MICHEL

FOUCAULT

"Society Must Be
L E C T U R E S AT T H E C O L L E G E 1975-76

Defended"
DE FRANCE,

Edited b y M a u r o Bertani and Alessandro Fontana General Editors: Francois Ewald and Alessandro Fontana

English Series Editor: Arnold 1. Davidson

TRANSLATED

BY D A V I D

MACEY

PICADOR NEW YORK

"SOCIETY MUST BE DEFENDED". Copyright 1 9 9 7 by Editions de Seuil/Gallimard. Edition established, under the direction of Francois Ewald and Alessandro Fontana, by Mauro Bertani. Translation copyright '0 2 0 0 3 by David Macey. Introduction copyright 2 0 0 3 by Arnold I. Davidson. A l l rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 1 0 0 1 0 .

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10

CONTENTS

Foreword: Francois Ewald and Alessandro

Fontana

Introduction:

A r n o l d I. D a v i d s o n

one

7 JANUARY

1976

What is a lecture? - Subjugated knowledges. of struggles, genealogies, at stake in genealogies.

- Historical

knowledge

and scientific discourse. - Power, or what is - Juridical and economic conceptions of Clausewit^s

power. - Power as repression and power as war. aphorism inverted.

two

14 J A N U A R Y

1976

War and power. - Philosophy

and the limits of power. - Law and and subjugation. - Analytics of Disciplinary

royal power. - Law, domination,

power: questions of method. - Theory of sovereignty. power. - Rule and norm.

three

21 J A N U A R Y

1976

Theory of sovereignty and operators of domination.

- War as

analyser of power relations. - The binary structure of society. - Historico-political discourse, the discourse of perpetual

war. - The dialectic and its codifications. - The discourse of race struggle and its transcriptions.

VI

Contents 28JANUARY 1976 Historical discourse and its supporters. - The counterhistory of race struggle. - Roman history and biblical history. Revolutionary 65

four

discourse. - Birth and transformations State racism: the Na%i transformation

of racism. - Race purity and and the Soviet transformation. 87 - Hobbes on war and

five

4 FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6 Answer to a question on anti-Semitism. sovereignty.

- The discourse on the Conquest in England: royalists, and Levellers. - The binary schema and political

parliamentarians,

historicism. - What Hobbes wanted to eliminate.

six

11 F E B R U A R Y

1976

115

Stories about origins. - The Trojan myth. - France's heredity. - "Franco-Gallia." - Invasion, history, and public

right. - National dualism. - The knowledge of the prince. - Boulainvilliers's "Etat de la France." - The clerk, the

intendant, and the knowledge of the aristocracy. - A new subject of history. - History and constitution.

seven

1 8 FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6 Nation and nations. - The Roman conquest. - Grandeur and decadence of the Romans. - Boulainvilliers on the freedom of the

141

Germans. - The Soissons vase. - Origins of feudalism. right, and the language of State. - Boulainvilliers: generalisations three

- Church,

about war: law of history and law of nature, the - Remarks on war.

institutions of war, the calculation of forces.

eight

2 5 FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6 Boulainvilliers and the constitution of a hislorico-political

167

continuum. - Historicism. - Tragedy and public right. - The central administration of history. - The problematic of the Enlightenment

and the genealogy disciplinary

of knowledges. - The four operations of

knowledge and their effects. - Philosophy and knowledges.

science. - Disciplining

Contents nine 3 M A R C H 1976 Tactical generalisation Revolution, of historical knowledge. Constitution,

vii 189

and cyclical history. - The savage and the

barbarian. - Three ways of filtering barbarism: tactics of historical discourse. - Questions of method: the epistemologicalfield antihistoricism of the bourgeoisie. during the Revolution. - Reactivation and the

of historical discourse

- Feudalism and the gothic novel.

ten

10

MARCH

1976

215

The political reworking of the idea of the nation during the Revolution: Sieyes. - Theoretical implications and effects on historical discourse. - The new history's grids of intelligibility: domination and totalisation. - Montlosier and Augustin Thierry. - Birth of the dialectic.

e l e v e n 17 M A R C H 1 9 7 6 From the power of sovereignty to power over life. - Make live and

2?9

let die. - From man as body to man as species: the birth of biopower. - Biopower's fields of application. - Population. death, and of the death of Franco in particular. - Of

- Articulations of

discipline and regulation: workers' housing, sexuality, and the norm. - Biopower and racism. - Racism: functions and domains. - Nazism. - Socialism.

Course Summary

265

Situating the Lectures: Alessandro Fontana Mauro Bertani

and 273

Index

295

FOREWORD

T H I S V O L U M E IS T H E first in a series devoted to the lectures g i v e n at the College de France b y M i c h e l Foucault.

M i c h e l Foucault taught at the College de France from J a n u a r y 1 9 7 1 u n til h i s death i n j u n e 1 9 8 4 w i t h the exception of 1 9 7 7 , w h e n he enjoyed a sabbatical y e a r . H i s chair w a s in the History of S y s t e m s of Thought. The chair w a s established on 3 0 N o v e m b e r 1 9 6 9 at the proposal of J u l e s V u i l l e m i n a n d in the course of a general m e e t i n g of the p r o fessors of the C o l l e g e de France. It replaced the chair in the H i s t o r y of Philosophical Thought, w h i c h w a s held u n t i l h i s death b y J e a n H y p p o l i t e . On 1 2 A p r i l 1 9 7 0 , the g e n e r a l m e e t i n g elected M i c h e l Foucault to the chair.' He w a s forty-three. M i c h e l Foucault gave h i s inaugural l e c t u r e on 2 December 1970.
2

Professors t e a c h i n g at the C o l l e g e de France w o r k u n d e r specific r u l e s . They are u n d e r an obligation to t e a c h for t w e n t y - s i x hours a y e a r ( u p

1 The candidacy presentation drawn up by Michel Foucault ends with the formula "[I]t would be necessarv to undertake the history of systems of thought." "Titres et travaux," in Dits et e'crits, ed. Daniel Defert and Francois Ewald (Paris: Gallimard), vol. 1, p. 846; trans.. "Candidacv Presentation: College de France," in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, ed. Paul Rabinow, The Essential Works of Michel Foucault, 7954-1984 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1 9 9 4 ) , vol. 1, p. 9. 2 It was published bv Editions Galhmard in March 1971 under the title VOrdre du discours. The English translation bv Rupert Swver, "Orders of Discourse," is appended to the Ll.S. edition of The Archaeology of Knowledge; it does not appear in Ll.K. editions.

Foreword
3

to half the hours can t a k e the form of s e m i n a r s ) . Each y e a r , they are r e q u i r e d to give an account of the original research that they have u n d e r t a k e n , w h i c h means that the content of their l e c t u r e s must a l w a y s be new. A n y o n e is free to attend the lectures and seminars; there is no enrollment, a n d no d i p l o m a s are r e q u i r e d . The professors do not a w a r d any diplomas." In the vocabulary of the College de France, its professors do not have students, b u t auditeurs or listeners.
1

M i c h e l Foucault gave his lectures on W e d n e s d a y s from the b e g i n ning of J a n u a r y to the end of M a r c h . The very large audience, made u p of students, teachers, researchers, and those w h o attended simply out of curiosity, m a n y of t h e m from abroad, filled two of the College de France's l e c t u r e t h e a t e r s . M i c h e l Foucault often complained a b o u t the distance t h i s could put b e t w e e n h i m a n d his " a u d i e n c e " and a b o u t the w a y the l e c t u r e format left so l i t t l e room for d i a l o g u e . He d r e a m e d of holding a seminar in w h i c h t r u l y collective w o r k could be done. He m a d e v a r i o u s a t t e m p t s to hold s u c h a seminar. In his last y e a r s , he d e v o t e d long p e r i o d s after his l e c t u r e s to a n s w e r i n g questions from his l i s teners. This is h o w G e r a r d Petitjean, a journalist on Le Nouvel captured the atmosphere: Observateur,
5

W h e n Foucault q u i c k l y enters the arena w i t h all the resolution of someone d i v i n g into the w a t e r , he scrambles over b o d i e s to get to his dais, pushes the microphones aside to put his papers down, t a k e s off his jacket, s w i t c h e s on a l a m p and t a k e s off at a h u n d r e d k i l o m e t e r s an hour. His loud, effective voice is r e l a y e d by l o u d s p e a k e r s , w h i c h are the sole concession to m o d e r n i t y i n a room t h a t is only d i m l y lit b y the l i g h t t h a t comes from t h e stucco l a m p - h o l d e r s . There are t h r e e h u n d r e d seats, and five

3 Michel Foucault did so until the earlv 1980s. 4 In the context ot the College de France. 5 In 1976, Michel Foucault changed the time ot his lecture from 5:45 P.M. to 9 : 0 0 A . M . in a vain attempt to reduce the numbers present. Cf. the beginning of the first lecture (7 Januarv 1 9 7 6 ) m the present volume.

Foreword h u n d r e d people are c r a m m e d into them, t a k i n g u p all the available space . . . No oratorical effects. It is lucid a n d e x t r e m e l y effective. Not the slightest concession to i m p r o v i s a t i o n . Foucault has t w e l v e h o u r s to e x p l a i n , i n a series of p u b l i c lectures, the m e a n i n g of the r e s e a r c h he has c a r r i e d out over the y e a r t h a t has just ended. So he c r a m s in as much as possible, and fills i n the m a r g i n s l i k e a l e t t e r w r i t e r w h o has too m u c h to say w h e n he has r e a c h e d t h e b o t t o m of the sheet. 19.15. Foucault stops. The s t u d e n t s rush to his desk. Not to t a l k to h i m , but to s w i t c h off t h e i r tape recorders. No questions. Foucault is alone i n the c r u s h . Foucault c o m m e n t s : " W e ought to be a b l e to d i s c u s s w h a t I have p u t f o r w a r d . Sometimes, w h e n the l e c t u r e has not been good, it w o u l d not t a k e a lot, a question, to put e v e r y t h i n g r i g h t . B u t the question never comes. In France, the g r o u p effect m a k e s all real discussion impossible. A n d as there is no feedback c h a n nel, the l e c t u r e becomes a sort of t h e a t r i c a l performance. I relate to the people w h o are there as though I w e r e an actor or an acrobat. A n d w h e n I have finished s p e a k i n g , t h e r e ' s this feeling of total s o l i t u d e . "
6

XI

M i c h e l Foucault a p p r o a c h e d his teaching as a researcher. H e e x p l o r e d p o s s i b i l i t i e s for books in p r e p a r a t i o n , o u t l i n e d fields of p r o b lematization, as though he w e r e h a n d i n g out invitations to potential researchers. That is w h y the lectures given at the C o l l e g e de France do not r e d u p l i c a t e the p u b l i s h e d books. They are not o u t l i n e s for b o o k s , even t h o u g h the books a n d the l e c t u r e s do sometimes have t h e m e s in common. They have a s t a t u s of t h e i r own. They b e l o n g to a specific discursive regime w i t h i n the s u m t o t a l of the "philosophical acts" performed b y M i c h e l Foucault. H e r e he q u i t e specifically outlines the p r o g r a m for a genealogy of the relations b e t w e e n p o w e r and k n o w l e d g e . From the early 1 9 7 0 s o n w a r d , it is this, and not the a r -

6 Gerard Petitjean, "Les Grands Pretres de i'universite fran^aise," Le Nouvel 7 April 1975.

Observatetir

Xll

Foreword

chaeology of discursive formations t h a t h a d previously b e e n h i s d o m inant concern, that p r o v i d e s the framework for his discussion of his own work.
7

The lectures also h a d a contemporary function. The auditeun

who

followed them w e r e not s i m p l y captivated by the narrative that w a s b e i n g constructed w e e k after w e e k ; they w e r e not s i m p l y seduced by the rigor of the exposition; they found that they w e r e also l i s t e n i n g to a commentary on c u r r e n t events. M i c h e l Foucault k n e w the secret of h o w to use history to cut through current events. He m i g h t w e l l have been s p e a k i n g of Nietzsche or Aristotle, of psychiatric a p p r a i s a l in the n i n e t e e n t h century or of C h r i s t i a n pastoralism, but h i s a u d i e n c e w a s also l e a r n i n g about the present day a n d contemporary events. It is t h i s subtle i n t e r p l a y a m o n g e r u d i t e scholarship, personal c o m m i t ment, a n d w o r k on c u r r e n t events that gives M i c h e l Foucault's l e c t u r e s their great p o w e r .

The 1 9 7 0 s saw the development a n d the refinement of cassette tape recorders. M i c h e l Foucault's lecture theater w a s q u i c k l y invaded by them. It is t h a n k s to t h e m that the lectures ( a n d some of the s e m i n a r s ) have b e e n preserved. This edition is based u p o n the w o r d s pronounced i n p u b l i c b y M i c h e l Foucault. It gives the most literal transcription possible. W e w o u l d h a v e l i k e d to p u b l i s h h i s w o r d s exactly as they w e r e spoken. But the transition from the oral to the w r i t t e n does r e q u i r e some editorial intervention. A t least some p u n c t a t i o n has to b e introduced, a n d p a r a g r a p h b r e a k s have to be a d d e d . The p r i n c i p l e has a l w a y s
8

7 Cf. in particular "Nietzsche, la genealogie, l'histoire," in Dits et krits, vol. 2, p. 137. English translation by Donald F. Brouchard and Sherry Simon, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History," in James Faubion, ed., Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, Volume 11 (London: Allen Lane, 1 9 9 8 ) , pp. 3 6 9 - 9 2 . 8 Particular use has been made of the recordings made by Gilbert Burlet and Jacques Lagrange. These have been deposited at the College de France and in the Fonds Michel Foucault held by Institut Memoires de l'Edition Contemporaine.

Foreword

xm

been to r e m a i n as close as possible to the lecture that w a s actually given. W h e n it seemed absolutely essential, r e p e t i t i o n s have been cut; sentences t h a t b r e a k off have been completed, a n d incorrect constructions have b e e n rectified. Ellipses indicate t h a t the tape recording i s i n a u d i b l e . In the case of obscure phrases, b r a c k e t s indicate a conjectural interpolation or addition. A s t e r i s k s indicate significant v a r i a t i o n s b e t w e e n the notes used b y M i c h e l Foucault a n d w h a t he a c t u a l l y said. Quotations have b e e n checked, a n d references to the texts used have been s u p p l i e d . The critical a p p a r a t u s is restricted to the e l u c i dation of obscure points, the e x p l a n a t i o n of c e r t a i n allusions, a n d the clarification of c r i t i c a l p o i n t s . For the r e a d e r ' s benefit, each l e c t u r e is p r e c e d e d b y a b r i e f s u m m a r y i n d i c a t i n g its m a i n a r t i c u l a t i o n s .

The t e x t of the lectures is followed b y the course s u m m a r y p u b l i s h e d in the Annuaire du College de France. M i c h e l Foucault u s u a l l y w r o t e h i s

course s u m m a r i e s in the m o n t h of J u n e , or in o t h e r w o r d s some t i m e after the end of h i s lecture course. He saw t h e m as an opportunity

to use the benefit of h i n d s i g h t to clarify his o w n intentions a n d objectives. They are the best introduction to the lectures. Each v o l u m e ends w i t h a " s i t u a t i o n " w r i t t e n b y the editor: this is designed to provide the reader w i t h contextual, biographical, i d e o logical, a n d p o l i t i c a l information t h a t s i t u a t e s the l e c t u r e s i n r e l a t i o n to M i c h e l F o u c a u l t ' s p u b l i s h e d w o r k s . It s i t u a t e s the l e c t u r e s in r e lation to the corpus used b y M i c h e l Foucault so as to facilitate a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g of it, to avoid m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g s , a n d to preserve the memory of the circumstances in w h i c h e a c h lecture w a s p r e p a r e d a n d delivered.

XIV

Forewo

rd

This edition of t h e lectures given at t h e College de France m a r k s a new stage in the publication of the " w o r k s " of M i c h e l Foucault. These are not u n p u b l i s h e d t e x t s i n the strict sense of the w o r d , as this edition r e p r o d u c e s words that were spoken in public by M i c h e l Foucault, b u t not the w r i t t e n a n d often very sophisticatedsupport he used. Daniel Defert, w h o o w n s M i c h e l Foucault's notes, has allowed the editors to consult t h e m . They are e x t r e m e l y grateful to him. This edition of the lectures given at the College de France has been a u t h o r i z e d b y M i c h e l Foucault's heirs, w h o w i s h e d to meet the great d e m a n d for t h e i r p u b l i c a t i o n both in France and abroad. They w i s h e d t h i s to be a serious u n d e r t a k i n g . The editors have a t t e m p t e d to prove themselves w o r t h y of the trust that has been placed in them.
FRANCOIS EWALD A N D ALESSANDRO FONTANA

INTRODUCTION

A r n o l d I. Davidson

T H I S V O L U M E I N A U G U R A T E S T H E E n g l i s h - l a n g u a g e p u b l i c a t i o n of

M i c h e l Foucault's e x t r a o r d i n a r y courses at t h e College de France. C l a u d e Levi-Strauss recounts that after he w a s elected to the C o l lege de France, an usher, w h o h a d g r o w n o l d in h i s job, t o o k h i m from room to room so that he could choose the room in w h i c h he w o u l d give h i s y e a r l y course. After L e v i - S t r a u s s h a d chosen a room the usher b l u n t l y w a r n e d h i m : " N o t that one!" to w h i c h L e v i - S t r a u s s expressed surprise:

"You see," [ t h e u s h e r ] e x p l a i n e d , " i t is laid out in such a w a y that in order to reach the rostrum y o u have to m a k e vour w a y t h r o u g h t h e entire audience, a n d , y o u have to do l i k e w i s e w h i l e leaving." "Does it really m a t t e r ? " I said. W h e r e u p o n he shot b a c k this response w i t h a p e r e m p t o r y look: "Someone could

s p e a k to you." I stood b y m y choice, b u t , in the t r a d i t i o n of t h e College, it is i n d e e d a m a t t e r of t h e professor dispensing h i s w o r d s , a n d not r e c e i v i n g t h e m or even e x c h a n g i n g them.'

A n d Levi-Strauss goes on to talk about t h e "mental concentration a n d nervous tension" involved in giving a course at the College de France.
2

In a 1975 i n t e r v i e w Foucault himself noted the strange p a r t i c u l a r i t y of "teaching" at the College de France, r e m a r k i n g that he l i k e d not having " t h e impression of teaching, that is, of exercising a relationship of p o w e r w i t h respect to an a u d i e n c e . " ' The traditional teacher first

m a k e s h i s audience feel g u i l t y for not k n o w i n g a certain n u m b e r of

XV)

Introduction;

Arnold

I.

Davidson

things they should k n o w ; then h e places the audience u n d e r the obligation to learn the things that he, the professor, k n o w s ; and, finally,

w h e n he has taught these things, he w i l l verify that the audience has i n d e e d l e a r n e d them. C u l p a b i h z a t i o n , obligation, a n d verification are the series of p o w e r relations exercised b y the t y p i c a l professor.'
1

But,

as Foucault points out, at the College de France, courses a r e open to anyone w h o w i s h e s to attend: "If it i n t e r e s t s him, he comes; if it doesn't interest him, he doesn't come."* A t the College a professor is p a i d to present his w o r k , and "it is u p to the a u d i e n c e to say or to show w h e t h e r or not it is interested":

In any case w h e n I am going to give m y courses at the College, I have stage fright (trac), absolutely, l i k e w h e n I took e x a m s ,

because I have the feeling that, really, people, the p u b l i c , come to verify my w o r k , to show that they are interested or not; if t h e y don't have an interested look, I a m v e r y sad, y o u k n o w .
6

N o w h e r e w e r e culpabihzation, obligation, a n d verification less present than in Foucault's lectures at the College de France, a n d the interested p u b l i c often gave w a y to an e x c i t e d , enthusiastic p u b l i c that made the v e r y idea of presenting lectures a difficult task. Rather than an a t m o s p h e r e of sadness, Foucault's courses p r o d u c e d a k i n d of frenzy, a frenzy of k n o w l e d g e , that w a s i n t e l l e c t u a l l y a n d socially electrifying. In an exceptional essay on Foucault, Gilles Deleuze has d i s t i n guished two dimensions of Foucault's w r i t i n g s : on the one hand, the lines of history, the a r c h i v e , Foucault's a n a l y t i c ; on the other, the l i n e s of the present, of w h a t is h a p p e n i n g now, F o u c a u l t ' s diagnostic: "In e v e r y a p p a r a t u s , w e have to disentangle the lines of the r e c e n t past a n d those of the future at h a n d . " A c c o r d i n g to Deleuze, the majority of Foucault's books establish " a precise archive w i t h e x c e e d i n g l y new historical m e a n s , " w h i l e in h i s i n t e r v i e w s and conversations, Foucault e x p l i c i t l y confronts the other half of his task, tracing lines of a c t u 8 7

alization that " p u l l us t o w a r d a future, t o w a r d a b e c o m i n g . "

Ana-

lytical strata a n d diagnostic contemporaneity are t w o essential poles of Foucault's entire w o r k . Perhaps nowhere more clearly than in Fou-

Introduction:

Arnold

I.

Davidson

xvn

cault's l e c t u r e s at the College de France do w e see the balancing, the alternation, a n d the o v e r l a p p i n g of these two poles. A t one and the same time, these lectures e x h i b i t Foucault's relentless erudition and his explosive force, g i v i n g further shape to that distinctive history of the present that so changed our t w e n t i e t h - c e n t u r y landscape.

One of the most emblematic, a n d often cited, lines of the first volume of Foucault's history of s e x u a l i t y , La Volonte de savoir, p u b l i s h e d in

1976, the year of this course, is the trenchant r e m a r k "In thought and political analysis w e have still not cut off the head of the k i n g . "
9

In

s t u d y i n g the historico-political discourse of w a r in this course, Foucault s h o w s us one w a y to detach ourselves from the philosophicoj u n d i c a l discourse of sovereignty and the l a w that has so dominated our thought and political a n a l y s i s . In an i m p o r t a n t lecture g i v e n i n Brazil in 1 9 7 6 , and unfortunately still not translated into English, Foucault underscores his claim that "the West has never h a d another s y s t e m of representation, of formulation, and of a n a l y s i s of p o w e r t h a n that of the l a w , the s y s t e m of the l a w . "
1 0

M a n y of F o u c a u l t ' s w r i t i n g s ,

lectures, and i n t e r v i e w s of the m i d - to late 1 9 7 0 s are responses to this conceptual impasse, are a t t e m p t s to a r t i c u l a t e alternative w a y s of a n a l y z i n g power. Foucault's concern d u r i n g this period w a s both w i t h the r e p r e s e n tation of power and w i t h the actual functioning of power. The focus of this 1 9 7 6 course is on one a l t e r n a t i v e c o n c e p t u a l i z a t i o n of power, a mode of thought that a n a l y z e s p o w e r r e l a t i o n s in t e r m s of the model of w a r , that looks for the p r i n c i p l e of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y of politics in the general form of w a r . Foucault himself, discussing the use of the notion of " s t r u g g l e " in c e r t a i n political discourses, posed the following q u e s tion:

[ S j h o u l d one, or should one not, analyze these " s t r u g g l e s " as the vicissitudes of a w a r , should one d e c i p h e r them according to a g r i d w h i c h w o u l d be one of strategy and tactics? Is the

XVI1]

Introduction:

Arnold

I.

Davidson

relation of forces i n t h e order of p o l i t i c s a relation of w a r ? Personally, I do not feel myself ready for the moment to respond in a definitive w a y w i t h a y e s or no."

"Society

Must Be Defended"

i s Foucault's most concentrated a n d d e t a i l e d

historical e x a m i n a t i o n of the model of w a r as a g r i d for a n a l y z i n g politics. If t h i s course is an answer to t h e question of w h o first thought of politics as w a r c o n t i n u e d by other m e a n s , w e must p u t it in the context of the d e v e l o p m e n t of F o u c a u l t ' s o w n thought w i t h respect to this s u b s t a n t i v e c l a i m . If i n 1975, just before the l e c t u r e s p u b l i s h e d here, Foucault seemed himself to t a k e u p the c l a i m that p o l i t i c s is the continuation of w a r b y other m e a n s ,
12

by 1 9 7 6 , just after t h i s course,

Foucault h a d subtly b u t significantly modified his o w n a t t i t u d e :

Should one then t u r n around the formula a n d say that p o l i t i c s is w a r p u r s u e d b y other m e a n s ? Perhaps if one w i s h e s a l w a y s to m a i n t a i n a difference b e t w e e n w a r a n d politics, one s h o u l d suggest rather that this m u l t i p l i c i t y of force-relations can be codedin p a r t a n d never t o t a l l y e i t h e r in the form of " w a r " or i n the form of " p o l i t i c s " ; there w o u l d be here t w o different strategies ( b u t r e a d y to tip over into one another ^ for i n t e g r a t ing these
1

unbalanced,

heterogeneous,

unstable, tense

force-

relations. '

As

this quotation m a k e s clear, Foucault's preoccupation w i t h the

schema of w a r w a s central to h i s formulation of the strategic model of p o w e r , of force-relations, a s t r a t e g i c model that w o u l d a l l o w u s to reorient our conception of p o w e r . A l t h o u g h it is w i d e l y recognized that the articulation of this s t r a tegic m o d e l w i t h its notions of force, struggle, w a r , tactics, strategy, et ceterais one of the major achievements of Foucault's thought d u r ing t h i s time, the full scope a n d significance of this model has not b e e n fully appreciated. A l t h o u g h a full s t u d y of the e m e r g e n c e of t h i s

Introduction:

Arnold

1.

Davidson

xix

strategic model in Foucault's w o r k w o u l d have to begin w i t h t e x t s w r i t t e n no later t h a n 1 9 7 1 , his course s u m m a r y p u b l i s h e d here leaves no doubt that the e x a m i n a t i o n of the historico-political discourse of war w a s an essential stage i n the formulation of a model of analysis that is presented at greatest l e n g t h i n part h of La Volonte de savoir.
H

Rather than trace the c h a n g i n g forms of this model, I want at least to outline a few aspects of it that deserve further attention i n the study of Foucault's w r i t i n g s d u r i n g t h i s period. In La Volonte de savoir, Foucault's strategic model t a k e s as its most

central field of a p p l i c a t i o n p o w e r r e l a t i o n s ( a n d resistances}, that is to say, nondiscursive practices or the social field g e n e r a l l y . It p r o v i d e s a model of strategic coherence, i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y , rationality that a n s w e r s to w h a t Foucault s o m e t i m e s called the logic of s t r a t e g i e s .
15

Arrange-

ments of relations of forces have a strategic i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y , a n d their rationality, as w e l l as the transformation of these a r r a n g e m e n t s into other coherent a r r a n g e m e n t s , obeys a logic distinct both from the logic of e p i s t e m i c coherence and transformations s t u d i e d b y Foucault i n h i s archaeological w o r k s , and from the logic of the model of sovereignty and the l a w that is the direct object of Foucault's c r i t i c i s m s here. A l t h o u g h this strategic model is, first of a l l , i n t e n d e d to p r o v i d e an a l t e r n a t i v e system of representation of the nondiscursive social field, a mode of representation that does not derive from the j u r i d i c a l conception of power, in order to assess its significance w e must not forget that as early as 1 9 6 7 Foucault r e c o g n i z e d that the form of strategic i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y could also b e a p p l i e d to d i s c u r s i v e p r a c t i c e s . In an u n p u b l i s h e d l e c t u r e , " S t r u c t u r a l i s m e et a n a l y s e l i t t e r a i r e , " given in T u n i s i a i n 1 9 6 7 , Foucault, i n v o k i n g among others the name of J . L. A u s t i n , a r g u e d that the description of a statement w a s not c o m p l e t e w h e n one had defined the l i n g u i s t i c s t r u c t u r e of the statement, that the a n a l y s i s of discourse could not b e r e d u c e d to the c o m b i n a t i o n of e l e m e n t s a c c o r d i n g to l i n g u i s t i c r u l e s , that therefore " d i s c o u r s e is something that necessarily extends beyond l a n g u a g e . ' " A s he put it in a 1 9 6 7 letter to Daniel Defert, again a p p e a l i n g to "les anglaises," analystes
6

"they a l l o w me i n d e e d to see h o w one can do nonlinguistic

XX

Introduction:

Arnold

I.

Davidson functioning."
17

analyses of statements. Treat statements in t h e i r

nonlinguistic level of the analysis of discourse is in fact the level of strategic i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y . T h i s model of analysis i s developed further in Foucault's 1974 l e c tures at the C a t h o l i c Pontifical U n i v e r s i t y of Rio de J a n e i r o , "La V e r i t e et les formes j u r i d i q u e s , " w h e r e Foucault urges us to consider t h e facts of discourse a s strategic g a m e s .
18

single-page text, "Le Discours ne doit pas etre p r i s comme . . . , " a text that appears in Dits et ecrits just before the course s u m m a r y of "Society Must Be Defended," Foucault describes this level of analysis as

the political analysis of discourse in w h i c h "it is a matter of e x h i b i t i n g discourse as a strategic field.'" H e r e discourse is c h a r a c t e r i z e d as a battle, a struggle, a place a n d an instrument of confrontation, "a
9

w e a p o n of p o w e r , of control, of subjection, of qualification a n d of disqualification.''

20

Discourse does not s i m p l y e x p r e s s or

reproduce

a l r e a d y constituted social relations:

Discourse battle a n d not discourse reflection . . . Discoursethe mere fact of s p e a k i n g , of employing w o r d s , of using the w o r d s of others ( e v e n if it means returning t h e m ) , w o r d s t h a t the

others u n d e r s t a n d a n d accept ( a n d , possibly, r e t u r n from t h e i r s i d e ) t h i s fact is in itself a force. Discourse is, w i t h respect to the relation of forces, not m e r e l y a surface of inscription, b u t something t h a t brings a b o u t effects.
21

The strategic model of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y , w i t h a vocabulary one of w h o s e p r i m a r y sources is the schema of w a r , a p p l i e s to the forces of discourse as w e l l as to nondiscursive force-relations.
22

In La Volonte

de

savoir,

this form of analysis of discourse is e m p l o y e d in p a r t 4, chapter 2, w h e n Foucault discusses the "rule of the tactical polyvalence of d i s course," insisting that discourses s h o u l d be e x a m i n e d at the two levels of t h e i r tactical p r o d u c t i v i t y a n d of t h e i r strategic i n t e g r a t i o n .
25

In-

deed, s p e a k i n g of the perspectival character of k n o w l e d g e in a d i s cussion of Nietzsche, Foucault recurs to this same terminology in

Introduction:

Arnold

I.

Davidson

xxi

order to a r t i c u l a t e the N i e t z s c h e a n claim that " k n o w l e d g e is a l w a y s a c e r t a i n s t r a t e g i c relation in w h i c h man finds himself placed":

The perspectival character of k n o w l e d g e does not derive from h u m a n n a t u r e , b u t a l w a y s from the polemical a n d strategic character of k n o w l e d g e . One can speak of the perspectival character of k n o w l e d g e because there is a battle a n d k n o w l e d g e is the effect of this battle. "
2 1

A n d in h i s course a n d his s u m m a r y of "Society

Must Be

Defended"

Foucault d e s c r i b e s the historico-political discourse of w a r as p u t t i n g forward a t r u t h that "functions as a w e a p o n , " as s p e a k i n g of a " p e r spectival a n d strategic t r u t h . " Discourse, k n o w l e d g e , a n d t r u t h , as well as relations of p o w e r , can be understood from w i t h i n the strategic model. H e n c e the i m p o r t a n c e of seeing h o w this model functions at all of i t s levels of a p p l i c a t i o n . Finally, I w a n t to indicate that this course can be r e a d w i t h i n the framework of w h a t Foucault called h i s " c i r c u l a r " project, a project t h a t involves t w o endeavors that refer back to each other.
25

On the

one h a n d , Foucault w a n t e d to r i d us of a j u r i d i c a l representation of p o w e r , conceived of i n t e r m s of l a w , p r o h i b i t i o n , a n d sovereignty, a clearing a w a y that raises the question of h o w w e are to analyze w h a t has t a k e n place i n h i s t o r y w i t h o u t the use of t h i s s y s t e m of r e p r e s e n tation. On the other h a n d , Foucault w a n t e d to c a r r y out a more m e ticulous historical e x a m i n a t i o n in o r d e r to show that in modern

societies p o w e r has not in fact functioned in the form of l a w a n d sovereignty, a historical a n a l y s i s that forces one to find another form of r e p r e s e n t a t i o n that does not depend on the j u r i d i c a l system.

Therefore, one must, at one a n d the same t i m e , w h i l e g i v i n g oneself another theory of power, form another g r i d of historical d e c i p h e r m e n t , a n d , w h i l e l o o k i n g more closely at an e n t i r e h i s torical m a t e r i a l , advance little by l i t t l e t o w a r d another conception of p o w e r .
26

XXI!

Introduction: Must Be Defended"

Arnold

I.

Davidson fully in this histonco-

"Society

participates

theoretical project; it r e m i n d s us once again of Foucault's unrivaled conjunction of philosophical and historical analysis. A n d these lec-

t u r e s , as in the courses to follow, show us the unfolding of Foucault's thought in all of its vivacity, intensity, clarity, a n d precision.

I a m d e e p l y i n d e b t e d to Daniel Defert for his help and encouragement, to M i c h a e l Denneny a n d C h r i s t i n a Prestia, w h o i n i t i a t e d t h i s project at St. M a r t i n ' s Press, a n d to Tim Bent and J u l i a Pastore, w h o have followed it t h r o u g h .

Introduction:

Arnold

I.

Davidson

xxi n

1. Claude Levi-Strauss, Paroles donnees ( Pans: Plon, 1984 ), p. 9. 2. Ibid., p. 1 0 . 3. Michel Foucault, "Radioscopie de Michel Foucault," in Dits et ecrits (Pans: Galhmard, 1 9 9 4 ) , vol. 2, p. 7 8 6 . 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Gilles Deleuze, "Qu'est-ce qu'un dispositif?" in Michel Foucault,philosophe (Pans: Editions du Seuil, 1 9 8 9 ) , p. 191. 8. Ibid, pp. 192 -93. 9. Michel Foucault, Hitfoire de la sexualite. vol. 1, La Volonte' de savoir (Pans: Gallimard, 1 9 7 6 ) , 10. Michel Foucault, Les Mailles du pouvoir," in Dits et ecrits, vol. 4, p. 186. 11. Michel Foucault, "L'Oeil du pouvoir," in Dits et ecrits, vol. ), p. 2 0 6 . 12. Michel Foucault, "La Politique est la continuation de la guerre par d'autres moyens," in Dits et ecrits, vol. 2, p. 704. 1 ) . Michel Foucault, La Volonte de savoir, p. 12). 14. See, for example, Michel Foucault, "Nietzsche, la genealogie, l'histoire," in Dits el ecrits, vol. 2. A complete study of this issue must await the publication of Foucault's 1971 course at the College de France, also entitled "La Volonte de savoir." The course summarv can be found in Dits et ecrits, vol. 2. See also Daniel Defert, "Le 'dispositif de guerre' comme analyseur des rapports de pouvoir," in Lectures de Michel Foucault: A propos de "II faut defend?? la soct'e'te," ed. Jean-Claude Zancanni (Lyon: ENS Editions, n.d.). 15. See, among other texts, Michel Foucault, "Des Supplices aux cellules," in Dits el e'crits, vol. ) , pp. 426-27. 16. A tape recording of this lecture can be found in the Centre Michel Foucault. 17. Cited in the "Chronologic" Dits el ecrits, vol. 1, p. 3l. For further discussion see my essay, "Structures and Strategies of Discourse: Remarks Towards a History of Foucault's Philosophy of Language," in Foucault and His Interlocutors, ed. Arnold I. Davidson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1 9 9 7 ) . 18. Michel Foucault, "La Vente et les formes jundiques," in Dits et ecrits, vol. 2, p. 5 )9. 19. Michel Foucault, "Le Discours ne doit pas etre pns comme . . . , " in Dits et ecrits, vol. ), p. 12). 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., p. 124. 22. See also Michel Foucault, "Dialogue sur le pouvoir," in Dits et ecrits, vol. ), p. 465. 2). Michel Foucault, La Volonte de savoir, pp. 1)2-)5. 24. Michel Foucault, "La Verite et les (ormes jundiques," in Dits et ecrits, vol. 2, p. 55125. Michel Foucauit, La Volonte de savoir, pp. 1 1 9 - 2 0 . 26. Ibid., p. 1 2 0 .
u

"Society

Must Be

Defended"

one

7 JANUARY 1 9 7 6

What is a lecture? knowledge discourse.

- Subjugated

knowledges.

- Historical

J S

of struggles,

genealogies,

and scientific Juridical and

- Power, or what is at stake in genealogies. conceptions of power.

and economic power

- Power as repression aphorism inverted.

