blog 3 yo.
Foucault’s theory on power I believe to be more universal than both Deleuze and Marx, and Johnson’s and Plumwood’s articles are applications of Foucault’s work. Foucault posits that power is discursive, which means that by referring to our cultural sites of knowledge and learning (school institutions, the media, the arts, etc), we inadvertently create power structures. The way that we talk about things, and the institutions we build surrounding what we know eventually become natural, or the “norm,� which leads to the “abnorm.� This relationship is one governed by power.
Also, the more we learn, the more discourses we make, which is followed by the normalizing of that knowledge, which creates more power structures.
Another important aspect of Foucault’s theory is that the structures of power are contextual, and therefore more fluid that one would think. Because power is tied with the production of knowledge, each time we refer discourses, we also create more. For example, the oversimplified, loose outline I am explaining here on Foucault’s theory of power is creating a discourse in itself. The discourse I am creating, when posted on the blog and read in conjunction with everyone else’s posts, will create a completely different discourse, just because of the context that it is in.
Foucault’s theory is more universal because it is inescapable. We will always try to further understand our world, and therefore always create discourses. I think of this in terms of gender by the way Butler describes we “perform� our gender. In our bodies we are creating sites for the discourse of male or female. We refer to one another in order to describe our gender more thoroughly. It is inescapable, because we are constantly referring to what is around us to define how we are. But all is not lost! While this can perpetuate gender dichotomy, there is also room for change. I truly believe that the norms of our culture are transforming. Foucault says discourse is contextual, which means the more we create discourse that promotes gender equality, the more the power structure will shift.