Blog Assignment Three
Foucault's Power as Productive, was one theory that I had an easier time understanding, agreeing with, and that I think still applies well today. Foucault says that "power is neutral," which means that it isn't inherently good or bad. It can be used for both exploiting and helping. Also, he says that power isn't necessarily top down in every situation and is more bottom up. Power is everywhere and is produced through knowledge, in turn, creating more knowledge. Unlike Marx, power isn't always created from economic or social systems. It is created by the people and generated through the ways we use and understand it. We use "discourses" to determine how we interpret and identify things; using them to understand and label what is good vs. bad, normal vs. abnormal, which in turn is giving certain people power over others. Even though Foucault believes people generate the power, he still thinks that there are certain parameters and norms created by structures and that media, schools, politics, etc. effect the way we act.
In our western society today, we must have things labeled, identified, and documented. This is how Foucault says that we are producing power and reinforcing norms. Like the example in the article we read, we operate by diagnosing everything. If someone is abnormal, they must have some sort of disorder, disease, or disability, in which case we must question, label, and treat them accordingly. This gives the normal power over the abnormal once labeled that way, and the one who labeled the abnormal power over them as well to use in future cases. This is also an example of how knowledge produced more power and knowledge.
This effects the way we live our daily lives. Since power is "contextual," according to Foucault, it is constantly changing depending on the situation, the context around us. We act according to the things we've learned and the situations we put ourselves in, giving certain others power over us or vice versa. For example, in early times, if a girl was in school she may not raise her hand in class because this wasn't something girls should do, therefore giving boys power over her. Now a girl may still give a boy power over her, but probably more likely in a social setting, letting him look more intelligent or witty as to come off more attractive to the boy.