Foucault & Butler: Power & Performativity in Social Governance - Essay Sample

Introduction

Foucault's preoccupation in much of his philosophical career was acknowledging the ways in which meaning was engraved in the subjects through social governing. Typically, Foucault was troubled by how power shaped discourses and people's identities. The writings of Foucault display's power as a negative influence in his work. On the other hand, Butler was more concerned with how performativity was to do with speech acts accounting for bodily construction than it does with concrete embodied practices (Brighenti, 2011). Both Foucault and Butler brilliantly illustrate the first aspects of the politics where they see individuals as an effect of power that outlines the gender and sexual identity in subordinating approaches. Although there are certain differences between their works. Butler utilizes Foucault's insights to develop her subjectivity theory. This paper aims to explore and compare Butler's and Foucault's theories of resistance.

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Foucault Theory on Resistance

Foucault's theory on resistance was based on the notion that where there is power, there is resistance. Technically, power coercive in the sense of direct threat of violence, meaning that it must be acknowledged as an asymmetrical sense of correlation where the existence of this abundance of associations brings out the prospect of resistance. Foucault explains this deep-rooted probability of resistance as locatable within the tactical turnaround of local conflicts, which, as maintained by the rule of double-conditioning, it can have effects beyond merely local and thus within the plan displayed. The analysis of Foucault leads to a conception of resistance in which it is the probability of a turnaround within particular force correlation, the contestation of certain objects, and the enforcement of power on the subjects that is primary to the creative prospects for resistance within the bounds of power.

Fundamentally, the problem in this manifestation of power and defiance is that it becomes entirely reactive to this framework or solely a reaction to power and not a productive action on its terms. Foucault's primary concern was mainly based on how individuals can have a productive way of resisting, which does not wheel around to reaction or refutation. In answering this question, Foucault concentrated on the roots of national socialism by investigating what he termed as biopower. Conversely, the notion of a non-fascistic way of life was the guiding motive through the exploration of governmentality, technologies of the self, and the perspective of assessment. Foucault attempts to struggle with biopolitics, and national socialism should be acknowledged as the productive fruits of a parentage deepening of his exploration. Nonetheless, the precursory surveyance of the biopolitics does not prolong beyond the Christian era; however, during the Foucault's later lectures, his deepening research leads him to follow the roots of pastoral power and the Christian divulgence towards both the Greek and the roman technologies.

Ultimately, Foucault's account of power more clearly explains the central points of resistance within power itself. Power works by way of the structuration of attainable probable actions and the proportion of free agents, and this structuration is accomplished through government. The government therefore delegates the way in which the behavior of persons in the group can be managed so as they can be controlled in order to identify other individuals field of actions. Ideally, Foucault restructures the frameworks of resistance implied in his establishment of power, which is based on the differential, asymmetrical associations connecting forces that account for subject, strength, and resilience (Hull, 2016). In other words, since Foucault does not abandon the perspective of force correlation, he does embroil them and recast it by outlining that positive resistance is no longer solely reversal, but constitutes a subject's becoming a self-governing with an organized set of organizations and actions through subjective evaluation.

Butler's Theory on Resistance

In Butler's theory of resistance, she urges that in her dialogue that opposition demands that we be at risk and that one of the valid forms of resistance is one which endangered bodies are exposed in concurrence. Butler explains that vulnerable individuals may find strength and a way of being impervious against institutions. In order to make peaceful demonstrations, one must necessarily be vulnerable since public gatherings are jinxed by the police and also because of the prison concern. Furthermore, she argues that vulnerable individuals may find toughness and way of resisting paternalistic institutions. Consequently, the growth of detentions centres makes those persons involved in peaceful resistance be at risk of police viciousness. By advancing her pioneering perspective of gender performativity, she expounds that our vulnerability is double-edged in that we are not only unguarded as the proletariat in increasingly neoliberal administrations but also we are endangered by the symbolic systems which paved the way for our coming into existence and set up how we behave and connect with others and ourselves.

Precisely, since the indicative systems provide guidance and discipline our gender and other regards of our lives, we are able to resist consciously; hence we become vulnerable. Butler goes on to explain that our way of resistance should be to agree to the chains of defencelessness, which controls human existence, and to come together in vulnerability (Giuliano, 2015). Throughout Butler's survey, it can be acknowledged that her analysis bestows our analysis vulnerability as a position of solidity rather than fragility, of resistance rather than inactiveness.

Comparison Between Foucault and Butler's Theory

Butler's theory of resistance concentrated on people's vulnerability as a way of making people's voice be heard. On the other hand, Foucault's idea of resistance was completely based on people's behaviour and their authority struggles. Butler's concern on resistance was entirely built on the fact that our bodies are endangered and docile. Foucault was more concerned about the relation between power and resistance by drawing on three different power forms. He also went on presenting his arguments on sovereign power and disciplinary power, and lastly, biopower. On the flip side, Butler argued that people do not have to be affectionate to each other in order to engage in meaningful solidarity. She also explains that resistance demands that we be vulnerable so as to achieve the set objectives. Both Foucault and Butler brilliantly display the first outlook of the politics where they see people as an effect of power that outlines the gender and sexual identity in subordinating methods (Hull, 2016).

Conclusion

This thesis discusses the temporality of resistance with a specific objective on Foucault's and Butler's formulation of resistance. The resistance was somehow displayed in terms of counter-conducts and is showcased and detailed as resistance against authorities and the power of ramifications of authoritarian associations. Foucault explains resistance as a discursive occurrence and also the points that resistance that interacts with power. Butler's notion of resistance was based on people being vulnerable to the institution even though they might be endangered. Generally, by evaluating the perspective of the time when exploring the crossroads between power and resistance.

References

Brighten, A. (2011). Power, subtraction, and social transformation: Canetti and Foucault on the notion of resistance. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 12(1), 57-78. https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910x.2011.549331

Checchi, M. (2014). Spotting the Primacy of Resistance in the Virtual Encounter of Foucault and Deleuze. Foucault Studies, 197-212. https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v0i18.4660

Giuliano, F. (2015). (Re)thinking education with Judith Butler: A necessary meeting between philosophy and education (interview with Judith Butler). Encounters in Theory And History Of Education, 16, 183-199. https://doi.org/10.24908/eoe-ese-rse.v16i0.5972

Hull, G. (2016). Cynical Neoliberalism: Foucault and the Limits of Ethical Resistance. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2802249