Quotes from the Mesh of Power - Michel
Foucault
In their work, they still continue to regard the
signified of power, the central point, that in which
power consists, as prohibition, law, the act of
saying
no, and above all, the figure or expression: “You
must not.” Power is essentially those who say, “You
must not.”
What was the problem that always reappeared, that
was perpetually re-elaborated? The problem of
prohibition, essentially the prohibition of incest.
And,
from this matrix, from this kernel that would be the
prohibition of incest, one attempted to understand
the general functioning of the system
...with the work of Clastres4, for example, a whole
new conceptualization of power as technology,...
In other words, the West never had another system of representation, expression
or analysis of power aside from that of rights.....
elementary, fundamental, etc. ideas which are those of law, rule, sovereign,
commission, etc.
I believe that we must now free ourselves from this juridical
conception of power – this conception of power derived from the law and
sovereign, from the rule and prohibition – if we wish to proceed towards
an
analysis of the real functioning of power, rather than its mere
representation
I will attempt, with regard to sexuality, not to
conceive of power from the juridical point of view,
but from the technological...
Consequently, economic processes, diverse
mechanisms, which in a certain way remained
outside control, required the establishment of a
continuous, minute power, in a certain atomizing
fashion; from a lacunal, global power to a
continuous, atomic, and individualizing power: that
everyone, each individual in and of himself, in his
body, in his movements, could be controlled, in the
place of total and mass controls.
...this second necessity: finding a power mechanism
such that, at the same time that it controlled things
and persons right down to the most minute detail,
it
would neither be expensive nor essentially
predatory
on society, that it would, on the contrary, be
exercised through the economic processes
themselves...(and this became the family).
On the one hand, there was this technology that I
will call “discipline.” Discipline is basically the
mechanism of power by which we come to exert
control in the social body right down to the finest
elements, by which we succeed in grabbing hold of
the social atoms themselves, which is to say
individuals. Techniques for the individualization of
power. How to monitor [surveiller] someone, how to
control his conduct, his behavior, his aptitudes, how
to intensify his performance, multiply his capacities,
how to put him in a place where he will be most
useful: this is what I mean by discipline.
what I will name the individualizing technology of
power, a technology that basically targets
individuals right down to their bodies, their
behaviors; it is grosso modo a kind of political
anatomy, an anatomo-politics, an anatomy that
targets individuals to the point of anatomizing them.
...but, rather, power must be exercised over
individuals insofar as they constitute a kind of
biological entity that must be taken into
consideration if we actually want to use this
population as a machine for producing, for
producing
wealth and goods, for producing other individuals...
...sex is situated very precisely at the point of
articulation between the individual disciplines of the
body and the regulations of population. Sex is that
through which one can assure the surveillance of
individuals, and we understand why in the 18th
century, and precisely in secondary schools,
adolescent sexuality became a medical problem, a
moral problem, nearly a political problem of the
highest importance, because, through – and under
the pretext of – this control of sexuality, one could
monitor high schoolers, adolescents, over the
course
of their lives, at each instant, even during their
sleep
Sex is the lever between anatomo-politics and bio-
politics; it is at the juncture of disciplines and
regulations, and it is in this function that it became,
at the end of the 19th century, a political
component of the utmost importance for making
society into a machine of production.
...whereas, using the concept of the forbidden –
which, in a certain sense, is more or less isomorphic
to every society – we couldn’t do a history of
sexuality.
...we live in a society which is in the process of no
longer being a juridical society. Juridical society was
the monarchical society. From the 19th century
onward, in societies which appear as societies of
rights, with parliaments, legislatures, codes, courts,
an entirely different mechanism of power was
beginning to seep in, which did not follow juridical
forms and which did not have the law as its
fundamental principle, but instead had the principle
of the norm, but instead, medicine, social controls,
psychiatry, psychology. We are therefore in a
disciplinary world.
