Foucault and the Elephant
25 May 2010
Foucault is kicking my ass. I can't tell if this is because I legitimately do not understand Foucault, because Foucault and I think differently, or because I think differently than everyone else in my class and it's throwing me off the scent.
This is, of course, something that every academic experiences and I probably shouldn't fret about it too terribly, but figuring out how to understand other people when they are speaking another language is part of the job and it pisses me off when I can't do it. Usually this is a fascinating and enjoyable part of the challenge. I'm infinitely intrigued, for instance, by the very different ways that all my colleagues have for going about writing, because I think it reveals something fundamental about the way their minds process information. Or that some people are really expert at identifying all the moving parts of an argument, where others are good at separating the parts that matter from the parts that don't, or that still others have an especial knack for anticipating the implications of an argument. And I love when they do it and you see where they're going with something and all of a sudden they make a thing clear that you would never have thought of on your own, because your own particular way of doing something is better at X than their Y.
But there is this one thing that I absolutely cannot grapple with, and that is when people suss out all the fine little details and individuals parts of a concept or argument without first identifying what the argument is! I liken this to the old parable about the blind men and the elephant, where each of them has a different part of the elephant and describes the particular part, but none of them knows what the elephant itself is or what it does, nor do they understand how the parts fit together. I feel like this every time I go to class on Foucault, with everyone talking about the trunk and the tail and the feet, but we never actually identified that we're talking about an elephant or understood what an elephant is. Maybe some people are actually good at thinking this way (or maybe they already know Foucault and so the point of his elephant is already known and taken for granted by everyone but me), but I simply cannot make heads or tusks of a single class discussion and they inevitably leave me doubting that I understood the reading, even though the night before it seemed just fine.
This happens to me every class (and I do mean every), but there was an especially pronounced moment today where the class somehow ended up discussing whether, in a situation where a person has two choices (they are plea bargaining and they can either go to jail for 4 years or 10 years), the ethical/resisting position would be to refuse the plea bargain and go to trial, thereby gumming up the system, or whether it would be simply to take the plea bargain. This hinged on whether the resisting position was a dramaturgical act. Because, by this logic, it is performing, and it is choosing, that opens up a space for freedom.
Now, perhaps I have completely misunderstood Foucault, but this question does not even make sense to me at all given what I understand the larger overall project to be, or the foundational assumptions, or the situation itself. It seems to be assuming that any sort of action (acting, drama, statement of truth) is ethical and thereby free. Which I guess would make sense taken wholly out of context (though even out of context concocting such a question seems inexplicable to me?) or if one were to conflate choice with freedom. But given the things I thought I did know, I do not see how we even went down this road. Let us consider, first, the foundational claim that power is a form of mastery. How does one achieve mastery? By controlling what happens. Well, if one knows everything, has infinite knowledge, then they can control all outcomes—if one removes all uncertainty and can make things happen exactly as one desires—then one is masterful. The state of subjugation or slavery, as opposed to this, is a state in which one does not have the ability to exert such control. The outcome of events is out of one's hands. This can come about either because one has no knowledge at all and does not know how to make things happen to desired effect, or because the options in front of one are wholly outside of control. A slave, for instance, might be given choices, but those outcome of those choices, and the choices themselves, are already predetermined by the master. There is neither control on the part of the slave nor uncertainty on the part of the master concerning the outcome (choose A or B, either way I know what will happen to you).
Within such a system as the plea bargain, then, I see no way whatsoever in which the "choice" presented equates to freedom. Not even a little wiggle room, frankly. Choice and freedom are not the same, though it is the brilliance of such a system that it could make them appear as though they were.
Well, then, what might Foucault actually be trying to tell us about this question? What would a free or ethical situation look like? Here I think is where the concept of drama comes into play, but only if you consider it connected to truth, and not as completely separate things, as we were trying to do in class. First, truth. Foucault seems (seems) to be trying to find a way in which truth telling can be a way of finding ethics, but given the above foundational points, we should be very wary of saying that absolute truth as is constitutes a way out of the power dilemma. It was, after all, the ability to have absolute truth that gives one absolute control. So having the slave reclaim total truth for himself just turns him into the master, which is a decidedly unethical position. So Foucault cannot sensibly want us to keep striving for truth.
So now we can ask what relation, what pattern, or similarity, or whatever, is there that connects truth to drama? Let's think GRE analogies here. Truth is power because it shuts down all options and removes uncertainty. It is a stopping point. It is the end in other words. But drama is acting. It is means or, better yet, action. It is always unfinished. It is in the present. It also, by definition then, cannot know the outcome. It requires a level of uncertainty to remain definable as dramaturgy. So Foucault is not speaking here of "performativity" in the shallow way we use it today. He is talking about a very rich and deep action in which one retains, not the guarantee, but the possibility of altering the outcome of events.
The example of the plea bargain is an example of the most craven understanding of freedom imaginable, the kind of freedom that a performing monkey has (you can dance this way for your supper or you can dance that way for your supper, but just so long as you dance). So, then, is the court itself. The master is not any freer that the slave, because, in knowing and controlling everything, he has no possibility for meaningful action. His own actions are just as predetermined by his total knowledge as are the slave's, because nothing will happen which he does not already forsee. The key, then, is not merely choosing. The key is not merely telling the truth. And the key is not merely performing. Freedom involves doing all of those things so that they work together simultaneously and in harmony. None can do all the work of being an elephant by itself, or it becomes a grotesque and deformed thing that cannot be called an elephant at all.