Notes: Various essays, Michel Foucault (A) THE HISTORY OF SEXUALITY: 2.

METHOD
-POWER: nature, form, unity X-not group of institutions/mechanisms that ensure subservience X-not mode of subjugation, in contrast to violence, has the form of rule X-not general system of domination by one group over another in a social body -the analysis of power must not assume these forms as given from the outset

-Power must be understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization
O-as the process which, through ceaseless struggles and confrontations, transforms, strengthens or reverses them O-as the support which these force relations find in one another, thus forming a chain or a system, or on the contrary, the disjunctions and contradictions which isolate them from one another O-as the strategies in which they take effect -whose general design or institutional crystallization is embodied in the state apparatus, in the formulation of the law, in the various social hegemonies -it is the moving substrate of force relations which, by virtue of their inequality, constantly engender states of power, but the latter are always local and unstable
substrate : a substance or layer that underlies something, or on which some process occurs

-the omnipresence of power: Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes

from everywhere
-Power is permanent, repetitious, inert, and self-reproducing -simply the overall effect that emerges from all these mobilities -concatenation that rests on each of them and seeks in turn to arrest their movement
concatenate link (things) together in a chain or series: some words may be concatenated, such that certain sounds are omitted. ORIGIN late 15th cent. (as an adjective): from late Latin concatenat- linked together, from the verb concatenare, from con- together + catenare, from catena chain.

-Power is not an institution, structure, nor a strength we are endowed with -it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society -multiplicity of force relations can be codedin part but never totallyeither in the form of war or in the form of politics PROPOSITIONS: 1-power is not something acquired, seized, or shared -power is exercised from innumerable points 2-relations of power are not in a position of exteriority with respect to other types of relation ships -are immanent in the later -they are immediate effects of the divisions, inequalities, and disequilibriums which occur in the latter -are internal conditions of these differentiations -they have a directly productive role, wherever they come into play 3-power comes from bellow -no binary and all encompassing opposition between rulers and ruled -comes from society in general -major dominations are the hegemonic effects that are sustained by all these confrontations 4-power relations are both intentional and non-subjective -there is no power that is exercised without a series of aims and objectives -this does not mean that it results from the choice or decision of an individual subject - the rationality of power is characterized by tactics that are often quite explicit at the restricted level where they are inscribed -tactics, which, becoming connected to one another, attracting and propagating one another, but finding their base of support and their condition elsewhere, end by forming a comprehensive system 5-where there is power there is resistance, consequently this resistance is never exterior in relation to power -Power Relationships: their existence depends on a multiplicity of points of resistance -these points of resistance are present everywhere in the power network -no soul of revolts, source of all rebellions -plurality of resistances, each one a special case -they are the odd term in relation to power, as an irreducible opposite -mobile and transitory points of resistance, producing cleavages in society that shift about -fracturing unities and effecting regroupings

-Machiavelli was among the few who conceived of the power of the Prince through terms of force relationships -one step farther: do without the persona of the prince, and decipher power mechanisms on the basis of a strategy that is immanent in force relationships -indeed maybe you could say this in general of the aim of all Foucault's work

4 RULES TO FOLLOW: cautionary perscriptions

(1)Rule of Immanence -if sexuality was constituted as an are of investigation, it was only because relations of power had established it as a possible object -if power was able to take it as a target, it was because techniques of knowledge and procedures of discourse were capable of investing it -between techniques of knowledge and strategies of power, there is no exteriority - local centers of power-knowledge (2)Rules of continual variations -we must not look for who has the power in the order of sexuality -we must seek the pattern of modifications which the relationships of force imply by the very nature of their process -the distribution of power and the appropriations of knowledge -Relations of power-knowledge are not static forms of distribution, they are matrices of transformations (3)Rule of double conditioning -no local center no pattern of transformation could function if, through a series of sequences, it did not eventually enter into an over-all strategy. -no strategy could achieve comprehensive effects if it did not gain support from precise and tenuous relations serving not as its point of application or final outcome, but as its prop and anchor point -no discontinuity or homogeneity between them -one must conceive of a double conditioning of a strategy by the specificity of possible tactics, and of tactics by the strategic envelope that makes them work -the family does not duplicate society, just as society does not imitate the family (4)Rule of the tactical polyvalence of discourses -it is in discourse that power and knowledge are joined together -we must conceive discourse as a series of discontinuous segments whose tactical function is neither uniform nor stable -a multiplicity of discursive elements that can come into play in various strategies -discourse transmits and produces power; it reinforces it, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and makes it possible to thwart it. -silence and secrecy are a shelter for power, anchoring its prohibitions;but also loosen its holds and provide for relatively obscure areas of tolerance -there is not, on the one side, a discourse of power, and opposite it, another discourse that runs counter to it -discourses are tactical elements or blocks operating in the field of force relationships -they can circulate without changing their form from one strategy to another, opposing strategy -force relationships which for a long time had found expression in war, in every form of warfare, gradually became invested in the order of political power.