:[ >

as war. - Clausewit^s

I W O U L D L I K E U S to b e a b i t clearer about w h a t is going on here, in these lectures. You k n o w that the institution w h e r e y o u are, a n d w h e r e I a m , is not exactly a t e a c h i n g institution. W e l l , w h a t e v e r meaning it w a s i n t e n d e d to have w h e n it w a s founded long ago, the College de France now functions essentially as a sort of research i n stitute: w e are p a i d to do research. A n d I b e l i e v e that, u l t i m a t e l y , the activity of teaching w o u l d be m e a n i n g l e s s unless w e gave it, or at least lent it, t h i s meaning, or at least the m e a n i n g I suggest: Given that w e are p a i d to do research, w h a t is there to monitor t h e research w e a r e doing? H o w can w e k e e p informed p e o p l e w h o m i g h t be i n t e r e s t e d in it, or w h o m i g h t have some reason for t a k i n g this research as a s t a r t i n g p o i n t ? How can w e keep t h e m informed on a fairly r e g u l a r basis about the w o r k w e are doing, except b y teaching, or in other w o r d s by m a k i n g a p u b l i c s t a t e m e n t ? So I do not regard our W e d n e s day m e e t i n g s as a t e a c h i n g a c t i v i t y , b u t r a t h e r as p u b l i c r e p o r t s on the w o r k I am, in o t h e r respects, left to get on w i t h m o r e or less as I see fit. To t h a t extent, I a c t u a l l y c o n s i d e r myself to be u n d e r a n absolute obligation to t e l l y o u roughly w h a t I am doing, w h a t point

"SOCIETY

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

I've reached, in w h a t direction [ . . . ] the w o r k is going; a n d to that extent, I t h i n k that you are c o m p l e t e l y free to do w h a t y o u like w i t h w h a t I am saying. These are suggestions for research, ideas, schemata, outlines, i n s t r u m e n t s ; do w h a t you l i k e w i t h them. U l t i m a t e l y , w h a t you do w i t h t h e m both concerns me a n d is none of m y business. It is none of my business to the extent that it is not u p to me to lay down the l a w about the use y o u m a k e of it. A n d it does concern me to the extent that, one w a y or another, w h a t you do w i t h it is connected, related to w h a t I a m doing. H a v i n g said that, you k n o w w h a t has happened over the last few y e a r s . A s a result of a sort of inflation that is h a r d to u n d e r s t a n d , w e ' v e reached the point w h e r e , I t h i n k , something has just about come to a s t a n d s t i l l . You've been having to get here at half past four [ . . . ] a n d I've been finding myself faced w i t h an audience m a d e u p of p e o p l e w i t h w h o m I h a d strictly no contact because p a r t of t h e audience, if not half of it, h a d to go into a n o t h e r room a n d listen to w h a t I w a s s a y i n g o v e r a m i k e . It w a s t u r n i n g into something t h a t w a s n ' t even a spectacle, b e c a u s e w e couldn't see each other. But t h e r e w a s another reason w h y i t ' s come to a standstill. The problem for m e w a s I ' l l b e q u i t e b l u n t about itthe fact t h a t I h a d to go through this sort of circus every W e d n e s d a y w a s r e a l l y h o w can I put i t ? torture is p u t t i n g it too strongly, boredom is p u t t i n g it too m i l d l y , so I suppose it w a s s o m e w h e r e b e t w e e n the t w o . The result w a s t h a t I w a s r e a l l y p r e p a r i n g these l e c t u r e s , p u t t i n g a lot of care a n d a t t e n tion into it, a n d I w a s s p e n d i n g a lot less t i m e on research m the real sense of the w o r d if you like, on the interesting but somewhat incoherent t h i n g s I could have been saying, than on asking myself the question: H o w , in the space of an hour, an hour and a half, can I p u t something across in such a w a y that I don't bore p e o p l e too m u c h , a n d t h a t they get some r e w a r d for being k i n d enough to get here so early to hear w h a t I have to say in such a short space of time. It got to the point w h e r e I w a s s p e n d i n g m o n t h s on it, and I t h i n k that the reason for m y presence here, a n d the reason for your presence here, is to do research, to slog a w a y , to b l o w the dust off certain things, to have ideas, a n d t h a t all t h a t i s the r e w a r d for t h e w o r k t h a t has been

7 January

79 7 6

done. So I s a i d to myself: It w o u l d n ' t be such a b a d idea if t h i r t y or forty of us co I've been doing, a n d at the same t i m e have some contact w i t h you, t a l k to you, answer y o u r questions a n d so on, a n d try to rediscover the possibility of the e x c h a n g e and contact that are part of the normal practice of research or teaching. So w h a t should I d o ? In legal t e r m s , I cannot l a y d o w n any formal conditions as to w h o has access to this room. I've therefore a d o p t e d the g u e r r i l l a method of moving the l e c ture to n i n e - t h i r t y in the morning in the belief that, as my correspondent w a s t e l l i n g me y e s t e r d a y , students are no longer capable of getting u p at n i n e - t h i r t y . You m i g h t say that it's not a very fair selection c r i t e r i o n : those w h o get u p , a n d those w h o don't get u p . It's as good as any. In any case, there are a l w a y s the l i t t l e m i k e s t h e r e , and the t a p e m a c h i n e s , a n d w o r d gets a r o u n d afterwardsometimes

it r e m a i n s on tape, sometimes it is t r a n s c r i b e d , a n d sometimes it t u r n s up in t h e bookshopsso I said to myself, w o r d a l w a y s gets out. So I w i l l t r y [ . . . ] so I'm s o r r y if I've got you out of bed early, a n d m y apologies to those w h o can't be w i t h us; it w a s a w a y of getting our W e d n e s d a y conversations a n d meetings b a c k into the normal p a t t e r n of research, of ongoing w o r k , and that means r e p o r t i n g on it at r e g u l a r institutional intervals. So w h a t w a s I going to say to you this y e a r ? That I've just about h a d enough; in other w o r d s , I'd l i k e to b r i n g to a close, to put an end to, u p to a point, the series of research projectswell, ves, " r e s e a r c h " w e all t a l k about it, b u t w h a t does it a c t u a l l y m e a n ? t h a t we've been w o r k i n g on for four or five y e a r s , or practically ever since I've been here, a n d I realize that there w e r e more a n d more d r a w backs, for both you a n d me. Lines of research that w e r e verv closely interrelated but that never a d d e d u p to a coherent body of w o r k , that had no continuity. Fragments of research, none of w h i c h w a s completed, a n d none of w h i c h w a s followed through; bits a n d pieces of research, and at the same t i m e it w a s getting very repetitive, a l w a y s falling into the same rut, the same themes, the same concepts. A few r e m a r k s on the history of penal procedure; a few chapters on the

evolution, the institutionalization of p s y c h i a t r y m the nineteenth cen-

"SOCIETY

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

t u r y ; considerations on sophistry or G r e e k coins; an outline history of sexuality, or at least a history of k n o w l e d g e about s e x u a l i t y based upon seventeenth-century confessional practices, or controls on infantile s e x u a l i t y in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; p i n p o i n t i n g the genesis of a theory and k n o w l e d g e of anomalies, a n d of all the r e l a t e d t e c h n i q u e s . W e a r e m a k i n g no progress, and i t ' s all l e a d i n g nowhere. It's all repetitive, and it doesn't a d d u p . Basically, w e k e e p saying the same thing, and there again, p e r h a p s w e ' r e not saying a n y t h i n g at all. It's all getting into something of an i n e x t r i c a b l e tangle, a n d i t ' s g e t t i n g us nowhere, as they say. I could tell y o u that these things w e r e t r a i l s to b e followed, that it d i d n ' t m a t t e r w h e r e they led, or even that t h e one thing that d i d matter w a s that they d i d n ' t l e a d a n y w h e r e , or at least not in some p r e d e t e r m i n e d direction. I could say they w e r e l i k e an outline for something. It's u p to y o u to go on w i t h them or to go off on a tangent; a n d i t ' s u p to me to p u r s u e them or give them a different configuration. A n d then, w e y o u or Icould see w h a t could b e done w i t h these fragments. I felt a bit l i k e a s p e r m w h a l e that b r e a k s the surface of the w a t e r , m a k e s a l i t t l e splash, a n d l e t s y o u believe, m a k e s you believe, or w a n t to believe, that d o w n there w h e r e it can't be seen, d o w n there w h e r e it i s neither seen nor monitored by anyone, it is following a deep, coherent, a n d premeditated trajectory. That i s more or less the position w e w e r e in, as I see it: I don't k n o w w h a t it looked l i k e from w h e r e y o u are sitting. After all, the fact that t h e w o r k I described to y o u looked b o t h fragmented, repetitive, a n d discontinuous w a s quite in k e e p i n g w i t h w h a t might be called a "feverish l a z i n e s s . " It's a character trait of people w h o love libraries, documents, references, dusty manuscripts, texts that have never been read, b o o k s w h i c h , no sooner p r i n t e d , w e r e closed a n d then slept on the shelves and w e r e only t a k e n d o w n centuries later. A l l t h i s q u i t e suits the b u s y i n e r t i a of those w h o profess useless k n o w l e d g e , a sort of s u m p t u a r y k n o w l e d g e , the w e a l t h of a parvenu and, as y o u well know, its external signs are found at the foot of the page. It should appeal to all those w h o feel sympathetic to one of

7 January

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those secret societies, no doubt the oldest and the most characteristic in t h e W e s t , one of those strangely i n d e s t r u c t i b l e secret societies that w e r e , I t h i n k , u n k n o w n i n a n t i q u i t y and w h i c h w e r e formed in the early C h r i s t i a n era, p r o b a b l y at the t i m e of the first monasteries, on the fringes of invasions, fires, a n d forests. I a m t a l k i n g about the great, tender, a n d w a r m freemasonry of useless e r u d i t i o n . Except that it w a s not just a l i k i n g for t h i s freemasonry that led me to do w h a t I've been doing. It seems to m e that w e could justify the w o r k w e ' v e been doing, in a somewhat e m p i r i c a l a n d h a p h a z a r d w a y on b o t h m y p a r t and yours, b y saying that it w a s q u i t e in k e e p i n g w i t h a c e r t a i n period; w i t h the v e r y l i m i t e d p e r i o d w e have been living through for the last ten or fifteen years, t w e n t y at the most. I am t a l k i n g about a period in w h i c h w e can observe two phenomena w h i c h w e r e , if not really important, r a t h e r interesting. On the one hand, this h a s been a period c h a r a c t e r i z e d b y w h a t w e might call the efficacy of dispersed a n d discontinuous offensives. I am t h i n k i n g of many things, of, for instance, the strange efficacy, w h e n it c a m e to j a m m i n g the w o r k i n g s of the p s y c h i a t r i c institution, of the discourse, the discoursesand they really w e r e v e r y localizedof a n t i p s y c h i a t r y . And y o u k n o w perfectly w e l l that they w e r e not supported, a r e not supported, b y any overall systematization, no m a t t e r w h a t t h e i r points of reference w e r e and are. I a m t h i n k i n g of the original reference to existential analysis,' and of contemporary references to, b r o a d l y s p e a k ing, M a r x i s m or Reich's theories. I a m also t h i n k i n g of the strange efficacy of the a t t a c k s that have been m a d e on, say, m o r a l i t y a n d the traditional s e x u a l h i e r a r c h y ; t h e y too referred in only v a g u e a n d d i s tant t e r m s to Reich or M a r c u s e . I a m also t h i n k i n g of the efficacy of the a t t a c k s on t h e j u d i c i a r y a n d penal a p p a r a t u s , some of w h i c h w e r e very d i s t a n t l y related to the g e n e r a l a n d fairly dubiousnotion of "class justice," w h i l e others w e r e basically related, albeit almost as distantly, to an anarchist thematic. I am also t h i n k i n g much more
3 2

specifically of the efficacy of somethingI hesitate to call it a book like Anti-Oedipus? w h i c h referred to, w h i c h refers to n o t h i n g but i t s

o w n p r o d i g i o u s theoretical c r e a t i v i t y t h a t book, t h a t event, or t h a t

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thing that succeeded, at the level of d a y - t o - d a y practice, in i n t r o d u c ing a note of hoarseness into the w h i s p e r that had been passing from couch to a r m c h a i r w i t h o u t a n y i n t e r r u p t i o n for such a long time. So I w o u l d say: for the last ten or fifteen y e a r s , the immense and proliferating c r i t i c i z a b i l i t y of things, institutions, practices, and discourses; a sort of general feeling that the ground w a s crumbling b e neath our feet, especially in places w h e r e it seemed most familiar, most solid, a n d closest [ n e a r e s t ] to u s , to our bodies, to our e v e r y d a y gestures. But alongside this c r u m b l i n g a n d the astonishing efficacy of discontinuous, particular, and local c r i t i q u e s , the facts w e r e also revealing something that could not, perhaps, have been foreseen from the outset: w h a t might be c a l l e d the i n h i b i t i n g effect specific to t o talitarian theories, or at leastwhat I m e a n isall-encompassing and global theories. Not that all-encompassing and global theories haven't, in fairly constant fashion, providedand don't continue to provide tools that can be used at the local level; M a r x i s m a n d psychoanalysis are living proof that they can. But they have, I think, provided tools that can be used at the local level only when, and this is the real point, the theoretical u n i t y of their discourse is, so to speak, s u s pended, or at least cut up, r i p p e d up, torn to shreds, turned inside out, displaced, caricatured, d r a m a t i z e d , theatricalized, and so on. Or at least that the totalizing approach a l w a y s has the effect of putting the b r a k e s on. So that, if vou like, is my first point, the first characteristic of w h a t has been happening over the last fifteen y e a r s or so: the local character of the critique; this does not, I think, mean soft eclecticism, opportunism, or openness to a n y old theoretical u n d e r t a k i n g , nor does it mean a sort of deliberate asceticism that boils d o w n to losing as much theoretical w e i g h t as possible. I think that the

essentially local character of the c r i t i q u e in fact indicates something resembling a sort of autonomous a n d noncentralized theoretical p r o duction, or in other w o r d s a theoretical production t h a t does not need a visa from some common regime to establish i t s v a l i d i t y . This b r i n g s us to a second feature of w h a t has been happening for some t i m e now. The point is this: It is what might be called " r e t u r n s of k n o w l e d g e " that m a k e s this local c r i t i q u e possible. W h a t I mean

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by " r e t u r n s of k n o w l e d g e " is this: W h i l e it is true that in recent years we have often encountered, at least at the superficial level, a w h o l e thematic: "life, not k n o w l e d g e , " "the real, not e r u d i t i o n , " "money, not books,"* it a p p e a r s to me that b e n e a t h this w h o l e t h e m a t i c , t h r o u g h it and even w i t h i n it, w e h a v e seen w h a t m i g h t be called the i n s u r rection of subjugated k n o w l e d g e s . W h e n I say "subjugated e d g e s , " I m e a n t w o t h i n g s . On knowlto

the one hand, I am referring

historical contents that have been buried or masked in

functional

coherences or formal systematizations. To put it in concrete t e r m s if you l i k e , it w a s certainly not a semiology of life in the a s y l u m or a sociology of d e h n q u e n c e that made an effective c r i t i q u e of the a s y l u m or the prison possible; it really w a s the appearance of historical cont e n t s . Q u i t e s i m p l y because historical contents alone a l l o w us to see the d i v i d i n g lines in the confrontations and s t r u g g l e s t h a t functional a r r a n g e m e n t s or systematic organizations are d e s i g n e d to mask. S u b jugated k n o w l e d g e s are, then, blocks of historical k n o w l e d g e s t h a t w e r e present in the functional and systematic ensembles, but w h i c h w e r e masked, and the c r i t i q u e w a s able to reveal t h e i r existence by using, obviously enough, the tools of scholarship. Second, I t h i n k subjugated k n o w l e d g e s s h o u l d be understood meaning something else and, in a sense, something quite as

different.

W h e n I say "subjugated k n o w l e d g e s " I am also referring to a w h o l e series of k n o w l e d g e s t h a t have been d i s q u a l i f i e d as nonconceptual

knowledges, as insufficiently elaborated k n o w l e d g e s : naive k n o w l edges, hierarchically inferior k n o w l e d g e s , k n o w l e d g e s that a r e b e l o w t h e r e q u i r e d level of erudition or scientificity. A n d it is t h a n k s to t h e reappearance of these k n o w l e d g e s from b e l o w , of these unqualified or even disqualified knowledges, it is t h a n k s to the reappearance of these k n o w l e d g e s : the k n o w l e d g e of the p s y c h i a t r i z e d , the patient, the

nurse, the doctor, that is parallel to, marginal to, m e d i c a l k n o w l e d g e , the k n o w l e d g e of the d e l i n q u e n t , w h a t I w o u l d call, if you like, w h a t people k n o w ( a n d this i s by no m e a n s the same thing a s comon k n o w l e d g e or common sense but, on the contrary, a p a r t i c u l a r k n o w l -

*In the manuscript, "travel" replaces "money."

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edge, a k n o w l e d g e that is local, regional, or differential, incapable of u n a n i m i t y and w h i c h derives its power solely from the fact that it is different from all the k n o w l e d g e s that s u r r o u n d i t ) , it is the r e a p pearance of w h a t people k n o w at a local level, of these disqualified k n o w l e d g e s , that made the c r i t i q u e possible. You m i g h t object that there is something v e r y paradoxical about grouping together and p u t t i n g into the same category of "subjugated knowledges," on the one hand, historical, meticulous, precise, technical e x p e r t i s e and, on the other, these s i n g u l a r , local k n o w l e d g e s , the noncommonsensical k n o w l e d g e s t h a t people h a v e , a n d w h i c h have in a w a y been left to lie fallow, or even k e p t in t h e margins. W e l l , I t h i n k it is the coupling together of the b u r i e d scholarly k n o w l e d g e and k n o w l e d g e s that were disqualified by the hierarchy of e r u d i t i o n and sciences that a c t u a l l y gave the discursive c r i t i q u e of the last fifteen years its essential strength. W h a t w a s at s t a k e in both cases, in both this s c h o l a r l y k n o w l e d g e and these disqualified k n o w l e d g e s , in these t w o forms of k n o w l e d g e t h e buried and the disqualified? A historical k n o w l e d g e of struggles. Both the specialized domain of scholarship and the disqualified k n o w l e d g e people have contained the

memory of combats, the v e r y m e m o r y that had u n t i l then been confined to the m a r g i n s . A n d so w e have the outline of w h a t might b e called a genealogy, or of m u l t i p l e genealogical investigations. W e have both a meticulous rediscovery of struggles and the r a w memory of fights. These genealogies are a combination of e r u d i t e k n o w l e d g e and what people k n o w . They w o u l d not have been possiblethey could not even have been a t t e m p t e d w e r e it not for one thing: the removal of the tyranny of overall discourses, w i t h their hierarchies and all the privileges enjoyed b y theoretical v a n g u a r d s . If y o u l i k e , w e c a n give the name "genealogy" to this coupling together of scholarly e r u d i t i o n and local memories, which a l l o w s us to constitute a historical k n o w l edge of struggles and to m a k e use of that k n o w l e d g e in contemporary tactics. That can, then, serve as a provisional definition of the g e n e alogies I have been t r y i n g to trace w i t h you over the last few years. You can see that this activity, w h i c h w e can describe as genealogical, is c e r t a i n l y not a matter of contrasting the abstract u n i t y of

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theory w i t h the concrete m u l t i p l i c i t y of the facts. It is certainly not a matter of some form or other of scientism that disqualifies speculation b y contrasting it w i t h the r i g o r of w e l l - e s t a b l i s h e d bodies of k n o w l e d g e . It is therefore not an e m p i r i c i s m that runs through the

genealogical project, nor does it lead to a positivism, in the normal sense of the w o r d . It is a w a y of p l a y i n g local, discontinuous, d i s qualified, or nonlegitimized k n o w l e d g e s off against the u n i t a r y t h e o retical instance t h a t c l a i m s to be able to filter them, organize them into a h i e r a r c h y , o r g a n i z e them in the name of a true body of k n o w l edge, in the name of the r i g h t s of a science that is in the h a n d s of the few. Genealogies a r e therefore not positivistic returns to a form of science that is more attentive or more accurate. Genealogies are, quite specifically, antisciences. It is not that they d e m a n d the l y r i c a l r i g h t to be i g n o r a n t , and not that they reject k n o w l e d g e , or invoke or celebrate some i m m e d i a t e experience that has yet to be c a p t u r e d b y k n o w l e d g e . That is not w h a t they are about. They are about the insurrection of k n o w l e d g e s . Not so m u c h against the contents, m e t h ods, or concepts of a science; this is a b o v e all, p r i m a r i l y , an i n s u r r e c tion against the c e n t r a l i z i n g power-effects that are bound up w i t h the institutionalization a n d w o r k i n g s of any scientific discourse o r g a n i z e d in a society s u c h as ours. That t h i s i n s t i t u t i o n a l i z a t i o n of scientific discourse is e m b o d i e d in a u n i v e r s i t y or, in general t e r m s , a p e d a gogical a p p a r a t u s , t h a t t h i s i n s t i t u t i o n a l i z a t i o n of scientific discourses is embodied in a theoretico-commercial n e t w o r k such as p s y c h o a n a l ysis, or in a political a p p a r a t u s w i t h e v e r y t h i n g that i m p l i e s i s largely irrelevant. Genealogy has to fight the power-effects c h a r a c t e r istic of a n y discourse that is r e g a r d e d as scientific. To put it in more specific t e r m s , or at least in t e r m s t h a t m i g h t mean more to you, let me say this: you k n o w how m a n y people have been a s k i n g t h e m s e l v e s w h e t h e r or not M a r x i s m is a science for m a n y y e a r s now, p r o b a b l y for more than a century. One might say that the same question has been asked, and is still b e i n g asked, of psychoa n a l y s i s or, worse still, of the semiology of l i t e r a r y texts. Genealogies' or g e n e a l o g i s t s ' a n s w e r to the question "Is it a science or n o t ? " is: " T u r n i n g M a r x i s m , or psychoanalysis, or w h a t e v e r else it is, into a

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science is precisely w h a t w e are c r i t i c i z i n g you for. A n d if there is one objection to be m a d e against M a r x i s m , i t ' s that it m i g h t well be a science." To p u t it in moreif not more sophisticated t e r m s [ a t l e a s t ] m i l d e r t e r m s , let m e say this: even before w e k n o w to w h a t e x t e n t s o m e t h i n g l i k e M a r x i s m or psychoanalysis is analogous to a scientific p r a c t i c e in its day-to-day operations, in its rules of construction, in the concepts it uses, w e should b e a s k i n g the question, a s k i n g ourselves about the aspiration to power that is inherent in the c l a i m to being a science. The q u e s t i o n or q u e s t i o n s that h a v e to b e a s k e d are: " W h a t t y p e s of k n o w l e d g e a r e y o u t r y i n g to disqualify w h e n you say that you are a science? W h a t s p e a k i n g subject, w h a t discursive subject, w h a t subject of experience a n d k n o w l e d g e are you t r y i n g to minorize w h e n you begin to say: 'I speak t h i s discourse, I a m s p e a k i n g a scientific discourse, a n d I am a scientist.' W h a t theoretico-political v a n g u a r d are you t r y i n g to put on the throne in order to detach it from all the massive, circulating, a n d discontinuous forms t h a t k n o w l e d g e can t a k e ? " A n d I w o u l d say: " W h e n I see you t r y i n g to prove that M a r x i s m is a science, to tell the truth, I do not really see you trying to demonstrate once and for all that M a r x i s m has a rational s t r u c t u r e a n d that its propositions a r e therefore the products of v e r ification procedures. I see you, first a n d foremost, doing something

different. I see you connecting to M a r x i s t discourse, a n d I see you assigning to those w h o s p e a k that discourse the power-effects that t h e W e s t h a s , ever since the M i d d l e A g e s , ascribed to a science a n d r e served for those w h o s p e a k a scientific discourse." C o m p a r e d to the a t t e m p t to inscribe k n o w l e d g e s in the p o w e r h i e r a r c h y t y p i c a l of science, genealogy is, then, a sort of a t t e m p t to desubjugate historical k n o w l e d g e s , to set them free, or in other w o r d s to enable them to oppose and struggle against the coercion of a u n i tary, formal, a n d scientific theoretical discourse. The project of these disorderly and tattered genealogies is to reactivate local k n o w l e d g e s Deleuze w o u l d no doubt call them " m i n o r " a g a i n s t t h e scientific hierarchicahzation of k n o w l e d g e and its intrinsic power-effects. To put it in a nutshell: Archaeology is the m e t h o d specific to the analysis of local discursivities, and genealogy is the tactic which, once it has
5

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described these local discursivities, b r i n g s into play the desubjugated k n o w l e d g e s that have b e e n released from them. That just about s u m s u p the overall project. So you can see t h a t all the fragments of research, all the interconnected and i n t e r r u p t e d things I have been r e p e a t i n g so s t u b b o r n l y for four or five years now, m i g h t be r e g a r d e d as e l e m e n t s of these g e nealogies, a n d that I a m not the only one to have been doing this over the last fifteen years. Far from it. Question: So w h y not go on w i t h such a theory of discontinuity, w h e n it is so pretty a n d p r o b a b l y so hard to v e r i f y ?
6

W h y don't I go on, a n d w h y don't I take a q u i c k

look at s o m e t h i n g to do w i t h p s y c h i a t r y , w i t h the t h e o r y of s e x u a l i t y ? It's t r u e that one c o u l d g o onand I w i l l t r y to g o on u p to a pointwere it not, p e r h a p s , for a certain n u m b e r of changes, a n d changes in the conjuncture. W h a t I mean is that compared to the situation w e had five, ten, or even fifteen y e a r s ago, things have, p e r haps, changed; perhaps the battle no longer looks quite the same. W e l l , a r e w e really still in the same relationship of force, a n d does i t allow u s t o e x p l o i t the k n o w l e d g e s w e have d u g out of t h e sand, to e x p l o i t them as they s t a n d , w i t h o u t t h e i r b e c o m i n g subjugated once m o r e ? W h a t strength do they h a v e in t h e m s e l v e s ? A n d after all, once w e h a v e excavated our genealogical fragments, once w e begin to e x ploit t h e m a n d to put in circulation these elements of k n o w l e d g e that w e have been t r y i n g to dig out of the sand, isn't there a d a n g e r that they w i l l be recoded, recolonized by these u n i t a r y discourses w h i c h , having first disqualified them a n d having then ignored them w h e n t h e y r e a p p e a r e d , m a y n o w b e ready to r e a n n e x them a n d i n c l u d e t h e m in their o w n discourses a n d t h e i r o w n p o w e r - k n o w l e d g e effects? A n d if w e t r y to protect the fragments w e have d u g u p , don't w e r u n the risk of b u i l d i n g , w i t h our own hands, a u n i t a r y discourse? That is w h a t w e are b e i n g invited to do, that is the t r a p that is being set for us by all those w h o say, "It's all very w e l l , b u t where does it get u s ? W h e r e does it l e a d u s ? W h a t u n i t y does it g i v e u s ? " The temptation is, u p to a point, to say: Right, let's continue, let's accumulate. After all, t h e r e is no d a n g e r at the moment that w e w i l l be colonized. I w a s s a y i n g a moment a g o that these genealogical fragments m i g h t b e in

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danger of being recoded, but we could t h r o w down a challenge and say, "Just t r y it!" W e could, for instance, say, Look: ever since the very b e g i n n i n g s of a n t i p s y c h i a t r y or of the genealogies of p s y c h i a t r i c institutionsand it has been going on for a good fifteen y e a r s now has a single M a r x i s t , psychoanalyst, or psychiatrist ever a t t e m p t e d to redo it in their own t e r m s or demonstrated that these genealogies were wrong, badly elaborated, badly articulated, or i l l - f o u n d e d ? The w a y things stand, the fragments of genealogy that have been done are in fact still there, s u r r o u n d e d by a w a r y silence. The only a r g u m e n t s that have been put forward against them areat the very best propositions like the one w e recently h e a r d from, I t h i n k it w a s M. Juquin:
7

" A l l t h i s is very well. But the fact r e m a i n s t h a t Soviet

p s y c h i a t r y is the best in the world." M y a n s w e r to t h a t is: "Yes, of course, you're right. Soviet p s y c h i a t r y is the best in the w o r l d . T h a t ' s just w h a t I hold against it." The silence, or rather the caution w i t h which unitary theories avoid the genealogy of k n o w l e d g e s might

therefore be one reason for going on. One could at any rate u n e a r t h more a n d more genealogical fragments, like so many traps, questions, challenges, or w h a t e v e r you w a n t to call them. Given that w e are t a l k ing about a battlethe battle k n o w l e d g e s are w a g i n g a g a i n s t the power-effects of scientific discourseit is probably o v e r o p t i m i s t i c to assume t h a t our a d v e r s a r y ' s silence p r o v e s t h a t he is afraid of u s . The s i lence of an a d v e r s a r y a n d t h i s is a methodological p r i n c i p l e or a t a c tical principle that must a l w a y s be kept in mindcould just as easily be a sign that he is not afraid of us at all. A n d w e must, I think, behave a s t h o u g h he really is not frightened of u s . A n d I am not suggesting t h a t w e g i v e all these s c a t t e r e d genealogies a continuous, solid theoretical basisthe last t h i n g I w a n t to do is g i v e them, s u p e r i m p o s e on them, a sort of theoretical crown that w o u l d unify t h e m b u t that we should try, in future lectures, probably b e g i n n i n g this year, to specify or identify w h a t is at s t a k e w h e n k n o w l e d g e s b e g i n to challenge, struggle against, a n d rise u p against the instutition and the powerand

k n o w l e d g e - effects of scientific discourse. A s y o u k n o w , and as I scarcely need point out, w h a t is at s t a k e in all these genealogies is this: W h a t is t h i s p o w e r w h o s e irruption, force,

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impact, a n d a b s u r d i t y have become p a l p a b l y obvious over the last forty y e a r s , as a result of both the collapse of N a z i s m and the retreat of S t a l i n i s m ? W h a t is p o w e r ? Or rathergiven that the question

" W h a t i s p o w e r ? " i s obviously a theoretical question that would p r o vide an a n s w e r to everything, w h i c h is just w h a t I don't want to do the issue i s to d e t e r m i n e w h a t are, in t h e i r mechanisms, effects, t h e i r relations, the v a r i o u s p o w e r - a p p a r a t u s e s t h a t operate at v a r i o u s levels of society, in such v e r y different d o m a i n s a n d w i t h so m a n y different extensions? R o u g h l y speaking, I think that w h a t i s at stake in all t h i s is this: C a n the analysis of power, or the a n a l y s i s of p o w e r s , be in one w a y or a n o t h e r d e d u c e d from the e c o n o m y ? T h i s i s w h y I a s k the question, a n d t h i s is w h a t I m e a n b y it. I certainly do not wish to erase the countless differences or huge differences, but, despite a n d because of these differences, it seems to me that the j u r i d i c a l conception and, l e t ' s say, the liberal conception of political p o w e r w h i c h w e find in the p h i l o s o p h e r s of the eighteenth centurydo have certain t h i n g s in common, as does the M a r x i s t conception, or at least a certain c o n t e m p o r a r y conception that passes for the M a r x i s t conception. Their common feature is w h a t I will call "economism" in the theory of p o w e r . W h a t I m e a n to say is this: In the case of the classic j u r i d i c a l theory of power, p o w e r is r e g a r d e d a s a r i g h t w h i c h can be possessed in the w a y one possesses a commodity, a n d w h i c h can therefore be transferred or a l i e n a t e d , e i t h e r completely or p a r t l y , t h r o u g h a j u r i d i c a l act or an act t h a t founds a r i g h t i t does not m a t t e r w h i c h , for the m o m e n t t h a n k s to the s u r r e n d e r of something or t h a n k s to a contract. P o w e r i s t h e concrete p o w e r that any i n d i v i d u a l can hold, a n d which he can surrender, either as a w h o l e or in p a r t , so as to constitute a p o w e r or a political sovereignty. In the b o d y of t h e o r y to w h i c h I a m referring, the constitution of political p o w e r is therefore constituted b y this series, or is modeled on a juridical operation s i m i l a r to an exchange of contracts. There is

therefore an obvious analogy, a n d it r u n s through all these theories, b e t w e e n p o w e r a n d commodities, b e t w e e n p o w e r a n d w e a l t h . In the other case, a n d I a m obviously t h i n k i n g here of the general M a r x i s t conception of p o w e r , there is obviously none of this. In this

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M a r x i s t conception, you have something else that m i g h t be called the "economic functionality" of power. "Economic functionality" to the e x t e n t that the role of p o w e r is essentially both to p e r p e t u a t e the relations of production a n d to r e p r o d u c e a class domination that is made possible by the development of the productive forces a n d the w a y s they are a p p r o p r i a t e d . In this case, political power finds its historical raison d'etre in the economy. Broadly speaking, w e have, if you like, in one case a political p o w e r w h i c h finds its formal model in the process of exchange, in the economy of the c i r c u l a t i o n of goods; and in the other case, political power finds its historical raison d'etre, the p r i n c i p l e of its concrete form a n d of its a c t u a l w o r k i n g s in the economy. The problem that is at issue in the research I am t a l k i n g about can, I t h i n k , be broken d o w n as follows. First: Is p o w e r always

secondary to the e c o n o m y ? A r e its finality a n d function a l w a y s det e r m i n e d by the economy? Is p o w e r ' s raison d'etre and purpose essentially to serve the e c o n o m y ? Is it designed to establish, solidify, p e r p e t u a t e , a n d reproduce relations that are characteristic of the economy a n d essential to its w o r k i n g s ? Second question: Is p o w e r modeled on the c o m m o d i t y ? Is p o w e r something that can be possessed and acquired, that can be surrendered t h r o u g h a contract or by force, that can be a l i e n a t e d or recuperated, that circulates a n d fertilizes one r e gion but avoids others? Or if w e w i s h to analyze it, do w e have to operateon the c o n t r a r y w i t h different instruments, even if p o w e r relations a r e d e e p l y involved in a n d w i t h economic relations, even if p o w e r relations a n d economic relations a l w a y s constitute a sort of n e t w o r k or l o o p ? If t h a t is the case, the i n d i s s o c i a b i l i t y of the economy a n d politics is not a matter of functional s u b o r d i n a t i o n , nor of formal isomorphism. It is of a different order, a n d it is precisely that order that w e have to isolate. W h a t tools are currently available for a noneconomic analysis of p o w e r ? I t h i n k that we can say that w e really do not have a lot. W e have, first of all, the assertion that p o w e r is not something that is given, exchanged, or taken back, that it is something that is exercised and that it exists only in action. W e also have the other assertion,

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that p o w e r is not p r i m a r i l y the p e r p e t u a t i o n a n d r e n e w a l of economic relations, but that it is p r i m a r i l y , in itself, a relationship of force. W h i c h raises some q u e s t i o n s , or r a t h e r t w o q u e s t i o n s . If p o w e r is exercised, w h a t is the exercise of p o w e r ? W h a t does it consist of? W h a t is its m e c h a n i s m ? W e have here w h a t I w o u l d call an off-thecuff a n s w e r , or at least an i m m e d i a t e response, a n d it seems to me that this i s , u l t i m a t e l y , the a n s w e r g i v e n b y the concrete reality of many contemporary analyses: P o w e r is essentially that w h i c h r e -

presses. Power is t h a t w h i c h represses n a t u r e , instincts, a class, or i n d i v i d u a l s . A n d w h e n w e find contemporary discourse trotting out the definition that p o w e r is that w h i c h represses, contemporary d i s course is not r e a l l y s a y i n g a n y t h i n g new. H e g e l w a s the first to say this, and then F r e u d and then R e i c h . In a n y case, in t o d a y ' s v o c a b u l a r y , b e i n g an o r g a n of repression is almost p o w e r ' s H o m e r i c epithet. So, m u s t the analysis of p o w e r be p r i m a r i l y , essentially even, an a n a l ysis of the mechanisms of r e p r e s s i o n ? Secondsecond off-the-cuff a n s w e r , if you likeif p o w e r is i n d e e d the i m p l e m e n t a t i o n a n d d e p l o y m e n t of a r e l a t i o n s h i p of force, rather than a n a l y z i n g it in t e r m s of s u r r e n d e r , contract, a n d alienation, or rather t h a n a n a l y z i n g it in functional t e r m s a s the reproduction of the relations of production, shouldn't w e be a n a l y z i n g it first and foremost in terms of conflict, confrontation, a n d w a r ? That w o u l d g i v e us a n alternative to the first h y p o t h e s i s w h i c h is t h a t the mechanism of power is basically or essentially repressionor a second h y p o t h e s i s : P o w e r is w a r , the c o n t i n u a t i o n of w a r by other means. A t this point, w e can invert C l a u s e w i t z ' s p r o p o s i t i o n
9 8

a n d say that politics is the

continuation of w a r by other means. This w o u l d i m p l y three things. First, that power relations, as they function in a society like ours, are essentially anchored in a certain r e l a t i o n s h i p of force that w a s e s t a b lished in a n d t h r o u g h w a r at a g i v e n historical moment that can be historically specified. A n d w h i l e it is t r u e that political p o w e r p u t s an end to w a r a n d e s t a b l i s h e s or a t t e m p t s to establish the reign of peace in civil society, it certainly does not do so in o r d e r to s u s p e n d the effects of power or to n e u t r a l i z e the d i s e q u i l i b r i u m r e v e a l e d by the last b a t t l e of the w a r . A c c o r d i n g to this h y p o t h e s i s , the role of

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political p o w e r is p e r p e t u a l l y to use a sort of silent w a r to r e i n s c n b e that relationship of force, and to reinscribe it in institutions, economic inequalities, language, and even the bodies of i n d i v i d u a l s . This is the initial meaning of our inversion of C l a u s e w i t z ' s aphorismpolitics is the continuation of w a r by other means. Politics, in other w o r d s , sanctions a n d reproduces the d i s e q u i l i b r i u m of forces manifested in w a r . Inverting the proposition also means something else, namely that within this "civil peace," these political struggles, these clashes over or w i t h power, these modifications of relations of forcethe shifting balance, the reversalsin a political system, all these things must be interpreted a s a continuation of w a r . A n d t h e y are i n t e r p r e t e d a s so many episodes, fragmentations, a n d displacements of the w a r itself. W e are a l w a y s w r i t i n g the history of the same w a r , even w h e n w e are w r i t i n g the history of peace and its institutions. Inverting C l a u s e w i t z ' s a p h o r i s m also has a t h i r d meaning: The final decision can come only from war, or in other words a trial by strength in which weapons are the final judges. It means that the last battle would put an end to politics, or in other w o r d s , that the last battle w o u l d at lastand I mean "at l a s t " s u s p e n d the exercise of p o w e r a s continuous warfare. So you see, once w e try to get a w a y from economistic schemata in our a t t e m p t to a n a l y z e power, w e i m m e d i a t e l y find ourselves faced w i t h t w o g r a n d hypotheses; according to one, the mechanism of p o w e r is repressionfor the s a k e of convenience, I w i l l call this Reich's

hypothesis, if you l i k e a n d according to the second, the basis of the p o w e r - r e l a t i o n s h i p lies in a w a r l i k e clash b e t w e e n forcesfor the sake of convenience, I w i l l call this N i e t z s c h e ' s hypothesis. The t w o h y potheses a r e not irreconcilable; on the contrary, there seems to be a fairly logical connection b e t w e e n the two. After all, isn't repression the political outcome of w a r , just a s oppression w a s , in the classical theory of political right, the result of the abuse of sovereignty w i t h i n the j u r i d i c a l d o m a i n ? W e can, then, contrast t w o g r e a t s y s t e m s for a n a l y z i n g power. The first, w h i c h is the old theory you find in the philosophers of the seventeenth century, is articulated around power as a p r i m a l right

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that is s u r r e n d e r e d , a n d w h i c h constitutes sovereignty, with the contract a s the m a t r i x of political power. A n d w h e n the p o w e r t h a t has been so constituted oversteps the limit, or oversteps the limits of the contract, there is a danger that it will become oppression. Power-

contract, w i t h oppression as the limit, or rather the transgression of the l i m i t . A n d then w e have the other system, which tries to a n a l y z e power not in terms of the contract-oppression schema, but in terms of the w a r - r e p r e s s i o n schema. At this point, repression is not w h a t oppression w a s in relation to the contract, namely an abuse, but, on the contrary, s i m p l y the effect a n d the continuation of a relationship of domination. Repression is no more than the i m p l e m e n t a t i o n , w i t h i n a pseudopeace t h a t is being u n d e r m i n e d by a continuous w a r , of a perpetual relationship of force. So, t w o schemata for the analysis of power: the contract-oppression schema, w h i c h is, if you like, the j u ridical schema, and the war-repression or domination-repression

schema, in which the pertinent opposition is not, as in the previous schema, that b e t w e e n the l e g i t i m a t e and the i l l e g i t i m a t e , but b e t w e e n struggle a n d submission. It is obvious that e v e r y t h i n g I have said to you in previous y e a r s is inscribed w i t h i n the struggle-repression schema. T h a t is indeed the schema I w a s t r y i n g to apply. Now, as I tried to a p p l y it, I w a s eventually forced to reconsider it; both because, in many respects, it is still insufficiently elaboratedI w o u l d even go so far as to s a y t h a t it is not elaborated at a l l a n d also because I t h i n k t h a t the t w i n notions of " r e p r e s s i o n " a n d " w a r " have to be considerably modified and u l t i m a t e l y , perhaps, abandoned. A t all events, we have to look very closely at these t w o notions of "repression" a n d " w a r " ; if y o u like, w e have to look a little more closely at the hypothesis t h a t the mechanisms of p o w e r a r e essentially mechanisms of repression, a n d at the a l t e r n a t i v e hypothesis that w h a t is r u m b l i n g away and w h a t is at w o r k beneath political p o w e r is essentially a n d above all a w a r l i k e relation. Without w i s h i n g to boast, I think that I have in fact long been suspicious of this notion of "repression," a n d I have a t t e m p t e d to that

show you, in relation to the g e n e a l o g i e s I w a s t a l k i n g about just now,

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in relation to the history of penal law, p s y c h i a t r i c power, controls on infantile sexuahtv, a n d so on, that the mechanisms at w o r k in these power formations were something very different fromor at least

much more thanrepression. I cannot go any further without repeating some of this analysis of repression, w i t h o u t p u l l i n g together everything I have said about it, no doubt in a r a m b l i n g sort of w a y . The next lecture, perhaps the next t w o lectures, w i l l therefore be devoted t o a critical r e e x a m i n a t i o n of t h e notion of "repression," to t r y i n g to show h o w and why what is now the w i d e s p r e a d notion of repression cannot provide an a d e q u a t e description of the m e c h a n i s m s and effects of power, cannot define t h e m .
10

M o s t of the n e x t lecture w i l l , however, be devoted to the other side of the question, or in other w o r d s the problem of w a r . I w o u l d like to t r y to see the extent to w h i c h the b i n a r y s c h e m a of w a r a n d struggle, of the clash b e t w e e n forces, can really be identified a s the basis of civil society, a s both the p r i n c i p l e and motor of the exercise of political power. A r e w e really t a l k i n g about w a r w h e n w e a n a l y z e the w o r k i n g s of p o w e r ? A r e the notions of "tactics," " s t r a t e g y , " a n d "relations of force" v a l i d ? To w h a t extent are they v a l i d ? Is power quite s i m p l y a continuation of w a r b y means other than w e a p o n s a n d battles? Does w h a t has now become the commonplace theme, though it is a relatively recent theme, that power is responsible for defending civil society imply, yes or no, that the political structure of society i s so organized t h a t some can defend t h e m s e l v e s against others, or can defend t h e i r domination against the rebellion of others, or q u i t e s i m ply defend t h e i r victory and p e r p e t u a t e it by subjugating o t h e r s ? The o u t l i n e for t h i s y e a r ' s course w i l l , then, be a s follows: one or two lectures devoted to a r e e x a m i n a t i o n of the notion of repression; then I will begin [to look atjI m a y go on in the y e a r s to come, I've no ideathis problem of the w a r in civil society. I w i l l begin by e l i m i n a t i n g the very people w h o are s a i d to be the theorists of the w a r in civil society, a n d who are in m y v i e w no such thing, namely M a c h i a v e l h and Hobbes. Then I w i l l t r y to look again at the theory that w a r is the historical p r i n c i p l e behind the w o r k i n g s of power, in the context of the r a c e problem, as it w a s r a c i a l b i n a r i s m t h a t led the

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West to see for the first time that it w a s possible to analyze political power as w a r . A n d I will t r y to trace t h i s d o w n to the moment w h e n race s t r u g g l e and class struggle became, at the end of the nineteenth century, the t w o g r e a t schemata that w e r e used to identify the p h e nomenon of w a r and the relationship of force w i t h i n political society.

