge upon the liberty of individuals and even groups. Thus the medicaly ‘reasonable’ psychiatrist is empowered and endowed with the authority to define the ‘unreasonable’, pass judgement upon them and to lock them in an asylum. Such prejudicial discourses can be found everywhere, sexists, racists, imperialists all use similar techniques. They make their normalizing discourse prevail, they create their own deviants and exclude them accordingly. (The Patriarchal influence of most early religious philosophy significantly contributed to the oppression of women and their role in society over thousands of years.)
The most important point that postmodernists make about the role of discourse is that it is not confined to the obvious formal contexts, such as the law courts. It inescapeably permeates the whole of society from top to bottom, from judges pronouncements, to scientific journals, to TV advertisements, to pop songs, to newspapers. The more dominant a discourse is within society, the more natural it seems and ironically the more it justifies itself by appeals to nature. Everybody, the postmodernists claim, absorp these subordinating norms, because they are often an intimate part of our language, of which we adhere to unwittingly as though they were facts rather than psychologically and politically motivated features of our talk about it.
The task for postmodernists (and indeed everyone) is to provide an ethical solution to the chauvenistic influence of discourse. This is a failing of Foucault, he identifies a problem, promotes ’struggle’ and rebellion as solutions, but does not detail beyond what Lyotard suggest: small-scale local reforms*. In other words small groups of the excluded (i.e. Homosexuals) could unite and fight against exclusion, but how do we eradicate exclusion from society wholesale (and is it even possible).
* The Zapatista rebellion in South Mexico, and the Abahlali baseMjondolo of South Africa are excellent example of small-scale postmodern rebellion and may well induce egalitarian change in their societies, but what relevance does it have for us? Note with the Abahlali part of their discourse excludes the political intervention of wellmeaning outsiders.
Another task for postmodernists is to evaluate the role of individual agency and responsibility within discourse. Is it enough to attirbute blame to the discourse of power that flows through individuals, or does the individual themself hold some accountability. (This has some relevance to our recent Institutional Religion discussion).
The critique of discourses of power has one final important role to play in modern philosophy. The role and identity of the self. Certain theories have developed that propose that concepts of the ’self’ are inseperable from the various discourses of power that flow through us. Thus for a very simple example a male (generally) is inherently a patriarchal sexist, he has to play the role that is defined as being male. Unfortunately there is too much material to explore this further, thus postmodern theories on self and identity must be reserved for a different post. I will conclude with a quote and the plot for a postmodern novel.
A human being is “not a unity, but a process, [is] perpetually in construction, perpetually contradictory, perpetually open to change.” Catherine Belse, Critical Practice
In John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse the narrator Ambrose, describes the difficulty of writing a story called ‘Lost in the Funhouse’ about a character called Ambrose who is Lost in the funhouse. He is visiting his family which includes visiting a funhouse. But he is described by an author who is perpectually aware of the fact that he is telling a story and that he is using literary conventions to do so. Ambrose systematically loses his autonomy and is identifiable as the function of the authors story, the creature of the person who is writing him.
The ultimate conclusion, and possible topic for another post, is that human identity, the ’self’ is a fiction.
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