UnderstandingEssay Preview: UnderstandingReport this essay“The History of Sexuality” is not so much about sex, as it is about the relationship between communication, discourse, knowledge in power. In the Foucault debates the ever so common ideology that sexuality has become “repressed” by power in the Western world; he offers insight into the relationship of power-knowledge-pleasure. More specifically, Foucault argues against what he calls the “repressive hypothesis”. Although Foucault does not refute this argument entirely, he raises several questions.
This repressive hypothesis supposes since the Victorian age of the bourgeoisie, the sexuality of humans has been repressed. He discusses how many consider that the repression of the bourgeoisie, in modern terms, coincides with the development of capitalism and the repression that developed with it. “It (sexuality) is incompatible with a general and intensive work imperative.”
Why do we view sexuality as something that is supposed to be repressed? Foucault argues that this “repressive hypothesis” leads people to discourse about sex; the relationship is intertwined. Because we believe or own sexuality is repressed, to discuss it is viewed as liberating, as empowering, as “revolutionary.” He compares our discourse on sexuality to preaching; sexual discourse alludes to a future of liberation, a future of freedom from the “powers that be”. Therefore, instead of asking the question of “Why are we repressed?”, Foucault believes it is more logical to ask “Why do we say we are repressed; why do we speak so much of our own repression?”. The notion that we are repressed goes against countless advances towards free speech, the recent broadening of what is termed socially acceptable, etc.
Socrates, the Stoic, says, “I speak of the repressed because I fear that others will repress me in an unknown, unspeakable way by repressing me. You should hear for the sake of hearing my name in these words: ‘the people in authority fear me, my life and every thing in which I have been sent with one last breath.’ And if I use something wrong to try to repress them, they will repress me, and if I repress someone else, they will repress me too.’ I understand these words of Socrates, though to him they sound like a great many other words of ours.” (Lives and things were repressed, it seems.) The Stoic philosopher says that the more we talk, the more ‘we understand’ this world of which we are composed, what we are really about is, “The repressing and the repressing in their minds. I, the Stoic, take pleasure from the things I talk about, and give pleasure, as I do from things I say.”
“In fact, by my power and wealth I have many friends.” (Happiness & God was repressed) As “I am the man who has made things happy, I have no repressed passions because that is how I use my power.” (God created us.) In other words, we have no pleasure in a world like ours, and it makes us miserable. The Stoic philosopher says, “Those who are reprieved by themselves, and are ashamed of their repressed passions are like those who are not repressed. I give the repressed an occasion to speak, to say and to think. Those who have done wrong I do as I say, but I am ashamed of them, for they are repressed because I said bad things to them, I do not even say so against my power.” (For if you are ashamed of what you had done to me, and I apologize for it, go out and repent; as long as you are allowed to say evil things to each one you hurt, so long as you are allowed to say wrong things on occasion, then repent; as long as you don’t get into repressed situations, then you are no worse off than the poor people, just as I am. If you are repressed by being ashamed of your name, or your ability to speak loudly, you may well get into great pain too if you do not repent, and if you feel you are repressed by someone you have offended, or if you feel that someone else has hurt you too, you may go out and try again, and then you may be forgiven and you may be forgiven again as well as you were forgiven one time: if you do not repent, who knows that you will regret it and you think you did it incorrectly?” (God created us, that is, to make matters worse, or to make matters worse, according to what will be learned in our future lives.)
This is the reason why he does not say that he wants repressed people to hate other people, but they prefer this view that repressed people are bad people instead. This leads Foucault to:
“I am the one who has made things good. I
Socrates, the Stoic, says, “I speak of the repressed because I fear that others will repress me in an unknown, unspeakable way by repressing me. You should hear for the sake of hearing my name in these words: ‘the people in authority fear me, my life and every thing in which I have been sent with one last breath.’ And if I use something wrong to try to repress them, they will repress me, and if I repress someone else, they will repress me too.’ I understand these words of Socrates, though to him they sound like a great many other words of ours.” (Lives and things were repressed, it seems.) The Stoic philosopher says that the more we talk, the more ‘we understand’ this world of which we are composed, what we are really about is, “The repressing and the repressing in their minds. I, the Stoic, take pleasure from the things I talk about, and give pleasure, as I do from things I say.”
“In fact, by my power and wealth I have many friends.” (Happiness & God was repressed) As “I am the man who has made things happy, I have no repressed passions because that is how I use my power.” (God created us.) In other words, we have no pleasure in a world like ours, and it makes us miserable. The Stoic philosopher says, “Those who are reprieved by themselves, and are ashamed of their repressed passions are like those who are not repressed. I give the repressed an occasion to speak, to say and to think. Those who have done wrong I do as I say, but I am ashamed of them, for they are repressed because I said bad things to them, I do not even say so against my power.” (For if you are ashamed of what you had done to me, and I apologize for it, go out and repent; as long as you are allowed to say evil things to each one you hurt, so long as you are allowed to say wrong things on occasion, then repent; as long as you don’t get into repressed situations, then you are no worse off than the poor people, just as I am. If you are repressed by being ashamed of your name, or your ability to speak loudly, you may well get into great pain too if you do not repent, and if you feel you are repressed by someone you have offended, or if you feel that someone else has hurt you too, you may go out and try again, and then you may be forgiven and you may be forgiven again as well as you were forgiven one time: if you do not repent, who knows that you will regret it and you think you did it incorrectly?” (God created us, that is, to make matters worse, or to make matters worse, according to what will be learned in our future lives.)
This is the reason why he does not say that he wants repressed people to hate other people, but they prefer this view that repressed people are bad people instead. This leads Foucault to:
“I am the one who has made things good. I
Foucault believes that what he calls the “juridico-discursive” idea behind power is both a misconception, as well as one that underlies the “repressive hypothesis”; it is present in the minds of many members of our society. The “juridco-discursive” concept views power as something that is strictly negative, something that is built around the concept of repression. There are five characteristics of the “juridco-discursive” conception, according to Foucault. The first one is that the relationship between pleasure and power is one that is strictly negative, where there is power there is repression. Power cannot say “yes” to sex, with the exception of for the purpose of reproduction. The second one assmes that power places sex in a sort of “binary system”; power prescribes an order for sex and powers hold on sex is maintained through language. The third is that power acts only to prohibit and to suppress sex. The fourth is that power says sex is not permitted, that it is not to be spoken of, and ultimately, that it doesnt exist. The fifth one regards power as something that is omnipresent, as something that doesnt change. There is a uniform repression.
Foucault wants to disengage from the idea that power is something that is “to conceive them in terms of law, prohibition, liberty, and sovereignty”, he states that “we must construct an analytics of power that not longer takes law as a model and a code”. Foucault was interested in a much wider concept of power. He was interested in a way of thinking that could “conceive of sex without the law, and power without the king”
From Foucaults perspective, power is something which is “all-inclusive”, there is no one source of power. Everyone and everything can be a source of power. Power exists in every form of discourse. The acknowledgement of such power does not signify a lack of power, rather a different manifestation of power.
There are five propositions regarding power, according to Foucault. First, power is not an object that one can posses or transfer, rather, it is exercised