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1. Michel Foucault is referring to the psvchiatnc movement (defined either as "anthropophenomenology" or Daseinanalyse) which derived new conceptual instruments from the philosophy of Husserl and Heidegger. Foucault examines this in his earliest writings. Cf. chapter 4 of Maladie mentale etpersonalitt(Pans: PUF, 1954)("La Maladie etl'existence"); the introduction to Ludwig Binswanger, Le Reve et /'existence (Pans: Desclee de Brouwer) (reprinted in Dits et ecrits vol. 1, pp. 65-119; English translation bv Forrest Williams, "Dream, Imagination, and Existence," in Michel Foucault and Ludwig Binswanger, Dream and Existence, ed. Keith Holler [Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press]; "La Psvchologie de 1 8 5 0 a 1950," in A. Weber and D. Husiman, Tableau de la philosophic contemporaine (Paris: Fischbacher, 1 9 5 4 ) (reprinted in Dits et ecrits vol. 1, pp. 120-37); "La Recherche en psvchologie," in J . E. Morrere, ed., Des Cheixheurs s'intenvgent (Paris: PUF, 1957) (reprinted in Dits et ecrits vol. 1, pp. 137-58). Foucault returned to these topics in his last years; cf. Colloqui con Foucault (Salerno: 1 0 / 1 7 Cooperativa editrice, 1 9 8 1 ) ( French translation: "Entretien avec Michel Foucault," Dits et ecrits vol. 4, pp. 41-95; English translation by James Goldstein and James Cascaito, Remarks on Marx [New York: Semiotext(e), 1 9 9 1 ] ) . 2.See Wilhelm Reich, Die Funktion des Orgasmus; Qir Psychopathologie und %ur Sociologie des Geschlechtslebens (Vienna: I n t e r n a t i o n a l psychanalytischer Verlag, 1 9 2 7 ) (French translation: La Fonction de I'orgasme [Paris: L'Arche, 1971]; English translation: The Function of the Orgasm [New York: Condor Books, 1983]); Der Einbrach des Sexualmoral (Berlin: Verlag fur Sexualpolitik, 1932) (French translation: L'lrruptxon del a morale sexuelle [Paris: Payot, 1972]; English translation: The Invasion of Compulsory Sex Morality [New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1971 J); Charakteranalyse (Vienna: Selbstverlag des Verfassers* ' 9 3 3 ) (French translation: VAnalyse caracte'riel/e [Paris: Payot, 1971 ]; English translation: Character Analysis [New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1972]); Massenpsychologie des Faschismus: %ur Sexualonomie der politischen Reaktion und %ur proletarischen Sexualpolitik (Copenhagen, Paris, and Zurich: Verlag fur Sexualpolitik, 1933) (French translation: La Psychologie de masse du fascisme [Pans: Payot, 1974]; English translation: The Mass Psychology of Fascism [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1 9 7 0 ] ) ; Die Sexualitdt im Kulturkampf ( C o penhagen: Sexpol Verlag, 1 9 3 6 ) (English translation: The Sexual Revolution [London: Vi sion Press, 1 9 7 2 ] ) .
t

3. Michel Foucault is obviously referring here to Herbert Marcuse, Etvs and Civilisation: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (Boston: Beacon Press, 1 9 5 5 ) (French translation: Etvs et civilisation [Paris: Seuil, 1971 ] ) and One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1 9 6 6 ) ( French translation: L'Homme unidimensionnel |Pans: Seuil, 1 9 7 0 ] ) . i. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattan, Anti-Oedipe (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1972). It will be recalled that Foucault develops this interpretation of Anti-Oedipe as livre evenement in hispreiaceto the English translation ( English translation bv Robert Hurlev, Mark Seem, and Helen R, Lane. Anti-Oedipus [New York: Viking, 1 9 8 3 ] ) . For the French version see Dits et ecrits vol. 3, pp. 133-36. 5. The concepts ol "minor'' and "minority"singular events rather than individual essences, individuation through "ecceity" rather than substantialitywere elaborated by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattan in their Kafka,pour une /literature mineure (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 197S) ( English translation by Reda Bensmaia, Kafka: For a Minor Literature [Minneapolis: Universitv of Minnesota Press, 1 9 8 6 ] ), reworked bv Deleuze in his article "Philosophie et minorite" ( Critique, February 1 9 7 8 ) and then further developed, notably in Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattan, Mille Plateaux; capitalisms et schisophrenic (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1 9 8 0 ) (English translation bv Brian Massumi, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press]). "Minority" also relates to the concept oi "molecular" elaborated by Felix Guattan in Psychanahic tt

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transversalite, Essai d'analyse institutionnelle (Pans: Maspero, 1972). Its logic is that of "becoming" and "intensities." 6. Michel Foucault is referring to the debate about the concept of the episteme and the status of discontinuity that was opened up bv the publication of Les Mots et les choses: une archaeologie des sciences humaines (Pans: Galhmard, 1 9 6 6 ) (English translation: The Order of Things [London: Tavistock, 1 9 7 0 ] ) . He replied to criticisms in a series oi the oretical and methodological mt'ses au point. See in particular "Reponse a une question," Esprit, May 1 9 6 8 , repnnted in Dits et ecrits vol. 1, pp. 673-95; "Reponse au Cercle d*epistemologie," CaJiiers pour /'analyse 9 ( 1 9 6 8 ) , pp. 9 - 4 0 , repnnted m Dits et ecrits vol. 1, pp. 694 -731; English translation: "On the Archaeology of the Science: Response to the Epistemology Circle," Essential Works vol. 2, pp. 297-353. 7. A t that time, a depute' in the Parti Communiste Frangais. 8.Cf. G. W. F. Hegel, Grundimien der Philosophic des Rechtes (Berlin, 1821), pp. 182-340 (French translation: Principesde la philosophic du droit [Pans: V n n , 1975]); Hegel's Philosophy of Right, translated with notes by T. M. Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952); Sigmund Freud, "Das Unbewussten," in Internationale Zjitschrifte fur drt^iche Psychoanalyse, vol. 3 ( 1 9 1 5 ) (English translation: "The Unconscious," in Pelican Freud Library, Vol. 11: On Metapsychology: The Theory of Psychoanalysis [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 19 &4J); and Die Zxkunft emer Illusion (Leipzig/Vienna/Zurich: Internationaler Psychoanalvtischer Verlag, 1927) (French translation: VAvenir d'une illusion [Paris: Denoel, 1932], reprinted Pans: PUF, 1 9 9 5 ; English translation: The Future of an Illusion, in The Pelican Freud Library, Vol. 12: Civilisation, Society and Religion, Group Psychology, Civilisation and Its Discontents and Other Works [Harmondsworth: Penguin, I 9 8 5 J ) ; on Reich, cf. note 2 above. 9. Foucault alludes to the well-known formulation of Carl von Clausewitz's principle {Vom Knege book 1, chap. 1, xxiv, in Hinterlassene Werke, bd. 1-2-3 [Berlin, 1832] ): "War is a mere continuation of policy by other means.. . . War is not merely a political act. but also a truly political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means." On War, edited with an introduction by Anatol Rapoport (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1 9 8 2 ) (French translation: De la guerre [Pans: Editions de Minuit, 1 9 5 5 ] ) . 10. This promise was not kept. A lecture on "repression" is, however, intercalated in the manuscript; it was presumably given at a foreign university. Foucault returns to this question in La Volonte de savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1 9 7 6 ) (English translation by Robert Hurley: The Histoty of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981]).

two

14 J A N U A R Y 1 9 7 6

S % f i t ...

War and power.

- Philosophy

and the limits of power. - Law, domination, questions power. and

- Law

% f

and royal power. subjugation. - Analytics

of power:

of method.

- Theory

\ I

of sovereignty.

- Disciplinary

- Rule and norm.

THIS Y E A R , I W O U L D like to beginand to do no more than b e g i n a s e r i e s of investigations into w h e t h e r or not w a r can possibly p r o v i d e a principle for the a n a l y s i s of p o w e r relations: can w e find in bellicose relations, in the m o d e l of w a r , in the s c h e m a of struggle or s t r u g g l e s , a p r i n c i p l e that can h e l p us understand and analyze political p o w e r , to interpret political p o w e r in t e r m s of w a r , struggles, and confrontations? I w o u l d l i k e to begin, obviously, w i t h a contrapuntal a n a l y s i s of the m i l i t a r y institution, of the real, a c t u a l , and historical w a y in w h i c h m i l i t a r y i n s t i t u t i o n s have functioned in our societies from the seventeenth century until the present d a y . U n t i l now, or for roughly the last five y e a r s , it h a s been d i s c i p l i n e s ; for the n e x t five years, it w i l l be w a r , struggle, the army. At the same time, I w o u l d like to sum up w h a t I have been t r y i n g to say in previous y e a r s , because doing so w i l l g i v e me more t i m e for my re search on w a r , which has not got very far, and also because doing so might provide a framework of reference for those of you w h o w e r e not here in previous y e a r s . In any case, I'd like to s u m up w h a t I have been trying to cover for my o w n benefit.

24

"SOCIETY

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DEFENDED"

W h a t I have been trying to look at since 1970-1971 is the " h o w " of power. S t u d y i n g the "how of p o w e r , " or in other w o r d s t r y i n g to u n d e r s t a n d its mechanisms by establishing two markers, or limits; on the one hand, the rules of right that formally delineate power, and on the other hand, at the opposite extreme, the other l i m i t might be the truth-effects that p o w e r produces, that this p o w e r conducts a n d which, in their turn, reproduce that power. So w e have the triangle: power, right, t r u t h . In schematic t e r m s , let us say that t h e r e is a traditional question, w h i c h is, I think, that of political philosophy. It can be formulated thus: How does the discourse of truth or, quite s i m p l y , p h i l o s o p h y i n the sense that philosophy is the discourse of t r u t h par excellenceestablish the l i m i t s of p o w e r ' s r i g h t ? That is the traditional question. N o w the question I w o u l d l i k e to ask is a question from below, and it is a very factual question compared to that t r a d i t i o n a l , noble, a n d philosophical question. M y p r o b l e m is roughly this: W h a t are the rules of r i g h t t h a t power i m p l e m e n t s to produce discourses of t r u t h ? Or: W h a t t y p e of p o w e r is it that is capable of p r o d u c i n g discourses of power that have, in a society l i k e ours, s u c h powerful effects? W h a t I m e a n is t h i s : In a society s u c h a s oursor in any society, come to t h a t m u l i t i p l e relations of power traverse, characterize, a n d constitute the social body; they are indissociable from a discourse of t r u t h , a n d they can neither be established nor function unless a t r u e discourse is produced, a c c u m u l a t e d , p u t into circulation, a n d set to w o r k . P o w e r cannot be exercised unless a certain economy of d i s courses of t r u t h functions in, on the basis of, a n d t h a n k s to, that power. This is true of all societies, but I think that in our society, this relationship among power, right, a n d t r u t h is o r g a n i z e d in a very particular w a y . In order to characterize not just the mechanism of the relationship between power, right, and t r u t h itself but its intensity and constancy, let us say that w e are obliged to produce the t r u t h by the power that demands truth and needs it in order to function: w e are forced to tell the t r u t h , w e a r e constrained, w e a r e c o n d e m n e d to a d m i t the t r u t h

14 January

1 976

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or to discover it. Power constantly asks questions a n d questions us; it constantly investigates and records; it institutionalizes the search for the truth, professionalizes it, and r e w a r d s it. W e have to produce the t r u t h in the same w a y , really, that w e have to produce w e a l t h , and w e have to produce the t r u t h in order to be able to produce w e a l t h . In a different sense, w e a r e also subject to the t r u t h in the sense that t r u t h lays d o w n the l a w : it is the discourse of t r u t h t h a t decides, at least in part; it conveys and propels truth-effects. After

all, w e are j u d g e d , condemned, forced to perform tasks, a n d d e s t i n e d to live a n d die in c e r t a i n w a y s by d i s c o u r s e s t h a t are true, a n d w h i c h b r i n g w i t h t h e m specific power-effects. So: r u l e s of right, m e c h a n i s m s of power, truth-effects. Or: rules of power, and the power of t r u e

discourses. That, r o u g h l y , is the v e r y general d o m a i n I w a n t e d to examine, and w h i c h I have been e x a m i n i n g to some extent and w i t h , as I am w e l l a w a r e , m a n y digressions. I w o u l d now l i k e to say a few w o r d s about this domain. W h a t general p r i n c i p l e g u i d e d m e , a n d w h a t w e r e the i m p e r a t i v e comm a n d s , or the methodological precautions that I resolved to t a k e ? W h e r e relations b e t w e e n right a n d p o w e r a r e concerned, the g e n e r a l principle i s , it seems to me, that one fact must never be forgotten: In Western societies, the elaboration of j u r i d i c a l thought has essentially centered a r o u n d royal p o w e r ever since the M i d d l e A g e s . The j u r i d ical edifice of our societies w a s elaborated at the d e m a n d of royal power, as w e l l as for its benefit, and in order to serve a s its i n s t r u m e n t or its justification. In the West, right is the r i g h t of the royal command. Everyone is of course familiar w i t h the famous, celebrated, repeated, a n d repetitive role p l a y e d by j u r i s t s in the organization of royal power. It must not be forgotten that the reactivation of R o m a n law in the middle of the M i d d l e A g e s a n d this w a s the g r e a t phenomenon that made it possible to reconstruct a juridical edifice that h a d collapsed after the fall of the R o m a n Empirewas one of the i n s t r u m e n t s that w a s used to constitute monarchical, a u t h o r i t a r i a n , a d m i n i s t r a t i v e , and, u l t i m a t e l y , absolute power. The juridical edifice was, then, formed around the r o y a l personage, at the d e m a n d of royal

26

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power, and for the benefit of royal power. When in later centuries this j u r i d i c a l edifice escaped from royal control, w h e n it w a s t u r n e d against royal power, the issue at stake w a s a l w a y s , and a l w a y s w o u l d be, the limits of that power, the question of its prerogatives. In other w o r d s , I believe that the k i n g w a s the central character in the entire W e s t e r n j u r i d i c a l edifice. The g e n e r a l system, or at least the general organization of the W e s t e r n j u r i d i c a l system, w a s all about the king: the king, his r i g h t s , his power, and the possible l i m i t s of h i s power. That, basically, is w h a t the general system, or at least the general organization, of the W e s t e r n j u r i d i c a l system is all about. No matter whether the jurists w e r e the k i n g ' s servants or his adversaries, the great edifices of juridical thought and j u r i d i c a l k n o w l e d g e w e r e a l w a y s about royal power. It w a s all about r o y a l p o w e r in t w o senses. Either it had to be demonstrated that royal p o w e r w a s invested in a juridical a r m a t u r e , that the monarch w a s i n d e e d the l i v i n g body of sovereignty, and that his power, even when absolute, w a s perfectly in keeping w i t h a basic right; or it had to be d e m o n s t r a t e d that the p o w e r of the sovereign had to be l i m i t e d , that it had to submit to certain rules, and that, if that power w e r e to retain i t s legitimacy, it h a d to be exercised w i t h i n certain l i m i t s . From the M i d d l e A g e s o n w a r d , the essential role of the theory of r i g h t has been to establish the l e g i t i m a c y of power; the major or central problem around w h i c h the theory of r i g h t is organized is the problem of sovereignty. To say that the problem of sovereignty is the central problem of right in W e s t e r n societies means that the e s sential function of the technique a n d discourse of right is to dissolve the element of domination in p o w e r a n d to replace that domination, w h i c h has to be reduced or masked, w i t h t w o things: the legitimate rights of the sovereign on the one hand, a n d the legal obligation to obey on the other. The system of right is completely centered on the k i n g ; it is, in other w o r d s , u l t i m a t e l y an elimination of domination and its consequences. In previous y e a r s w h e n w e w e r e t a l k i n g about the various l i t t l e things I have mentioned, the general project w a s , basically, to invert the general direction of the analysis that has, I think, been the entire

74 January

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discourse of r i g h t ever since the M i d d l e A g e s . I have been t r y i n g to do the opposite, or in other w o r d s to stress the fact of domination in all its b r u t a l i t y and its secrecy, a n d then to show not only that right is an instrument of that dominationthat is self-evidentbut also

how, to w h a t extent, a n d in w h a t form right ( a n d w h e n I say right, I am not thinking just of the l a w , b u t of all the a p p a r a t u s e s , insti tutions, a n d rules t h a t a p p l y i t ) serves as a vehicle for a n d i m p l e m e n t s relations t h a t are not relations of sovereignty, b u t relations of domination. A n d b y d o m i n a t i o n I do not m e a n the b r u t e fact of the dom ination of the one over the m a n y , or of one g r o u p over another, b u t the m u l t i p l e forms of d o m i n a t i o n t h a t can be e x e r c i s e d in society; so, not the k i n g in his central position, b u t subjects in their reciprocal relations; not sovereignty in its one edifice, but the m u l t i p l e s u b j u gations t h a t t a k e place a n d function w i t h i n the social body. The system of right and the j u d i c i a r y field a r e permanent vehicles for relations of domination, a n d for p o l y m o r p h o u s techniques of s u b jugation. R i g h t m u s t , I t h i n k , b e v i e w e d not in terms of a l e g i t i m a c y that has to be established, but in t e r m s of the procedures of s u b j u gation it i m p l e m e n t s . A s I see it, w e h a v e to b y p a s s or get a r o u n d the p r o b l e m of s o v e r e i g n t y w h i c h is central to the theory of right a n d the obedience of i n d i v i d u a l s w h o s u b m i t to it, and to r e v e a l the p r o b l e m of d o m i n a t i o n a n d subjugation instead of sovereignty a n d subjugation. H a v i n g s a i d that, a certain n u m b e r of methodological precautions had to be t a k e n in order to follow this line, w h i c h w a s an a t t e m p t to b y p a s s or deviate from the general line of the j u r i d i c a l analysis. Methodological precautions. Our object is not to a n a l y z e r u l e -

governed and l e g i t i m a t e forms of p o w e r w h i c h h a v e a single center, or to look at w h a t their general m e c h a n i s m s or its overall effects m i g h t be. O u r object i s , on the contrary, to u n d e r s t a n d power by looking at its e x t r e m i t i e s , at its outer l i m i t s at the point where it becomes capillary; in other w o r d s , to u n d e r s t a n d p o w e r in i t s most regional forms and i n s t i t u t i o n s , and especially at the points w h e r e this p o w e r transgresses the r u l e s of r i g h t t h a t organize and delineate it, oversteps those r u l e s and is invested in institutions, is embodied in t e c h n i q u e s

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and a c q u i r e s the material m e a n s to i n t e r v e n e , sometimes in violent w a y s . W e can t a k e an e x a m p l e if you like: rather t h a n t r y i n g to see w h e r e and how the p o w e r to p u n i s h finds its basis in the sovereignty, as described by philosophy, of either monarchical right or democratic right, I tried to look at how the power to punish w a s embodied in a certain n u m b e r of local, regional, and material institutions, such as t o r t u r e or imprisonment, and to look at the simultaneously i n s t i t u tional, p h y s i c a l , regulatory, a n d violent w o r l d of the actual a p p a r a tuses of p u n i s h m e n t . I t r i e d , in other w o r d s , to understand power by looking at its e x t r e m i t i e s , at w h e r e its exercise became less and less j u n d i c i a l . T h a t w a s my first precaution. Second precaution: M y goal w a s not to a n a l y z e power at the level of intentions or decisions, not to t r y to approach it from inside, a n d not to ask the question ( w h i c h l e a d s u s , I t h i n k , into a l a b y r i n t h from w h i c h t h e r e is no w a y o u t ) : So who has p o w e r ? W h a t is going on in his h e a d ? A n d w h a t is he t r y i n g to do, t h i s m a n w h o h a s p o w e r ? The g o a l w a s , on the contrary, to s t u d y p o w e r at the point w h e r e h i s intentionsif, that is, any intention is involvedare completely i n v e s t e d in real and effective p r a c t i c e s ; to s t u d y p o w e r by looking, as it w e r e , at its external face, at the point w h e r e it relates directly and i m m e d i a t e l y to w h a t w e might, very provisionally, call its object, its target, its field of application, or, in other w o r d s , the places w h e r e it i m p l a n t s itself a n d produces its real effects. So the question is not: W h y do some people w a n t to be d o m i n a n t ? W h a t do thev w a n t ? W h a t is t h e i r overall s t r a t e g y ? The q u e s t i o n is this: W h a t happens at the moment of, at the level of the procedure ot subjugation, or in the continuous and u n i n t e r r u p t e d processes t h a t subjugate bodies, direct gestures, and regulate forms of b e h a v i o r ? In other w o r d s , rather t h a n a s k i n g ourselves w h a t the s o v e r e i g n looks l i k e from on high, w e should be t r y i n g to discover how m u l t i p l e bodies, forces, energies, matters, desires, thoughts, and so on are g r a d u a l l y , progressively, actually a n d m a t e r i a l l y constituted as subjects, or as the subject. To grasp the material agency of subjugation insofar as it constitutes s u b jects w o u l d , if you like, be to do precisely the opposite of w h a t H o b b e s w a s t r y i n g to do in Leviathan.' U l t i m a t e l y , I t h i n k that all

J 4 January

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jurists try to do the same thing, as t h e i r problem is to discover how a m u l t i p l i c i t y oi i n d i v i d u a l s and w i l l s can be s h a p e d into a single w i l l or e v e n a s i n g l e b o d y that is s u p p o s e d l y a n i m a t e d bv a soul k n o w n as sovereignty. R e m e m b e r the schema of Leviathan.
2

In this schema,

the Leviathan, being an artificial man, is no more than the coagulation ot a c e r t a i n n u m b e r ot distinct i n d i v i d u a l i t i e s that find themselves united bv a certain number of the S t a t e ' s constituent elements. But at the heart, or rather the head, of the State, there is something that constitutes it as such, and that something i s sovereignty, w h i c h

Hobbes specifically describes as the soul of the Leviathan. W e l l , rather than r a i s i n g this problem ol the central soul, I think w e should be t r y i n g a n d t h i s i s w h a t I have been t r y i n g t o doto study the m u l t i p l e p e r i p h e r a l b o d i e s , the b o d i e s that are c o n s t i t u t e d as subjects by power-effects. Third methodological precaution: Do not r e g a r d p o w e r as a p h e nomenon of mass and homogeneous d o m i n a t i o n t h e domination ol one i n d i v i d u a l over others, of one g r o u p over others, or of one class over others; k e e p it clearly in m i n d that unless w e are looking at it from a great h e i g h t and from a v e r y great d i s t a n c e , p o w e r i s not something that is d i v i d e d b e t w e e n those w h o have it and hold it exclusively, a n d those who d o not have it a n d a r e sub|ect to it. P o w e r must, I think, be a n a l y z e d as something that c i r c u l a t e s , or r a t h e r as something that functions only w h e n it is part ot a chain. It is never localized here or there, it i s never in the h a n d s of some, a n d it is never a p p r o p r i a t e d in the w a y that w e a l t h or a commodity can be a p p r o p r i a t e d . Power functions. Power is e x e r c i s e d through n e t w o r k s , and i n d i v i d u a l s do not simply circulate in those n e t w o r k s ; they are in a position to both submit to and e x e r c i s e this power. They are never t h e inert or consenting targets ol power; they are a l w a y s its r e l a y s . In other w o r d s , p o w e r passes through i n d i v i d u a l s . It is not applied to them. It is therefore, I think, a m i s t a k e to think of the individual as a sort of e l e m e n t a r y nucleus, a p r i m i t i v e atom or some m u l t i p l e , inert matter to w h i c h p o w e r is applied, or w h i c h is s t r u c k by a p o w e r that s u b o r d i n a t e s or destroys i n d i v i d u a l s . In actual fact, one of the first

JO

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effects of power is that it allows bodies, gestures, discourses, and desires to be identified and constituted as something i n d i v i d u a l . The i n d i v i d u a l is not, in other w o r d s , p o w e r ' s opposite number; the individual is one of p o w e r ' s first effects. The i n d i v i d u a l is in fact a power-effect, and at the same time, and to the extent that he is a power-effect, the i n d i v i d u a l is a relay: power passes through the ind i v i d u a l s it has constituted. Fourth i m p l i c a t i o n at the level of methodological precautions:

When I say, " P o w e r is exercised, circulates, a n d forms n e t w o r k s , " this m i g h t be true up to a certain point. W e can also say, " W e all have some element of fascism inside our h e a d s , " or, at a more basic level still, " W e all have some element of power in our bodies." A n d power doesat least to some extentpass or migrate through our bodies. W e can i n d e e d say all that, but I do not t h i n k that w e therefore have to conclude that p o w e r is the b e s t - d i s t r i b u t e d thing, the most w i d e l y d i s t r i b u t e d thing, in the w o r l d , even t h o u g h this is, u p to a point, the case. P o w e r is not d i s t r i b u t e d throughout the body in democratic or a n a r c h i c fashion. W h a t I mean is this: i t seems to meand this w i l l be our fourth methodological precautionit is important not to, so to speak, deduce power by b e g i n n i n g at the center a n d trying to see how far d o w n it goes, or to w h a t extent it is reproduced or

r e n e w e d in the most atomistic elements of society. I t h i n k that, on the c o n t r a r y a n d this is a methodological precaution that has to be t a k e n w e s h o u l d m a k e an ascending analysis of power, or in other w o r d s begin w i t h its infinitesimal mechanisms, w h i c h have their own history, their o w n trajectory, their o w n techniques a n d tactics, a n d then look at how these mechanisms of power, which have their sol i d i t y a n d , in a sense, their own technology, have been a n d are i n vested, colonized, used, inflected, transformed, d i s p l a c e d , extended, and so on by increasingly general mechanisms a n d forms of overall domination. Overall domination is not something that is p l u r a h z e d a n d then has repercussions d o w n below. I t h i n k w e h a v e to analyze the w a y in w h i c h the phenomena, techniques, and procedures of power come into play at the lowest levels; we have to show, obviously, how these procedures are displaced, extended, and modified and,

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above all, how they are invested or a n n e x e d b y global phenomena, a n d how more general p o w e r s or economic benefits can slip into the play of t h e s e technologies of p o w e r , w h i c h a r e at once relatively a u tonomous a n d infinitesimal. To m a k e t h i n g s clearer, I w i l l t a k e the e x a m p l e of m a d n e s s . W e c o u l d s a y t h i s , w e c o u l d m a k e the descending analysis we h a v e to distrust. W e could s a y t h a t from the late sixteenth c e n t u r y or the seventeenth century o n w a r d , the bourgeoisie became the r u l i n g class. Having s a i d that, how can w e deduce that the m a d w i l l be confined? Y o u can certainly m a k e t h a t d e d u c t i o n ; it is a l w a y s e a s y , a n d that is precisely w h a t I hold a g a i n s t it. It is in fact easy to show how, because the m a d are obviously of no use to i n d u s t r i a l production, t h e y have to b e got r i d of. W e could, if y o u like, say the same thing, not about the m a d m a n this t i m e , b u t about infantile s e x u a l i t y a n d a n u m b e r of people h a v e done so: W i l h e l m R e i c h does so up to a point, a n d R e i m u t Reich c e r t a i n l y does so. W e could a s k how the rule of the bourgeoisie a l l o w s us to u n d e r s t a n d the repression of infantile s e x u ality. Well, i t ' s q u i t e s i m p l e : from the seventeenth or eighteenth cent u r y o n w a r d , the h u m a n b o d y essentially became a p r o d u c t i v e force, a n d all forms of e x p e n d i t u r e that could not be r e d u c e d to these r e lations, or to the constitution of the productive forces, all forms of e x p e n d i t u r e t h a t could be s h o w n to be u n p r o d u c t i v e , w e r e b a n i s h e d , excluded, a n d repressed. Such d e d u c t i o n s are a l w a y s possible; t h e y a r e both t r u e and false. T h e y a r e essentially too facile, because w e can say precisely the opposite. W e can deduce from the p r i n c i p l e that the bourgeoisie b e c a m e a r u l i n g class t h a t controlling s e x u a l i t y , a n d i n fantile s e x u a l i t y , is not absolutely d e s i r a b l e . W e c a n r e a c h the opposite conclusion a n d s a y t h a t w h a t is n e e d e d is a sexual a p p r e n t i c e s h i p , sexual training, sexual precocity, to the e x t e n t t h a t the goal is to use sexuality to reproduce a labor force, a n d it is w e l l k n o w n that, at least in the early nineteenth c e n t u r y , it w a s b e l i e v e d that the o p t i m a l labor force w a s an infinite labor force: the g r e a t e r the labor force, the greater the capitalist system of production's a b i l i t y to function and efficiently. I t h i n k that w e can deduce w h a t e v e r we l i k e from the g e n e r a l fully
H 3

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phenomenon of the domination of the bourgeois class. It seems to me that w e s h o u l d be doing q u i t e the opposite, or in other w o r d s looking in historical t e r m s , a n d from below, at how control mechanisms could come into play in t e r m s of the exclusion of madness, or the repression a n d suppression of s e x u a l i t y ; at how these phenomena of repression or exclusion found their i n s t r u m e n t s a n d their logic, a n d met a certain n u m b e r of needs at the actual level of the family a n d its i m m e d i a t e entourage, or in the cells or the lowest levels of society. W e should be s h o w i n g w h a t their agents w e r e , and w e should be looking for those agents not in the bourgeoisie in general, but in the real agents that exist in the i m m e d i a t e entourage: the family, parents, doctors, the lowest levels of the police, a n d so on. A n d w e should be looking at how, at a given moment, in a specific conjuncture and subject to a certain n u m b e r of transformations, these p o w e r - m e c h a n i s m s began to become economically profitable a n d p o l i t i c a l l y useful. A n d I think w e could easily succeed in d e m o n s t r a t i n g a n d t h i s is, after all, w h a t I have tried to do on a number of occasions in the pastthat, basically, w h a t the bourgeoisie needed, and the reason w h y the system u l t i m a t e l y proved to w o r k to its advantage, w a s not that the m a d had to be excluded or that childhood masturbation h a d to be controlled or forbiddenthe bourgeois system can, I repeat, quite easily tolerate

the opposite of this. W h a t did prove to be in its interest, and w h a t it d i d invest, w a s not the fact that they w e r e excluded, but the technique and procedures of their exclusion. It w a s the mechanisms of exclusion, the surveillance a p p a r a t u s , the m e d i c a h z a t i o n of sexuality, madness, and d e l i n q u e n c y , it w a s all that, or in other w o r d s the m i cromechanics of power that came at a certain moment to represent, to constitute the interest of the bourgeoisie. That is w h a t the b o u r geoisie w a s i n t e r e s t e d in. To put it a n o t h e r w a y : to the extent t h a t these notions of "the bourgeoisie" and "the i n t e r e s t s of the b o u r g e o i s i e " p r o b a b l y have no content, or at least not in t e r m s of the p r o b l e m s w e have just raised, what w e have to realize is precisely that there w a s no such thing as a bourgeoisie that thought that madness should be excluded or that infantile s e x u a l i t y had to be repressed; but there were mechanisms to

14 January

1976

exclude madness and t e c h n i q u e s t o keep infantile s e x u a l i t y u n d e r surveillance. A t a g i v e n moment, a n d for reasons t h a t have to be studied, they generated a certain economic profit, a certain political utility, and they w e r e therefore colonized and supported by global

m e c h a n i s m s and, finally, by the entire s y s t e m of the State. If w e concentrate on the techniques of power a n d show the economic profit or political u t i l i t y that can b e d e r i v e d from t h e m , in a certain context and for certain reasons, then w e can u n d e r s t a n d how these m e c h a n i s m s a c t u a l l y a n d e v e n t u a l l y became p a r t of the w h o l e . In other

w o r d s , the bourgeoisie doesn't give a d a m n about the m a d , but from the nineteenth c e n t u r y o n w a r d a n d subject to certain transformations, the p r o c e d u r e s used to e x c l u d e the m a d p r o d u c e d or g e n e r a t e d a political profit, or even a certain economic u t i l i t y . They consolidated the system a n d helped it to function as a w h o l e . The bourgeoisie is not interested in the mad, b u t it is interested in p o w e r over the m a d ; the bourgeoisie is not interested in the s e x u a l i t y of children, but it is interested in the system of p o w e r that controls the s e x u a l i t y of c h i l dren. The bourgeoisie does not give a damn about d e l i n q u e n t s , or about how t h e y a r e punished or r e h a b i l i t a t e d , as t h a t is of no great economic interest. On the other hand, the set of m e c h a n i s m s w h e r e b y d e l i n q u e n t s a r e controlled, kept t r a c k of, p u n i s h e d , and reformed does generate a bourgeois interest t h a t functions w i t h i n the economico-

pohtical s y s t e m a s a w h o l e . T h a t is the fourth precaution, the fourth methodological line I w a n t e d to follow. Fifth precaution: It is q u i t e possible t h a t ideological p r o d u c t i o n d i d coexist w i t h the great m a c h i n e r i e s of p o w e r . T h e r e w a s no d o u b t an ideology of education, an ideology of monarchical p o w e r , an ideology of p a r l i a m e n t a r y democracy, a n d so on. But I do not t h i n k that it i s ideologies that are shaped at the base, at the point w h e r e the n e t w o r k s of power c u l m i n a t e . It is much less and much more than that. It is the actual instruments that form a n d accumulate k n o w l edge, the observational methods, the r e c o r d i n g t e c h n i q u e s , the i n v e s tigative research procedures, the verification m e c h a n i s m s . That i s , the delicate m e c h a n i s m s of p o w e r cannot function unless k n o w l e d g e , or rather k n o w l e d g e apparatuses, are formed, organized, and put into

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circulation, and those a p p a r a t u s e s are not ideological trimmings or edifices. To sum u p these five methodological precautions, let me say that rather than orienting our research into power t o w a r d the juridical edifice of sovereignty, State apparatuses, a n d the ideologies that accompany them, I think we s h o u l d orient our analysis of p o w e r t o w a r d material operations, forms of subjugation, a n d the connections among a n d the uses made of the local systems of subjugation on the one hand, and a p p a r a t u s e s of k n o w l e d g e on the other. In short, w e have to abandon the model of Leviathan, that model of an artificial m a n w h o is at once an automaton, a fabricated man, but also a unitary m a n w h o contains all real i n d i v i d u a l s , whose body is m a d e u p of citizens b u t w h o s e soul i s sovereignty. W e have to study p o w e r outside the model of Leviathan, outside the field delineated by juridical sovereignty and t h e i n s t i t u t i o n of t h e State. W e have to analyze it by beginning w i t h the techniques a n d tactics of domination. That, I t h i n k , is the methodological line w e have to follow, a n d w h i c h I have t r i e d to follow in the different research projects w e have u n d e r t a k e n in previous y e a r s on psychiatric p o w e r , infantile sexuality, the punitive system, a n d so on. Now if w e look at this domain and take these methodological precautions, I t h i n k that one massive historical fact emerges, and that it will help to p r o v i d e u s w i t h a n introduction to the p r o b l e m I w i s h to t a l k about from now o n w a r d . The massive historical fact is this: The j u r i d i c o - p o l i t i c a l theory of sovereigntythe theory we have to get a w a y from if w e w a n t to a n a l y z e power-dates from the M i d d l e A g e s . It dates from the reactivation of R o m a n l a w and is constituted around the p r o b l e m of the monarch and the monarchy. A n d I believe that, in historical t e r m s , this theory of s o v e r e i g n t y w h i c h is the great t r a p w e are in danger of falling into w h e n w e try to a n a l y z e power p l a y e d tour roles. First, it referred to an actual p o w e r mechanism: that of the feudal monarchy. Second, it w a s used as an instrument to constitute a n d justify the great monarchical administrations. From the sixteenth and especially the seventeenth century onward, or at the time of the W a r s

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of R e l i g i o n , the theory of sovereignty then became a w e a p o n that w a s in circulation on both sides, and it w a s used both to restrict a n d to strengthen royal p o w e r . You find it in the hands of Catholic monarchists a n d Protestant antimonarchists; you also find it in the h a n d s of more or less l i b e r a l Protestant monarchists; y o u also find it in the h a n d s of C a t h o l i c s w h o advocate regicide or a c h a n g e of d y n a s t y . You find t h i s theory of sovereignty b e i n g b r o u g h t into p l a y by aristocrats a n d parlement aires? by the r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s of royal p o w e r a n d by the

last feudalists. It w a s , in a w o r d , the g r e a t i n s t r u m e n t of the political a n d theoretical struggles that took p l a c e a r o u n d systems of p o w e r in the s i x t e e n t h a n d seventeenth c e n t u r i e s . In the eighteenth c e n t u r y , finally, you find the s a m e t h e o r y of s o v e r e i g n t y , the s a m e reactivation

of R o m a n l a w , in the w o r k of Rousseau and his contemporaries, but it now p l a y e d a fourth and different role; at this point in time, its role w a s to construct an alternative model to a u t h o r i t a r i a n or absolute monarchical administration: that of the p a r l i a m e n t a r y democracies. A n d it w e n t on p l a y i n g t h a t role u n t i l the t i m e of the Revolution. It seems to me that if w e look at these four roles, w e find that, so long as feudal-type societies survived, the p r o b l e m s dealt w i t h by the theory of sovereignty, or to w h i c h it referred, w e r e actually coextensive w i t h the g e n e r a l mechanics of p o w e r , or the w a y p o w e r w a s exercised from the highest to the l o w e s t levels. In other w o r d s , the relationship of sovereignty, u n d e r s t o o d in both the broad a n d the

n a r r o w sense, w a s , in short, coextensive w i t h the entire social body. A n d the w a y i n w h i c h p o w e r w a s e x e r c i s e d could indeed be t r a n s c r i b e d , at least in its essentials, in t e r m s of the s o v e r e i g n / s u b j e c t relationship. N o w , an i m p o r t a n t phenomenon occurred in the seventeenth a n d eighteenth centuries: the appearanceone should say the invention of a n e w m e c h a n i s m of p o w e r w h i c h had very specific procedures, completely n e w i n s t r u m e n t s , and v e r y different e q u i p m e n t . It w a s , I believe, absolutely i n c o m p a t i b l e w i t h relations of sovereignty. T h i s new mechanism of p o w e r a p p l i e s p r i m a r i l y to bodies a n d w h a t they do rather than to the land and w h a t it produces. It w a s a m e c h a n i s m of p o w e r that made it possible to extract time a n d labor, rather than

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commodities a n d w e a l t h , from bodies. It w a s a type of power that w a s exercised through constant surveillance and not in discontinuous fashion t h r o u g h chronologically defined systems of taxation and obligation. It w a s a type of power that presupposed a closely meshed g r i d of material coercions rather than the physical existence of a sovereign, and it therefore defined a new economy of power based upon the p r i n c i p l e that there had to be an increase both in the subjugated forces and in the force and efficacy of that w h i c h subjugated them. It seems to me that this t y p e of p o w e r is the exact, point-for-point opposite of the mechanics of p o w e r that the theory of sovereignty described or tried to transcribe. The theory of sovereignty is b o u n d up w i t h a form of p o w e r that is exercised over the l a n d and the produce of the land, much more so than over bodies and what they do. [This t h e o r y ] concerns p o w e r ' s displacement and appropriation

not of time and labor, but of goods and w e a l t h . This m a k e s it possible to transcribe, into j u r i d i c a l t e r m s , discontinuous obligations and tax records, b u t not to code continuous surveillance; it is a theory that makes it possible to found absolute power around and on the basis of the physical existence of the sovereign, but not continuous and

permanent systems of surveillance. The theory of sovereignty is, if you like, a theory w h i c h can found absolute p o w e r on the absolute e x p e n d i t u r e of p o w e r , but w h i c h cannot calculate p o w e r with m i n i m u m e x p e n d i t u r e and m a x i m u m efficiency. This new t y p e of power, which can therefore no longer be transcribed in terms of sovereignty, is, I believe, one of bourgeois society's great inventions. It w a s one of the basic tools for the establishment of industrial capitalism and the corresponding type of society. This nonsovereign power, w h i c h is foreign to the form of sovereignty, is " d i s c i p l i n a r y " power. This power cannot be described or justified in terms of the theory of sovereignty. It is radically heterogeneous and should logically have led to the complete disappearance of the great juridical edifice of the theory of sovereignty. In fact, the theory of sovereignty not only continued to exist as, if you like, an ideology of right; it also continued to organize the j u r i d ical codes that nineteenth-century Europe adopted after the N a p o -

leonic codes.'' W h y did the theory of sovereignty live on in this way

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as an ideology and as the organizing p r i n c i p l e b e h i n d the great j u ridical codes? I t h i n k there are t w o reasons. On the one hand, the theory of sovereignty w a s , in the seventeenth century and even the nineteenth century, a p e r m a n e n t critical i n s t r u m e n t to be used against the mona r c h y and all the obstacles t h a t stood in the w a y of the development of the d i s c i p l i n a r y society. On the other h a n d , this theory, a n d the organization of a j u r i d i c a l code c e n t e r e d upon it, m a d e it possible to superimpose on t h e mechanism of d i s c i p l i n e a system of right that concealed its mechanisms and erased the element of domination a n d the t e c h n i q u e s of domination involved in discipline, and w h i c h , fin a l l y , g u a r a n t e e d t h a t everyone could exercise his or her own sovereign r i g h t s t h a n k s to the s o v e r e i g n t y of the State. In other w o r d s , juridical systems, no matter w h e t h e r t h e y w e r e theories or codes, allowed the democratization of sovereignty, and the establishment of a p u b l i c right a r t i c u l a t e d w i t h collective sovereignty, at the verv t i m e when, to the extent that, a n d because the democratization of sovereignty w a s heavily ballasted by the mechanisms of d i s c i p l i n a r y coercion. To p u t it in more condensed t e r m s , one might say t h a t once disciplinary constraints h a d to both Junction as mechanisms of d o m ination and be concealed to the e x t e n t t h a t they w e r e the mode in which p o w e r w a s actually exercised, the theory of sovereignty had to find expression in t h e j u r i d i c a l a p p a r a t u s a n d had to b e reactivated or complemented b y judicial codes. From the nineteenth c e n t u r y u n t i l the present day, we h a v e then in m o d e r n societies, on the one hand, a legislation, a discourse, a n d an organization of p u b l i c right a r t i c u l a t e d a r o u n d the principle of the sovereignty of the social body and the delegation of i n d i v i d u a l sovereignty to the State; a n d we also have a t i g h t g r i d of d i s c i p l i n a r y coercions that a c t u a l l y g u a r a n t e e s the cohesion of that social body. Now that g r i d cannot in any w a y be transcribed in right, even though the t w o necessarily go together. A right of sovereignty and a m e chanics of d i s c i p l i n e . It i s , I t h i n k , b e t w e e n these t w o l i m i t s that power is exercised. The t w o l i m i t s a r e , however, of such a k i n d a n d so heterogeneous that w e can never reduce one to the other. In mod-

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ern societies, p o w e r is exercised through, on the basis of, a n d in the very play of the heterogeneity b e t w e e n a public right of sovereignty a n d a p o l y m o r p h o u s mechanics of discipline. This is not to say that y o u have, on the one hand, a g a r r u l o u s a n d explicit system of right, a n d on the other hand, obscure silent disciplines that operate down below, in the shadows, a n d which constitute the silent basement of the great mechanics of power. Disciplines in fact have their o w n d i s course. They do, for the reasons I w a s telling you about a moment ago, create a p p a r a t u s e s of k n o w l e d g e , k n o w l e d g e s and multiple fields of expertise. T h e y are e x t r a o r d i n a r i l y inventive w h e n it comes to creating a p p a r a t u s e s to shape k n o w l e d g e and expertise, and they do s u p port a discourse, b u t it is a discourse that cannot be the discourse of right or a j u r i d i c a l discourse. The discourse of discipline is alien to t h a t of the l a w ; it is alien to the discourse that makes rules a product of t h e will of the sovereign. The discourse of disciplines is about a rule: not a j u r i d i c a l rule d e r i v e d from sovereignty, but a discourse about a natural rule, or in other w o r d s a norm. Disciplines w i l l define not a code of l a w , but a code of normalization, and t h e y w i l l necess a r i l y refer to a theoretical horizon that is not the edifice of l a w , but the field of the h u m a n sciences. A n d the j u r i s p r u d e n c e of these d i s ciplines w i l l b e that of a clinical k n o w l e d g e . In short, w h a t I h a v e been t r y i n g to show over the last few years is certainly not how, as the front of the exact sciences advances, the uncertain, difficult, and confused domain of h u m a n behavior is g r a d ually a n n e x e d by science: the g r a d u a l constitution of the h u m a n sciences is not the result of an increased rationality on t h e part of the e x a c t sciences. I t h i n k that the process that has m a d e possible the discourse of the human sciences is the juxtaposition of, the confrontation between, t w o m e c h a n i s m s and t w o t y p e s of discourse t h a t are absolutely heterogeneous: on the one hand, the organization of right around sovereignty, and on the other, the mechanics of the coercions exercised by disciplines. In our day, it is the fact that p o w e r is e x ercised t h r o u g h both right and disciplines, that the techniques of discipline and discourses born of discipline are invading right, and that normalizing procedures are increasingly colonizing the proce-

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d u r e s of the l a w , that might e x p l a i n the overall w o r k i n g s of w h a t I would call a " n o r m a l i z i n g society." To b e m o r e specific, w h a t I mean is t h i s : I t h i n k that normalization, that d i s c i p l i n a r y normalizations, a r e i n c r e a s i n g l y in conflict w i t h the juridical s y s t e m of sovereignty; the i n c o m p a t i b i l i t y of the two is i n creasingly apparent; t h e r e is a greater a n d greater need for a sort of arbitrating discourse, for a sort of power a n d k n o w l e d g e that has been rendered neutral because its scientificity h a s become sacred. A n d it is precisely in the expansion of m e d i c i n e that w e a r e seeingI

w o u l d n ' t call it a combination of, a reduction ofbut a perpetual exchange or confrontation between the mechanics of discipline and

the principle of right. The development of medicine, the general m e d lcahzation of behavior, modes of conduct, discourses, d e s i r e s , a n d so on, is t a k i n g place on the front w h e r e the heterogeneous l a y e r s of discipline a n d sovereignty meet. T h a t is w h y w e now find ourselves in a situation w h e r e the only existing a n d a p p a r e n t l y solid recourse w e have against the u s u r p a t i o n s of d i s c i p l i n a r y mechanics a n d a g a i n s t the rise of a p o w e r that is b o u n d up w i t h scientific k n o w l e d g e is precisely a recourse or a r e t u r n to a right that is o r g a n i z e d around sovereignty, or that is a r t i c u l a t e d on that old p r i n c i p l e . Which means in concrete terms that when w e w a n t to make some objection against d i s c i p l i n e s and all the k n o w l e d g e effects and power-effects that are b o u n d u p w i t h t h e m , w h a t do w e do in concrete terms? W h a t do w e do in real life? W h a t do the

Syndicat de la m a g i s t r a t u r e a n d other institutions like it d o ? W h a t do w e do? W e obviously invoke r i g h t , the famous old formal, b o u r geois right. A n d it is in reality the right of sovereignty. A n d I t h i n k that at t h i s point w e a r e in a sort ol b o t t l e n e c k , t h a t w e cannot go on w o r k i n g l i k e this forever; having recourse to sovereignty against discipline will not e n a b l e us to limit the effects ol disciplinary p o w e r . Sovereignty and d i s c i p l i n e , legislation, the right of sovereignty and disciplinary mechanics are in fact the t w o things that constitutein an absolute sensethe general mechanisms of p o w e r in our society. Truth to tell, if w e a r e to struggle against d i s c i p l i n e s , or rather against disciplinary power, in our search for a n o n d i s c i p l i n a r y power, w e

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should not be turning to the old right of sovereignty; w e should be looking for a new right that is b o t h a n t i d i s c i p h n a r y and emancipated from the principle of sovereignty. A t this point w e come back to the notion of "repression." I may talk to you about that next time, unless I have had enough of r e peating things that have a l r e a d y been said, and move on immediately to other things to do w i t h w a r . If I feel like it and if I can be bothered to, I will talk to you about the notion of "repression," w h i c h h a s , I t h i n k , the twofold disadvantage, in the use that is made of it, of

m a k i n g obscure reference to a certain theory of sovereigntythe t h e ory of the sovereign rights of the i n d i v i d u a l a n d of b r i n g i n g into play, w h e n it is used, a whole set of psychological references b o r r o w e d from the h u m a n sciences, or in other w o r d s from discourses and p r a c tices that relate to the d i s c i p l i n a r y domain. I think that the notion of " r e p r e s s i o n " is still, whatever critical use w e t r y to m a k e of it, a ( u r i d i c o - d i s c i p h n a r y notion; and to that extent the critical use of the notion of "repression" is t a i n t e d , spoiled, and rotten from the outset because it implies both a juridical reference to sovereignty and a d i s c i p l i n a r y reference to normalization. N e x t time, I will either talk to you about repression or move on to the problem of w a r .

