Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2003 15:23:50 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [HAB:] Power


re: Ali, "Foucault and Habermas"


--- Ali Rizvi <ali_m_rizvi-AT-hotmail.com> wrote:

> Foucault said: "I do not think that a society can exist
without power relations, if by that one means the
strategies by which  individuals try to direct and control
the conduct of others. 

G: This is an instrumentalist sense of power. Legitimate
authority has power----such as what's vested in valid
elections---but the point of government is easily
conceivable as being about fostering social welfare, etc.,
rather than directing or controlling. In an important
sense, a teacher has power, but teaching (not to mention
education) isn't supposed to be about directing others and
control. We should want education to have power in society,
for the sake of social evolution. 

F> The problem, then, is not to try to dissolve [power
relations] in the utopia of completely transparent
communication....

G: Habermas would agree: He sees action as inherently
telelogical, distinct from strategical action; and he sees
strategical action as an important aspect of communicative
life (while distinguishing strategical action from
manipulative action), which is just practical, since you're
not going to get somewhere important (e.g., implement a
progressive program) without complex plans and strategical
action which actualizes the intent of plans. 

F> ... but to acquire the rules of law, the management
techniques, and also the morality, the ethos, the practice
of the self, ....

G: Habermas might agree, though law is not basically about
acquiring rules; it's about validly forming law which
*entail* rules (e.g., the U.S. Congress writes statutes,
and the Executive forms rules that implement the letter and
intent of the legislation. The judiciary monitors the
fidelity of rules to the respective law.)

F> ....that will allow us to play these games of power with
as little domination as possible"(298).

G: Foucault is back to instrumentalism. Legitimate power is
not a game. It's a mandate to formulate and implement
projects for the good of the order. You could say that, for
example, architecture is a "game", but that would be false;
*engineering* carries out a game plan, but the
planning---the design---realizes a complex of values and
options that serve real needs and desires. The realm of
real needs and desires is not a game space; it's a human
world. 
 
Gary





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