Significance of Foucault in the Study of Sexuality - Essay Example

? Significance of Foucault in the Study of Sexuality Significance of Foucault in the Study of Sexuality The History of Sexuality is a famous publication that shades light to western world of sexuality composed by Michel Foucault, a renowned French theorist or philosopher. The first volume of the writing explores the author’s thoughts on the "repressive hypothesis", the notion that westerners concealed sexuality from the 17th up to the late-20th century. Foucault (1978) argues that this theory is a delusion, and that, in reality, debates on sexuality propagated during this era. Part V, "The Right of Death and Power over Life," stresses that the incentives for death and power over life has transformed. In olden days, the "right to life" was essentially a "right to death" as leaders and influential were capable of deciding when a person would die (Foucault, 1978). This has transformed to a "right to live" as independent states are more worried concerning the power of how citizens live. Power, therefore, becomes about how to promote life. This paper will introduce and evaluate Foucault’s idea of power and violence. He wrote widely concerning power, but rarely evaluated violence logically. However, he considers power and violence to be connected in part V of his first volume. This paper seeks to help a reader gain an understanding of the arguments produced by the author and also discuss whether the argument is logical. In earlier days, supreme people had the right of life, as well as death over his subjects. This "right of life" was, in reality, a "right of death." The supremacy practiced by the supreme people was merely a matter of deciding whether a person would be killed or not (Foucault, 1978). In general, sovereign power executed itself as a form of "inference": it consisted of the authority to take things such as life, property, privileges and taxes away from its subjects. Today, the author suggests, power no longer affirms itself as an inference, but as a "right of death" (Foucault, 1978). The authority has power over life via the deaths that it can sway. The key interest of power, these days, is in life, and how to protect, expand and enhance it. Warfare is still waged, but they are not waged in support of the "right of death" of some supreme people, but are instead waged to guarantee a better means of life for humanity. As warfare has become bloodier, the death punishment has become less often. Also, while the death punishment was once a resentful act of obliteration, today it is perceived as a safeguard, as a means of eradicating a threat to society. Supremacy is now exercised solely over life and is practiced either to promote life or to prohibit it. Above any other element, Foucault perceives bio-power as liable for the rise of capitalism. Humanity came to be perceived as a vital factor in politics and history. How people live became an aspect of knowledge and power. The law became less concentrated in prohibiting and disbanding, and became more concerned in optimizing and normalizing the conditions of human life. Successfully, the new-fangled power over life that the author discusses signified that humanity fell under the control of politics. The first part of part V of this volume compares two diverse applications of power: the "power over life" and "right of death". The second part of part V of this volume shows why, with the increase of bio-power, sexuality has turned into such a vital concept to humanity. Comprehending the difference between the power over life and right of death will be much easier if individuals leave ethical judgments aside (Foucault, 1978). Instead of trying to consider which one is "better," people should simply accept that they are diverse and endeavor to emphasize the importance of these differences. In general, humans may distinguish power over life from the right of death by arguing that the latter is a harmful kind of power and the former is an encouraging form of power. During the era of complete monarchies (France’s Louis XIV being the most prominent example), a king was considered to be the personification of the realm. Any mischief conducted to the realm was symbolically perceived as harm done to the ruler himself. The penalty for crimes was, therefore, perceived as the king's (state's) revenge on this wrongdoer (Foucault, 1978). If a person was caught in the act of stealing, then that he or she was considered to have been stealing from the king. Thus, the king would have all the rights to discipline that person accordingly. The authority practiced by complete monarchies adopted the form of "thou shalt not" (Foucault, 1978). People living in such kingdoms were prohibited from doing certain things, which would harm the realm and the king accordingly, and if the citizens went against these prohibitions, then they would be disciplined. Citizens were not anticipated to do anything in essence; rather, there were boundaries (laws, military service and taxes) placed on their freedom. Outside these boundaries, people could, therefore, live as they wished (Foucault, 1978). Complete monarchy came to be substituted with modern capitalism and bourgeois society. This society practiced an encouraging kind of power, which was power over life. The importance here was not about what someone could not do or the restrictions enforced on people's rights and freedoms, but instead, the importance was on what individuals should do, or how their rights and freedom should manifest itself. This was the era of republicanism and liberalism, where catchphrases of human freedom were at the front line of revolutions in America and France (Foucault, 1978). Foucault would propose that such revolutions did not liberate citizens from these states from a cruel power so much as they substituted one kind of command with another. These revolutions brought down absolutist governments, which seemed to have little or no apprehension for humanity. They were substituted by governments, which had a great interest in humanity (Foucault, 1978). How citizens resided and how they ought to survive turned into a matter of public significance. "Thou shalt" replaced "thou shalt not". Sexuality, according to the author, is nothing other than a social construct (Foucault, 1978). There is nothing regarding people’s sex organs, or their impulses and instincts concerning the act, which connects with other aspects of people’s consciousness and social being. Instead, people have formed links that they now consider as impartially real and independent of them. The author assumes a "constructivist" stand towards sexuality rather than an "essentialist" stand, which would see sexuality as a matter fixed, which exists in people (Foucault, 1978). As the book concludes, Foucault connects sexuality in this age to astrology in earlier days. Individuals used to perceive a wide range of events as hinging on the movement of the stars. Astrology utilizes the simple facts concerning the movements of these bodies and establishes a multifaceted series of links between other events in the world and these movements (Foucault, 1978). Likewise, some easy facts on sexual behavior have been used to elucidate a wide range of facts concerning ideas and events in the modern world. In summary, all these point are logical as discussed earlier in this paper. The author’s facts are extremely accurate and clearly defined. The discussions of this paper should that I agree with the author’s premise, and such information is extremely influential. The author offered an interesting argument on the deployment of sex and management of sexuality. Further reading of this source is advised. Reference Foucault, M 1978, The history of sexuality volume 1, Editions Gallimard, Paris. Read More