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1. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme and Power of a Common-Wealth Eidesiasticai/ and Civill { London, 1651). The I-a tin translation of the text, which was in fact a new version, was published in Amsterdam in 1 6 6 8 . 2. Foucault is alluding to the famous frontispiece to the "Head" edition of Leviathan published by Andrew Crooke. It depicts the bodv of a state constituted bv its subjects, with the head representing the sovereign, who holds a sword in one hand and a crosier in the other. The basic attributes of civil and ecclesiastical power are depicted below it. 3- Wilhelm Reich, Der Einbruch der Sexua/moraL 4. Reimut Reich, Sexualitdt und Klassenkampf: %ur Abwehr rtpressiver Ensublimierung ( Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Neue Kntik, 1 9 6 8 ) (French translation: Sexualiteet lutte de classe [Pans: Maspero, 1 9 6 9 ] ) . 5. The thirteen parlements of the Ancien Regime were high courts of appeal and had no legislative powers, though the parlement de Paris did attempt to usurp such powers. [Trans. ] 6. The reference is to the "Napoleonic codes," or in other words the Code civil of 1804, the Code d e s t r u c t i o n criminelle of 1808, and the Code penal of 1810.

three

21 J A N U A R Y 1 9 7 6

Theory

of sovereignty of power

and operators relations.

of domination.

- War as of

J. \ !

analyzer |
is..

- The binary

structure

society.

- Historico-political

discourse,

the discourse

of perpetual of race

war. - The dialectic

and its codifications. and its

- The discourse

struggle

transcriptions.

L A S T T I M E , W E S A I D a sort of farewell to the theory of s o v e r e i g n t y

insofar as it couldand canbe described as a method for a n a l y z i n g p o w e r relations. I w o u l d l i k e to show you that the j u r i d i c a l model of sovereignty w a s not, I believe, a b l e to provide a concrete a n a l y s i s of t h e m u l t i p l i c i t y of p o w e r relations. In fact, it seems to meto s u m it all u p in a few w o r d s , in t h r e e w o r d s to be precisethat the t h e o r y of sovereignty necessarily tries to establish w h a t I w o u l d c a l l a c y c l e the subject-to-subject c y c l e a n d to show h o w a subjectunderstood as m e a n i n g an i n d i v i d u a l who is n a t u r a l l y e n d o w e d ( o r e n d o w e d by n a t u r e ) w i t h rights, capabilities, and so oncan and m u s t become a subject, this time in the sense of an element that is subjectified in a power relationship. Sovereignty is the theory that goes from subject to subject, that e s t a b l i s h e s the political relationship b e t w e e n subject and subject. Second, it seems to me that the theory of sovereignty assumes from the outset the existence of a m u l t i p l i c i t y of p o w e r s that are not p o w e r s in the political sense of the term; they are capacities, possibilities, potentials, and it can constitute them as p o w e r s in the political sense of the t e r m only if it h a s in the meantime established

44

"SOCIETY

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a moment of fundamental and foundational unity between possibilities a n d p o w e r s , n a m e l y the u n i t y of power. W h e t h e r this u n i t y of power t a k e s on the face of the monarch or the form of the State is irrelevant; the various forms, aspects, mechanisms, and institutions ol p o w e r will be derived from this u n i t a r y power. T h e m u l t i p l i c i t y of powers, in the sense of political p o w e r s , can be established a n d can function only on the b a s i s of this u n i t a r y p o w e r , w h i c h is founded by the theory of sovereignty. Third and finally, it seems to me that the theory of sovereignty shows, or attempts to show, how a power can be constituted, not e x a c t l y in accordance w i t h the law, but in accordance w i t h a certain basic legitimacy that is more basic than any law and that allows l a w s to function as such. The theory of sovereignty is, in other w o r d s , the subject-to-subject cycle, the cycle of power and powers,

and the cycle of legitimacy and l a w . So we can say that in one w a y or anotherand depending, obviously, upon the different theoretical schemata in which it is deployedthe theory of sovereignty p r e s u p poses the subject; its goal is to establish the essential u n i t y of power, and it is a l w a y s deployed w i t h i n the preexisting element of the l a w . It therefore assumes the existence of three " p r i m i t i v e " elements: a

subject who has to be subjectified, the unity of the p o w e r that has to be founded, and the legitimacy that has to be respected. Subject, u n i t a r y p o w e r , and l a w : the theory of sovereignty comes into play, I think, among these elements, and it both takes them as given and tries to found them. M y projectwhich I i m m e d i a t e l y abandoned w a s to show you how the instrument that politico-psychological analysis a c q u i r e d almost three or four h u n d r e d y e a r s a g o , or in other w o r d s the notion of repressionwhich does look, rather, as though it w a s b o r r o w e d from Freudianism or F r e u d o - M a r x i s m w a s in fact inscribed in an interpretation of p o w e r as sovereignty. To do that

would, however, take us back over things that have already been said, so I w i l l move on, though I m a y come back to this at the end of the y e a r if w e have enough time left. The general project, both in previous vears and this vear, is to trv to release or emancipate this a n a l v s i s of power from three assump-

21 January

1976

45

tionsof subject, unity, and l a w a n d to b r i n g out, r a t h e r than these basic elements of sovereignty, what I w o u l d call relations or operators of domination. R a t h e r than d e r i v i n g p o w e r s from sovereignty, we should be e x t r a c t i n g operators of domination from relations of power, both historically a n d e m p i r i c a l l y . A theory of domination, of domin a t i o n s , r a t h e r than a theory of sovereignty: this means t h a t rather than starting w i t h the subject ( o r even s u b j e c t s ) a n d elements that exist prior to the relationship a n d that can be localized, we begin w i t h the power relationship itself, w i t h the a c t u a l or effective relationship of domination, and see how that relationship itself d e t e r mines the e l e m e n t s to w h i c h it is a p p l i e d . W e should not, therefore, be a s k i n g subjects how, w h y , and by w h a t right they can agree to being subjugated, b u t showing how actual relations of subjugation manufacture subjects. Our second task should be to reveal relations of domination, a n d to allow them to assert themselves in their m u l tiplicity, their differences, their specificity, or their r e v e r s i b i l i t y ; w e s h o u l d not be l o o k i n g for a sort of sovereignty from w h i c h p o w e r s spring, but showing how the v a r i o u s operators of d o m i n a t i o n s u p p o r t one another, r e l a t e to one another, at how they converge a n d reinforce one another in some cases, and negate or strive to annul one another in other cases. I am obviously not saying that great a p p a r a t u s e s of p o w e r do not exist, or t h a t we can neither g e t at them nor d e s c r i b e them. But I do t h i n k that they a l w a y s function on the basis of these a p p a r a t u s e s of domination. To put it in more concrete terms, we can obviously describe a given society's school a p p a r a t u s or its set of educational a p p a r a t u s e s , b u t I think that w e can analyze them effectively only if w e do not see them as an overall u n i t y , onlv if w e do not try to derive t h e m from s o m e t h i n g like the S t a t i s t unity of sovereignty. W e can analyze them only if w e try to see how they interact, how they support one another, a n d how t h i s a p p a r a t u s defines a certain n u m b e r of global strategies on the basis of multiple subjugations ( of child to a d u l t , progeny to parents, ignorance to k n o w l e d g e , apprentice to master, family to a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , a n d so o n ) . All these mechanisms a n d operators of domination are the actual plinth of the global a p -

"SOCIETY

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p a r a t u s that is the school a p p a r a t u s . So, if you like, w e have to see the structures of power as global strategies that traverse and use local tactics ol domination. Third a n d finally, revealing relations of domination rather than the source of sovereignty m e a n s this: W e do not t r y to trace their origins back to that w h i c h gives them t h e i r basic legitimacy. W e have to try, on the contrary, to identify the technical i n s t r u m e n t s t h a t guarantee that they function. So to s u m up and to, if not settle the issue for the moment, at least clarify it somewhat: Rather than looking at the three p r e r e q u i s i t e s of l a w , u n i t y , a n d subjectwhich m a k e s o v e r e i g n t y both the source of p o w e r and the basis of institutionsI t h i n k t h a t w e have to adopt the threefold point of v i e w of the techniques, the heterogeneity of t e c h n i q u e s , and the subjugation-effects that m a k e technologies of domination the real fabric of both power relations and the g r e a t a p p a r a t u s e s of power. The manufacture of subjects r a t h e r than the genesis of the sovereign: that is our general theme. But w h i l e it is q u i t e clear that relations of domination provide the access road that leads to the analysis of power, how can we analyze these relations of d o m i n a t i o n ? W h i l e it is true that w e should be studying domination a n d not sovereignty, or rather that w e should be s t u d y i n g d o m i n a t i o n s a n d operators of domination, how can w e pursue our analysis of r e l a t i o n s of d o m i n a t i o n ? To w h a t e x t e n t can a relationship of domination boil d o w n to or be r e d u c e d to the notion of a relationship of force? To w h a t extent a n d h o w can the r e l a t i o n s h i p of force be r e d u c e d to a relationship of w a r ? That i s , so to speak, the p r e l i m i n a r y question I w o u l d like to look at a bit t h i s year: C a n w a r r e a l l y provide a v a l i d analysis of power relations, and can it act as a m a t r i x for techniques of d o m i n a t i o n ? You m i g h t say to me that we cannot, from the outset, confuse power relations w i t h relations of w a r . Of course not. I am s i m p l y t a k i n g an e x t r e m e [ c a s e ] to the e x t e n t that w a r can be r e g a r d e d as the point ol m a x i m u m tension, or a s force-relations laid bare. Is the p o w e r relationship basically a relationship of confrontation, a struggle to the death, or a w a r ? If we look beneath peace, order, w e a l t h , and a u thority, beneath the calm order of subordinations, beneath the State

2 J January

79/6

and State apparatuses, beneath the l a w s , and so on, will w e hear and discover a sort of p r i m i t i v e and permanent w a r ? I would like to begin by a s k i n g t h i s question, not forgetting that we will also have to raise a w h o l e series of other questions. I w i l l t r y to deal w i t h them in vears to come. A s a first a p p r o x i m a t i o n , w e can simplv say that they include the following questions. C a n the p h e n o m e n o n of w a r be regarded a s p r i m a r y w i t h respect to other r e l a t i o n s ( r e l a t i o n s of i n e q u a l i t y , d i s s y m m e t r i e s , divisions of labor, relations of exploitation, et c e t e r a ) ? M u s t i t be r e g a r d e d as p r i m a r y ? C a n w e and must w e group together in the general mechanism, the general form, k n o w n a s w a r , p h e n o m ena such as antagonism, r i v a l r y , confrontation, and struggles b e t w e e n i n d i v i d u a l s , g r o u p s , or classes? W e m i g h t also ask w h e t h e r notions

derived from w h a t w a s k n o w n in the eighteenth c e n t u r y and even the nineteenth century as the art of w a r ( s t r a t e g y , tactics, et c e t e r a ) constitute in themselves a v a l i d and a d e q u a t e i n s t r u m e n t for the a n a l ysis of p o w e r r e l a t i o n s . W e could, and must, also ask ourselves if m i l i t a r y institutions, a n d the practices that s u r r o u n d t h e m a n d in more general t e r m s all the t e c h n i q u e s that are used to fight a w a r are, whichever w a y w e look at them, directly or indirectly, the nucleus of political institutions. A n d finally, the first question I w o u l d like to s t u d y this year is this: H o w , w h e n , and w h y w a s it noticed or i m a g ined that w h a t is going on beneath and in power relations is a w a r ? W h e n , how, and w h y d i d someone come u p w i t h the idea that it is a sort of u n i n t e r r u p t e d battle that shapes peace, and that the civil

o r d e r i t s b a s i s , its essence, its essential mechanismsis basically a n o r d e r of b a t t l e ? W h o came u p w i t h the i d e a that the civil order is an order of b a t t l e ? [ . . . ] Who s a w w a r just beneath the surface of peace; w h o sought in t h e noise and confusion of w a r , in t h e m u d of battles, t h e principle that a l l o w s u s to u n d e r s t a n d order, t h e State, its institutions, and its h i s t o r y ? That, then, i s the question I am g o i n g to p u r s u e a bit in coming lectures, a n d p e r h a p s for the rest of the year. Basically, the question can be put very simply, a n d that is how I b e g a n to put it mvself: Who, basically, had the idea of i n v e r t i n g C l a u s e w i t z ' s principle, and who thought of saying: "It is quite possible that w a r is the continu-

SOCIETY

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ation of politics by other means, b u t isn't politics itself a continuation of w a r by other m e a n s ? " N o w I think that the problem is not so much w h o inverted C l a u s e w i t z ' s p r i n c i p l e as it is the question of the p r i n c i p l e C l a u s e w i t z inverted, or rather of w h o formulated the p r i n ciple C l a u s e w i t z i n v e r t e d w h e n he s a i d : "But, after all, w a r is no more than a continuation of politics." I in fact t h i n k a n d will a t t e m p t to provethat the p r i n c i p l e that w a r is a continuation of politics by

other means w a s a p r i n c i p l e that existed long before C l a u s e w i t z , w h o simply inverted a sort of thesis that had been in circulation since the seventeenth a n d eighteenth centuries and w h i c h w a s both diffuse and specific. So: Politics is the continuation of w a r by other m e a n s . T h i s thesis and the very existence of this thesis, which predates C l a u s e w i t z contains a sort of historical p a r a d o x . W e can indeed say, schematically and s o m e w h a t crudely, that w i t h the g r o w t h and development of States t h r o u g h o u t the M i d d l e A g e s and u p to the threshold of the modern era, w e see the practices and institutions of w a r undergoing a m a r k e d , very visible change, which can be characterized thus: The practices and institutions of w a r were initially concentrated in the

hand of a central power; it g r a d u a l l y t r a n s p i r e d that in both de facto and de jure terms, only State powers could wage w a r s and manipulate the instruments of war. The State acquired a monopoly on w a r . The i m m e d i a t e effect of this State monopoly w a s that w h a t might be called d a y - t o day warfare, and w h a t w a s actually called "private warfare," w a s eradicated from the social body, and from relations among men a n d relations among groups. Increasingly, w a r s , the practices of w a r , and the institutions of w a r tended to exist, so to speak, only on the frontiers, on the outer limits of the g r e a t State units, and only as a violent relationshipthat actually existed or threatened to exist

between States. But g r a d u a l l y , the entire social body w a s cleansed of the bellicose relations that had permeated it through and during the M i d d l e Ages. So, t h a n k s to the establishment of this State monopoly and to the fact that w a r w a s now, so to speak, a practice that functioned only at the outer l i m i t s of the State, it tended to become the technical and through

21 January

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49

professional prerogative of a carefully defined a n d controlled m i l i t a r y a p p a r a t u s . This led, broadly speaking, to the emergence of something that d i d not exist as such in the M i d d l e A g e s : the army as institution. It is only at the end of the M i d d l e A g e s t h a t w e see the emergence of a State e n d o w e d w i t h m i l i t a r y institutions that replace both the d a y - t o - d a y and g e n e r a l i z e d practice of w a r f a r e , and a society that w a s perpetually traversed by relations of w a r . W e w i l l have to come back to this development, but I think w e can accept it as at least a first historical hypothesis. So w h e r e is the p a r a d o x ? The p a r a d o x arises at the very moment w h e n this transformation occurs ( o r p e r h a p s i m m e d i a t e l y a f t e r w a r d ) . W h e n w a r w a s expelled to the l i m i t s of the State, or w a s b o t h cent r a l i z e d in practice a n d confined to the frontier, a certain discourse a p p e a r e d . A new discourse, a strange discourse. It w a s new, because it w a s , I think, the first historico-political discourse first, on

society, and it w a s very different from t h e philosophico-juridical d i s course that had been habitually spoken u n t i l then. A n d the historicopolitical discourse t h a t a p p e a r e d at this m o m e n t w a s also a discourse on w a r , w h i c h w a s understood to be a p e r m a n e n t social relationship, the ineradicable b a s i s of all relations a n d institutions of p o w e r . A n d w h a t is the date of b i r t h of this historico-political discourse that m a k e s w a r the basis of social relations? S y m p t o m a t i c a l l y , it seems, I t h i n k a n d I w i l l try to prove this to youto be after the end of t h e civil a n d religious w a r s of t h e s i x t e e n t h century. T h e a p p e a r a n c e of this discourse i s , then, by no means the product of a history or a n analysis of t h e c i v i l w a r s of t h e s i x t e e n t h century. On t h e contrary, it w a s already, if not constituted, at least clearly formulated at the beginning of the g r e a t political s t r u g g l e s of seventeenth-century En

gland, at the time of the English bourgeois revolution. W e then see it reappear in France at the end of the seventeenth century, at the end of the reign of Louis XIV, and in other political struggleslet us say, the r e a r g u a r d struggle w a g e d by the French aristocracy against the establishment of the great a b s o l u t e - a d m i n i s t r a t i v e monarchy. So you see, the discourse was i m m e d i a t e l y a m b i g u o u s . In England it w a s one of the instruments used in bourgeois, p e t i t bourgeoisand s o m e -

50

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times p o p u l a r s t r u g g l e s a n d polemics against the absolute monarchy, a n d it w a s a tool for political organization. It w a s also an aristocratic discourse directed against that same monarchy. Those w h o spoke this discourse often bore names t h a t w e r e at once obscure and heterogeneous. In England w e find people such a s E d w a r d Coke
2 1

or J o h n

L i l b u r n e , w h o r e p r e s e n t e d p o p u l a r movements; in France, too, w e find names such a s those of B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s , ' Freret,'' a n d a gentleman from the Massif C e n t r a l called the Comte d'Estaing. course w a s then t a k e n up b y Sieyes, gustus Thierry," a n d C o u r t e t .
9 6 5

The same d i s 7

but also by Buonarroti, finally,

Au-

And,

y o u w i l l find it in the

racist biologists a n d eugenicists of the late nineteenth c e n t u r y . It is a sophisticated discourse, a scientific discourse, an erudite discourse spoken by people w i t h dust in t h e i r eyes a n d dust on their fingers,

b u t it is alsoas y o u w i l l seea discourse that certainly h a d an i m mense n u m b e r of p o p u l a r a n d a n o n y m o u s s p e a k e r s . W h a t is this d i s course s a y i n g ? W e l l , I t h i n k it is saying this: N o matter what

p h i l o s o p h i c o - j u r i d i c a l theory may say, political p o w e r does not begin w h e n t h e w a r ends. The organization a n d j u r i d i c a l structure of power, of States, monarchies, a n d societies, does not emerge w h e n the clash of a r m s ceases. W a r has not been averted. W a r obviously p r e s i d e d over the b i r t h of States: right, peace, a n d l a w s w e r e born in the blood a n d m u d of battles. This should not be t a k e n to mean the ideal b a t t l e s a n d r i v a l r i e s d r e a m e d u p by philosophers or jurists: w e are not t a l k i n g about some theoretical savagery. The l a w is not born of n a t u r e , a n d it w a s not born n e a r the fountains that the first shepherds frequented: the l a w is born of real b a t t l e s , victories, massacres, a n d conquests w h i c h can b e d a t e d a n d w h i c h have their horrific heroes; the l a w w a s born in b u r n i n g towns and ravaged fields. It w a s born together w i t h the famous innocents w h o d i e d at b r e a k of d a y . This does not, h o w e v e r , m e a n that society, the l a w , a n d t h e State are l i k e a r m i s t i c e s that p u t a n end to w a r s , or that they are the products of definitive victories. L a w is not pacification, for b e n e a t h the l a w , w a r continues to rage in all the mechanisms of power, even in the most r e g u l a r . W a r is t h e motor b e h i n d i n s t i t u t i o n s a n d order. In the smallest of its cogs, peace is w a g i n g a secret w a r . To p u t it

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another w a y , w e have to i n t e r p r e t the w a r that i s going on b e n e a t h peace; peace itself is a coded w a r . W e are therefore at w a r w i t h one another; a battlefront r u n s through the w h o l e of society, continuously a n d permanently, a n d it is this battlefront that p u t s us all on one side or the other. There is no such t h i n g as a neutral subject. W e are all inevitably someone's adversary. A binary structure r u n s t h r o u g h society. A n d h e r e you see the emergence of s o m e t h i n g I w i l l t r y to come back to, as it is very i m portant. The great p y r a m i d a l description t h a t the M i d d l e A g e s or philosophico-pohtical t h e o r i e s gave of the social b o d y , the great

image of the organism or the h u m a n b o d y p a i n t e d by H o b b e s , or even the t e r n a r y organization ( t h e three orders} t h a t prevailed in France ( a n d to a certain e x t e n t a n u m b e r of other countries in Europe} a n d w h i c h continued to a r t i c u l a t e a certain n u m b e r of d i s courses, or in a n y case m o s t i n s t i t u t i o n s , is b e i n g challenged b y a b i n a r y conception of society. This had h a p p e n e d before, but this is the first t i m e the b i n a r y conception has been a r t i c u l a t e d w i t h a

specific history. T h e r e are t w o g r o u p s , t w o categories of i n d i v i d u a l s , or t w o a r m i e s , a n d they are opposed to each other. A n d beneath

the l a p s e s of m e m o r y , t h e i l l u s i o n s , a n d t h e l i e s t h a t w o u l d h a v e us believe that there is a t e r n a r y order, a p y r a m i d of s u b o r d i n a t i o n s , beneath the lies that w o u l d have us b e l i e v e that the social body is governed by either natural necessities or functional demands, w e

must rediscover the w a r that is still g o i n g on, w a r w i t h all i t s a c cidents a n d i n c i d e n t s . W h y do w e h a v e to r e d i s c o v e r w a r ? W e l l , because t h i s ancient w a r i s a [ . . . ] p e r m a n e n t w a r . W e really d o have to become e x p e r t s on b a t t l e s , because t h e w a r h a s not e n d e d , because p r e p a r a t i o n s a r e still b e i n g m a d e for the decisive b a t t l e s , a n d because w e h a v e to w i n the decisive b a t t l e . In other w o r d s , t h e enemies w h o face us s t i l l pose a t h r e a t to u s , and it is not some

reconciliation or pacification t h a t w i l l a l l o w us to b r i n g the w a r to an end. It w i l l end only to the e x t e n t that w e really a r e the victors. That is a first, a n d obviously v e r y v a g u e , characterization of t h i s t y p e of discourse. I t h i n k that, even on this b a s i s , w e can b e g a n to understand w h y it is important. It i s , I t h i n k , i m p o r t a n t b e c a u s e it is

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the first discourse in postmedieval Western society that can be strictly described as being historico-political. First because the subject who speaks in this discourse, who says "I" or "we," cannot, and is in fact not trying to, occupy the position of the jurist or the philosopher, or in other words the position of a universal, totalizing, or neutral subject. In the general struggle he is talking about, the person who is speaking, telling the truth, recounting the story, rediscovering memories and trying not to forget anything, well, that person is inevitably on one side or the other: he is involved in the battle, has adversaries, and is working toward a particular victory. Of course, he speaks the discourse of right, asserts a right and demands a right. But what he is demanding and asserting is "his" rightshe says: "We have a right." These are singular rights, and they are strongly marked by a relationship of property, conquest, victory, or nature. It might be the right of his family or race, the right of superiority or seniority, the right of triumphal invasions, or the right of recent or ancient occupations. In all cases, it is a right that is both grounded in history and decentered from a juridical universality. And if this subject who speaks of right (or rather, rights} is speaking the truth, that t r u t h is no longer the universal truth of the philosopher. It is true that this discourse about the general war, this discourse that tries to interpret the war beneath peace, is indeed an attempt to describe the battle as a whole and to reconstruct the general course of the war. But that does not make it a totalizing or neutral discourse; it is always a perspectival discourse. It is interested in the totality only to the extent that it can see it in one-sided terms, distort it and see it from its own point of view. The truth is, in other words, a truth that can be deployed only from its combat position, from the perspective of the sought for victory and ultimately, so to speak, of the survival of the speaking subject himself. This discourse established a basic link between relations of force and relations oi truth. This also means that the identification of truth with peace or neutrality, or with the median position which, as JeanPierre Vernant has clearly demonstrated, was, at least from a certain point onward, a constituent element of Greek philosophy, is being

21 January
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dissolved.' In a discourse such as this, being on one side and not the other means that you are in a better position to speak the truth. It is the fact of being on one sidethe decentered positionthat makes it possible to interpret the truth, to denounce the illusions and errors that are being usedby your adversariesto make you believe we are living in a world in which order and peace have been restored. "The more I decenter myself, the better I can see the truth; the more I accentuate the relationship of force, and the harder I fight, the more effectively I can deploy the truth ahead of me and use it to fight, survive, and win." And conversely, if the relationship of force sets truth free, the truth in its turn will come into playand will, ultimately, be soughtonly insofar as it can indeed become a weapon within the relationship of force. Either the truth makes you stronger, or the truth shifts the balance, accentuates the dissymmetries, and finally gives the victory to one side rather than the other. Truth is an additional force, and it can be deployed only on the basis of a relationship of force. The fact that the truth is essentially part of a relationship of force, of dissymmetry, decentering, combat, and war, is inscribed in this type of discourse. Ever since Greek philosophy, philosophico-juridical discourse has a l w a y s worked with the assump tion of a pacified universality, but it is now being seriously called into question or, quite simply, cynically ignored. We have a historical and political discourseand it is in that sense that it is historically anchored and politically decenteredthat lays a claim to truth and legitimate right on the basis of a relationship of force, and in order to develop that very relationship of force by therefore excluding the speaking subjectthe subject who speaks of right and seeks the truthfrom juridico-philosophical universality. The role of the person who is speaking is therefore not the role of the legislator or the philosopher who belongs to neither side, a figure of peace and armistices who occupies the position dreamed of by Solon and that Kant was still dreaming of." Establishing oneself between the adversaries, in the center and above them, imposing one general law on all and founding a reconcihatory order: that is precisely what this is not about. It is, rather, about establishing a right marked

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by d i s s y m m e t r y , establishing a t r u t h bound u p w i t h a relationship of force, a t r u t h - w e a p o n a n d a singular right. The subject w h o i s speak ing is1 w o u l d n ' t even say a polemical subjecta subject w h o is

fighting a w a r . This is one of the first points that makes a discourse of this type important, and it certainly introduced a rift into the

discourse of truth and l a w that had been spoken for thousands of years, for over a thousand y e a r s . Second, t h i s is a discourse t h a t inverts the v a l u e s , the e q u i l i b r i u m , and the traditional polarities of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y , a n d w h i c h posits, d e m a n d s , an explanation from b e l o w . But in this explanation, the " b e low" is not necessarily w h a t is clearest and simplest. Explaining things from below also means e x p l a i n i n g them in terms of what is most confused, most obscure, most disorderly a n d most subject to chance, because what is b e i n g put forward as a p r i n c i p l e for the interpretation of society and its visible order is the confusion of violence, passions, hatreds, r a g e s , resentments, a n d bitterness; a n d it is the obscurity of contingencies and all the minor incidents that b r i n g about defeats a n d ensure victories. This discourse is essentially a s k i n g the elliptical god of battles to e x p l a i n the long d a y s of order, labor, peace, and justice. Fury is being asked to e x p l a i n calm and order. So w h a t is the principle t h a t e x p l a i n s h i s t o r y ? * First, a series of b r u t e facts, w h i c h might a l r e a d y be d e s c r i b e d as physico-biological facts: physical strength, force, energy, the proliferation of one race, the w e a k n e s s of the other, a n d so on. A series of accidents, or at least contingencies: defeats, victories, the failure or success of rebellions, the failure or success of conspiracies or alliances; and finally, a b u n d l e of psychological and moral elements ( c o u r a g e , fear, scorn, hatred, forgetfulness, et c e t e r a ) . I n t e r t w i n i n g bodies, passions, and accidents: permanent

according to this discourse, that is w h a t constitutes the

w e b of historv and societies. A n d something fragile and superficial will be b u i l t on top ol this w e b of bodies, accidents, and passions, this seething mass which is sometimes murky a n d sometimes bloody: a growing rationality. The rationality of calculations, strategies, and

*The manuscript has "and right."

21 January

1976

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ruses; the r a t i o n a l i t y of technical procedures that are used to perpetuate the victory, to silence, or so it w o u l d seem, the w a r , a n d to preserve or invert the r e l a t i o n s h i p of force. This i s , then, a r a t i o n a l i t y w h i c h , as w e move u p w a r d a n d as it develops, w i l l basically be more and more abstract, more a n d more b o u n d u p w i t h fragility a n d i l l u s i o n s , a n d also more closely b o u n d u p w i t h the c u n n i n g a n d w i c k edness of those w h o have won a t e m p o r a r y victory. A n d g i v e n that the r e l a t i o n s h i p of domination w o r k s to their a d v a n t a g e , it is c e r t a i n l y not in their interest to call any of t h i s into question. In this schema, w e have, then, an ascending a x i s w h i c h is, I b e l i e v e , v e r y different, in t e r m s of the v a l u e s it d i s t r i b u t e s , from the t r a d i t i o n a l a x i s . W e h a v e an axis based u p o n a fundamental a n d p e r m a n e n t i r rationality, a crude a n d n a k e d i r r a t i o n a l i t y , b u t w h i c h proclaims t h e t r u t h ; and, higher u p , w e have a fragile r a t i o n a l i t y , a t r a n s i t o r y r a tionality w h i c h is a l w a y s c o m p r o m i s e d a n d b o u n d u p w i t h i l l u s i o n a n d w i c k e d n e s s . Reason is on the side of w i l d d r e a m s , cunning, a n d the w i c k e d . A t the opposite end of the a x i s , y o u have an e l e m e n t a r y b r u t a l i t y : a collection of d e e d s , acts, and passions, a n d cynical rage in a l l its n u d i t y . T r u t h i s therefore on the side of unreason a n d b r u t a l i t y ; reason, on the other h a n d , is on the side of w i l d d r e a m s a n d w i c k edness. Q u i t e the opposite, then, of the d i s c o u r s e t h a t h a d u n t i l n o w been u s e d to e x p l a i n right a n d history. That d i s c o u r s e ' s a t t e m p t s at e x p l a n a t i o n consisted in e x t r a c t i n g from all these superficial a n d v i olent accidents, w h i c h are l i n k e d to e r r o r , a basic a n d permanent

rationality w h i c h is, by its v e r y essence, b o u n d u p w i t h fairness a n d the good. The e x p l a n a t o r y a x i s of the l a w a n d history has, I believe, been inverted. The t h i r d reason w h y the t y p e of discourse I w o u l d l i k e to a n a l y z e a bit this y e a r is i m p o r t a n t i s , y o u see, t h a t it is a discourse t h a t d e v e l o p s completely w i t h i n the h i s t o r i c a l dimension. It is d e p l o y e d w i t h i n a h i s t o r y t h a t h a s no b o u n d a r i e s , no end, a n d no l i m i t s . In a discourse like this, the drabness of history cannot be regarded as a superficial given that has to be r e o r d e r e d about a few basic, stable p r i n c i p l e s . It is not i n t e r e s t e d in p a s s i n g j u d g m e n t on unjust governments, or on crimes a n d acts of violence, by referring them to a certain

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ideal schema ( t h a t of natural law, the w i l l of God, basic p r i n c i p l e s , a n d so o n ) . On the contrary, it is interested in defining and discovering, beneath the forms of justice that have been instituted, the order that h a s been imposed, the forgotten past of real struggles, actual

victories, and defeats which may have been disguised but w h i c h r e main profoundly inscribed. It is interested in rediscovering the blood that h a s d r i e d in the codes, a n d not, therefore, the absolute right that lies beneath the transience of history; it is interested not in referring the relativity of history to the absolute of the l a w , but in discovering, beneath the s t a b i l i t y of the law or the t r u t h , the indefiniteness of history. It is interested in the battle cries that can be heard beneath the formulas of r i g h t , in the d i s s y m m e t r y of forces that lies beneath the e q u i l i b r i u m of justice. W i t h i n a historical field that cannot even be said to be a relative field, as it does not relate to any absolute, it is the indefiniteness of history that is in a sense being " i r r e l a t i v i z e d . " It is the indefiniteness of its eternal, the eternal dissolution into the m e c h a n i s m s and e v e n t s k n o w n as force, power, and w a r . You might t h i n k a n d this is, I t h i n k , another reason w h y this discourse is importantthat this must be a sad, gloomy discourse, a

discourse for nostalgic aristocrats or scholars in a l i b r a r y . It is in fact a discourse w h i c h has, ever since it began and until very late in the nineteenth century, and even the t w e n t i e t h , also been supported by very t r a d i t i o n a l m y t h i c a l forms, and it is often invested in those forms. This discourse twins subtle knowledge and myths that areI

w o u l d n ' t say crude, but they are basic, clumsy, and overloaded. W e can, after all, easily see how a discourse of this type can be articulated ( a n d , as you will see, w a s actually a r t i c u l a t e d ) w i t h a whole m y thology: [the lost age of great ancestors, the imminence of n e w times and a m i l l e n a r y revenge, the coming of the new k i n g d o m that w i l l w i p e out the defeats of o l d ] . ' ' T h i s mythology t e l l s of how the v i c tories of g i a n t s h a v e g r a d u a l l y been forgotten and b u r i e d , of the t w i l i g h t of the g o d s , of how heroes w e r e w o u n d e d or died, and of how k i n g s fell asleep in inaccessible caves. W e also have the theme of the rights and privileges of the earliest race, w h i c h w e r e flouted by cunning invaders, the theme of the w a r that is still going on in secret, of

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the plot that has to be r e v i v e d so a s to r e k i n d l e t h a t w a r a n d to d r i v e out the invaders or enemies; the t h e m e of the famous battle that w i l l t a k e place t o m o r r o w , t h a t w i l l at last i n v e r t the relationship of force, a n d transform the v a n q u i s h e d into v i c t o r s w h o will k n o w a n d show no mercy. Throughout the whole of the M i d d l e A g e s , a n d even l a t e r , the theme of perpetual w a r will be related to the g r e a t , u n d y i n g hope that the d a y of revenge is at hand, to the expectation of the emperor of the last vears, the dux novus, the n e w leader, the new g u i d e , the

n e w Ftihrer; the idea of the fifth m o n a r c h y , the t h i r d e m p i r e or the T h i r d Reich, the man w h o w i l l be both the beast of the A p o c a l y p s e a n d the savior of the poor. It's the r e t u r n of A l e x a n d e r , w h o got lost in India; the r e t u r n , e x p e c t e d for so long in England, of E d w a r d the Confessor; i t ' s the t w o FredericksBarbarossa a n d F r e d e r i c k II

w a i t i n g in their caves for their people a n d t h e i r e m p i r e s to r e a w a k e n ; it's C h a r l e m a g n e sleeping in his tomb, and w h o will w a k e u p to revive the just w a r ; it's the k i n g of Portugal, lost in the sands of Africa, returning for a new battle a n d a n e w w a r w h i c h , this t i m e , w i l l lead to a final, definitive v i c t o r y . This discourse of perpetual w a r is therefore not just the sad b r a i n c h i l d of a few i n t e l l e c t u a l s w h o w e r e i n d e e d m a r g i n a l i z e d long ago. It seems to me that, because it b y p a s s e s the great philosophico-

j u r i d i c a l systems, this discourse is in fact t i e d u p w i t h a k n o w l e d g e which is sometimes in the possession of a d e c l i n i n g aristocracy, w i t h great m y t h i c a l i m p u l s e s , a n d w i t h the a r d o r of the revenge of the people. In short, this may w e l l be the first e x c l u s i v e l y historico-

political discourseas opposed to a philosophico-juridical discourse to emerge in the West; it is a discourse in w h i c h t r u t h functions

e x c l u s i v e l y a s a w e a p o n t h a t is used to w i n an e x c l u s i v e l y p a r t i s a n victory. It is a somber, critical discourse, but it is also an intensely mythical discourse; it is a discourse of bitterness [ . . . ] but also of the most insane hopes. For philosophers a n d j u r i s t s , it is obviously an e x t e r n a l , foreign discourse. It is not even the discourse of their adversary, as they are not in dialogue w i t h it. It is a discourse that is i n e v i t a b l y disqualified, t h a t can and must be kept in the m a r g i n s , precisely because its negation is the precondition for a true and just