This is because we live in a society where crime is
no longer simply and essentially a transgression of
the law, but rather a deviation in relation to a norm.
I believe that the way in which the sexuality of
children was made into a fundamental problem for
the bourgeois family during the 19th century
provoked and made possible a great number of
controls over the family, over parents, over
children,
and created at the same time a whole series of new
pleasures: the pleasure of parents in monitoring
children, the pleasure of children in playing with
their own sexuality, against their parents and with
their parents, an entirely new economy of pleasure
around the body of the child. We needn’t
necessarily
say that parents, out of some sort of masochism,
self-identify with the law…
___________________________________
DUSTY has fictionalized the essential work of
Foucault on this subject, allowing us to more deeply
understand continental philosophy upon which the
thought of the western world rests on today. Bella's
dilemma is that she is tightly caught in a very fine
mesh of the disciplinary judicial Discourse of
power,
while
Alice
and Edward are caught in a very loose mesh of
power based on norms. Bella understands their
position but they
cannot understand how tightly she is trapped by
the
law of 18 as legal enfranchisement.
When the secret is exposed Alice and Edward
discuss how Bella/Bliss has lied to them both and
their judgement is based on morality and trust
issues. They are completely unaware of the
Foucauldian Grid of
power/knowledge/capital/normality while Bliss is
acutely aware of them. Bliss is forced to "split" to
experience a double self. She feels her true self is
the self she experiences with Edward, but Dusty
has her in his own mesh of power which she is
unaware of, simply replicating the one from her
family.
Her assumed highly controlled alternative self,
Isabella Bliss, is a LIE. She must keep the secret,
the LIE, to experience what she believes is her
TRUE
self, so the lies she must tell to protect "her true
self" must negate the LIE of her "pretend" self,
which is a LIE,
involving her
in a double negation to establish her own truth,
which threatens
to break her and melt her down.
To quote Jean Baudrillard on this:"Children
play a double game. They are in fact children,
but they do not BELIEVE they are children
and
so they play a double-game," which is what
we see Bella doing in DUSTY.
Edward is in a different situation. Since the secret is
forbidden in a more surface awareness of incest, he
experiences guilt, because the constraints are his
own based primarily in the beginning on her tender
age and the incest taboo. He begins to wish for an
open relationship with
Bella as she is now old enough that he feels it will
be perceived as normal.
The two parental strategies are diametrically
opposed and they mirror the reality of this in our
present culture. Extreme control leads to
transgression and seduction and no or little control
leads to trying to find limits where there are none
and
guilt. But the transgressor has the advantage of
awareness and consciousness of existential choice,
but Edward, who has been seduced by "his little
sister" can only experience guilt and secrecy which
he tries to
alleviate with cocaine.
This is a complex fanfiction with exceptionally
sophisticated themes, and shocking implications
that are arousing unconscious fantasies among
readers who are responding with rage, unconscious
rage. Many prefer the innocuous fanfics that follow
the easy template of plot turns and superficial
understanding that are easy to grasp and require
no serious emotional probing of self.
The neo-liberalism of Esme and Carlisle leaves this
loosely constructed mesh which does not prepare
their children for the constraints they will meet,
while Charlie and Renee bind their daughter and
doom her to a restricted, disciplined future life.
And this may be the reason for the polarizing
response to this story. The psychological incest is
revealed and concealed by the fact that Edward and
Bella are not blood relatives, but is that really the
issue in incest taboo. A genealogy of the incest
taboo reveals that it arose when woman were
considered as objects to be exchanged for affiliation
with another group, so the original incest taboo was
between brother and sister NOT father/mother and
children. And this has morphed into criminal
abnormal behavior when no exchange is the
issue anymore. I am sure the parental modes of
parenting are arousing deeply disturbing feelings.
This is good. This is what reading is supposed to do
for the reader.
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| Dusty's Cover for Publication |
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19214578-innocents
Is Liberty Ross parodying Kristen's Wearing Rob's T-Shirt ? 
