Michel Foucault: Power Relation, The Order Truth

Power isn’t possession or ownership but strategy. Usually power is identified by ownership. Power was considered by something could be got, saved, divided, increased or decreased. But in Foucault opinion, power isn’t be possessed but it’s practiced in somewhere there are many strategic positions that related each other and always shifted. So power is not authority which is possessed by certain subject or class like Marx’s conception. However power is an entity that is spread and modeled by everyone in social space and all of it is led by knowledge system.
Something necessary to observed specially is relation between power and knowledge. Knowledge isn’t disguised expression of power relations but knowledge is in power itself. Power produce knowledge not just because knowledge is useful for power. Certainly, knowledge especially science supplied power (science is power, like what Francis Bacon said). However, Foucault intended it to more general thing: there is no knowledge without power. Thereby, power and knowledge building never became independently. Power and knowledge like two sides of currency. Both of them cannot be separated, even leaning into identical.
Because of its soft form, the power/ knowledge always make individual cognition as its main target. This knowledge individualization produced individual identification based on the logic of binary opposition, a thought model which always positions everything into two contradictive poles. In this stage, the term of “we” and “they” is mapped. Then, which one is normal and deviation are determined. Of course, the identity of “we” always on normal pole and the opposite position always refers to “they”.
Every action and every historical event is seen by Foucault as an exercise in the exchange of power. He has spent a large bulk of his career analyzing the ebb and flow of power in different situations and with relevance to different aspects of human life. Structure organizes and broadens the web of power. The overall volume of power rises with each individual involved in the play. The society is a huge web, and much of the power tends to be concentrated toward the higher echelons. Foucault sees the exchange of power in very active terms: "isn't power simply a form of warlike domination?" It is difficult to sort out just who is fighting the war, since Foucault seems to lean toward the "war of all against all" notion. Power flows simultaneously in different directions and different volumes according to the various forms of "power relations" in the "network" of power exchange.
Each society creates a "regime of truth" according to its beliefs, values, and mores. Foucault identifies the creation of truth in contemporary western society with five traits: the centering of truth on scientific discourse, accountability of truth to economic and political forces, the "diffusion and consumption" of truth via societal apparatuses, the control of the distribution of truth by "political and economic apparatuses," and the fact that it is "the issue of a whole political debate and social confrontation." Individuals would do well to recognize that ultimate truth, "Truth," is the construct of the political and economic forces that command the majority of the power within the societal web. There is no truly universal truth at all; therefore, the intellectual cannot convey universal truth. The intellectual must specialize, specify, so that he/she can be connected to one of the truth-generating apparatuses of the society.
Because of this, Foucault sees "the political problems of intellectuals not in terms of 'science' and 'ideology,' but in terms of 'truth' and 'power.'" The question of how to deal with and determine truth is at the base of political and social strife.

A few comments:
Well, his power relation theory is very interested concept. I almost agree with all of his opinion. What he sparked is happened in reality because his theory based on his research almost entire his life. However, after thinking of his though more deeply, I find negative effect of his theory.
I remember a mythos said a supernatural person will be loose by his own weapon. I try to apply this mythos to his theory. Finally, what he sparked will be boomerang for himself. He said truth is only construction of society regime so there is no universal truth. This will take effect an understanding that truth is nothing but only power of regime. Therefore someone will free to do what they want even criminality. I can’t imagine if all of people in this world follow his thought. There are no more values and morality although there are some moral people. I think not all his theory could be applied in reality. Maybe it’s only a discourse to remember us that what we call by truth is relative and could be changed. Tweet Follow @tirtanirwana