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discourse that can at last b e g i n to functionin the m i d d l e , b e t w e e n the adversaries, above their headsas a l a w . The discourse I am t a l k ing about, this p a r t i s a n discourse, this discourse of w a r and history, can therefore p e r h a p s t a k e the form of the cunning sophist of the G r e e k era. W h a t e v e r form it t a k e s , it w i l l be denounced as the d i s course of a biased and n a i v e historian, a b i t t e r politician, a dispossessed aristocracy, or as an uncouth inarticulate demands. N o w this discourse, w h i c h w a s basically or s t r u c t u r a l l y k e p t in the margins by that of the philosophers a n d j u r i s t s , b e g a n its careeror perhaps its new career in the W e s t i n very specific conditions bet w e e n the end of the s i x t e e n t h a n d the b e g i n n i n g of the seventeenth centuries a n d represented a twofoldaristocratic and p o p u l a r c h a l l e n g e to royal p o w e r . From this point o n w a r d , I t h i n k , it proliferated considerably, a n d its surface of extension extended rapidly and cons i d e r a b l y until the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the t w e n t i e t h . It w o u l d , however, be a m i s t a k e to think that the dialectic can function as the great reconversion of this discourse, or that it can finally convert it into philosophy. The dialectic may at discourse that puts forward

first sight seem to be the discourse of the universal and historical movement of contradiction and w a r , but I t h i n k that it does not in fact v a l i d a t e this discourse in philosophical terms. On the contrary, it seems to me that it h a d the effect of t a k i n g it over a n d displacing it into the old form of p h i l o s o p h i c o - j u r i d i c a l discourse. Basically, the dialectic codifies struggle, w a r , and confrontations into a logic, or socalled logic, of contradiction; it t u r n s them into the twofold process of the totalization and revelation of a rationality that is at once final but also basic, and in any case irreversible. The dialectic, finally, ensures the historical constitution of a universal subject, a reconciled t r u t h , a n d a r i g h t in w h i c h all p a r t i c u l a r i t i e s have their o r d a i n e d place. The H e g e l i a n dialectic and all those that came after it must, I t h i n k a n d as I will try to demonstrate to you, be understood as p h i losophy a n d r i g h t ' s colonization a n d a u t h o r i t a r i a n colonization of a histonco-pohtical discourse that w a s both a statement of fact, a

proclamation, and a practice of social warfare. The dialectic colonized

21 J anuary a histonco-pohtical often

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discourse w h i c h , sometimes conspicuously a n d

in the s h a d o w s , sometimes in scholarship and sometimes in

blood, had been g a i n i n g g r o u n d for centuries in Europe. The d i a l e c t i c is the philosophical order's, a n d p e r h a p s the political order's, w a y of colonizing t h i s bitter a n d partisan discourse of basic warfare. There you have the general frame w i t h i n w h i c h I w o u l d l i k e to try this y e a r to retrace the history of this discourse. I w o u l d now like to tell you how w e should study this, a n d w h a t our s t a r t i n g point should be. First of a l l , w e have to get r i d of a number of false paternities that are u s u a l l y mentioned in connection w i t h t h i s h i s t o n c o - p o h t i c a l discourse. A s soon a s w e b e g i n to t h i n k about the p o w e r / w a r r e l a t i o n s h i p or about p o w e r / r e l a t i o n s of force, two names i m m e d i a t e l y s p r i n g to mind: w e t h i n k of M a c h i a v e l l i a n d w e t h i n k of Hobbes. I w o u l d l i k e to show that they have n o t h i n g to do w i t h it, t h a t this h i s t o n c o - p o h t i c a l discourse is not, and cannot be, that of the Prince's politics" or, obviously, that of absolute p o w e r . It is in fact a discourse that i n e v i t a b l y r e g a r d s the P r i n c e as an i l l u s i o n , an i n s t r u m e n t , or, at best, a n e n e m y . T h i s is, basically, a discourse that cuts off the k i n g ' s head, or w h i c h at least does w i t h o u t a sovereign and denounces him. H a v i n g e l i m i n a t e d these false p a t e r n i t i e s , I w o u l d then l i k e to show y o u this discourse's point of e m e r g e n c e . A n d it seems to me that w e have to t r y to s i t u a t e it in the s e v e n t e e n t h century, w h i c h has a n u m b e r of i m p o r t a n t characteristics. First, this d i s c o u r s e w a s b o r n t w i c e . On the one h a n d , w e see it e m e r g i n g roughly in the 1 6 3 0 s , and in the context of the p o p u l a r or petit

bourgeois d e m a n d s t h a t w e r e b e i n g put forward in p r e r e v o l u t i o n a r y a n d revolutionary England. It is the discourse of the P u r i t a n s , the discourse of the Levellers. A n d then fifty years later, in France at the end of the r e i g n of Louis X I V , you find it on the opposite s i d e , b u t it is still the discourse of a struggle against the king, a discourse of aristocratic bitterness. A n d t h e n , a n d t h i s is the important p o i n t , w e find even at this early stage, or in o t h e r w o r d s from the seventeenth c e n t u r y o n w a r d , that the idea that w a r is the u n i n t e r r u p t e d frame of history t a k e s a specific form: The w a r that is going on beneath order and peace, the w a r that u n d e r m i n e s our society and d i v i d e s it in a

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binary mode is, basically, a race w a r . A t a very early stage, we rind the basic elements that make the w a r possible, and then ensure its continuation, pursuit, and development: ethnic differences, differences b e t w e e n languages, different d e g r e e s of force, vigor, e n e r g y , and violence; the differences b e t w e e n savagery and b a r b a r i s m ; the conquest and s u b j u g a t i o n of one race by another. The social body is basically a r t i c u l a t e d a r o u n d t w o races. It is t h i s i d e a that this clash b e t w e e n t w o races r u n s t h r o u g h society from top to bottom w h i c h we see being formulated as early as the seventeenth century. A n d it forms the m a t r i x for all the forms beneath w h i c h w e can find the face a n d mechanisms of social warfare. I would l i k e to trace the history of this theory of races, or rather of race w a r , during the French Revolution and especially in the early nineteenth c e n t u r y w i t h A u g u s t i n a n d A m e d e e Thierry," a n d to show how it u n d e r w e n t t w o transcriptions. On the one hand, there w a s an openly biological transcription, w h i c h occurred long before Darwin

a n d which b o r r o w e d i t s discourse, together w i t h all its elements, concepts, a n d vocabulary, from a materialist anatomo-physiology. It also has the s u p p o r t of philology, and t h u s gives b i r t h to the theory of races in the historico-biological sense of the term. Once again a n d almost as i n the seventeenth century, t h i s is a very a m b i g u o u s theory, a n d it is a r t i c u l a t e d w i t h , on the one hand, nationalist m o v e m e n t s in Europe and w i t h n a t i o n a l i t i e s ' struggles against the g r e a t State a p paratuses ( e s s e n t i a l l y the R u s s i a n a n d the A u s t r i a n ) ; y o u w i l l then see it a r t i c u l a t e d w i t h European policies of colonization. That is the firstbiologicaltranscription of the theory of permanent struggle based

and race struggle. A n d then you find a second transcription

upon the great theme a n d theory of social w a r , w h i c h emerges in the v e r y first y e a r s of the nineteenth century, and w h i c h tends to erase every trace of racial conflict in order to define itself a s class struggle. We have, then, a sort of major parting of the w a v s , which I w i l l try to reconstruct. It corresponds to a recasting of the theme of the analysis of these struggles in the form of the dialectic, and to a recasting of the theme of racial confrontations in terms ol the theory of evo-

lutionism a n d the struggle for existence. Having established this, a n d

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placing special emphasis on the latter argumentthe biological t r a n scriptionI w i l l try to trace the full development of a biologico-social racism. By this, I mean the ideawhich is absolutely n e w a n d w h i c h w i l l m a k e the discourse function very differentlythat the other race is basically not the race that came from elsewhere or that w a s , for a time, t r i u m p h a n t a n d dominant, but that it is a race that is p e r m a nently, ceaselessly infiltrating the social body, or w h i c h is, rather, constantly b e i n g re-created in a n d b y the social fabric. In other w o r d s , w h a t w e see as a polarity, as a b i n a r y rift w i t h i n society, is not a clash b e t w e e n t w o distinct r a c e s . It is the s p l i t t i n g of a single race into a superrace a n d a subrace. To put it a different w a y , it is the r e a p pearance, w i t h i n a single race, of the past of that race. In a w o r d , the obverse a n d the u n d e r s i d e of the race r e a p p e a r s w i t h i n it. T h i s has one fundamental i m p l i c a t i o n : The discourse of race strug g l e w h i c h , w h e n it first a p p e a r e d and b e g a n to function in the seventeenth century, w a s essentially an i n s t r u m e n t used in the s t r u g g l e s w a g e d by decentered c a m p s w i l l be r e c e n t e r e d a n d will become the discourse of p o w e r itself. It w i l l become the discourse of a centered, c e n t r a l i z e d , a n d c e n t r a l i z i n g p o w e r . It w i l l become the discourse of a battle that has to be w a g e d not b e t w e e n races, but by a race that is p o r t r a y e d as the one true race, the race that h o l d s power a n d is entitled to define the norm, a n d against those w h o deviate from that norm, against those w h o pose a threat to the biological heritage. A t this point, w e have all those biological-racist discourses of degeneracy, but also all those institutions w i t h i n the social body which m a k e the discourse of race struggle function a s a p r i n c i p l e of exclusion a n d segregation a n d , u l t i m a t e l y , a s a w a y of n o r m a l i z i n g society. A t t h i s point, the discourse w h o s e history I w o u l d l i k e to trace abandons the initial basic formulation, w h i c h w a s " W e have to defend ourselves against our enemies because the State a p p a r a t u s e s , the l a w , a n d the p o w e r structures not only do not defend us against our enemies; they are the i n s t r u m e n t s our enemies are u s i n g to pursue a n d subjugate us." That discourse now disappears. It is no longer: " W e have to defend ourselves against society," but "We have to defend society

against all the biological t h r e a t s posed b y the other race, the subrace,

62

"SOCIETY

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DEFENDED"

the counterrace that w e are, despite ourselves, b r i n g i n g into e x i s tence." A t this point, the racist thematic is no longer a moment in the struggle b e t w e e n one social g r o u p a n d another; it w i l l promote the global strategy of social conservatisms. At this pointand this is a paradox, g i v e n the goals a n d the first form of the discourse I have been t a l k i n g a b o u t w e see the appearance of a State racism: a racism that society w i l l direct against itself, against its own elements a n d its o w n products. This is the internal racism of permanent purification, a n d it w i l l become one of the basic dimensions of social normalization. This year, I w o u l d like to look a little at the history of this discourse of race s t r u g g l e a n d w a r from the seventeenth century to the e m e r gence of State racism in the e a r l y nineteenth century.

21 January

1976

6)

1. Edward Coke's most important works are A Book of Entries ( London, 1614); Commentaries on Littleton (London, 1628); A Treatise of Bail and Mainprise (London, 16)5); Institutes of the Laws of England (London, vol. 1, 1628; vol. 2, 1642; vols. )-4, 1644); Reports ( London, vols. 1-11, 1600-1615; vol. 12, 1656; vol. 1), 1659). On Coke, see the lecture of 4 February in the present volume. 2. On Lilburne, see the lecture of 4 February in the present volume. ). On H. de Boulainvilhers, see the lectures of 11 February, 18 February, and 25 February in the present volume. 4. Most of Freret's works were first published in the Memoircs de VAcademic des Sciences. They were subsequently collected in his Oeuvres completes, 20 vols. (Pans, 1 7 9 6 - 1 7 9 9 ) . See, inter alia, De I'origine des Francois etde leur etablissement dans I a Gaule (vol. 5 ), Recherches historiques sur les moeurs et le gouvemement des Francois, dans les divers temps de la monarchic (vol. 6), Reflexions sur I'etude des anciennes histoires et sur le degre de certitude de leurspreuves (vol. 7), Vues generates sur I'origine et le melange des anciennes nations et sur la maniere d'en etudier I'histoire (vol. 18), and Observations sur les Meivvingiens (vol. 20). On Freret, see the lecture of 18 February in the present volume. 5. Joachim, comte d'Estaing, Dissertation sur la noblesse d'extraction et sur les origines des fiefs, des surnoms et des atmoiries (Pans, 1690). 6. Foucault's lecture on 10 March, and now in the present volume, is based mainly on E.-J. Sieves, Qu'est<e que le Tiers Etat? (1789). (Cf. the reprinted editions, Paris: PUF, 1982 and Pans: Flammanon, 1 9 8 8 . ) 7. Ct. F. Buonarroti, Conspiration pour Vegalite, dite de Babeuf, suivie du proces auquel elle donna lieu et les pieces fusticatives, 2 vols. (Brussels, 1828). 8. The historical works by Augustin Thierry referred to by Foucault, particularly in his lecture of 10 March, are as follows: Vues des revolutions d'Angleterre (Pans, 1917); Histoire de la conqucte de PAngletcrre par les Normands, de ses causes et de ces suites jusqu'd nos jours (Pans, 1825); Lettres sur thistoire de France pour servir d'introduction a I'etude de cette histoire (Pans, 1827); Dix ans d'etudes historiques (Paris, 18)4); Re cits des temps mewvingiens, precedes de considerations sur I'histoire de France (Pans, 18)4); Essais sur I'histoire de la formation et des progris du Tiers-Etat (Pans, 185)). 9. See in particular A. V. Courtet de I'lslc La Science politique jondee sur la science de I'homme (Paris, 18)7). 10. CI. J.-P. Vernant, Les Origines de la pensee grecque ( Pans: PUF, 1965), especially chapters 7 and 8; My the et pensee chevies Grecs: Etudes de psychologic histon'que (Pans: La Decouverte, 1965), especially chapters ), 4, and 7; My the et societe' en Grice ancicnne (Pans: Seuil, 1974 ); J. P. Vernant and P. Vidal-Naquet, Mythe et tragedie en Grece ancienne-(Pans: La Decouverte, 1972), particularly chapter ). English translations: The Origins of Greek Thought (London: Methuen, 1982); Myth and Thought among the Greeks (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982); Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece, tr. Janet Lloyd (New York: Zone Books, 1 9 9 0 ) . 11. For Solon (see m particular fragment 16 in the Diehl edition), the reader is referred to the analysis of "mesure" made by Michel Foucault in his lectures at the College de France in 1970-1971 on The Will to Knowledge. On Kant, the reader is simply referred to "What Is Enlightenment?" trans. Catherine Porter, in Paul Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader ( Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986), pp. )2-50, reprinted with emendations in Ethics: The Essential Works, vol. 1, pp. )0)-20 (French original, Dits et ecrits vol. 4, pp. 562-84); "Qu'est-ce que les Lumieres?" Dits et ecrits vol. 4, pp. 6 7 9 - 8 8 (English translation by Colin Gordon, "Kant on Enlightenment and Revolution," Economy and Society, vol. 15, no. 1 [February 1986], pp. 8 8 - 9 6 ) ; and the lecture given to the Societe Franchise de Philosophic on 27 May 1978 on "Qu'est-ce que la critique," Bulletin de la Societe Framboise de Philosophic April-June 1 9 9 0 , pp. )5-67; see also I. Kant, Zum weigen Fn'eden: ein philoso-

64

"SOCIETY

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phischer Enwurf ( Konigsberg, 1795; see m particular the second edition of 1796) in Werke in Tg'olf Banden (Frankfurt am Main: Inse] Verlag, 1968), vol. 11, pp. 191-251; Der Sreti der Fakultdten in drei abschnitten (Konigsberg, 1798), ibid., pp. 261-393. (English translation: Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch and "The Conflict ol Faculties," in Political Writings, ed. Hanns Reiss, trans. H. B Nisbct [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1 9 7 0 ] . ) Foucault owned the complete works of Kant in Ernst Cassirer's 12-volume edition ( Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1912-1922), and Ernst Cassirer's Kants Leben un Lehre (Berlin, 1921) (English translation by Haden James, Kant's Life and Work [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983]). 12. The interpolation is based upon the course summary for the year 1975-1976, in Dits et e'crtts, vol 3. no. 187, pp. 124-130. 13. On Machiavelli, see the lecture ot 1 February 1978 ("Governmentality") in the course ol lectures given at the College de France on "Securite territoire et population en 19771978" (English translation: "Governmentality," in Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, eds.. The Foucault Effect: Studies in Covemmentality [Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991 ]); "Omnes et Singulatim: Towards a Critique of Political Reason" (1981), in The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, ed. Sterling M. McMurrin, vol. 2 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); T h e Political Technology ot Individuals" (1982), Dits et ecrits vol. 3, no. 239, and vol. 4, no. 219, no. 364, in Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hucton, eds Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault ( London: Tavistock, 1988). 14- On Augustin Thierry, see note 8 above. For Amedee Thierry, see his Fiistoires des Gaulois, depuis les temps les plus recules jusqu'a I'entiere soumission de la Gaule a la domination mmaine (Paris, 1828); Histoire de la Gaule sous /'administration mmaine ( Pans, 1840-1847).

four

28

JANUARY 1976

Historical

discourse

and its supporters. - Roman history discourse.

- The counterhistory and biblical

of

race struggle. history. racism. ~ Revolutionary - Race purity

- Birth and transformations

of

^ '\ - -i

and State racism: the NaQ transformation transformation.

and the Soviet

Y O U M I G H T H A V E T H O U G H T , last time, that I w a s trying to b o t h trace the history of racist discourse a n d p r a i s e it. A n d y o u w o u l d not have been entirely wrong, except in one respect. It w a s not e x a c t l y racist discourse whose history I w a s tracing a n d that I w a s praising: it w a s the discourse of race w a r or race s t r u g g l e . I think w e should reserve the expression " r a c i s m " or "racist discourse" for something

that w a s basically no more than a p a r t i c u l a r and localized episode in the great discourse of race w a r or race s t r u g g l e . Racist discourse w a s really no more than an episode, a phase, the reversal, or at least the reworking, at the end of the nineteenth c e n t u r y , of the discourse of race w a r . It w a s a r e w o r k i n g of that old discourse, w h i c h at that point was already hundreds of y e a r s old, in sociobiological t e r m s , and it w a s r e w o r k e d for purposes of social conservatism and, at least in a certain n u m b e r of cases, colonial domination. H a v i n g said that to

situate both the link and the difference b e t w e e n racist discourse and the discourse of race war, I was indeed praising the discourse of race war. I w a s praising it in the sense that I w a n t e d to show you howat least for a time, or in other w o r d s u p to the end of the nineteenth

64

"SOCIETY

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BE

DEFENDED"

phischer Enwurf (Konigsberg, 1795; sec in particular the second edition of 1 7 9 6 ) in Werke in qrilf Bdnien (Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1968), vol. 11, pp. 191-251; Der Sreti der Fakultdten in drei abschnitten (Konigsberg, 1798), ibid., pp. 261-393- (English transla tion: Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch and "The Conflict of Faculties," in Political Writings, ed. Hanns Reiss, trans. H. B. Nisbet [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 9 7 0 ] . ) Foucault owned the complete works of Kant in Ernst Cassirer's 12-volume edition (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1912-1922), and Ernst Cassirer's Hants Leben un Lehre (Berlin, 1 9 2 1 ) (English translation by Haden James, Kant's Life and Work [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983]). 12. The interpolation is based upon the course summarv for the year 1975-1976, in Dits et e'crits, vol 3, no. 187, pp. 124-130. 13. On Machiavelli, see the lecture of 1 February 1 9 7 8 ("Governmentahty") in the course of lectures given at the College de France on "Securite territoire et population en 19771978" (English translation: "Governmentality," in Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller, eds., The Foucault Effect: Studies in Govemmenta/ity [Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991 ]); "Omnes et Singulatim: Towards a Critique of Political Reason" ( 1 9 8 1 ) , in The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, ed. Sterling M. McMurrin, vol. 2 ( Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 9 8 1 ) : "The Political Technology of Individuals" ( 1 9 8 2 ) , Dits et e'crits vol. 3, no. 239, and vol. 4, no. 219, no. 364, in Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick H. Hucton, eds., Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault (London: Tavistock, 1 9 8 8 ) . 14. On Augustin Thierrv, see note 8 above. For Amedee Thierrv, see his Histoires des Gaulois, depuis les temps les plus recules jusqu'a I'entiere soumission de la Gaule a la domination romaine (Pans, 1828); Histoire de la Gaule sous ^administration romaine ( Paris, 1840-1847).

four

28

JANUARY 1976

Historical

discourse

and its supporters. - Roman discourse. history

- The counterhistory and biblical

of

-'i w

race struggle. history. racism. - Revolutionary - Race purity

- Birth and transformations

of

\ .*

and State racism: the Na%i transformation transformation.

and the Soviet

Y O U M I G H T H A V E T H O U G H T , last t i m e , that I w a s trying to b o t h trace the history of racist discourse a n d praise it. A n d you w o u l d not have been entirely wrong, except in one respect. It w a s not e x a c t l y racist discourse whose history I w a s tracing and that I w a s praising: it w a s the discourse of race w a r or race s t r u g g l e . I think w e should reserve the e x p r e s s i o n " r a c i s m " or "racist d i s c o u r s e " for something

that w a s basically no more than a p a r t i c u l a r and localized episode in the great discourse of race w a r or race struggle. R a c i s t discourse w a s really no more than an episode, a phase, the reversal, or at least the r e w o r k i n g , at the end of the nineteenth century, of the discourse of race w a r . It w a s a r e w o r k i n g of that old discourse, w h i c h at that point w a s a l r e a d y h u n d r e d s of y e a r s old, in sociobiological terms, a n d it w a s r e w o r k e d for purposes of social c o n s e r v a t i s m and, at least in a certain number of cases, colonial domination. H a v i n g said that to

situate both the link and the difference b e t w e e n racist discourse and the discourse of race w a r , I w a s indeed praising the discourse of race war. I w a s praising it in the sense that I w a n t e d to show you howat least for a time, or in other w o r d s u p to the end of the nineteenth

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century, at w h i c h point it t u r n e d into a racist discoursethis d i s course of race w a r functioned as a counterhistory. A n d today I w o u l d like to say something about its counterhistorical function. It seems to me that w e can s a y p e r h a p s somewhat hastily or schematically, b u t w e w o u l d still b e e s s e n t i a l l y correctthat historical discourse, the discourse of historians, or this practice of recounting history, w a s for a long time w h a t it had no doubt been in a n t i q u i t y a n d w h a t it still w a s in the M i d d l e Ages: for a long time, it remained related to the r i t u a l s of power. It seems to me that w e can u n d e r s t a n d the discourse of the historian to be a sort of ceremony, oral or w r i t t e n , that must in reality produce both a justification of p o w e r a n d a r e inforcement of that power. It also seems to me that the traditional function of history, from the first R o m a n annalists' u n t i l the late M i d dle A g e s , and p e r h a p s the seventeenth century or even later, w a s to speak the right of power and to intensify the luster of p o w e r . It h a d two roles. The point of recounting history, the history of kings, the m i g h t y sovereigns a n d their victories ( a n d , if need be, their temporary defeats) w a s to use the continuity of the l a w to establish a j u r i d i c a l link b e t w e e n those men and p o w e r , because p o w e r a n d i t s w o r k i n g s w e r e a demonstration of the continuity of the law itself. History's

other role w a s to use the almost u n b e a r a b l e intensity of the g l o r y of power, its e x a m p l e s and its exploits, to fascinate men. The yoke of the law a n d the luster of glory appear to me to be the t w o things historical discourse strives to use to reinforce power. Like rituals, coronations, funerals, ceremonies, a n d legendary stories, history is an operator of power, an intensifier of p o w e r . It seems to me t h a t in the M i d d l e Ages, the twofold function of historical discourse c a n be found on its three traditional axes. The genealogical a x i s spoke of the a n t i q u i t y of kingdoms, brought great ancestors back to life, and rediscovered the heroes w h o founded empires and dynasties. The goal of this "genealogical" task w a s to ensure that the greatness of the events or men of the past could guarantee the value of the present, a n d transform its pettiness and m u n d a n i t y into something e q u a l l y heroic a n d e q u a l l y legitimate. This genealogical axis of h i s t o r y w h i c h w e find mainly in forms of historical narratives

28 January

1976

67

a b o u t ancient k i n g d o m s and great ancestorsmust p r o c l a i m right to be something ancient; it must demonstrate the u n i n t e r r u p t e d nature

of the right of the sovereign a n d , therefore, the i n e r a d i c a b l e force that he still possesses in the present d a y . Genealogy must, finally, also

magnify the name of k i n g s a n d princes w i t h all the fame that w e n t before them. G r e a t k i n g s found, then, the r i g h t of the sovereigns w h o succeed them, and they t r a n s m i t t h e i r l u s t e r to the pettiness of t h e i r successors. W e m i g h t call this the genealogical function of historical narratives. Then there is the memorialization function, which w e find not in stories of a n t i q u i t y or in the resurrection of ancient k i n g s a n d heroes, b u t in the a n n a l s and chronicles t h a t w e r e kept d a y b y d a y a n d y e a r b y year throughout history itself. The a n n a l i s t s ' p r a c t i c e of p e r m a n e n t l y recording h i s t o r y also s e r v e s to reinforce p o w e r . It too is a sort of r i t u a l of p o w e r ; it s h o w s t h a t w h a t sovereigns a n d k i n g s do is never pointless, futile, or petty, a n d never u n w o r t h y of b e i n g narrated.

Everything they do can be, a n d deserves to be, spoken of a n d must be remembered in perpetuity, w h i c h means that the slightest deed or action of a k i n g can and m u s t be t u r n e d into a d a z z l i n g action a n d an exploit. A t the same time, each of h i s decisions is inscribed in a sort of law for his subjects a n d an obligation for his successors. H i s t o r y , then, m a k e s things memorable a n d , by m a k i n g t h e m m e m o r a b l e , i n s c r i b e s deeds in a discourse t h a t constrains a n d i m m o b i l i z e s minor actions in m o n u m e n t s t h a t w i l l t u r n t h e m to stone and r e n d e r t h e m , so to s p e a k , present forever. The t h i r d function of a history that i n tensifies p o w e r is to p u t e x a m p l e s i n t o circulation. A n e x a m p l e is a living l a w or a resuscitated law; it m a k e s it possible to judge the present, a n d to m a k e it s u b m i t to a stronger l a w . A n e x a m p l e is, so to s p e a k , g l o r y m a d e l a w ; it is the l a w functioning in the l u s t e r of a name. It is because it associates the l a w a n d the luster w i t h a name that an e x a m p l e has the force ofand functions asa sort of p u n c t u a l element that helps to reinforce power. B i n d i n g a n d d a z z l i n g , subjugating, subjugating by imposing o b l i gations a n d intensifying the l u s t e r of force: it s e e m s to me t h a t these are, v e r y schematically, the two functions that w e find in the v a r i o u s

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forms of history, as practiced b o t h in Roman civilization and in the societies of the M i d d l e A g e s . Now, these t w o functions correspond

v e r y closely to t w o aspects of power, as represented in religions, r i t u a l s , a n d R o m a n legends, a n d more g e n e r a l l y in Indo-European legends. In the Indo-European system of representing power,
2

power

a l w a y s has t w o aspects or two faces, a n d they are p e r p e t u a l l y conj u g a t e d . On the one hand, the j u r i d i c a l aspect: p o w e r uses obligations, oaths, c o m m i t m e n t s , and the l a w to bind; on the other, power has a magical function, role, and efficacy: p o w e r dazzles, and power p e t r i fies. J u p i t e r , t h a t e m i n e n t l y divine representative of power, the p r e eminent god of the first function and the first order in the

Indo-European tripartite system, is both the god w h o binds a n d the god w h o h u r l s t h u n d e r b o l t s . W e l l , I believe that history, as it still functioned in the M i d d l e A g e s , w i t h its a n t i q u a r i a n research, its d a y to-day chronicles, and its circulating collections of e x a m p l e s , w a s still this same representation of p o w e r . It is not s i m p l y an i m a g e of p o w e r , but also a w a y of r e i n v i g o r a t i n g it. H i s t o r y is the discourse of power, the discourse of the obligations p o w e r uses to subjugate; it is also the d a z z l i n g discourse that p o w e r uses to fascinate, terrorize, a n d i m mobilize. In a w o r d , p o w e r b o t h b i n d s a n d i m m o b i l i z e s , a n d is both the founder a n d g u a r a n t o r of order; a n d h i s t o r y is precisely the d i s course that intensifies and m a k e s more efficacious the t w i n functions that guarantee order. In g e n e r a l terms, w e can therefore say that until a very late stage in our society, history w a s the history of sovereignty, or a history that w a s d e p l o y e d in the dimension and function of sovereignty. It is a " J u p i t e r i a n " history. In that sense, there w a s still a direct c o n t i n u i t y b e t w e e n the h i s t o r i c a l practice of the M i d d l e A g e s and the history of the Romans, history as recounted by the Romans, Livy's h i s t o r y or that of the early annalists. This means that medieval historians never saw any difference, discontinuity, or break b e t w e e n R o m a n history and their own history, the history they were recounting. The continuity between the historical practice of the M i d d l e A g e s and that of Roman society runs deeper still to the extent that the historical n a r r a t i v e s of the Romans, like those of the M i d d l e A g e s ,
3

28 January

1976

69

h a d a c e r t a i n political function. History w a s a r i t u a l that reinforced sovereignty. A l t h o u g h this is no more than a crude sketch, it does, I t h i n k , p r o v i d e a starting point for our attempt to reconstruct a n d c h a r a c terize w h a t is specific about the new form of discourse that a p p e a r e d precisely at the very end of the M i d d l e A g e s or, really, in the s i x teenth a n d early seventeenth c e n t u r i e s . Historical discourse w a s no longer the discourse of sovereignty, or even race, but a discourse about races, about a confrontation b e t w e e n races, about the race struggle

that goes on w i t h i n nations and w i t h i n laws. To that extent it is, I t h i n k , a history that is the complete antithesis of the history of sovereignty, as constituted u p to that t i m e . This is the first non-Roman or a n t i - R o m a n history that the W e s t had ever k n o w n . W h y is it a n t i R o m a n a n d w h y is it a counterhistory, c o m p a r e d to the r i t u a l of sovereignty I w a s t e l l i n g you about a moment a g o ? For a n u m b e r of reasons w h i c h w e can easily identify. First, because in this history of races and of the permanent confrontation that goes on between

races, beneath and t h r o u g h l a w s , w e see the a p p e a r a n c e , or rather the d i s a p p e a r a n c e , of the implicit identification of people w i t h monarch, and nation w i t h sovereign, that the history of sovereigntyand sovereignshad made apparent. Henceforth, in this n e w t y p e of d i s -

course a n d historical practice, sovereignty no longer binds e v e r y t h i n g together into a u n i t y w h i c h is of course the u n i t y of the city, the nation, or the State. Sovereignty has a specific (unction. It does not bind; it enslaves. The postulate that the history of great men contains, a fortiori, the history of lesser men, or that the history of the strong is also the history of the weak, is r e p l a c e d by a p r i n c i p l e of heterogeneity: The history of some is not the h i s t o r y of others. It w i l l be discovered, or at least asserted, that the history of the Saxons after their defeat at the Battle of Hastings is not the same as the history of the N o r m a n s w h o w e r e the victors in that same battle. It will be learned that one man's victory is another man's defeat. The victorv of the Franks and Clovis must also be read, conversely, as the defeat, enserfment, a n d enslavement of the G a l l o - R o m a n s . W h a t looks l i k e

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right, l a w , or obligation from the point of v i e w of power looks l i k e the a b u s e of p o w e r , violence, a n d exaction w h e n it is seen from the v i e w p o i n t of the n e w discourse, just as it does w h e n w e g o over to the other side. After all, the fact t h a t the l a n d is in the possession of g r e a t feudal lords, a n d the fact that they are d e m a n d i n g all these taxes, w i l l look to the defeated populations like acts of violence, confiscations, pillage, a n d w a r t a x e s that are being l e v i e d through violence. A s a result, the g r e a t form of t h e g e n e r a l o b l i g a t i o n , w h o s e form w a s intensified by a history t h a t magnified the g l o r y of the sovereign, i s undone, a n d the l a w comes to be seen as a Janus-faced r e a l i t y : the t r i u m p h of some means the s u b m i s s i o n of others. In that sense, the history t h a t a p p e a r s at this point, or the history of the race struggle, is a counterhistory. But I t h i n k it is also a counterhistory in a different a n d more i m p o r t a n t sense. Not only does this counterhistory b r e a k u p the u n i t y of t h e sovereign l a w that imposes obligations; it also b r e a k s the continuity of g l o r y , into the b a r g a i n . It reveals that the l i g h t t h e famous d a z z l i n g effect of poweris not something that petrifies, solidifies, a n d i m m o b i l i z e s the entire social body, a n d t h u s k e e p s it in order; it is in fact a divisive l i g h t that illuminates one side of the social body b u t leaves the other side in shadow or casts it into the d a r k n e s s . A n d the history or counterhistory that is b o r n of t h e story of t h e race struggle w i l l of course speak from the side that is in darkness, from w i t h i n the shadows. It w i l l be the discourse of those w h o have no glory, or of those w h o have lost it and w h o now find themselves, p e r h a p s for a timebut probably

for a long timein d a r k n e s s a n d silence. W h i c h means that t h i s d i s courseunlike the u n i n t e r r u p t e d ode in w h i c h p o w e r perpetuated

itself, and g r e w stronger by d i s p l a y i n g its a n t i q u i t y a n d its genealo g y w i l l be a d i s r u p t i v e speech, an appeal: " W e do not have a n y continuity b e h i n d us; w e do not have behind us the great a n d glorious genealogy in w h i c h the l a w a n d p o w e r flaunt themselves in their p o w e r a n d their glory. W e came out of the shadows, w e h a d no glory and w e had no r i g h t s , and that is w h y w e are b e g i n n i n g to s p e a k a n d to tell of our history." This w a y of s p e a k i n g related this type of d i s course not so m u c h to the search for the great u n i n t e r r u p t e d j u r i s -

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of a long-established p o w e r , as to a sort of

prophetic

r u p t u r e . This also m e a n s that this n e w discourse is s i m i l a r to a certain n u m b e r of epic, religious, or m y t h i c a l forms which, rather than t e l l i n g of the u n t a r n i s h e d a n d uneclipsed g l o r y of the sovereign, endeavor to formulate the misfortune of ancestors, e x i l e s , a n d servitude. It w i l l e n u m e r a t e not so m u c h victories, as the defeats to w h i c h w e h a v e to submit d u r i n g our long w a i t for the p r o m i s e d l a n d and the fulfillment of t h e old promises that w i l l of course r e e s t a b l i s h both the r i g h t s of old a n d the g l o r y that has been lost. W i t h this new discourse of race s t r u g g l e , w e see the emergence of something that, basically, is m u c h closer to the m y t h i c o - r e l i g i o u s d i s course of the J e w s t h a n to the p o l i t i c o - l e g e n d a r y history of the Romans. W e are m u c h closer to t h e Bible than to Livy, in a H e b r a i c b i b l i c a l form m u c h more than in the form of the annalist w h o r e c o r d s , d a y b y day, the history a n d t h e u n i n t e r r u p t e d g l o r y of p o w e r . I t h i n k that, in general t e r m s , it m u s t not b e forgotten t h a t , at least from the second half of the M i d d l e A g e s o n w a r d , the Bible w a s the great form for the articulation of religious, moral, a n d political protests against the p o w e r of k i n g s a n d the despotism of the church. L i k e the reference to b i b l i c a l texts itself, t h i s form functioned, in most cases, as a protest, a c r i t i q u e , a n d an oppositional d i s c o u r s e . In the M i d d l e A g e s , J e r u s a l e m w a s a l w a y s a protest against all the Babylons that h a d come b a c k to life; it w a s a protest against e t e r n a l Rome, against the R o m e of t h e C a e s a r s , against the Rome t h a t shed the blood of the innocent in the circus. The Bible w a s the w e a p o n of poverty a n d insurrection; it w a s the w o r d that made men rise u p against the l a w a n d against glory, against the unjust l a w of k i n g s a n d the beautiful glory of t h e C h u r c h . To t h a t extent, it is not s u r p r i s i n g t h a t w e see, at the e n d of the M i d d l e Ages, in the s i x t e e n t h c e n t u r y , in the p e r i o d of the Reformation, a n d at the t i m e of the English Revolution, the a p p e a r ance of a form of history t h a t is a direct challenge to the history of sovereignty and k i n g s t o R o m a n h i s t o r y a n d that w e see a n e w history that is a r t i c u l a t e d a r o u n d the g r e a t b i b l i c a l form of prophecy a n d promise. The historical discourse t h a t a p p e a r s at this point can therefore be

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regarded as a counterhistory that challenges Roman history for this reason: in this n e w historical discourse, the function of m e m o r y a c quires a whole new meaning. In R o m a n - s t y l e history, the function of memory w a s essentially to ensure that nothing w a s forgottenor in other w o r d s , to preserve the l a w a n d p e r p e t u a l l y to enhance t h e luster of p o w e r for so long as it e n d u r e d . The n e w history that now emerges, in contrast, has to d i s i n t e r something that has been hidden, and w h i c h has been hidden not only because it has been neglected, but because it has been carefully, d e l i b e r a t e l y , a n d w i c k e d l y misrepresented. B a sically, what the new history is t r y i n g to show is that power, the mighty, the kings, a n d the l a w s have concealed the fact that they w e r e born of the contingency a n d injustice of battles. After all, W i l l i a m the C o n q u e r o r d i d not w a n t to be called "the conqueror," for he w a n t e d to conceal the fact that the rights he exercised, or the violence he w a s inflicting on England, w e r e the rights of conquest. He wanted to be seen as t h e l e g i t i m a t e dynastic successor a n d therefore h i d t h e name of "conqueror," just as Clovis, after all, w a n d e r e d around w i t h a parchment in his hand to make people believe that he owed his royalty to the fact that he had been recognized as k i n g by some Roman Caesar or other. These unjust a n d biased kings tried to m a k e it look as though they w e r e acting on behalf of all a n d in the n a m e of all; they certainly w a n t e d people to t a l k of their victories, b u t they did not w a n t it to be k n o w n that their victories w e r e someone else's defeats: "It w a s our defeat." The role of history will, then, be to show that l a w s deceive, that k i n g s w e a r masks, that power creates illusions, and that historians tell lies. This will not, then, be a history of continuity, but a history of the d e c i p h e r i n g , the detection of the secret, of the o u t w i t t i n g of the ruse, a n d of the reappropriation of a k n o w l e d g e t h a t has been d i s t o r t e d or b u r i e d . It will decipher a t r u t h that has been sealed. I think, finally, that this history of the race struggle that appears in the s i x t e e n t h a n d seventeenth centuries is a counterhistory in a different sense too. It is a counterhistory in a s i m p l e r or more elem e n t a r y sense, but also in a stronger sense. The point is that, far from being a ritual inherent in the exercise, deployment, and reinforcement

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of power, it is not only a c r i t i q u e of p o w e r , but also an attack on it and a demand. Power is unjust not because it has forfeited its noblest examples, but quite simply because it does not belong to us. In one sense, it can be said that this n e w history, like the old, is indeed an attempt to speak of a right that survives the vicissitudes of time. But its goal is not to establish the great, long j u r i s p r u d e n c e of a p o w e r that has a l w a y s retained its r i g h t s , or to demonstrate t h a t p o w e r is w h e r e it is, a n d that it has a l w a y s been w h e r e it is now. It is to d e m a n d r i g h t s that have not been recognized, or in other w o r d s , to declare w a r by declaring r i g h t s . Historical discourse of the Roman type pacifies society, justifies power, a n d founds the orderor the

o r d e r of the t h r e e ordersthat constitutes the social body. In contrast, the discourse I a m t e l l i n g you about, a n d w h i c h is deployed in the late sixteenth c e n t u r y , and w h i c h can be described as a b i b l i c a l - s t y l e historical discourse, t e a r s society a p a r t a n d s p e a k s of l e g i t i m a t e r i g h t s solely in order to declare w a r on l a w s . I w o u l d l i k e to s u m all this u p by a d v a n c i n g a sort of hypothesis. C a n w e not s a y that until the end of the M i d d l e Ages a n d p e r h a p s beyond that point, w e h a d a h i s t o r y a historical discourse a n d p r a c ticethat w a s one of the great d i s c u r s i v e r i t u a l s of sovereignty, of a sovereignty that both revealed a n d constituted itself through history as a unitary sovereignty that w a s l e g i t i m a t e , u n i n t e r r u p t e d , and d a z zling. A n o t h e r history now b e g i n s to challenge it: the counterhistory of d a r k s e r v i t u d e and forfeiture. This is the counterhistory of p r o p h ecy a n d promise, the counterhistory of the secret k n o w l e d g e t h a t has to be rediscovered and d e c i p h e r e d . This, finally, is the counterhistory of the t w i n a n d s i m u l t a n e o u s declaration of w a r and of r i g h t s . R o m a n style history w a s basically profoundly inscribed w i t h i n the Indo-

European system of representing p o w e r , a n d of p o w e r ' s w o r k i n g s ; it was certainly b o u n d u p w i t h the organization of the three orders, at w h o s e p i n n a c l e stood the order of sovereignty, a n d it therefore r e mained b o u n d u p w i t h a c e r t a i n domain of objects and c e r t a i n t y p e s of figureswith legends about heroes a n d kingsbecause it w a s the

discourse of a Janus-faced sovereignty that w a s at once magical a n d juridical. This history, b a s e d on a R o m a n model a n d Indo-European

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functions, n o w finds itself being constrained by a b i b l i c a l , almost Hebraic, history w h i c h , ever since the end of the M i d d l e A g e s , has been the discourse of rebellion and prophecy, of k n o w l e d g e a n d of the call for the violent overthrow of the order of things. U n l i k e the historical discourse of Indo-European societies, this n e w discourse is no longer bound up w i t h a ternary order, but w i t h a b i n a r y perception and division of society and men; them and us, the unjust a n d the just, the masters a n d those who must obey t h e m , the rich and the poor, the mighty and those who have to work in order to live, those who invade l a n d s a n d those who t r e m b l e before them, the despots and the groaning people, the men of t o d a y ' s l a w and those of the homeland of the future. It w a s in the m i d d l e of the M i d d l e A g e s that Petrarch asked what I see as a fairly astonishing or at least fundamental question. He asked: "Is there nothing more to history than the praise of R o m e ? " I think that in a s k i n g this question, he characterized in a w o r d w h a t had a l w a y s been the actual practice of history, not only in Roman society, but also in the medieval society to w h i c h Petrarch himself belonged. A few centuries after Petrarch, the West saw the appearance or b i r t h of a h i s t o r y t h a t contained the v e r y opposite of the p r a i s e of Rome. This w a s , by contrast, a history that sought to u n m a s k Rome as a new Babylon, and w h i c h challenged Rome by demanding the lost rights of J e r u s a l e m . A very different form of history and a historical d i s course w i t h a very different function had come into being. One might say that this history is the beginning of the end of Indo-European mode
4

historicity, by w h i c h I mean the end of a certain Indo-European

of t a l k i n g about and perceiving history. U l t i m a t e l y , w e might say that a n t i q u i t y ended with the b i r t h of the great historical discourse on race w a r a n d by a n t i q u i t y I mean that awareness of b e i n g in continuity w i t h a n t i q u i t y that existed until the late M i d d l e Ages. The M i d d l e A g e s was, obviously, u n a w a r e of b e i n g the M i d d l e Ages. But it was also u n a w a r e , so to speak, that it w a s not, or w a s no longer, a n t i q u i t y . Rome w a s still present, a n d functioned as a sort of permanent a n d contemporary historical presence in the M i d d l e Ages. Rome w a s perceived a s having been d i v i d e d into a thousand channels

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through Europe, but all these channels led, it w a s b e -

lieved, b a c k to R o m e . It m u s t not be forgotten that all t h e national ( o r p r e n a t i o n a l ) political histories that w e r e being w r i t t e n at t h i s t i m e a l w a y s took as t h e i r s t a r t i n g point a certain Trojan m y t h . A l l the nations of Europe c l a i m e d to h a v e been b o r n of the fall of Troy. Being born of the fall of Troy meant that all the nations, all the S t a t e s , a n d all the monarchies of Europe could c l a i m to be Rome's sisters. The French monarchy, for instance, w a s supposed to be descended from F r a n c u s , a n d the English m o n a r c h y from a certain B r u t u s . A l l these great d y n a s t i e s c l a i m e d the sons of P r i a m as their ancestors, a n d that g u a r a n t e e d a link of genealogical k i n s h i p w i t h ancient Rome. A s late as the fifteenth century, a sultan of C o n s t a n t i n o p l e could w r i t e

to the doge of Venice: "But w h y should w e w a g e w a r on one another, w h e n w e are brothers? It is well k n o w n that the T u r k s w e r e b o r n of, or emerged from, the b u r n i n g of Troy, a n d that t h e y too a r e d e scended from P r i a m . " It w a s , he s a i d , well k n o w n that the T u r k s w e r e descended from T u r c u s , w h o , l i k e A e n e a s a n d Francus, w a s the son of P r i a m . R o m e is, then, p r e s e n t w i t h i n the historical consciousness of the M i d d l e A g e s , and there is no b r e a k b e t w e e n Rome a n d the countless k i n g d o m s that w e see a p p e a r i n g from the fifth and s i x t h centuries o n w a r d . N o w what the discourse of race struggle w i l l reveal is precisely the k i n d of break that w i l l relegate to a different world something that w i l l come to look l i k e an a n t i q u i t y : w e have a new a w a r e n e s s of a b r e a k that had not previously been recognized. The European con-

sciousness b e g i n s to notice events t h a t h a d previously been no more t h a n m i n o r i n c i d e n t s w h i c h h a d basically not d a m a g e d the great u n i t y , the great strength, the great l e g i t i m a c y , and the great, d a z z l i n g

strength of Rome. It b e g i n s to notice the e v e n t s w h i c h will [ t h e n ] constitute Europe's real b e g i n n i n g s , i t s bloody beginnings. It b e g a n w i t h conquest, w i t h the F r a n k i s h invasion and the N o r m a n invasion. Something that will be specifically i n d i v i d u a l i z e d as "the Middle

A g e s " begins to appear [ a n d it w i l l be only in the early e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y that historical consciousness w i l l isolate this phenomenon a n d call it f e u d a l i s m ] . N e w characters appear: the Franks, the Gauls, a n d

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the C e l t s ; more general characters such as the peoples of the N o r t h and the peoples of the South also b e g i n to appear; rulers and s u b ordinates, the victors and the v a n q u i s h e d begin to appear. It is they who now enter the theater of historical discourse and who now constitute its p r i m a r y reference. Europe becomes populated by memories and ancestors whose genealogy it had never before w r i t t e n . A very different historical consciousness emerges and is formulated through

this discourse on the race struggle and the call for its revival. To that extent, w e can identify the appearance of discourses on race w a r w i t h a very different organization of time in Europe's consciousness, practice, and even its politics. Having established that, I w o u l d to make a certain number of comments. First, I w o u l d like to stress the fact that it w o u l d be a m i s t a k e to r e g a r d this discourse on race s t r u g g l e as belonging, rightfully a n d completely, to the oppressed, or to say that it w a s , at least originally, the discourse of the enslaved, the discourse of the people, or a history that w a s claimed and spoken by the people. It should in fact be immediately obvious that it is a discourse that has a g r e a t ability to circulate, a g r e a t a p t i t u d e for metamorphosis, or a sort of strategic polyvalence. It is t r u e that we see it taking shape, at least initially perhaps, in the eschatological themes or myths that developed together w i t h the popular movements of the second half of the M i d d l e Ages. But it has to be noted t h a t w e very q u i c k l y i m m e d i a t e l y f i n d it in the form of historical scholarship, popular fiction, a n d cosmobiological speculations. For a long time it w a s an oppositional d i s course; c i r c u l a t i n g very q u i c k l y from one oppositional group to

another, it w a s a critical instrument to be used in the struggle against a form of power, but it was shared bv different enemies or different forms of opposition to that power. W e see it being used, in various forms, bv radical English t h o u g h t at the time of the seventeenth-

century revolution. A few vears later, w e see the French aristocratic reaction using it against the power of Louis XIV, and it has scarcely been transformed at all. In the early nineteenth century, it w a s obviouslv bound up with the postrevolutionarv project of at last w r i t i n g a history whose real subject is the peopled But a few years later, we

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can see it being used to disqualify colonized subraces. This is, then, a mobile discourse, a polyvalent discourse. A l t h o u g h its origins he in t h e M i d d l e Ages, it is not so m a r k e d by them that it can have only one political meaning. Second comment: Although this discourse speaks of races, a n d although the term " r a c e " appears at a very early stage, it is quite obv i o u s that the w o r d " r a c e " itself is not p i n n e d to a stable biological m e a n i n g . A n d yet the w o r d is not completely free-floating. U l t i m a t e l y , it designates a c e r t a i n h i s t o n c o - p o h t i c a l divide. It is no doubt w i d e , but it is relatively s t a b l e . One might s a y a n d this discourse does saythat t w o races exist w h e n e v e r one w r i t e s the history of t w o g r o u p s w h i c h do not, at least to begin w i t h , have the same language or, in many cases, the same religion. The two g r o u p s form a u n i t y a n d a single polity only as a r e s u l t of w a r s , invasions, victories, a n d defeats, or in other w o r d s , acts of violence. The only l i n k b e t w e e n them is the link established by the violence of w a r . A n d finally, w e can say t h a t two races exist w h e n there are t w o groups which, a l t h o u g h they coexist, have not become m i x e d because of the differences, d i s s y m m e t r i e s , a n d b a r r i e r s c r e a t e d by privileges, customs a n d rights, the d i s t r i b u t i o n of wealth, or the w a y in which power is e x ercised. T h i r d comment: W e can, therefore, recognize that historical d i s course h a s t w o great morphologies, t w o m a i n centers, a n d t w o p o l i t ical functions. On the one h a n d , the Roman history of sovereignty; on the other, the b i b l i c a l history of servitude a n d exiles. I do not think that the difference b e t w e e n these t w o histories is precisely the same as the difference b e t w e e n an official discourse and, let us say, a rustic* discourse, or a discourse that is so conditioned by political imperatives t h a t it is incapable of p r o d u c i n g a k n o w l e d g e . This h i s tory, w h i c h set itself the task of d e c i p h e r i n g p o w e r ' s secrets and d e mystifying it, d i d in fact p r o d u c e at least as much k n o w l e d g e as the history that t r i e d to reconstruct the g r e a t u n i n t e r r u p t e d j u r i s p r u d e n c e of power. I t h i n k t h a t w e m i g h t even go so far as to say t h a t it

*The manuscript has "scholarly" and "naive."

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removed a lot of obstacles, and that the fertile moments in the constitution of historical knowledge in Europe can, roughly, be situated at the moment when the history of sovereignty suddenly intruded upon the history of the race war. In the early seventeenth century in England, for instance, the discourse that told of invasions and of the great injustices done to the Saxons by the Normans intruded upon all the historical work that the monarchist jurists were undertaking in order to recount the uninterrupted history of the power of the kings of England. It was the intersection between these two historical practices that led to the explosion of a whole field of knowledge. Similarly, when at the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, the French nobility began to write its genealogy not in the form of a continuity but in the form of the privileges it once enjoyed, which it then lost and which it wanted to win back, all the historical research that was being done on that axis intruded upon the historiography of the French monarchy instituted by Louis XIV, and there was once more a considerable expansion of historical knowledge. For similar reasons, there was another fertile moment at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the history of the people, of its servitude and its enslavement, the history of the Gauls and the Franks, of the peasants and the Third Estate, intruded upon the juridical history of regimes. So the clash between the history of sovereignty and the history of the race war leads to a perpetual interaction, and to the production of fields of knowledge and of knowledge-contents. Final remark: As a result ofor despitethis interaction, the

revolutionary discourse of seventeenth-century England, and that of nineteenth century France and Europe, was on the side ofI almost said biblical historyon the side of history -as-demand, of history-asmsurrection. The idea of revolution, which runs through the entire political workings of the West and the entire history of the West for more than two hundred years, and whose origins and content are still, as it happens, verv enigmatic, cannot, in my view, be dissociated from the emergence and existence of this practice of counterhistory. After all, what could the revolutionary project and the revolutionary idea

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possibly mean without this preliminary interpretation of the dissym metnes, the disequilibriums, the injustice, and the violence that func Hon despite the order of laws, beneath the order of laws, and through and because of the order of laws? Where would the revolutionary project, the revolutionary idea, or revolutionary practice be without the will to rekindle the real war that once went on and which is still going on, even though the function of the silent order of power is to mask and smother it, and even though it is in its interest to do so? Where would revolutionary practice, revolutionary discourse, and the revolutionary project be without the will to reactivate that war thanks to a specific historical knowledge? What would they become, if that knowledge were not used as an instrument in the warthat waras a tactical element in the real war that is being waged? What would the revolutionary project and revolutionary discourse mean if the goal w e r e not a certain, a final, inversion of relations of power and a decisive displacement within the exercise of power? The interpretation of dissymmetries, the rekindling of a war, the reactivation of the warthere is more than this to the revolutionary discourse that has constantly undermined Europe since at least the end of the nineteenth century, but it is still an important strand within it, and it was shaped, defined, established, and organized in the great counterhistory that began to speak of the race struggle at the end of the M i d d l e Ages. After all, it should not be forgotten that toward the end of h i s life, M a r x told Engels in a letter written in 1882 that "You know very well where we found our idea of class struggle; we found it in the work of the French historians who talked about the race struggle." The history of the revolutionary project and of revolutionary practice is, I think, indissociable from the counterhistory that broke with the Indo-European form of historical practices, which were bound up w i t h the exercise of sovereignty; it is indissociable from the appearance of the counterhistory of races and of the role played in the West by clashes between races. We might, in a word, say that at the end of the M i d d l e Ages, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we left, or began to leave, a societv whose historical consciousness was still of the Roman type, or which was
6

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still centered on the rituals of sovereignty and its m y t h s , a n d that w e then entered a society oflet's say it is of the modern t y p e ( g i v e n that there is no other w o r d for it a n d that the w o r d " m o d e r n " is devoid of m e a n i n g ) a society whose historical consciousness centers not on sovereignty and the problem of its foundation, but on revolution, its promises, a n d its prophecies of future emancipation. I t h i n k this provides us w i t h a s t a r t i n g point for understanding

how and w h y historical discourse could become a new issue in the m i d nineteenth c e n t u r y . A t the t i m e w h e n this discourse [ ] w a s being displaced, translated, or converted into a revolutionary d i s course, at the t i m e w h e n the notion of race struggle w a s about to be replaced by that of class s t r u g g l e a n d in fact, w h e n I say "the m i d nineteenth c e n t u r y , " that's too late; it w a s in the first half of the nineteenth century, as it w a s [ T h i e r s ] who transformed race struggle into class struggleat the time when this conversion w a s going on, it w a s in fact only natural that a t t e m p t s should be made by one side to recode the old counterhistory not in terms of class, b u t in terms of racesraces in the biological and medical sense of that term. A n d it w a s at the moment w h e n a counterhistory of the revolutionary t y p e w a s t a k i n g shape that another counterhistory began to t a k e shape but it w i l l be a counterhistory in the sense that it a d o p t s a biologicomedical perspective and crushes the historical dimension that w a s present in this discourse. You thus see the appearance of w h a t w i l l become actual racism. This racism t a k e s over a n d reconverts the form and function of the discourse on race struggle, but it distorts them, a n d it w i l l be characterized by the fact that the theme of historical w a r w i t h its battles, its invasions, its looting, its victories, a n d its defeatswill be replaced by the postevolutionist theme of the struggle for existence. It is no longer a battle in the sense that a w a r r i o r w o u l d u n d e r s t a n d the term, but a struggle in the biological sense: the diflerentiation of species, natural selection, a n d the survival of the fittest species. S i m i l a r l y , the theme of the b i n a r y society which is d i v i d e d into t w o races or two g r o u p s w i t h different languages, l a w s , and so on w i l l be replaced by t h a t of a society that is, in contrast, biologically monist. Its only problem is this: it is threatened by a certain n u m b e r
7

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of heterogeneous e l e m e n t s w h i c h are not essential to it, which do not divide the social body, or the living body of society, into t w o parts, and w h i c h are in a sense accidental. Hence the idea that foreigners have infiltrated this society, the theme of the deviants w h o are this society's by products. The theme of the counter history of r a c e s w a s , finally, that the State w a s necessarily unjust. It is now inverted into its opposite: the State is no longer an instrument that one race uses against another: the State is, and must be, the protector of the integrity, the s u p e r i o r i t y , and the p u r i t y of the race. The idea of racial purity, w i t h all its monistic, Statist, a n d biological implications: that is w h a t replaces the idea of race s t r u g g l e . I think that racism is born at the point when the theme of racial p u r i t y replaces that of race struggle, and w h e n counterhistory b e g i n s to be converted into a biological racism. The connection between r a cism and antirevolutionary discourse and politics in the West is not, then, accidental; it is not s i m p l y an additional ideological edifice t h a t appears at a given m o m e n t in a sort of g r a n d antirevolutionary project. A t the m o m e n t w h e n the discourse of race struggle w a s being t r a n s formed into revolutionary discourse, racism was revolutionary

thought. Although they had their roots in the discourse of race s t r u g gle, the revolutionary project and revolutionary propheticism began to t a k e a very different now

direction. Racism is, quite l i t e r a l l y ,

revolutionary discourse in an inverted form. A l t e r n a t i v e l y , w e could put it this w a y : W h e r e a s the discourse of races, of the struggle between races, w a s a w e a p o n to be used against the historico-political discourse of Roman sovereignty, the discourse of race ( i n the s i n g u l a r ) w a s a way of t u r n i n g that w e a p o n against those w h o had forged it, of using it to preserve the sovereignty of the State, a sovereignty whose luster and vigor w e r e no longer g u a r a n t e e d by magico-juridical r i t u a l s , but by medico- normalizing techniques. Thanks to the shift from l a w to norm, from races in the plural to race in the singular, from the

emancipatory project to a concern with p u r i t y , sovereignty w a s able to invest or take over the discourse ol race struggle and reutilize it for its own strategy. S t a t e sovereignty t h u s b e c o m e s the imperative to protect the race. It b e c o m e s both an alternative to and a w a y of

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b l o c k i n g the call for revolution that derived from the old discourse of struggles, interpretations, d e m a n d s , and promises. I w o u l d like, finally, to m a k e one more point. The racism that came into b e i n g as a transformation of and an alternative to revolutionary discourse, or the old discourse of race struggle, u n d e r w e n t t w o further transformations in the t w e n t i e t h century. A t the end of the nineteenth century, w e see the a p p e a r a n c e of w h a t might be called a State racism, of a biological a n d centralized racism. A n d it w a s this theme that w a s , if not profoundly modified, at least transformed and u t i l i z e d in strategies specific to the t w e n t i e t h century. On the one hand, w e have the N a z i transformation, w h i c h t a k e s u p the theme, established at the

end of the nineteenth c e n t u r y , of a State racism that is responsible for the biological protection of the race. This theme is, however, r e w o r k e d a n d converted, in a sort of regressive mode, in such a w a y that it is i m p l a n t e d in and functions w i t h i n the v e r y prophetic d i s course from w h i c h the theme of race struggle once emerged. N a z i s m w a s t h u s able to reuse a w h o l e popular, almost medieval, mythology that a l l o w e d State racism to function w i t h i n an ideologico-mythical landscape s i m i l a r to that of the p o p u l a r s t r u g g l e s w h i c h , at a given moment, could support a n d m a k e it possible to formulate the theme of race struggle. In the Nazi period, State racism w o u l d be accompanied by a w h o l e set of elements and connotations such as, for e x a m p l e , the struggle of a G e r m a n i c race w h i c h had, t e m p o r a r i l y , been enslaved b y the European p o w e r s , the Slavs, the Treaty of Versailles, a n d so o n w h i c h G e r m a n y h a d a l w a y s regarded a s its provisional victors. It w a s also accompanied by the theme of the r e t u r n of the hero, or heroes ( t h e r e a w a k e n i n g of Frederick, and of all the nation's other g u i d e s and Fiihrers; the theme of the revival of an ancestral w a r ; that of the a d v e n t of a new Reich, of the empire of the last d a y s w h i c h w i l l e n s u r e the m i l l e n a n a n victory of the r a c e , but w h i c h also means that the inevitable apocalypse and the inevitable last d a y s are nigh. W e have then a Nazi reinscription or reinsertion of State racism in the legend of w a r r i n g races. In contrast to the Nazi transformation, you have a Soviet-style

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transformation w h i c h consists in doing, so to speak, just the opposite. This is not a d r a m a t i c or t h e a t r i c a l transformation, b u t a s u r r e p t i t i o u s transformation. It does not use the d r a m a t u r g y of l e g e n d s , a n d it is diffusely "scientific." It consists in r e w o r k i n g the revolutionary d i s course of social strugglesthe very discourse t h a t d e r i v e d so m a n y of i t s e l e m e n t s from the old discourse of the race s t r u g g l e a n d a r t i c u l a t i n g it w i t h the m a n a g e m e n t and the policing that ensure the h y g i e n e of an orderly society. In Soviet S t a t e r a c i s m , w h a t revolutionary discourse designated as the class enemy becomes a sort of biological threat. So, w h o is the class enemy n o w ? Well, it's the sick, the deviant, the m a d m a n . A s a result, the weapon that w a s once used in the struggle against the class enemy ( t h e w e a p o n of w a r , or possibly the d i a l e c t i c a n d c o n v i c t i o n ) i s n o w w i e l d e d b y a m e d i c a l police w h i c h e l i m i n a t e s class e n e m i e s as though they w e r e racial e n e m i e s . W e have then, on the one hand, the Nazi reinscription of State racism in the old legend of w a r r i n g classes, a n d on the other, the Soviet r e i n s c r i p tion of the class struggle w i t h i n the silent m e c h a n i s m s of a State racism. A n d the hoarse songs of the races that clashed in b a t t l e s over the lies of l a w s and k i n g s , a n d w h i c h w e r e after all the earliest form of revolutionary discourse, become the a d m i n i s t r a t i v e prose of a State t h a t defends itself in the n a m e of a social heritage t h a t has to be k e p t pure. So, the g l o r y a n d the infamy of the discourse of r a c e s in s t r u g g l e . W h a t I have been t r y i n g to show you is that this is discourse t h a t definitively detached u s from a historico-juridical consciousness centered on sovereignty, a n d introduced us into a form of history, a form of t i m e that can be both d r e a m e d of and k n o w n , both d r e a m e d of a n d understood, a n d in w h i c h t h e question of p o w e r can no longer be dissociated from t h a t of s e r v i t u d e , l i b e r a t i o n , a n d emancipation. Petrarch a s k e d if there w a s a n y t h i n g more to history than the praise of Rome. A n d w e a s k a n d this is no doubt t y p i c a l of our historical consciousness a n d is no doubt b o u n d u p w i t h the a p p e a r a n c e of t h i s counterhistory: "Is t h e r e a n y t h i n g more to history t h a n the call for revolution, and the fear of r e v o l u t i o n ? " A n d let me s i m p l y a d d t h i s

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question: "And what if R o m e once more c o n q u e r e d the r e v o l u t i o n ? " So after these digressions, 1 w i l l try, b e g i n n i n g next time, to take another look at certain aspects of the history of the discourse on races from the seventeenth century to the early nineteenth and then the t w e n t i e t h centuries.

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1-For Roman writers before Livy, the word "annals" referred to the ancient histories they consulted. Annals are a primitive form of history in which events are related year by year. The Annates Maximi drawn up by the Great Pontiif were published in eighty books at the beginning of the second century B.C. 2. Foucault is obviously referring to the work of Georges Dumezil, and particularly to Xtitra-V'aruna: Essai sur deux representations indo-euwpe'ennes de la souverainete (Paris: Gallimard, 1 9 4 0 ) (English translation by Derek Coleman: Mirta-Varuna: An Essay on Two htdo-Eutvpean Repnsentations of Sovereignity [New York: Zone Books, 1 9 8 8 | ); Mythe et Epopee (Pans: Gallimard), vol. 1: L'Ueo/ogie des trois jonctions dans les epopees des peuples indoeutvpeens, 1 9 6 8 ; vol. 2 : Types e'piques indo-eumpe'ens: un heros, un sorrier, un rot, 1 9 7 1 ; vol. 3: Histoires romaines, 1 9 7 3 . 3. Titus Livius, Ab Urbe condita tibri (books 1 - 9 , 2 1 - 4 5 , and half of the fifth decade have survived). 4. "Quid est enim aliud omnis histona quam romana laus" ("History was nothing but the praise of Rome"). Petrarch, Invectiva contra eum qui aledixit Italia (1373). It should be pointed out that Petrarch's words are cited by Erwin Panofeky in his Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (London: Paladin, 1 9 7 0 ) , p. 1 0 (first edition, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1 9 6 0 ; French translation: La Renaissance et ses avant-coureurs dans Vart d'Occident [Pans: Flammanon, 1 9 7 6 ] , p. 2 6 ) . 5. From Mignet and the authors Foucault mentions in subsequent lectures to Michelet. 6 . The actual reference should in fact be to the letter on 5 March 1 8 5 2 , in which Marx writes to J . Weydemeyer: "Finally, in vour place I should in general remark to the democratic gentlemen that they would do better first to acquaint themselves with bour geois literature before they presume to yap at the opponents of it. For instance, these gentlemen should study the historical works of Thierry, Guizot, John Wade, and others in order to enlighten themselves as to the past 'history of classes.' " In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Selected Correspondence, 2 d ed. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1 9 6 5 ) , p . 6 8 (German original: Karl Marx-Friedrich Engels Gesamtausgabe, Dritte abteilung, Briefwechsel [Berlin: Diez, 1 9 8 7 ] , bd. 5, p. 75; French translation: K.. Marx and F. Engels, Correspondance [Paris: Editions sociales, 1 9 5 9 ] , vol. 3, p. 7 9 ) . Cf. Marx's letter of 27 July 1 8 5 4 to Engels, where Thierry is defined as "the father of the 'class struggle,'" Selected Correspondence, p. 8 7 (Gesuamtausgabe, bd. 7, 1 9 8 9 , p. 130; Correspond ante, vol. 4, 1975, pp. 1 4 8 - 5 2 ) . In the manuscript and obviously quoting from memory, M. Foucault writes: "In 1 8 8 2 , Marx again said to Engels: 'The history of the revolutionary project and of revolutionary practice is indissociable from this counterhistory of races, and the role it played in political struggles in the West.' " 7. See in particular A. Thiers, Histoire de la Revolution francaisc, 1 0 vols. ( Pans, 1 8 2 3 - 1 8 2 7 ) ; Histoire du Consulat et de I'Empire, 2 0 vols. (Pans, 1 8 4 5 - 1 8 6 2 ) .

five

4 FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6

i? \ %

Answer

to a question

on anti-Semitism.

- Hobbes

on war and in England: schema eliminate.

* ^ |

sovereignty. royalists,

- The discourse

on the Conquest

parliamentarians, historicism.

and Leveller?. - What Hobbes

- The binary wanted to

and political

OVER

T H E L A S T W E E K or t w o , a c e r t a i n n u m b e r of q u e s t i o n s a n d

objections, some w r i t t e n a n d some oral, have been a d d r e s s e d to m e . I w o u l d be q u i t e h a p p y to d i s c u s s these w i t h y o u , b u t it is difficult in t h i s space a n d this c l i m a t e . In any case, y o u can come a n d see m e in my office after the l e c t u r e if y o u have q u e s t i o n s to a s k me. B u t there is one question I w o u l d l i k e to t r y to a n s w e r , first because I have been asked it several t i m e s a n d second because I thought I h a d a l r e a d y a n s w e r e d it in advance, b u t I have to conclude that m y e x planations w e r e not sufficiently clear. I have been asked: " W h a t does it mean to say that racism t a k e s off in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, a n d to relate racism solely to t h e p r o b l e m s of the State a n d sovereignty, w h e n it is w e l l k n o w n that, after a l l , r e l i g i o u s r a c i s m ( a n d r e l i g i o u s a n t i - S e m i t i s m in p a r t i c u l a r ) h a d been in existence since the M i d d l e A g e s ? " I w o u l d therefore l i k e to go over something I obviously d i d not e x p l a i n a d e q u a t e l y or clearly. I w a s certainly not t r y i n g for one moment to trace the history of racism in t h e general a n d t r a d i t i o n a l sense of the term. I do not w a n t

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to trace the history of w h a t it might have meant, in the West, to have an awareness of belonging to a race, or of the history of the rites and mechanisms that w e r e used to t r y to exclude, disqualify, or p h y s i c a l l y destroy a race. I wasand in m y own v i e w , I amtrying to look at the emergence in the West of a certain analysis ( a critical, historical, and political a n a l y s i s ) of the State, its institutions and its p o w e r mechanisms. This analysis was m a d e in binary terms: The social body is not made u p of a p y r a m i d of orders or of a hierarchy, and it does not constitute a coherent and unitary organism. It is composed of t w o g r o u p s , and they are not only q u i t e distinct, b u t also in conflict. A n d the conflictual relationship that exists between the two groups that constitute the social body a n d shapes the State is in fact one of w a r , of permanent warfare. The State is nothing more than the w a y that the w a r between the two groups in question continues to b e w a g e d in a p p a r e n t l y peaceful forms. H a v i n g established that, I w o u l d like to show how an analysis of this type is obviously articulated w i t h revolutionary hopes, an urgent call for rebellion, and also a politics of rebellion or revolution. That, and not racism, is my basic problem. It seems to me that there are reasonable historical grounds for

saying that this way of m a k i n g a political analysis of p o w e r relations ( w h i c h are seen as relations of w a r b e t w e e n t w o races that coexist w i t h i n a single s o c i e t y ) does not, or at least not in the first instance, have a n y t h i n g to do w i t h the religious problem. You w i l l find that this analysis w a s actually formulated, or w a s b e i n g formulated, at the end of the sixteenth century a n d the b e g i n n i n g of the seventeenth. In other w o r d s , the divide, the perception of the w a r b e t w e e n races

predates the notions of social s t r u g g l e or class struggle, but it certainly cannot be identified with a racism of, if you like, the religious t y p e . It is true that I haven't t a l k e d about a n t i - S e m i t i s m . I intended to say a bit about it last time, w h e n I w a s discussing this theme of the race struggle in very general terms, but I did not have time. W h a t I t h i n k w e can saybut I w i l l come b a c k to this lateris this: Insofar as it is a religious a n d r a c i a l attitude, a n t i - S e m i t i s m had so l i t t l e influence on the history I w a s t r y i n g to trace for you that it does not have to b e taken into account until w e r e a c h the n i n e t e e n t h century. T h e old

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r e l i g i o u s - t y p e a n t i S e m i t i s m w a s r e u t i h z e d by S t a t e racism only in the n i n e t e e n t h century, or at the p o i n t w h e n the State had to look like, function, and present itself as the g u a r a n t o r of the integrity and p u r i t y of the race, and had to defend it against the race or races that w e r e infiltrating it, i n t r o d u c i n g harmful elements into its body, and w h i c h therefore h a d to b e d r i v e n out for both political and biological reasons. It is at this point that a n t i - S e m i t i s m develops, p i c k i n g u p , using, and t a k i n g from the old form of a n t i - S e m i t i s m all the energy and a w h o l e m y t h o l o g y w h i c h h a d u n t i l t h e n been devoted solely to the political analysis of the internal w a r , or the social w a r . A t this point the J e w s came to be seen asand w e r e described asa race that w a s present w i t h i n all races, a n d w h o s e biologically d a n g e r o u s character necessitated a certain n u m b e r of mechanisms of rejection a n d exclusion on the p a r t of the S t a t e . It is therefore, I think, t h e r e u t i l i z a t i o n w i t h i n State racism of an a n t i - S e m i t i s m w h i c h h a d d e veloped for other reasons t h a t g e n e r a t e d t h e t w e n t i e t h - c e n t u r y phe-

nomena of s u p e r i m p o s i n g the old mechanisms of a n t i - S e m i t i s m on this critical and political analysis of the s t r u g g l e between races w i t h i n a s i n g l e society. That is w h y I d i d not r a i s e either the p r o b l e m of religious r a c i s m or the p r o b l e m of a n t i - S e m i t i s m in the M i d d l e A g e s . I w i l l , on the other hand, try to t a l k about them w h e n I come to t h e n i n e t e e n t h century. A s I h a v e a l r e a d y said, I am r e a d y to a n s w e r more specific questions. Today I w o u l d l i k e to t r y to look at how w a r began to emerge as an a n a l y z e r of p o w e r relations at the end of the sixteenth a n d the b e g i n n i n g of the seventeenth century. There is, of course, one n a m e t h a t w e i m m e d i a t e l y encounter: it is t h a t of Hobbes, w h o does, at first glance, appear to b e the m a n w h o s a i d t h a t w a r is b o t h the basis of p o w e r relations and the p r i n c i p l e that e x p l a i n s them. A c c o r d i n g to H o b b e s , it is not just a w a r that w e find b e h i n d order, behind

peace, and beneath the l a w . It is not a w a r that presides over the b i r t h of the great a u t o m a t o n w h i c h constitutes the State, the sovereign, or Leviathan. It is the most general of all w a r s , and it goes on at all times and in every dimension: "the w a r of every man against every man."
1

H o b b e s does not s i m p l y claim that this w a r of every

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man against every man gives b i r t h to the State on the m o r n i n g w h i c h is both real a n d fictionalon w h i c h Leviathan is born. It goes on even w h e n the State has been constituted, a n d Hobbes sees it as a threat that w e l l s u p in the State's interstices, at its limits and on its frontiers. You will recall the three e x a m p l e s of p e r m a n e n t warfare that he cites. H e says first that w h e n , even in a civil state, a man t a k e s a journey, he locks h i s doors, because he k n o w s that thieves a r e p e r m a n e n t l y at w a r w i t h those they rob.
2

H e then gives another example: in the

forests of A m e r i c a , there are still savage people w h o live in a condition of w a r against one another.
3

A n d even in our States of Europe, w h a t

are relations b e t w e e n States, if not those of two men " h a v i n g their weapons pointed, a n d their eyes fixed on one a n o t h e r " ? So even w h e n the State has been established, the threat of w a r is there: there is a w a r in any case. Hence the problem: First, w h a t is this w a r that exists before the State, a n d w h i c h the State is, in theory, destined to e n d ? W h a t is t h i s w a r that the State h a s p u s h e d b a c k into prehistory, into savagery, into its mysterious frontiers, but w h i c h is still g o i n g o n ? A n d second, h o w does t h i s w a r give b i r t h to t h e S t a t e ? W h a t effect does the fact that it w a s born of w a r have on the constitution of the S t a t e ? W h a t stigmata does w a r leave on the body of the S t a t e once it has been e s t a b l i s h e d ? These are the two q u e s t i o n s I w o u l d like [to c o n s i d e r ] briefly. W h a t , then, is this w a r , the w a r that Hobbes describes both as g o i n g on before the State is established a n d as l e a d i n g to its constit u t i o n ? Is it a w a r that is b e i n g w a g e d by the s t r o n g against the w e a k , by the violent against the timorous, by the brave against c o w a r d s , by the g r e a t against the common people, or by arrogant savages against timorous s h e p h e r d s ? Is it a w a r that is a r t i c u l a t e d around u n m e d i a t e d and natural differences? You k n o w that this is not at all the case in Hobbes. The primitive w a r , the w a r of every m a n against every man, is born of e q u a l i t y and t a k e s place in the element of that e q u a l i t y . W a r is the i m m e d i a t e effect of nondifferences, or at least of insufficient differences. Hobbes in fact says that if there w e r e great differences, if t h e r e really w e r e obvious visible disparities b e t w e e n men, it is quite obvious that the w a r w o u l d i m m e d i a t e l y come to an end. If there
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w e r e m a r k e d , visible, or great natural differences, then one of t w o things w o u l d happen; either there really w o u l d be a clash b e t w e e n the strong a n d the w e a k a n d t h a t clash or t h a t real w a r w o u l d i m m e d i a t e l y end w i t h the v i c t o r y of the strong over the w e a k , a n d their v i c t o r y w o u l d be definitive precisely because of the strength of the strong; or there w o u l d be no real clash b e c a u s e , b e i n g aware of, seeing a n d noting their own w e a k n e s s , the w e a k w o u l d s u r r e n d e r even b e fore the confrontation began. If, s a y s Hobbes, m a r k e d natural differences d i d e x i s t , t h e r e w o u l d therefore be no w a r because e i t h e r the r e l a t i o n s h i p of force w o u l d be e s t a b l i s h e d from the outset by an initial w a r that p r e c l u d e d the possibility of its continuation; or that r e l a tionship of force w o u l d r e m a i n v i r t u a l , precisely because the w e a k are timorous. If, then, there w e r e a difference, there w o u l d be no w a r . Differences lead to peace. A n d w h a t happens in a state of nondifference or insufficient differencein a state in w h i c h w e can say that differences do exist, but that they are tiny, e p h e m e r a l , minute, u n stable, disorderly, and u n d i s t i n g u i s h e d ? W h a t happens in this a n a r c h y of minor differences that c h a r a c t e r i z e s the state of n a t u r e ? Even a man who is a l i t t l e w e a k e r than other men, than the other man, is sufficiently s i m i l a r to the strongest man to realize t h a t he is strong enough not to have to surrender. So the w e a k m a n never gives u p . A s for t h e strong man, he is never strong enough not to be w o r r i e d and, therefore, not to be constantly on his g u a r d . The absence of natural differences therefore creates u n c e r t a i n t i e s , r i s k s , h a z a r d s , a n d , therefore, the w i l l to fight on both sides; it is the aleatory element in the primal relationship of force t h a t creates the state of w a r . But w h a t e x a c t l y is this state of w a r ? Even the w e a k m a n k n o w s or at least t h i n k s t h a t he is not far from being as strong as his
5

neighbor. A n d so he does not a b a n d o n all thought of w a r . But the stronger manor at least the m a n w h o is a little stronger than the othersknows, despite it all, t h a t he m a y be w e a k e r than the other, especially if the other uses w i l e s , s u r p r i s e , or an alliance. So the w e a k m a n w i l l not a b a n d o n all thought of w a r , a n d the otherthe stronger m a n w i l l , despite his strength, try to avoid it. Now a man who

wishes to avoid w a r can do so on only one condition: he must show

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that he is ready to wage war, and is not p r e p a r e d to abandon all t h o u g h t of w a r . A n d h o w can he demonstrate that he is not ready to abandon all thought of w a r ? W e l l , [by a c t i n g ] in such a way that the other, w h o is on the point of w a g i n g w a r , begins to doubt his own s t r e n g t h a n d therefore abandons the idea; a n d the other man w i l l abandon a l l thought of w a r only to the extent that he k n o w s t h a t the first m a n is not p r e p a r e d to abandon the idea. So in the t y p e of relations that a r e set in motion by t h e s e m i n u t e differences a n d these aleatory confrontations w h e r e the outcome is uncertain, what does the relationship of force consist of? Three series of elements are in play from the outset. First, calculated presentations: my presentation of the strength, of the other, my presentation of the other's presentation of my strength, a n d so on. Second, e m p h a t i c a n d pronounced expressions of w i l l : you m a k e it obvious that y o u w a n t w a r , you demonstrate that you w i l l not abandon the idea of w a r . Third, you use m u t u a l l y intim ldatory tactics: I am so afraid of w a g i n g w a r that I will feel safe only if you are at least as afraid of w a r as Iand, insofar as that is possible, more afraid of it than I. Which means, all in all, that the state Hobbes is describing is not at all a brutish state of n a t u r e in which forces clash d i r e c t l y w i t h one another. In Hobbes's state of p r i m i t i v e war, the encounter, the confrontation, the clash, is not one b e t w e e n w e a p ons or fists, or b e t w e e n savage forces that have been unleashed. There are no b a t t l e s in Hobbes's p r i m i t i v e w a r , there is no blood and there are no corpses. There are presentations, manifestations, signs, emphatic expressions, wiles, a n d deceitful expressions; there are traps, intentions disguised as their opposite, and worries disguised as certainties. W e are in a theater where presentations are exchanged, in a relationship of fear in w h i c h there are no time limits; we are not really involved in a war. W h i c h means, u l t i m a t e l y , that the state of bestial savagery in w h i c h living i n d i v i d u a l s devour one another can in no w a y be the p r i m a r y characteristic of Hobbes's state of w a r . What does characterize the state ot w a r is a sort ot u n e n d i n g diplomacy between rivals w h o are naturally equal. W e are not at war; we are in w h a t Hobbes specifically calls a state ot w a r . There is a text in which he states: " W a r r e consisteth not in Battel onelv, or in the act of fight-

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ing; but in a tract of time, w h e r e i n the W i l l to contend by Battel is sufficiently k n o w n . " The tract of time designates, then, the state a n d not the battle, a n d w h a t is at s t a k e is not the forces themselves, b u t the w i l l , a w i l l that is sufficiently k n o w n , or in other w o r d s [ e n d o w e d w i t h ] a s y s t e m of representations a n d manifestations that is effective within this field of p r i m a l diplomacy. W e can therefore see h o w a n d w h y this stateand it is not a b a t t l e or a d i r e c t clash of forces, but a c e r t a i n s t a t e of the i n t e r p l a y of representationsis not a stage that m a n w i l l abandon forever once the State is b o r n ; it is in fact a sort of p e r m a n e n t b a c k d r o p w h i c h cannot not function, w i t h its elaborate w i l e s a n d its complex c a l c u lations, once there is nothing to provide security, to establish differences, and finally to give the strength to one side and not the other. So, for Hobbes, it does not all b e g i n w i t h w a r . But how does this state, which is not a state of w a r b u t a p l a y of presentations that a l l o w s us, precisely, to avoid w a r , give b i r t h to t h e S t a t e w i t h a capital Sto Leviathan a n d to s o v e r e i g n t y ? H o b b e s a n s w e r s this second question by m a k i n g a distinction b e t w e e n t w o categories of sovereignty: sovereignty b y i n s t i t u t i o n a n d sovereignty by acquisition. A g r e a t deal has been said about sovereignty by i n stitution, a n d Hobbes's analysis of sovereignty is u s u a l l y r e d u c e d to that. Things a r e in fact more complicated t h a n that. Y o u have a commonwealth by institution and a c o m m o n w e a l t h by a c q u i s i t i o n , and two forms of sovereignty w i t h i n the latter. In all, w e therefore have States by institution, States by acquisition, a n d the three types or forms of sovereignty that shape those forms of power. Let us first look at c o m m o n w e a l t h s by institution, w h i c h a r e the most familiar; it w o n ' t t a k e long. W h a t is it that [ h a p p e n s ] in the state of w a r that puts an end to that state of w a r in which, I repeat, it is not w a r but the representation and threat of w a r that are in p l a y ? Well, men m a k e decisions. But w h a t decisions? Not s i m p l y to transfer part of t h e i r rights or their p o w e r s to someoneor to several people. T h e y do not even decide, basically, to transfer their r i g h t s . On the contrary, they decide to grant someoneor an assembly m a d e up of s e v e r a l people the right to represent t h e m , fully a n d c o m p l e t e l y . This is not a re0

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lationship in w h i c h something belonging to i n d i v i d u a l s is surrendered or delegated; it is a representation of those i n d i v i d u a l s that is surrendered or delegated. The sovereign w h o is so constituted will therefore be equivalent to all those i n d i v i d u a l s . He will not simply have part of their rights; he will a c t u a l l y take their place, and the w h o l e of their power. A s Hobbes puts it, they appoint him "to beare their person."
8

A n d provided t h a t this d i s p l a c e m e n t does t a k e place, the i n d i v i d u a l s w h o are presented in this w a y are present in their representatives; and w h a t e v e r their representativeor in other w o r d s , the sovereign does, they must do. Insofar a s he represents i n d i v i d u a l s , the sovereign is an exact model of those very i n d i v i d u a l s . The sovereign is therefore an artificial i n d i v i d u a l i t y , but also a real i n d i v i d u a l i t y . The fact that this sovereign is a n a t u r a l l y i n d i v i d u a l monarch does not alter the fact that he is an artificial sovereign; and w h e n an assembly is i n volved, the sovereign r e m a i n s an i n d i v i d u a l i t y , even though a g r o u p of i n d i v i d u a l s is involved. So m u c h for c o m m o n w e a l t h s by institution. A s you can see, this m e c h a n i s m consists solely of the i n t e r p l a y b e tween a will, a covenant, and representation.

Let us now look at the other w a y in w h i c h commonwealths can be established, at w h a t else can h a p p e n to this or that commonwealth. Let's look at the mechanism of a c q u i s i t i o n . This is a p p a r e n t l y somet h i n g very different, even the very opposite. In the case of commonwealths by acquisition, it seems that we are dealing with a
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c o m m o n w e a l t h that is founded on relations of force that are at once real, historical, and immediate. If w e are to understand this mechanism w e have to postulate the existence of not a p r i m i t i v e state of w a r , but a real battle. Take a State that has already been constituted in accordance w i t h the model I have just described, the model of institution. Let us suppose that this State is attacked by another in a w a r , w i t h real battles and decisions that are t a k e n by force of arms. Let us suppose that one of the States that has been constituted in this w a y is defeated by the other: its a r m y is defeated and scattered, and its sovereignty is destroyed; the enemy occupies its land. W e are now involved in what we were looking for from the start, or in other words, a real w a r , w i t h a real battle and a real relationship of force.

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There are w i n n e r s and losers, and the losers are at the mercy of the w i n n e r s , at their disposal. Let us n o w look at w h a t happens: the v a n q u i s h e d are at the disposal of the victors. In other w o r d s , the victors can kill t h e m . If they kill t h e m , the problem obviously goes away: the sovereignty of the S t a t e d i s a p p e a r s s i m p l y because the i n d i v i d u a l s w h o m a k e u p that S t a t e are dead. But w h a t h a p p e n s if the victors spare the lives of the v a n q u i s h e d ? If they spare their lives, or if the defeated are granted the t e m p o r a r y privilege of life, one of t w o things may happen. Either they will rebel against the victors, or in other w o r d s begin a n e w w a r and t r y to overthrow the relation of forces, w h i c h takes u s b a c k to the real w a r that t h e i r defeat h a d , at least for a t i m e , interrupted; either t h e y risk their lives, or do not begin a new w a r a n d agree to w o r k for a n d obey the others, to s u r r e n d e r their land to the victors, to pay t h e m taxes. Here we obviously have a relationship of d o m i n a t i o n based e n t i r e l y u p o n w a r and the prolongation, d u r i n g peacetime, of the effects of w a r . D o m i n a t i o n , you say, and not sovereignty. But Hobbes does not say that: he says w e are still in a relationship of sovereignty. W h y ? Because once the d e feated have s h o w n a preference for life a n d o b e d i e n c e , t h e y m a k e t h e i r victors their representatives a n d restore a sovereign to r e p l a c e the one w h o w a s k i l l e d in the w a r . It is therefore not the defeat t h a t l e a d s to the b r u t a l a n d illegal establishment of a society based upon d o m i nation, slavery, a n d servitude; it is w h a t h a p p e n s d u r i n g the defeat, or even after the battle, even after the defeat, and in a w a y , i n d e p e n d e n t l y of it. It is fear, the renunciation of fear, and the renunciation of the risk of death. It is this that introduces us into the o r d e r of sovereignty and into a j u r i d i c a l regime: that of absolute power. The will to prefer life to death: that is w h a t founds sovereignty, and it is as juridical and l e g i t i m a t e as the sovereignty that w a s established through the mode of institution a n d m u t u a l agreement. S t r a n g e l y enough, Hobbes adds a third form of sovereignty to these formsby acquisition and i n s t i t u t i o n a n d states that it is very s i m i l a r to the institution b y acquisition t h a t a p p e a r s after the end of the war, a n d after the defeat. T h i s t y p e of sovereignty is, he says, the t y p e that b i n d s a child to i t s parents or, m o r e specifically, i t s m o t h e r . '
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Take, he says, a newborn child. Its parents ( i t s rather in a civil society, or its mother in the state of n a t u r e ) could s i m p l y allow it to die, or quite simply have it put to death. It cannot, in any case, live w i t h o u t its parents, w i t h o u t its mother. A n d for years the c h i l d will, quite spontaneously and w i t h o u t h a v i n g to express its w i l l other than

through manifestations of its needs, its cries, its fear, a n d so on, obey its parents, and do exactly w h a t it is told to do because its life depends upon her and her alone. She will enjoy sovereignty over it. N o w Hobbes says that there is no essential difference b e t w e e n the w a y a child consents to its mother's sovereignty in order to preserve its o w n life ( w h i c h does not even involve an expression of the w i l l or a c o n t r a c t ) a n d the w a y the defeated give t h e i r consent w h e n the battle is over. W h a t Hobbes is t r y i n g to demonstrate is that the d e cisive factor in the establishment of sovereignty is not the q u a l i t y of the w i l l , or even its form or level of expression. Basically, it does not matter if we have a knife to our throats, or if w h a t we w a n t is e x plicitly formulated or not. For sovereignty to exist, there must be and this is all there must bea certain radical w i l l that makes us w a n t to live, even though w e cannot do so unless the other is w i l l i n g to let us live. Sovereignty is, therefore, constituted on the basis of a r a d i c a l form of w i l l , b u t it counts for little. That w i l l is bound u p w i t h fear, and sovereignty is never shaped from above, or in other w o r d s , on the basis of a decision t a k e n by the strong, the victor or the parents. Sovereignty is a l w a y s shaped from below, and by those w h o are afraid. Despite the apparent differences b e t w e e n the t w o g r e a t forms of comm o n w e a l t h ( a commonwealth of institution born of mutual a g r e e ment, and a commonwealth of acquisition born of a b a t t l e ) , the

m e c h a n i s m s at w o r k a r e at b o t t o m identical. No matter w h e t h e r w e are t a l k i n g about a covenant, a battle, or relations between parents and children, we a l w a y s find the same series: w i l l , fear, a n d sovereignty. It is irrelevant whether the series is t r i g g e r e d by an i m p l i c i t calculation, a relationship of violence, or a fact of nature; it is i r r e l evant w h e t h e r it is fearthe knife at our throats, the w e e p i n g of a childthat gives rise to a n e v e r - e n d i n g diplomacy. Sovereignty w i l l

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be constituted in a n y case. Basically, it is a s though, far from b e i n g the theorist of the relationship b e t w e e n w a r a n d political power, Hobbes w a n t e d to eliminate the historical reality of w a r , as though he w a n t e d to e l i m i n a t e the genesis of sovereignty. A large part of the discourse of Leviathan consists in saying: It doesn't matter whether

you fought or d i d not fight, w h e t h e r you w e r e beaten or not; in a n y case, the mechanism that applies to you w h o have been defeated is the same mechanism that w e find in the state of n a t u r e , in the cons t i t u t i o n of a S t a t e , a n d t h a t w e also find, q u i t e n a t u r a l l y , in the most tender a n d natural relationship of all: that b e t w e e n p a r e n t s and c h i l dren. Hobbes t u r n s w a r , the fact of w a r a n d the relationship of force that is actually manifested in the battle, into something that has nothing to do w i t h the constitution of sovereignty. The establishment of sovereignty has nothing to do w i t h w a r . Basically, Hobbes's discourse is a certain "no" to w a r . It is not really w a r that g i v e s birth to States, a n d it is not really w a r that is t r a n s c r i b e d in relations of sovereignty or that reproduces w i t h i n the civil p o w e r a n d its i n e q u a l i t i e s t h e earlier d i s s y m m e t r i e s in the r e l a t i o n s h i p of force t h a t w e r e revealed b y the very fact of the battle itself. Hence the problem: To w h o m , to what, is this elimination of w a r addressed, given that no previous theory of power had given w a r the role that Hobbes so stubbornly denies i t ? Basically, w h a t adversary is Hobbes addressing w h e n , in w h o l e sectionsin a w h o l e s t r a t u m , a w h o l e line of itof his discourse he obstinately repeats: But in any case, it does not matter w h e t h e r there w a s a w a r or not; the constitution of sovereignties has nothing to do w i t h w a r . I t h i n k that w h a t Hobbes's discourse is addressing is not, if you l i k e , a specific or d e t e r m i n a t e theory, or something that could be defined a s his adversary, his p a r t n e r in polemic; nor is it s o m e t h i n g that could be defined as the unspoken, unavoidable problem in Hobbes's discourse, w h i c h

Hobbes is d o i n g all he can to t r y to a v o i d . A t the time w h e n H o b b e s was w r i t i n g , there w a s in fact something that could be described not as his partner in polemic, but as his strategic opposite number. In other words, not so much a certain discursive content that had to be refuted, a s a certain theoretical a n d political strategy that Hobbes

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specifically w a n t e d to e l i m i n a t e and r e n d e r impossible. W h a t Hobbes is trying, then, not to refute, but to e l i m i n a t e and render impossible his strategic opposite n u m b e r i s a certain w a y of m a k i n g historical k n o w l e d g e w o r k w i t h i n the political struggle. To be more specific, Leviathan's strategic opposite n u m b e r is, I think, the political use that was b e i n g made in political struggles of a certain historical k n o w l e d g e p e r t a i n i n g to wars, invasions, pillage, dispossessions, confiscations, robbery, exaction, and the effects of all that, the effects of all these acts of w a r , all these feats of battle, and the real struggles that go on in the laws a n d institutions that a p p a r e n t l y regulate power. In a word, w h a t Hobbes w a n t s to eliminate is the Conquest, a n d also the use that was b e i n g m a d e , in both historical discourse a n d political practice, of the problem of the Conquest. Leviathan's i n v i s ible a d v e r s a r y is the Conquest. T h a t enormous artificial man w h o m a d e all the r i g h t - t h i n k i n g men of the l a w and philosophers tremble so, that enormous silhouette in the frontispiece to Leviathan, which

r e p r e s e n t s the k i n g w i t h his s w o r d r a i s e d a n d w i t h crosier in his other hand, w a s basically a r i g h t - t h i n k i n g man. A n d that is basically w h y even the philosophers w h o w e r e so critical of him really loved him, and w h y even the most timorous are enchanted by his cynicism. A l t h o u g h it seems to be p r o c l a i m i n g that w a r is e v e r y w h e r e from start to finish, Hobbes's discourse is in fact saying q u i t e the opposite. It is saying, w a r or no w a r , defeat or no defeat, Conquest or covenant, it all comes down to the same thing: "It's w h a t you wanted, it is you, the subjects, who constituted the sovereignty that represents you." The p r o b l e m of the C o n q u e s t is therefore resolved. A t one level, it is resolved by the notion of the w a r of e v e r y man against every man; at another, it is resolved by the w i s h e s t h e legally valid w i l l e x p r e s s e d by the frightened losers w h e n the battle w a s over. I think, then, that Hobbes may well seem to shock, but he is in fact b e i n g reassuring: he a l w a y s speaks the discourse of contracts and sovereignty, or in other words, the discourse of the State. After all, philosophy and

right, or philosophico-juridical discourse, would rather give the State too much power than not enough power, and w h i l e they do criticize

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Hobbes for giving the State too much p o w e r , they are secretly grateful to him for having w a r d e d off a certain insidious and barbarous enemy. The enemyor rather the enemy discourse Hobbes is addressing is the discourse that could be heard in the civil struggles that w e r e t e a r i n g the State a p a r t in England at this t i m e . It w a s a discourse t h a t spoke w i t h t w o voices. One w a s s a y i n g : " W e are the conquerors a n d you are the v a n q u i s h e d . W e may w e l l be foreigners, b u t you are serv a n t s . " To w h i c h the other voice r e p l i e d : " W e m a y well h a v e been conquered, b u t w e w i l l not r e m a i n c o n q u e r e d . This is our l a n d , a n d you will leave it." It is this discourse of struggle and permanent civil w a r t h a t Hobbes w a r d s off by m a k i n g all w a r s and conquests d e p e n d u p o n a contract, a n d by thus r e s c u i n g the theory of the State. A n d that is of course w h y the philosophy of right s u b s e q u e n t l y r e w a r d e d Hobbes w i t h the senatorial title of "the father of political philosophy." W h e n the S t a t e capitol w a s in danger, a goose w o k e u p the s l e e p i n g philosophers. It w a s Hobbes. H o b b e s devotes w h o l e sections of Leviathan to a t t a c k i n g a discourse not

( o r rather a p r a c t i c e ) w h i c h seems to me to have appearedif

for the first time, at least w i t h its essential dimensions and its political virulencein England. This is p r e s u m a b l y the r e s u l t of a combination of t w o phenomena. First, of course, the precocity of the bourgeoisie's political struggle against the absolute monarchy on the one hand and the aristocracy on the other. A n d then there is another phenomenon: the sharp awarenesseven among the b r o a d p o p u l a r massesthat the Conquest had produced a long-standing division, a n d that it w a s a historical fact. The presence of W i l l i a m ' s N o r m a n Conquest, which began at H a s tings in 1 0 6 6 , had manifested itself and continued to do so in m a n y different w a y s , in both i n s t i t u t i o n s and the historical e x p e r i e n c e of political subjects in England. It manifested itself quite e x p l i c i t l y in the r i t u a l s of p o w e r a s , until H e n r y VII, or in other words, until the e a r l y sixteenth century, royal acts specifically s t a t e d that the king of England exercised his sovereignty by r i g h t of conquest. They de-

scribed h i m as an heir to to the N o r m a n s ' r i g h t of conquest. That

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formula d i e d w i t h H e n r y VII. The presence of the Conquest

also

manifested itself in the practice of the law, as procedures and proceedings took place in French, as did disputes b e t w e e n the lower courts a n d the royal courts. Formulated from on high and in a foreign language, the l a w w a s the stigmata of the foreign presence, the mark of another nation. In legal practice, right w a s formulated in a foreign language, and w h a t I w o u l d call the " l i n g u i s t i c sufferings" of those w h o could not legally defend themselves in their own language were c o m p o u n d e d by the fact that the l a w looked foreign. The practice of the l a w w a s inaccessible in t w o senses. Hence the d e m a n d that a p p e a r s so early in medieval England: " W e w a n t a l a w of our own, a law that is formulated in our language, that is united from below, on the basis of common law, as opposed to royal statutes." The Conquest also manifested itself inI a m taking things somewhat at random the presence of, the s u p e r i m p o s i t i o n of, and the conflict b e t w e e n t w o heterogeneous sets of legends. On the one hand, w e have a set of Saxon stories, w h i c h w e r e basically popular tales, mythical beliefs ( t h e r e t u r n of K i n g H a r o l d ) , the cult of saintly k i n g s ( l i k e King E d w a r d ) , and popular tales of the Robin Hood t y p e ( a n d y o u k n o w that W a l t e r Scottone of the great inspirations b e h i n d M a r x " d r e w on this m y thology for Ivankoe" and a n u m b e r of other novels w h i c h were of great

historical importance for the historical consciousness of the nineteenth c e n t u r y ) . In addition to this m y t h o l o g i c a l - p o p u l a r set, w e also find a set of aristocratic and quasi-monarchical legends that g r e w up around the N o r m a n s and w h i c h w e r e reactivated in the sixteenth century, or at the time w h e n Tudor absolutism w a s developing. They are mainly about the legend of the A r t h u r i a n c y c l e . " This is obviously not exactly a N o r m a n legend, but it is a non-Saxon legend. The Normans reac tivated the old C e l t i c legends that lay b e n e a t h the Saxon s t r a t u m of the population. These C e l t i c legends could b e quite naturally reactivated by the N o r m a n s a n d used to the advantage of the Norman aristocracy and monarchy because of the m u l t i p l e relations that existed b e t w e e n the N o r m a n s and the Bretons in their country of originand in Brittany. So w e have t w o powerful mythological sets that

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a l l o w e d England to dream of i t s past and i t s history in two completely different w a y s . W h a t is much more important than all this is that, in England, a whole historical memory of rebellions, each of w h i c h had specific political effects, signaled the p r e s e n c e a n d the effects of the Conquest. C e r t a i n of these rebellions, such a s M o n m o u t h ' s Rebellion, which w a s the first, w e r e no doubt racial in n a t u r e . " O t h e r s ( l i k e the rebellion that e n d e d w i t h the signing of the M a g n a C a r t a ) p l a c e d checks on royal p o w e r and introduced specific measures to e x p e l foreigners

( m o s t of w h o m w e r e , as it happens, Poitevins and A n g e v i n s rather than N o r m a n s ) . W h a t w a s at stake w a s the right of the English p e o ple, a n d t h a t right w a s b o u n d u p w i t h the need to expel foreigners. There w a s , then, a whole series of elements that allowed major social oppositions to be coded in the historical form of one race's conquest a n d domination of the other. This coding, or at least the e l e m e n t s that m a d e it possible, w a s very old. Even in the M i d d l e A g e s , w e find phrases l i k e t h i s in the chronicles: "The nobles of this country are descended from the Normans; men of l o w l y condition are the sons of Saxons."
15

Because of the elements I have just e n u m e r a t e d , conflicts

political, economic, and j u r i d i c a l c o u l d , in other w o r d s , easily be articulated, coded, and transformed into a discourse, into discourses, about different races. A n d w h e n at the end of the sixteenth c e n t u r y and the b e g i n n i n g of the seventeenth, there a p p e a r e d new political forms of struggle b e t w e e n the bourgeoisie on the one hand a n d the aristocracy and the monarchy on the other, it w a s , logically enough, the vocabulary of race struggle that w a s used to describe [these conflicts]. This t y p e of coding, or at least the elements that w e r e a v a i l a b l e for this coding, came into p l a y quite n a t u r a l l y . I say "coding" because the theory of races d i d not function a s a p a r t i c u l a r thesis about one group v e r s u s another. The racial d i v i d e and the systematic opposition between r a c e s w e r e in fact a sort of i n s t r u m e n t , both d i s c u r s i v e a n d political, t h a t a l l o w e d both sides to formulate their own theses. In seventeenth-century England, jundico-pohtical discussions of the

rights of the people and the rights of the sovereign u s e d the k i n d of

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vocabulary [ g e n e r a t e d ] b y the event of the Conquest, or the relations h i p that gave one race d o m i n i o n over the other, a n d of the vanq u i s h e d ' s rebellionor the p e r m a n e n t t h r e a t of r e b e l l i o n a g a i n s t the victors. A n d so you w i l l find the theory of races, or the theme of races, in the positions of both royal absolutism and the p a r l i a m e n t a r i a n s or p a r l i a m e n t a r i s t s , a n d in the more e x t r e m e positions of the Levellers and the Diggers. A n effective formulation of the p r i m a c y of conquest a n d domination can b e found i n w h a t I w o u l d call, in a w o r d , "the discourse of the k i n g . " W h e n J a m e s I told the S t a r C h a m b e r that k i n g s sat on the t h r o n e of G o d ,
16

he w a s obviously referring to the theologico-political

theory of divine right. But in his v i e w , his divine electionwhich effectively meant that he o w n e d Englandhad b e e n prophesied and g u a r a n t e e d by the N o r m a n v i c t o r y . A n d w h e n he w a s still only k i n g of Scotland, J a m e s I s a i d t h a t because the N o r m a n s h a d t a k e n possession of England, the l a w s of the k i n g d o m w e r e established by t h e m . ' This h a d two i m p l i c a t i o n s . First, it i m p l i e d that England had b e e n t a k e n into possession, and t h a t all English l a n d s belonged to the N o r m a n s and the leader of the Normans, or i n other w o r d s , the king. It w a s insofar as he w a s the leader of the N o r m a n s that the k i n g w a s effectively the o w n e r or p r o p r i e t o r of the land of England. Second, it i m p l i e d that the different p o p u l a t i o n s over w h i c h sovereignty w a s exercised did not enjoy the same right; r i g h t w a s the very m a r k of N o r m a n sovereignty. It was established by the N o r m a n s and, of
7

course, for t h e i r benefit. A n d w i t h a cunning that caused h i s adversaries considerable embarrassment, the king, or at least those w h o spoke the discourse of the king, used a v e r y strange but v e r y i m p o r tant analogy. I t h i n k it w a s B l a c k w o o d w h o first formulated it in 1 5 8 1 , in a t e x t e n t i t l e d Apologia pro regibus. W h a t he says i s very cu-

rious. "The situation of E n g l a n d at t h e t i m e of the N o r m a n Conquest must in fact b e understood in the same w a y that w e now understand A m e r i c a ' s situation v i s - a - v i s w h a t h a d y e t to be called the colonial powers. The N o r m a n s a c t e d in E n g l a n d as people from E u r o p e are now acting in A m e r i c a . " B l a c k w o o d d r e w a p a r a l l e l between W i l l i a m the C o n q u e r o r a n d C h a r l e s V. H e said of C h a r l e s V: "He s u b d u e d a

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part of the W e s t Indies by force, he left t h e defeated t o hold t h e i r property not by emancipation, but in usufruct and subject to certain obligations. W e l l , w h a t C h a r l e s V did in Americaand w e r e g a r d it as perfectly legitimate as w e are doing the same thingis w h a t the N o r m a n s a r e doing i n England, m a k e no mistake a b o u t i t . The N o r m a n s a r e in England by the s a m e right that w e a r e in A m e r i c a , that is, by the right of colonization."'
8

A t the end of the sixteenth century w e have, then, if not the first, at least an early example of the sort of boomerang effect colonial practice can have on t h e j u n d i c o - p o h t i c a l s t r u c t u r e s of t h e W e s t . It should never be forgotten that while colonization, w i t h its t e c h n i q u e s and its political and j u r i d i c a l weapons, obviously transported E u r o p e a n models to o t h e r continents, it also had a considerable b o o m e r a n g effect on the mechanisms of p o w e r in the West, and on the a p p a r a tuses, institutions, and techniques of p o w e r . A w h o l e s e r i e s of colonial models w a s brought back to the West, a n d the result w a s that the W e s t could practice something r e s e m b l i n g colonization, or a n internal colonialism, on itself. That is how the theme of race conflict functioned in the discourse of the king. A n d the same theme of the N o r m a n C o n q u e s t a r t i c u l a t e s the a n s w e r the p a r l i a m e n t a r i a n s gave w h e n they challenged the d i s course of t h e king. The w a y in w h i c h the p a r l i a m e n t a r i a n s refuted the claims of royal absolutism w a s also a r t i c u l a t e d around this racial d u a l i s m a n d the fact of the C o n q u e s t . The a n a l y s i s put forward b y the p a r l i a m e n t a r i a n s and p a r h a m e n t a h s t s begins, p a r a d o x i c a l l y , b y

disavowing t h e Conquest, or r a t h e r by w r a p p i n g the C o n q u e s t u p i n a eulogy to W i l l i a m the C o n q u e r o r a n d h i s l e g i t i m a c y . They s a i d : M a k e no mistake about itand here you can see how close w e a r e to HobbesHastings, the battle, the w a r itself, none of that is i m portant. Basically, W i l l i a m w a s indeed the l e g i t i m a t e king. A n d he w a s the l e g i t i m a t e k i n g q u i t e simply because ( a n d a t this point they e x h u m e d a n u m b e r of historical facts, some true and some f a l s e ) H a r oldeven before the d e a t h of E d w a r d t h e Confessor, w h o had indeed designated W i l l i a m as his successorhad s w o r n that he w o u l d not

become king of England, but w o u l d s u r r e n d e r the throne or agree to

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let W i l l i a m ascend the t h r o n e of England. That could not have h a p pened in any case: given that Harold died at the Battle of Hastings, there w a s no legitimate successorassuming H a r o l d to have been l e g i t i m a t e a n d the c r o w n therefore n a t u r a l l y reverted to W i l l i a m . A n d so it t r a n s p i r e d t h a t W i l l i a m w a s not the c o n q u e r o r of England. He inherited rights, not rights of conquest, b u t the r i g h t s of the existing k i n g d o m of England. He w a s heir to a k i n g d o m that w a s bound b y a certain n u m b e r of l a w s a n d also h e i r to a sovereignty that w a s restricted by the l a w s of the Saxon regime. W h i c h means, according to this analysis, that the v e r y t h i n g s that made W i l l i a m ' s monarchy l e g i t i m a t e also restricted its power. Besides, a d d the p a r l i a m e n t a r i a n s , if the C o n q u e s t had taken place and if the Battle of Hastings had established a relation of p u r e d o m ination b e t w e e n N o r m a n s a n d Saxons, the C o n q u e s t could not have lasted. H o w do you e x p e c t t h e y s a y a few tens of t h o u s a n d s of w r e t c h e d Normans, lost in the l a n d s of England, to have survived, and to have established a n d a c t u a l l y maintained a permanent p o w e r ? T h e y w o u l d s i m p l y h a v e been m u r d e r e d in their b e d s the n i g h t after the battle. Now, at least in the early stages, there w e r e no major rebellions, which basically proves that the v a n q u i s h e d d i d not really regard themselves as having been v a n q u i s h e d and occupied b y the victors; they effectively recognized the N o r m a n s as people w h o could e x e r c i s e p o w e r . A n d t h a t recognition, those nonmassacres of the N o r m a n s and this nonrebelhon, v a l i d a t e d W i l l i a m ' s monarchy. W i l l i a m , for his p a r t , h a d s w o r n an oath a n d had been c r o w n e d b y the a r c h bishop of York: he h a d been g i v e n the c r o w n , and in the course of that ceremony he had s w o r n to respect the l a w s w h i c h the chroniclers described as good a n d ancient l a w s that w e r e accepted and a p p r o v e d . W i l l i a m m a d e himself p a r t of the s y s t e m of the Saxon m o n a r c h y t h a t existed before him. In a t e x t e n t i t l e d Argumentum anti-Noimannicum, w h i c h is represen-

tative of this thesis, w e find a frontispiece that provides a p a r a l l e l w i t h the frontispiece to Leviathan.^ It depicts in s t r i p format a battle,

two bodies of a r m e d men ( o b v i o u s l y the N o r m a n s a n d the S a x o n s at H a s t i n g s ) and, b e t w e e n the two, the corpse of King Harold: so the

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legitimate monarchy of Saxons is indeed a thing of the past. Above this, a scene, in l a r g e r format, depicts W i l l i a m being crowned. But the coronation is staged in this w a y : A statue called B r i t a n n i a is h a n d ing W i l l i a m a piece of p a p e r on w h i c h w e can read "The excellent and most famous L a w s of St E d w a r d . " King W i l l i a m is receiving his c r o w n from the archbishop of York w h i l e another ecclesiastic is h a n d ing h i m a p a p e r on w h i c h w e see the w o r d s "Coronation T h i s is a w a y of s h o w i n g that W i l l i a m is not r e a l l y the Oath."
2u

conqueror

he c l a i m e d to be, b u t the legitimate heir, an heir w h o s e sovereignty is restricted b y the l a w s of England, the recognition given him b y t h e church, and t h e oath he has s w o r n . W i n s t o n Churchillthe

seventeenth-century o n e w r o t e in 1675 that W i l l i a m did not conquer England: it w a s the English w h o conquered W i l l i a m . ' A n d it w a s , according to the p a r l i a m e n t a r i a n s , only after the transfer of S a x o n p o w e r to the N o r m a n k i n g a perfectly l e g i t i m a t e transferthat the
2

Conquest really began, or in other w o r d s , that all the dispossessions, exactions, and abuses of the l a w began. The Conquest w a s the long process of u s u r p a t i o n that began after the coming of the Normans,

a n d it took the organized form of w h a t w a s at this very t i m e k n o w n as " N o r m a n i s m " or the " N o r m a n y o k e , " ' or in other w o r d s , a p o l i t ical regime t h a t w a s s y s t e m a t i c a l l y d i s s y m m e t r i c a n d s y s t e m a t i c a l l y in favor of the N o r m a n monarchy a n d aristocracy. A n d a l l the rebellions of the M i d d l e A g e s w e r e d i r e c t e d against N o r m a n i s m , not against W i l l i a m . W h e n the l o w e r courts insisted on enforcing the "common
2

l a w " in the face of royal statutes, they w e r e enlorcing the r i g h t s of Parliament, w h i c h w a s the true heir to the Saxon tradition, a n d r e s i s t i n g the a b u s e s of p o w e r c o m m i t t e d by the N o r m a n monarchy a n d the " N o r m a n i s m " t h a t h a d developed after Hastings a n d the coming of W i l l i a m . The contemporary struggle, t h a t of the seventeenth cent u r y , w a s a l s o an ongoing struggle against N o r m a n i s m . Now w h a t w a s this old Saxon right, which as w e have seen w a s accepted, both de jure and de facto, bv W i l l i a m and w h i c h , as w e have also seen, t h e N o r m a n s a t t e m p t e d to smother or pervert in the years following the C o n q u e s t ? The M a g n a C a r t a , the establishment of P a r l i a m e n t , and the revolution of the seventeenth century w e r e all

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attempts to reestablish Saxon right. W h a t w a s i t ? W e l l , it w a s a set of Saxon laws. The major influence here w a s a jurist called Coke, w h o claimed to have discoveredand w h o a c t u a l l y h a d discovereda

t h i r t e e n t h - c e n t u r y m a n u s c r i p t that he c l a i m e d w a s a treatise on the old Saxon l a w s .

23

It w a s in reality entitled The Mirrors

of Justice,

and

it w a s an account of a certain n u m b e r of practices of j u r i s p r u d e n c e , a n d of p u b l i c a n d private l a w in the M i d d l e Ages. '* C o k e made it function as a treatise on S a x o n right. Saxon r i g h t w a s described as being b o t h the primal and the historically authentichence the i m portance of the m a n u s c r i p t r i g h t of the Saxon people, w h o elected their leaders, h a d their o w n j u d g e s , * and recognized the p o w e r of the k i n g only in time of w a r ; he w a s recognized a s a w a r t i m e leader, and not as a king w h o exercised an absolute and u n c h e c k e d sovereignty over the social b o d y . Saxon right w a s , then, a historical figure, and attempts were madethrough research into the ancient history of
2

rightto establish it in a h i s t o r i c a l l y accurate form. But at the same time, t h i s Saxon right a p p e a r e d to be, and w a s described as, the very expression of h u m a n reason in a state of nature. J u r i s t s such as Selden, for e x a m p l e , pointed out that it w a s a wonderful r i g h t a n d very close to h u m a n reason because in civil t e r m s it w a s more or less similar to that of A t h e n s , a n d in m i l i t a r y terms, more or less s i m i l a r to that of S p a r t a .
25

A s for the content of its religious a n d moral laws, the

Saxon State w a s said to have been similar to the l a w s of Moses, A t h ens, and Sparta, but the Saxon State w a s of course the perfect State. In a text p u b l i s h e d in 1647, w e read that "Thus the Saxons became s o m e w h a t l i k e the J e w e s , d i v e r s from all other people; their l a w s honourable for the King, easie for the subject; a n d their government above all other hkest u n t o that of C h r i s t ' s Kingdome, whose yoke is easie, and b u r t h e n l i g h t . "
20

A s you can see, the h i s t o n c i s m that w a s

b e i n g used to challenge the absolutism of the S t u a r t s t i p s over into a foundational Utopia in w h i c h the theory of natural rights merged into a positive historical model a n d the d r e a m of a sort of k i n g d o m of God. A n d this Utopia of Saxon r i g h t , w h i c h h a d supposedly been

*The manuscript has "were their own judges."

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recognized b y t h e N o r m a n monarchy, w a s meant to provide t h e j u ridical basis for t h e n e w r e p u b l i c that t h e p a r l i a m e n t a r i a n s w i s h e d to establish. Y o u w i l l encounter the fact of the C o n q u e s t for a t h i r d t i m e , t h i s t i m e in the r a d i c a l position of those w h o w e r e most o p p o s e d not only to the m o n a r c h y b u t even to the p a r l i a m e n t a r i a n s , or in o t h e r w o r d s , in the more petit bourgeoisor more popular, if you l i k e d i s c o u r s e of the Levellers, the Diggers, a n d so on. But t h i s time it is only i n e x t r e m e cases that historicism t i p s over into the sort of Utopia of natural r i g h t s I w a s t a l k i n g about a moment ago. W i t h the Levellers w e find an almost literal version of the v e r y thesis of royal absolutism itself. W h a t the Levellers will say is this: "The m o n a r c h y is perfectly right to say that the invasion, defeat, a n d C o n q u e s t d i d t a k e place. It 's t r u e , the C o n q u e s t d i d t a k e place, a n d t h a t h a s to be our s t a r t i n g point. But the absolute m o n a r c h y interprets the fact that the C o n quest took p l a c e a s p r o v i d i n g a l e g i t i m a t e b a s i s for i t s right. W e , on the other h a n d , i n t e r p r e t the fact t h a t the C o n q u e s t d i d t a k e p l a c e , a n d t h a t the S a x o n s r e a l l y w e r e defeated b y the N o r m a n s , as m e a n i n g that the defeat m a r k e d , not the b e g i n n i n g s of rightabsolute right b u t of a state of nonright that i n v a l i d a t e s all the l a w s a n d social differences t h a t d i s t i n g u i s h the a r i s t o c r a c y , the p r o p e r t y r e g i m e , a n d so on." A l l the l a w s that function in E n g l a n d m u s t be r e g a r d e d a s t r i c k s , traps, a n d w i c k e d n e s s t h i s is J o h n W a r r ' s text The and Deficiency of the Laws of England.
11

Corruption

The l a w s are t r a p s : t h e y do

nothing at all to restrict p o w e r . T h e y are the i n s t r u m e n t s of p o w e r . T h e y a r e not m e a n s of g u a r a n t e e i n g the reign of justice, but w a y s of promoting vested interests. T h e first objective of the revolution m u s t therefore be the suppression of all p o s t - N o r m a n l a w s to the extent that, either d i r e c t l y or indirectly, t h e y impose the " N o r m a n y o k e . " Laws, s a i d L i l b u r n e , a r e m a d e b y c o n q u e r o r s . p a r a t u s m u s t therefore be done a w a y w i t h . Second, w e must a l s o do a w a y w i t h all the differences that set the a r i s t o c r a c y a n d not just the aristocracy, but the aristocracy a n d the king, w h o is a m e m b e r of the a r i s t o c r a c y a p a r t from the rest of the people, because the relationship b e t w e e n the nobles a n d the king, a n d
28

T h e entire legal a p

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the people, is not one of protection, but simplv one of p l u n d e r and theft. L i l b u r n e said that W i l l i a m and his successors " m a d e Dukes, Earles, Barrons and Lords of their fellow Robbers, R o g u e s a n d

T h i e v e s . " ^ It follows that today's property regime is still the w a r t i m e regime of occupation, confiscation, and pillage. All property rela-

tionslike the entire legal systemmust therefore be looked at again, from top to bottom. Property relations are completely i n v a l i d a t e d by the fact of the Conquest. Third, we havesay the Diggersproof that the government, the l a w s , a n d property statutes are, basically, no more than a continuation of the war, the invasion, a n d the defeat, because the people have a l w a y s seen governments, l a w s , and property relations as effects of the Conquest. The people have in a sense never ceased to denounce p r o p e r t y as pillage, l a w s as exactions, a n d governments a s domination. The proof is that they have never stopped r e b e l l i n g a n d for the Diggers, rebellion is nothing but the obverse of the permanent w a r . Laws, power, and government are the obverse of w a r . Laws, power, a n d government are the obverse of the w a r they are w a g i n g against us. Rebellion is therefore not the destruction of a peaceful svstem of l a w s for some reason. Rebellion is a response to a w a r that the government never stops waging. Government means their w a r against us; rebellion is our w a r against them. Previous rebellions have, of course, been unsuccessfulnot only because the N o r m a n s won, but because the rich benefited from the N o r m a n svstem and treacherously supported " N o r m a n i s m . " The rich became traitors, and the church became a traitor. A n d even those elements that the p a r l i a m e n t a r i a n s claimed w o u l d restrict N o r m a n righteven the M a g n a C a r t a , Parliament, and the practice of the courtsare all basicallv part of the Norman system of exactions. The onlv difference is that part of the

population now helps to run it: the most p r i v i l e g e d a n d rich section of the population h a s betraved the Saxon cause and gone over to the N o r m a n side. The a p p a r e n t concessions were in fact no more than acts of treachery and ruses of war. Far from agreeing w i t h the parliam e n t a r i a n s that l a w s should be established to prevent roval absolutism from prevailing against the law, the D i g g e r s therefore say that a

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w a r d e c l a r e d in response to t h a t w a r must free us from all l a w s . The civil w a r against N o r m a n p o w e r has to be fought to the end. From t h i s point o n w a r d , the discourse of the Levellers will develop along several very different lines, few of w h i c h w e r e very sophisticated. One w a s the t r u l y t h e o l o g i c a l - r a d i c a l l i n e w h i c h said, r a t h e r l i k e the p a r l i a m e n t a r i a n s : Bring b a c k the S a x o n l a w s : they are our l a w s , and t h e y are fair because they are also the l a w s of nature. A n d t h e n w e see the emergence of another form of discourse, w h i c h is r a r e l y s p e l l e d out in so many w o r d s , and w h i c h says: T h e N o r m a n r e g i m e is a regime of pillage and exaction, and it is the outcome of a w a r , and w h a t do w e find beneath that r e g i m e ? In historical terms, we h n d S a x o n l a w s . But w e r e n ' t the Saxon l a w s themselves the outcome of a w a r , a form of pillage and e x a c t i o n ? U l t i m a t e l y , w a s n ' t the Saxon regime itself a regime of domination, just l i k e the N o r m a n r e g i m e ? A n d shouldn't w e therefore go further s t i l l t h i s is the a r gument w e find in certain Digger t r a c t s ' a n d say that any form of p o w e r l e a d s to domination, or in other w o r d s , that there are no historical forms of power, w h a t e v e r they m a y be, that cannot be a n a l y z e d in t e r m s of the dominion of some over o t h e r s ? This formulation ob0

viously r e m a i n s i m p l i c i t . W e find it being u s e d as a final a r g u m e n t , a n d it never r e a l l y gives rise to either a historical analysis or a coherent political practice. Yet the fact r e m a i n s that you see here the first formulation of the idea that any l a w , w h a t e v e r it m a y be, every form of sovereignty, w h a t e v e r it m a y be, a n d a n y t y p e of power,

w h a t e v e r it may be, h a s to be a n a l y z e d not in t e r m s of natural r i g h t a n d the establishment of sovereignty, but in t e r m s of the unending

movementwhich h a s no historical endof the shifting relations t h a t m a k e some dominant over others. The reason I have d w e l t so long on this English discourse about the race w a r is that I think w e see here a binary schema, a certain binary s c h e m a ; a n d for the first time, it functions in both a political a n d a historical mode, both a s a program for political action and a s a search for historical k n o w l e d g e . A s c h e m a t i c dichotomy rich a n d poor no doubt a l r e a d y existed, a n d it d i v i d e d between

perceptions

of society in the M i d d l e Ages, just a s it did in the Greek polls. But

no

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this is the first time a b i n a r y schema became something more than a way of a r t i c u l a t i n g a grievance or a demand, or of signaling a danger. This w a s the first time that the b i n a r y schema that d i v i d e d society into t w o w a s a r t i c u l a t e d w i t h national p h e m o n e m a such as language, country of origin, ancestral customs, the density of a common past,

the existence of an archaic right, and the rediscovery of old laws. This was a b i n a r y schema that also made it possible to interpret a whole n u m b e r of institutions, a n d t h e i r evolution over a long period of history. It also m a d e it possible to a n a l y z e contemporary institutions in t e r m s of confrontation a n d in terms of a race w a r w h i c h w a s being

w a g e d both k n o w i n g l y and h y p o c r i t i c a l l y , b u t also violently. T h i s is, finally, a b i n a r y schema w h i c h justifies rebellion not s i m p l y on the

g r o u n d that the situation of the most w r e t c h e d has become intolerable and that they have to rebel because they cannot m a k e their voices h e a r d ( w h i c h w a s , if you like, the discourse of medieval r e b e l l i o n ) . Here, now, we have a call for rebellion being formulated a s a sort of absolute right: w e have a right to rebel not because we have not been able to m a k e our voices heard, or because the p r e v a i l i n g order has to be destroyed if w e wish to establish a fairer system of justice. The justification for rebellion now becomes a sort of historical necessity. It is a response to a certain social order. The social order is a w a r , and rebellion is the last episode that will put an end to it. The logical and historical need for rebellion is therefore inscribed w i t h i n a w h o l e historical a n a l y s i s that reveals w a r to be a permanent feature of social relations. W a r i s both the w e b and the secret of i n s t i t u t i o n s a n d s y s t e m s of power. A n d I think that this is Hobbes's great adversary. Whole sections of Leviathan are a d d r e s s e d to the op-

ponents of any philosophico-juridical discourse that founds the sovereignty of the S t a t e . The reason w h y he w a n t s so much to eliminate w a r is that he w a n t e d , in a very specific and meticulous w a y , to

eliminate the t e r r i b l e problem of the Conquest of England, that painful historical category, that difficult juridical category. He h a d to get around the problem of the Conquest, w h i c h w a s central to all the political discourses a n d p r o g r a m s of the first half of the seventeenth century. That is w h a t he had to e l i m i n a t e . In more general terms, a n d

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in the longer t e r m , w h a t h a d t o be e l i m i n a t e d w a s w h a t I w o u l d call "political h i s t o n c i s m , " or the t y p e of discourse that w e see emerging from the discussions I have been talking about, that is being formulated in certain of its most radical phases, and w h i c h consists in s a y ing: Once w e b e g i n to t a l k about p o w e r relations, we are not t a l k i n g about right, a n d w e are not t a l k i n g about sovereignty; w e are t a l k i n g about domination, about an infinitely dense and m u l t i p l e domination that never comes to an end. There is no escape from domination, a n d there is therefore no escape from history. Hobbes's philosophico

j u r i d i c a l discourse w a s a w a y of b l o c k i n g t h i s political h i s t o n c i s m , which w a s the discourse a n d the k n o w l e d g e t h a t w a s actually active in the political struggles of the seventeenth century. Hobbes w a s t r y ing to block it, just as the dialectical materialism of the nineteenth

c e n t u r y blocked the discourse of political h i s t o n c i s m . Political h i s tortcism encountered two obstacles. In was the the seventeenth that century, tried to

philosophico-jundical

discourse

obstacle

disqualify it; in the nineteenth c e n t u r y , it w a s dialectical m a t e r i a l i s m . Hobbes's operation consisted in e x p l o i t i n g every possibilityeven discourseto silence the

the most e x t r e m e p h i l o s o p h i c o - j u n d i c a l

discourse of political h i s t o n c i s m . W e l l , n e x t time I w o u l d l i k e to both trace the history of this discourse of p o l i t i c a l h i s t o n c i s m and praise it.

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1. "During the Lime men live without a common Power 1 0 keep them all i n awe, thev are in thai condition which is called W a r r e ; and such a w a r r e , as is ot everv man, against everv man." Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard l u c k ( C a m b r i d g e : Cambridge University Press, 1 9 9 1 ) . p. 8 8 . O n the bellum omnium contra omnes, see also Hobbes's Elementorum philosophiae secto tertia de cive ( P a r i s , 164 ,2) {French translation: Lr a'toyen, ou les fondemenb de la politique [Paris: Flammarion, 1 9 8 2 ] ) . 2. Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 8 9 . 3. Ibid., pp. 8 9 - 9 0 . 4. Ibid., p. 9 0 . 5. Ibid., pp. 8 9 - 9 0 . 6. Ibid., p. 88. 7. Throughout the following discussion, Foucault refers t o chapters 1 7 - 2 0 oi part 2 of Leviathan ( "Of Common w e a l t h " ) . 8. Ibid., p. 1 2 0 . 9- Ibid., chapter 2 0 . 1 0 . Ibid.; d . De Ore, II, i x . 11. On Marx's reading of Scott, see Eleanor M a r x Aveling, "tCarl M a r x : lose Blutter," i n Osterrekhixhe Arbeiter-Kal under fur das Jahr lSQ5, pp. 51-54 (English translation: "Stray Notes o n Karl M a r x , " in Reminiscences of Marx and Engels [Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, n.d. ]); F. Mehring, Karl Marx: Geschichte settles Lebens (Leipzig: Leipzigcr Buchbdruckerei Actiengesellschaft, 1 9 1 8 ) , vol. 15 (French translation: Karl Marx, Histoire de .<u vie [Pans: Editions sociales, 1 9 8 3 J; English translation: Karl Marx: The Story of His Life, tr. Edward Fitzgerald [London: Ailen and Unwin, 1 9 3 6 ] ) ; i. Berlin, Karl Marx ( London: Butt r w o r t h , 1 9 3 9 ) , chap. 1 1 . 12. The action ot Ivanhoe ( 1819 ) is set in the England ot Richard t h e Lion-Hearted; the France ot Louis X I p r o v i d e s the backdrop t o r Qucntin Durwurd { 1823). Ivanhoe is k n o w n t o have influenced A. Thierrv and his theorv ot conquerors and conquered. 13. The reference is t o the evele of legendarv traditions and stones centered on the mvthical figure ot the British sovereign A r t h u r , who led the Saxon resistance during the first half ot the Kith centurv. These traditions and legends were first collected in the twelfth centurv bv Geoffrey of M o n m o u t h i n his De origine et gestis regum Britanniae libri XII ( Heidelberg, I 6 8 ) and then bv Robert W a c e in Le Roman de Brut ( 1 115 ) and the Roman de Ron ( 1 1 6 0 - 1 1 7 4 ) . This is t h e so called Breton material that was r e w o r k e d bv Chretien d e Troves i n Lancelot and Perceval in the second halt of the twelfth centurv. l-'t. Gcotfrev ot Monmouth's account ot the historv of t h e British nation begins w i t h the first conqueror, t h e Trojan Brutus. It traces British history from the Roman conquests to the British resistance against the Saxon invaders and the decline of the Saxon kingdom. This w i s one uf t h e most popular works o f rhe M i d d l e Ages, and introduced the A r thurian legend into European literature. 15. In Lne manuscript, Foucault adds "Chronicle ot Gloucester." 1 6 . "Monarchac p r o p n e sunt judices, quibus juris dicendi potfstam p r o p n e commisit Deus. Nam in chrono Dei sedent, unde oninis ea facultas denvata est." J a m e s I, Oratio habiia in camera -Jullata J I O I 6 ] , in Opera edita a Jucabo Montacuta (Francoforti ad Moenum el Lipsiae. 1C>89). p. 25 *> "Nihil est in t e r n s quod non s i t intra Monarchiae tastigium. Nec enim solum Dei Vicari sunt Reges, deique throno insident: sed ipso Deo Deorum nom 1 iiea honoiantur." Oratori habita in comitis regni ad umenes ordines inpalatio albaulae j 1 6 9 0 j , in Opera edila. p. 2 H 5. On t h e "Divine Right ot tCings," d . Basilikon down, sive De institution? prinapis, in Opera edita, pp. 6 3 - 8 S .
7

17. "Li quamquam in a i m regionibus mgentes regn sanguinis tactae sint mutationes, sceptn junr ad novos Dominos jure belli translate; eadem tamen i l l i c cernitur in terram et subditos potest at is regiae vis, quae apud nos, qui cominos numquam mutavimus. Quum

February

19 7 6

s p u n u s ille Normandicus cahdissimo cum e x e r a t u in Angliani transusset. quo, obsecro nisi a r m o r u m et belli |ure Rex tact us est? At lllc lege;. Jedit, non aeccpit, et vetus jus. et consuetudinem regni a n t i q u a v u . et avitis posscssionibu> oversis homines novos el peregnnos lmposuit, >uae militiae comites; quemadniodum hodie pleraquc Anghae no bilitas Normannicam prae se fen originem; et legis Normandieus siriptae ldiomatem facilel trastantur am lorem, nihilomonis poesteri ejus sceptrum illud haelenus lacdtter tenerunt, Nec hoc soli Normanno licuit: idem jus o m n i b u s tun, qui ante ilium victa Anghae ges dederunt." James I, Jus liberae Monarthiae, sive De mutuis Regis liberi et populi nascendi condition? illi subdittt offtdis [ ), in Opera edita, p. 6 9 . 1 8 . "Carolus quintus imperator nostra memoria partem quandam occidentahum insularum, veteribus ignotam, nobis Americae vocabulo non ita p n d e m auditam, vi subegit, victis sua reliquit, non macipio. sed usu, nec eo quidem perpetuo, net gratuito, ac immuni ( quod Anglis obtigit Wilielmi nothi beneiicio ) sed in vitae tcmpus prestationi certa lege locationis obligaia." A. Blackwood, Adoersus Georgii Buchanani dialogum, de jure regni apud Scot us, pro regibus apologia, Pictacis, apud Pagaeum ( 1 S 8 l ) , p. 6 9 . 1 9 . Argumentum anti-Normdnnicum. or an Argument prvving, from atuietit histories and records, that William, Duke of Normandy made no absolute conauest of England by the word, in the sense of our modem writers (London, 1 6 8 2 ) . This w o r k had been wronglv attributed to Coke, 2 0 . For the illustration ol the frontispiece see "An Explanation of the Frontispiece" in Aigumentum anti-Normanmcum, pp. 4 H. 21- W . S. Churchill, Divi Britannia, bang a remark upon the lives of all the Kings of this Isle, from the year of the world 2 8 5 5 unto the year of grace 1660 (London, 1 6 ~ 5 ), M s . 1 8 9 - 1 9 0 . 22. The theory ol the "Norman yoke" ( or "Norman bondage") had been popularized in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries bv political w r i t e r s ( Blackwood, et cetera^, by the "Elizabethan Chroniclers" ( Holinshed, Speed, Daniel, et cetera), bv the Societv ol A n tiquarians ( Selden, Harrison, a n d Nowell ), and bv jurists ( Coke, et cetera). Their goal was to "glonfv the pre Norman past" that existed bet ore Lne invasion and Conquest. 2.1. "1 have a verv auntienl and learned treatise of the Lawes ol this kingdom wherebv this Realme was governed about 1 1 0 0 years past, of the title and subject ol which booke the author shal tel Y O U himself in these w o r d s . Which summarv 1 have intituled 'The M i r r o r s of Justice,' according to the vertues and substances embeiltes which I have observed, and which have ben used bv holy customs since the time ol K.ing A r t h u r and C. [ . . . ] In this booke in effect appeareth (he whole frame of the ,iuntiem common Lawes of this Rcalme." F. Coke. La Neuf me Part des Reports de S. Edva Coke ( London, 1 6 U ) , "Lectori/To the Reader," fol. unpagmated. CI. La Huctieme Part de raports de S. Ldv. Coke ( London, 1 6 0 2 ), preface. Jul. 9 - 1 7 ; La Dix.me Part des Reports de S. Edv, Coke ( London, 1 6 1 4 ) preface, tol. 1-48. contains an exposition of "the national! Lawes ol our native country." It should be noted that C o k e also refers to The Mirrors of Justice in his Institutes. See in particular The Fourth Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England ( L o n d o n ) , chaps. 7, 11, H, 2 5 , but especially The Second Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England ( London. 1 6 4 2 ) , pp. 5 - 7 8 . 2 1. The iXMirors of Justice was originally written m French in the late fourteenth c e n t u r v , probablv bv Andrew Horn. The Friglish translation ol 1 6 4 6 made the text a basic point of reference for all s u p p o r t e r s both parliamentarians and radical revolutionaries - o l "common law." 25. Foucault is probablv referring to An Historical discourse of the Uniformity of Governments of England. The Ttrst Part, 2 vols. ( London. l 6 C I edited hv Nathaniel Bacon in the basis of J o h n Selden's manuscripts ( sec An Historical and Political Discourse of the Laws and Government of England ... collected from some manuscript notes of John SelJtn .. . by Nathaniel Bacon [London. 1 6 8 9 J ). Sclden >avs of the Saxons that ''their [udiciai were verv suitable to the Athenian, but their nnluarv more like the Lacr domiman" ( p . fS; cf. chapters V ii)- See also Seidell's Analccton anglobrilanniom libri duo ( Francoturn, 1 6 1 S ) and Jani Anglo rum in Opera omnia latina et angfica (London. F 2 6 ), vol. 2.
;

2 6 . AJI Hisioriuil

Discourse,

pp. 112-M.

27. J o h n W a r r . The Corruption and Deficiency id tht Laws of England ( London. 1 6 H 9 ) , p. I- "The laws of England are lull of tricks, doubts and t o n i r a r v 1 0 themselves; lor thev were

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invented and established by the Normans, which were oi all nations the most quarrelsome and most fallacious in contriving of controversies and suits." Cf. ibid., chaps. 2 and \ See also Administration Civil and spiritual in Two Treatises (London, 1648), I, xxxvn. It should be noted that Warr's phrase is cited in part in Christopher Hill, Puritanism and Revolution (London: Seeker & Warburg, 1 9 5 8 ) , p. 78. 28. See in particular John Lilburne, The Just Man's Justification (London, 1 6 4 6 ) , pp. 11-13; A Discourse betwixt John Lilburne, close prisoner in the tower of London, and Mr. Hugfi Peters (London, 1649); England's Birth-right Justified against all arbitrary usurpation (London, 1645); Regail tyrannic Discovered (London, 1647); England's New Chains Discovered (London, 1648). Most of the Levellers' tracts are collected in W. Haller and G. Davies, ed., The levellers Tracts, 1647-1653 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1944). 29. Regail tyrranie, p. 8 6 . The attribution of this tract to Lilburne is uncertain; R. Overton probably collaborated on it. 30. The best known of the Digger texts, to which Foucault may be referring here, are the anonymous manifesto Light Shining in Buckinghamshire ( 1 6 4 8 ) and More Light Shining in Buckinghamshire ( 1 6 4 9 ) . Cf. G Winstanley et ah, To his Excellency the Lord Fairfax and the Counsell of Warre the brotherly request of thos that are called diggers sheweth (London, 1 6 5 0 ) ; G. Winstanley, Fire in the Bush (London, 1 6 5 0 ) ; The Law of Freedom in a Platform, or True Magistracy Restored (London, 1 6 5 2 ) . See also G. H. Sabine, ed., The Works of Gerrard Winstanley, with an Appendix of Documents Relating to the Digger Movement (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1941).

SIX

11

FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6

Stories heredity.

about origins. - "Franco-Gallia."

- The Trojan myth. - Invasion,

- France's and public of the

history,

right. - National dualism. prince. - Boulainvilliers's "Etatde

- The knowledge la France."

\ <

- The clerk, the ~ A new subject

intendant,

and the knowledge of history.

of the aristocracy.

- History

and constitution.

"

I A M G O I N G T O begin w i t h a story that started to circulate in France at the b e g i n n i n g , or almost the b e g i n n i n g , of the M i d d l e A g e s a n d that w a s still in circulation d u r i n g the Renaissance. It tells h o w the French are descended from the Franks, a n d s a y s that the F r a n k s t h e m selves w e r e Trojans w h o , having left T r o y u n d e r the l e a d e r s h i p of P r i a m ' s son K i n g Francus w h e n the city w a s set on fire, i n i t i a l l y found refuge on the b a n k s of the Danube, then in G e r m a n y on the b a n k s of the R h i n e , a n d finally found, or rather founded, their h o m e l a n d in France. I am not i n t e r e s t e d in w h a t this s t o r y m i g h t have meant in the M i d d l e A g e s , or in the role t h a t m i g h t h a v e been p l a y e d b y the legend of the w a n d e r i n g s of the Trojans a n d of the founding of the fatherland. I s i m p l y w a n t to look at t h i s issue: it is after all astonishing that this story should have been picked u p and gone on c i r c u l a t i n g in an era like the Renaissance. Not because of the fantastic character of the d y n a s t i e s or historical facts to w h i c h it refers, but b a s i c a l l y because this legend completely e l i d e s both Rome a n d Gaul. It elides the Gaul that w a s the e n e m y of Rome, the Gaul that i n v a d e d Italy
1

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invented and established by the Normans, which were ot all nations the most quarrelsome and most fallacious in contriving of controversies and suits." Cf. ibid., chaps. 2 and }. See also Administration Civil and spiritual in Two Treatises (London, 1648), I, xxxvu. It should be noted that Warr's phrase is cited in part m Christopher Hill, Puritanism and Revolution ( London: Seeker & Warburg, 1 9 5 8 ) , p. 78. 28. See in particular John Lilburne, The Just Man's justification (London, 1 6 4 6 ) , pp. 11 -13; A Discourse betwixt John Lilburne, close prisoner in the tower of London, and Mr. Hugh Peters (London, l6-i9); England's Birth-right Justified against all arbitrary usurpation (London, 1645); Regall tyrannic Discovered ( London, 1647); England's New Chains Discovered ( London, 1648). Most of the Levellers' tracts are collected in W. Haller and G. Da vies, ed., The Levellers' Tracts, 1647-1653 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1944)29. Regall tynanie, p. 86. The attribution of this tract to Lilburne is uncertain; R. Overton probably collaborated on it. 30. The best known of the Digger texts, to which Foucault may be referring here, are the anonymous manifesto Light Shining in Buckinghamshire ( 1 6 4 8 ) and More Light Shining in Buckinghamshire ( 1 6 4 9 ) . Cf. G. Winstanley et al., To his Excellency the Lord Tairfax and the CounselloJ Warn the brotherly request ofthos that are called diggers sheweth (London, 1 6 5 0 ) ; G. Winstanley, Fire in the Bush (London, 1 6 5 0 ) ; The Law of freedom in a Platform, or True Magistracy Restored (London, 1652). See also G. H. Sabine, ed.. The Works of Gerrard Winstanley, with an Appendix of Documents Relating to the Digger Movement (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1941).

SIX

11

FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6

Stories heredity.

about origins. - "Franco-Gallia."

- The Trojan myth. - Invasion,

- France's and public of the

'I ' ! v

history,

right. prince.

- National dualism. - Boulainvilliers's

- The know/edge

"Etat de la France." of the aristocracy.

- The clerk, the - A new subject

intendant, &

and the knowledge of history.

- History

and constitution.

I A M G O I N G TO b e g i n w i t h a story that s t a r t e d to circulate in France at the beginning, or almost the b e g i n n i n g , of the M i d d l e A g e s a n d that w a s still in circulation d u r i n g the Renaissance. It tells how the French are descended from the Franks, a n d s a y s that the F r a n k s t h e m selves w e r e Trojans w h o , h a v i n g left Troy u n d e r the l e a d e r s h i p of P r i a m ' s son King Francus w h e n the c i t y w a s set on fire, i n i t i a l l y found refuge on the b a n k s of the D a n u b e , t h e n in G e r m a n y on the b a n k s of the R h i n e , a n d finally found, or rather founded, their h o m e l a n d in France. I am not i n t e r e s t e d in w h a t t h i s s t o r y m i g h t have m e a n t in the M i d d l e A g e s , or in the role t h a t m i g h t have been p l a y e d by the legend of the w a n d e r i n g s of the Trojans a n d of the founding of the fatherland. I s i m p l y w a n t to look at t h i s i s s u e : it is after all astonishing that this story s h o u l d have been p i c k e d up a n d gone on circulating in an era like the Renaissance. Not because of the fantastic character of the d y n a s t i e s or historical facts to w h i c h it refers, but basically because this legend completely elides both Rome and Gaul. It e l i d e s the G a u l t h a t w a s the enemy of Rome, the G a u l t h a t invaded Italy
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and laid siege to Rome; it also elides the Roman colony of Gaul, Caesar, and i m p e r i a l Rome. A n d as a result, it elides an entire Roman l i t e r a t u r e , even though it w a s perfectly well known at this time. I don't think w e can understand w h y this Trojan story elides Rome unless w e stop regarding this tale of origins as a tentative history that is still tangled up w i t h old beliefs. It seems to me that, on the contrary, it is a discourse w i t h a specific function. Its function is not so much to record the past or to s p e a k of origins as to speak of right, to speak of power's right. Basically, the story is a lesson in public right. It c i r c u l a t e d , I think, as a lesson in public right. A n d it is because it is a lesson in p u b l i c right that there is no mention of Rome. But Rome is also present in a displaced form, l i k e a double outline or a t w i n : Rome is there, but it is there in the w a y that an image is there in a mirror. To say that the Franks are, like the Romans, refugees from Troy, and t h a t France and Rome are in some sense two branches that g r o w from the same trunk, is in effect to say two or three things that are, I believe, important in both political and j u r i d i c a l terms. To say that the Franks are, like the R o m a n s , fugitives from Troy means first of all that from the day that the Roman State ( w h i c h was, after all, no more than a brother, or at best an older b r o t h e r ) vanished, the other brothersthe younger brothersbecame its heirs by v i r t u e of the right of peoples. Thanks to a sort of natural right that was recognized by all, France w a s the heir to the empire. A n d that means t w o things. It means first of all that the rights and p o w e r s the k i n g of France enjoys over his subjects are inherited from those the R o m a n emperor enjoyed over his subjects; the sovereignty of the king of France is of the same tvpe as the sovereignty of the Roman emperor. The k i n g ' s right is a R o m a n right. A n d the legend of Troy is a way of using pictures to illustrate, a w a y of illustrating, the principle that was formulated i n the M i d d l e A g e s , mainly by Boutillier w h e n he said that the k i n g of France w a s an emperor in his k i n g d o m . ' This is an important thesis, you know, because it is basically the historicomvthical counterpart to the way that roval power developed throughout the M i d d l e A g e s by modeling itself on the Roman i m p e n u m and

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reactivating t h e i m p e r i a l rights that w e r e codified in the era of J u s tinian. To say that France is the heir to the e m p i r e is also to say that because France is Rome's sister or cousin, France has the same r i g h t s as Rome itself. It is to say that France is not part of some universal monarchy w h i c h , after the e m p i r e , d r e a m e d of reviving the Roman Empire. France is just as i m p e r i a l as all the R o m a n Empire's other descendants; it is just as i m p e r i a l as the G e r m a n Empire, a n d is in no sense subordinate to any G e r m a n i c Caesar. N o bond of vassalage can l e g i t i m a t e l y m a k e it part of the H a p s b u r g monarchy and therefore subordinate it to the great d r e a m s of a universal monarchy that it w a s p r o m o t i n g at this time. That is w h y , in these conditions, Rome has to b e e l i d e d . But the R o m a n G a u l of Caesar, the G a u l that w a s colonized, also h a d to b e e l i d e d , as it m i g h t suggest that G a u l and the h e i r s of the G a u l s had once been, or m i g h t be, subordinate to an e m p i r e . The F r a n k i s h invasions, w h i c h b r o k e from w i t h i n the contin u i t y w i t h the R o m a n Empire, also had to be e l i d e d . The i n t e r n a l continuity that existed b e t w e e n the R o m a n i m p e r i u m and the French m o n a r c h y p r e c l u d e d d i s r u p t i v e invasions. But France's nonsubordi-

nation to the e m p i r e a n d to the e m p i r e ' s heirs ( a n d especially the u n i v e r s a l m o n a r c h y of the H a p s b u r g s ) also i m p l i e d that France's s u b ordination to ancient R o m e h a d to d i s a p p e a r . R o m a n G a u l therefore had to disappear. France, in other words, had to be an other Rome "other" in the sense of b e i n g independent of Rome while still re-

m a i n i n g Rome. The k i n g ' s absolutism w a s therefore a s valid in France as it h a d been in R o m e . That, b r o a d l y speaking, w a s the function of the lessons in p u b l i c r i g h t that we can find in the reactivation, or the p e r p e t u a t i o n , of this Trojan m y t h o l o g y until late in the Renaissance, or in other w o r d s d u r i n g a period w h i c h w a s very familiar w i t h Roman texts about Gaul, about R o m a n Gaul. It is s o m e t i m e s said it w a s the W a r s of R e l i g i o n that a l l o w e d these old mythologies ( w h i c h w e r e , in m y v i e w , a lesson in p u b l i c r i g h t ) to be swept a w a y a n d that first introduced the theme of what Aug u s t i n T h i e r r y w o u l d later call "national d u a l i t y , " or the theme, if
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you

l i k e , of the two hostile g r o u p s that constitute the

permanent

s u b s t r a t u m of the State. 1 do not think this is entirely accurate. Those w h o say that it was the W a r s of Religion that made it possible to t h i n k in terms of a national d u a l i t y are referring to Francois Hotman's text Franco-Gallia, w h i c h w a s p u b l i s h e d in 1573.' A n d the title does

seem to indicate that the author w a s t h i n k i n g in terms of some sort of national d u a l i t y . In this text, Hotman in fact takes up the Germanic thesis that w a s c i r c u l a t i n g in the H a p s b u r g Empire at the time and w h i c h was, basically, the e q u i v a l e n t to, the counterpart to, or the

homologue of the Trojan thesis that w a s c i r c u l a t i n g in France. The Gemanic thesis, w h i c h had been formulated on a n u m b e r of occasions, a n d notably by someone called Beatus R h e n a n u s , states: " W e Germans are not Romans; w e are G e r m a n i c . But because of the imperial form we have i n h e r i t e d , w e are Rome's natural a n d legal heirs. N o w the Franks w h o i n v a d e d Gaul were, like us, Germans. W h e n they invaded Gaul, they c e r t a i n l y left their native Germany, b u t on the one h a n d a n d to the extent that they w e r e G e r m a n , they r e m a i n e d German. They therefore r e m a i n e d w i t h i n our i m p e n u m ; and as, on the other hand, they i n v a d e d a n d occupied Gaul, a n d defeated the Gauls, they q u i t e n a t u r a l l y e x e r c i s e d i m p e r i u m or imperial power over the land they had conquered and colonized, and, being German, they w e r e q u i t e e n t i t l e d to do so. Gaul, or the land of the G a u l s t h a t is n o w France, is therefore a s u b o r d i n a t e p a r t of the universal monarchv of the H a p s b u r g s for t w o reasons: right of c o n q u e s t and victory, and the Germanic origins of the F r a n k s . "
5

This, curiously but up to a point naturallv, is the thesis that Francois Hotman picks u p and reintroduces into France in 1 5 7 3 . From that point on, and until at least the b e g i n n i n g of the seventeenth centurv, it w a s to enjoy considerable p o p u l a r i t y . H o t m a n t a k e s up the G e r m a n thesis and s a y s : "The Franks w h o , at some point, did invade Gaul and establish a new monarchv, are not Trojans, but Germans. They defeated the Romans and drove them out." This is an almost literal reproduction of R h e n a n u s ' s Germanic thesis. 1 say "almost" because there is after all a difference, and it is of fundamental importance:

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H o t m a n does not sav that the Franks defeated the Gauls; he savs that thev defeated the Romans." H o t m a n ' s thesis is certainly verv important because it introduces, at much the same time that we see it appearing in England, the basic theme of the invasion ( w h i c h is both the cross the jurists have to bear and the k i n g ' s n i g h t m a r e ) that results in the death of some States a n d the birth of others. All the j u r i d i c o political debates w i l l revolve around this theme. Henceforth, and given this basic discontinuity, it is obvious that it is no longer possible to recite a lesson in p u b l i c right w h o s e function is to guarantee the u n i n t e r r u p t e d nature of the genealogy of k i n g s and their power. From n o w on, the g r e a t problem in p u b l i c r i g h t will be the problem of w h a t Etienne Pasquier, who w a s one of H o t m a n ' s followers, calls "the other succession,"
7

or in

other w o r d s : W h a t happens w h e n one State succeeds a n o t h e r ? W h a t happensand w h a t becomes of public right and the power of k i n g s w h e n States do not succeed one another as [a result of] a sort of continuity that nothing i n t e r r u p t s , but because they are born, go

t h r o u g h a phase of might, t h e n fall into decadence, and finally v a n i s h c o m p l e t e l y ? Hotman certainly raises the p r o b l e m of the t w o foreign nations t h a t e x i s t w i t h i n the State*but I do not t h i n k that the p r o b l e m he raises is a n y different, or verv different, from t h a t of the cyclical nature and precarious existence of S t a t e s . A n d b e s i d e s , in general t e r m s , no a u t h o r w r i t i n g at the time of the Wars of R e l i g i o n accepted the idea t h a t there w a s a dualityof race, o r i g i n s , or

n a t i o n s w i t h i n the monarchy. It was impossible because, on the one hand, the s u p p o r t e r s of a single r e l i g i o n w h o obviously b e l i e v e d in the principle of "one faith, one law, one k i n g " c o u l d not at the same time demand religious u n i t y and accept that there w a s a d u a l i t y

w i t h i n the nation; on the other hand, the thesis of those who w e r e a r g u i n g the case for religious choice or freedom of conscience w a s

a c c e p t a b l e only if thev said, "Neither freedom of consciousness, nor the possibility of religious choice, nor even the existence of t w o re

* T h e m a n u s c r i p t h a s "the p r o b l e m of t h e t w o foreign nations that e x i s t e d m France.'

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ligions w i t h i n the body of a nation can in any circumstances compromise the unitv of the State." So no matter w h e t h e r one adopted the thesis of religious unity or supported the possibility of freedom of consciousness, the thesis of the unity of the State w a s reinforced t h r o u g h o u t the W a r s of Religion. W h e n H o t m a n told his story, he w a s saying something very different. It w a s a w a y of o u t l i n i n g a j u r i d i c a l model of government, as opposed to the Roman absolutism that the French monarchy w a n t e d to reconstruct. The story of the Germanic origins of the invasion is a way of saying: "No, it is not true, the king of France does not have the right to exercise a R o m a n - s t y l e i m p e r i u m over his people." Hotman's p r o b l e m is therefore not the disjunction b e t w e e n t w o heterogeneous e l e m e n t s w i t h i n the people; it is the problem of how to place internal restrictions on monarchic power." Hence the w a y he tells the story w h e n he says: "The G a u l s and the G e r m a n s w e r e in fact originally fraternal peoples. They settled in t w o neighboring regions, on either side of the Rhine. W h e n t h e G e r m a n s entered Gaul, they w e r e in no sense foreign invaders. They were in fact almost g o i n g home, or at least to visit their b r o t h e r s .
9

What did 'foreigner' mean to the

G a u l s ? The foreigners were the Romans, w h o imposed, through invasion a n d w a r ( t h e w a r described by C a e s a r ) ,

1 0

a political regime:

that of absolutism. Those foreigners established something foreign in Gaul: the R o m a n i m p e r i u m . The Gauls resisted for centuries, b u t in w a y s that brought t h e m little success. In t h e fourth or fifth century, their G e r m a n i c brothers began to w a g e a w a r , a n d it w a s a w a r of liberation fought on behalf of their G a u l i s h brothers. The G e r m a n s therefore did not come as invaders, but as a fraternal people w h i c h w a s helping a brother people to tree itself from its i n v a d e r s , and it was the R o m a n s who w e r e the i n v a d e r s . " " So the R o m a n s w e r e driven out a n d the Gauls were set free. They a n d their G e r m a n i c brothers make up a single nation, w h o s e constitution and basic l a w s a s the jurists of the period w e r e beginning to put itwere the basic laws of G e r m a n i c society. This meant that the people w h o r e g u l a r l y gathered on the C h a m p de M a r s a n d in the Mav assemblies was sovereign. It meant the sovereignty of a people w h i c h elects its k i n g as it pleases

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a n d deposes h i m w h e n necessary; t h e sovereignty of a people w h o is r u l e d only b y magistrates w h o s e functions are temporary a n d w h o are a l w a y s accountable to the council. This w a s the Germanic constitution that the k i n g s u b s e q u e n t l y violated in order to construct the absolutism to w h i c h the French monarchy of the sixteenth century bore witness.' It is t r u e that the s t o r y told by H o t m a n i s not designed to establish a d u a l i t y . On the contrary, it is i n t e n d e d to establish very strong ties of Germanic-French unity, Franco-Gaulish or Franco2

Gallic u n i t y , as he p u t s it. H e i s a t t e m p t i n g to establish a profound u n i t y a n d at the same t i m e to e x p l a i n , in the form of a sort of story, how the present r e p r o d u c e s the past. It is clear that the R o m a n i n vaders H o t m a n is t a l k i n g about are the equivalent, t r a n s p o s e d into the past, of the R o m e of the pope a n d h i s clergy. The fraternal G e r m a n l i b e r a t o r s a r e o b v i o u s l y the reformed r e l i g i o n from across the R h i n e ; a n d the u n i t y of the k i n g d o m a n d the sovereignty of the people is t h e political p l a n for a constitutional monarchy t h a t w a s s u p p o r t e d by m a n y of the Protestant circles of the d a y . H o t m a n ' s discourse is important because it e s t a b l i s h e d what w o u l d d o u b t l e s s become a definitive l i n k b e t w e e n the project of r e s t r i c t i n g royal absolutism a n d the rediscovery, in the past, of a certain specific historical model w h i c h at some moment established the reciprocal r i g h t s of the k i n g a n d his people, a n d w h i c h w a s s u b s e q u e n t l y forgotten and violated. In the sixteenth century a connection began to be established among r e s t r i c t i n g the right of the monarchy, reconstructing a past model, a n d r e v i v i n g a basic but forgotten constitution; these are, I t h i n k , the t h i n g s that are b r o u g h t together in H o t m a n ' s discourse, a n d not a d u a l i s m . T h e G e r m a n i c thesis w a s o r i g i n a l l y Protestant in o r i g i n . But it soon began to circulate not only in Protestant circles but also in Catholic circles, w h e n ( u n d e r the r e i g n of Henri III a n d especially at the t i m e of H e n r i IV's conquest of p o w e r ) C a t h o l i c s s u d d e n l y t u r n e d against royal absolutism a n d when it w a s in their interest to restrict royal power. A l t h o u g h this p r o - G e r m a n i c thesis is Protestant in origin, you w i l l therefore also find it in the work of Catholic historians such a s J e a n du Tillet, J e a n de Serres, a n d so on." From the end of the first t h i r d of the seventeenth century,

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this thesis w i l l b e the object of an attempt, if not to disqualify it, at least to get a r o u n d this G e r m a n i c origin, the G e r m a n i c element, w h i c h monarchic p o w e r found u n a c c e p t a b l e for t w o reasons. It w a s unacceptable in t e r m s of the exercise of p o w e r and p u b l i c right, and the European policy of R i c h e l i e u a n d Louis X I V also m a d e it u n a c ceptable. A n u m b e r of w a y s w e r e used to get a r o u n d the idea that France h a d been founded b y G e r m a n s . T w o w e r e of p a r t i c u l a r importance. One w a s a sort of r e t u r n to the Trojan m y t h , w h i c h w a s reactivated in the m i d - s e v e n t e e n t h century. M o r e important still w a s the foundation a n d i n t r o d u c t i o n of an absolutely n e w thesis, w h i c h w a s to be of fundamental importance. This is the t h e m e of w h a t I w o u l d call r a d i c a l " G a l l o - c e n t r i s m . " The G a u l s , w h o m H o t m a n had described as i m p o r t a n t partners in this prehistory of the French monarchy, were in a sense an inert matter or s u b s t r a t u m : they w e r e people who had been defeated a n d occupied, a n d who h a d to b e l i b e r a t e d by outsiders. But from the seventeenth century o n w a r d , these G a u l s became the p r i n c i p l e or, so to speak, the motor of history. T h a n k s to a sort of inversion of p o l a r i t i e s a n d values, the Gauls b e c a m e the first or fundamental element, a n d the Germans came to be described as a mere extension of the Gauls. The Germans are no more than an episode in the history of the Gauls. This is the thesis that you find in people such as A u d i g i e r ' a n d Tarault. '' A u d i g i e r , for e x a m p l e , s t a t e s that t h e Gauls w e r e the fathers of a l l the p e o p l e s of Europe. A certain k i n g of Gaul called A m b i g a t e found himself w i t h a nation so rich, so w e a l t h y , so plethoric, and with such a s u r p l u s population that he had to l i q u i d a t e part of it. He therefore sent one of his n e p h e w s to Italy a n d another, one Sigovege, to G e r m a n y . This w a s the b e g i n n i n g of a sort of expansion a n d colonization, a n d the French nation b e c a m e the w o m b of all the other peoples of E u r o p e ( a n d even peoples outside Europe). A n d so, says A u d i g i e r , the French nation h a d "the same origins as all that w a s most terrible, most courageous, a n d most g l o rious, in other w o r d s the V a n d a l s , the Goths, the B u r g u n d i a n s , the English, the Herules, the S i h n g a l s , the Huns, the Gepidae, the A l a n s ,
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the Quadi, t h e Hurons, the Ruffai, the T h u n n g i a n s , t h e Lombards, the T u r k s , the Tatars, the Persians, a n d even the Normans."
1(i>

So the Franks w h o i n v a d e d Gaul in the fourth a n d fifth centuries* w e r e simply the offspring a sort of p r i m i t i v e Gaul; they were simply Gauls w h o w e r e eager to see their own country once more. For them, l i b e r a t i n g a Gaul that h a d been enslaved or l i b e r a t i n g their defeated b r o t h e r s w a s not the issue. W h a t w a s at issue w a s a deep nostalgia, a n d also a desire to enjoy a flourishing G a l l o - R o m a n civilization. The cousins, or the prodigal sons, w e r e going home. But when they w e n t home, the certainty d i d not s w e e p a w a y the R o m a n r i g h t that h a d been i m p l a n t e d in Gaul; on the contrary, they reabsorbed it. They r e a b s o r b e d R o m a n Gaulor a l l o w e d themselves to be reabsorbed into it. The conversion of C l o v i s proves that the ancient Gauls, w h o had become G e r m a n s a n d F r a n k s , readopted the values a n d the political a n d r e l i g i o u s s y s t e m of the R o m a n Empire. A n d if, at the t i m e of their return, the F r a n k s did h a v e to fight, it w a s not against the Gauls or even the Romans ( w h o s e v a l u e s they w e r e a b s o r b i n g ) ; it w a s against the B u r g u n d i a n s a n d the Goths ( w h o , being A r y a n s , w e r e h e r e t i c s ) , or against the Saracen infidels. That is w h o m they w a g e d w a r on. A n d in order to r e w a r d the w a r r i o r s w h o h a d fought the

Goths, B u r g u n d i a n s , and Saracens, their k i n g s g r a n t e d them fiefs. The origins of w h a t , at this time, h a d yet to be called feudalism can t h u s b e traced b a c k to a w a r . This fable m a d e it possible to assert the native character of t h e G a u l i s h population. It also made it possible to assert that Gaul had natural frontiersthose described by Caesar. " Establishing those same frontiers w a s also the political objective of the foreign policy of R i chelieu and Louis XIV. The purpose of this tale w a s also not only to erase all racial differences, but above all to erase any heterogeneity b e t w e e n G e r m a n i c right and R o m a n right. It had to be demonstrated that the G e r m a n s had renounced their own r i g h t in order to adopt
1

*The manuscr.pt has -fifth and s.xth centuries," wh>ch corresponds to the actual date of the conquest.

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the j u n d i c o - p o h t i c a l system of the Romans. A n d finally, the fiefs and prerogatives of the nobility h a d to be shown to derive not from the basic or a r c h a i c rights of that same nobility, but simply from the will of a k i n g w h o s e p o w e r a n d absolutism p r e d a t e d the organization of feudalism itself. The point of all this w a s , a n d this is my last point, to lay a French claim to the universal monarchy. If G a u l w a s what Tacitus c a l l e d the vagina Germany ) ,
1 8

nationum

( h e w a s in fact referring mainly to

and if Gaul w a s i n d e e d the womb of all nations, then to

w h o m s h o u l d the universal monarchy revert, if not to the monarch w h o h a d i n h e r i t e d the l a n d of France? There are obviously many v a r i a t i o n s on this schema, but I will not go into them. The reason w h y I have told this rather long story is that I w a n t e d to relate it to w h a t w a s happening in England at the same t i m e . There is at least one point in common, and one basic difference, b e t w e e n w h a t w a s being s a i d in E n g l a n d about the origins a n d foundations of the English monarchy, a n d w h a t w a s being said in the m i d - s e v e n t e e n t h century about the foundations of the French monarchy. The common featureand I t h i n k it is importantis that invasion, w i t h its forms, motifs, a n d effects, became a historical problem to the e x t e n t that it involved an important politico-juridical issue. It is u p to the invasion to define the nature, rights, and limits of monarchical power, it is up to the history of the invasion to define the role of royal councils, assemblies, a n d sovereign courts. It is up to the invasion to define the respective roles of the nobility, the rights of the n o b i l i t y , royal councils, a n d the people, as opposed to the king. In short, the invasion is being asked to define the very p r i n c i p l e s of p u b l i c right. At the very t i m e w h e n Grotius, Pufendorf, and Hobbes were trying to g r o u n d the r u l e s that constitute the just State in natural law, a w i d e - r a n g i n g contrapuntal historical investigation w a s getting under w a y into the origins a n d v a l i d i t y of the rights that were actually being e x e r c i s e d a n d it w a s looking at a historical event or, if you like, at a slice of history that w a s , m both juridical and political terms, the most sensitive region in the entire history of France. I refer, roughly speaking, to the period b e t w e e n M e r o v i u s a n d C h a r l e m a g n e , or be-

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t w e e n t h e fifth a n d t h e ninth centuries. It has a l w a y s b e e n said ( e v e r s i n c e the seventeenth c e n t u r y ) t h a t t h i s is the l e a s t - k n o w n p e r i o d . Least k n o w n ? Perhaps. But definitely the most w i d e l y studied. Be t h a t a s it m a y , n e w figures, n e w t e x t s , a n d n e w p r o b l e m s nowand, I think, for the first t i m e b e g i n to a p p e a r on the horizon of the history of France, whose purpose h a d u n t i l now been to establish the r o y a l i m p e r i u m ' s c o n t i n u i t y of p o w e r , a n d w h i c h spoke only of Trojans and Franks. The new figures were M e r o v i u s , C l o v i s , C h a r l e s M a r tel, C h a r l e m a g n e , a n d Pipin; the n e w t e x t s were by Gregory of T o u r s '
9

a n d C h a r l e m a g n e ' s c a r t u l a r i e s . N e w customs appear: the C h a m p d e M a r s , t h e M a y g a t h e r i n g s , the r i t u a l of c a r r y i n g k i n g s s h o u l d e r - h i g h , and so on. Events occur: the b a p t i s m of C l o v i s , the B a t t l e of Poitiers, the coronation of C h a r l e m a g n e ; w e also have symbolic anecdotes such as the story of the vase of Soissons, in w h i c h w e see King C l o v i s renouncing his c l a i m , a c k n o w l e d g i n g t h e r i g h t s of h i s w a r r i o r s , a n d t h e n taking his revenge later. All this gives us a new historical landscape, and a new s y s t e m of reference w h i c h c a n be understood only to t h e extent that there is a very close correlation b e t w e e n this new material and political d i s c u s sions about public right. History a n d public right in fact go h a n d in hand. There is a strict correlation between the problems posed by p u b l i c right a n d the delineation of t h e historical fieldand "history

a n d public r i g h t " will in fact r e m a i n a set phrase u n t i l the end of the eighteenth century. If you look at h o w history, a n d the pedagogy of history, w a s a c t u a l l y taught until w e l l after the eighteenth c e n t u r y a n d even in the t w e n t i e t h , you w i l l find that it is public r i g h t that you are being told about. I don't k n o w w h a t school textbooks look like t h e s e d a y s , but it is not so long ago t h a t the history of France began w i t h the history of the G a u l s . A n d the expression "our a n c e s tors the G a u l s " ( w h i c h m a k e s us laugh because it w a s taught to

A l g e r i a n s a n d A f r i c a n s ) h a d a very specific meaning. To say "our ancestors the G a u l s " w a s , basically, to formulate a proposition that meant something in the theory of constitutional l a w a n d in the p r o b lems raised by public right. Detailed accounts of the Battle of Poitiers also h a d a very specific m e a n i n g to the e x t e n t that it w a s precisely

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not t h e w a r b e t w e e n the Franks a n d t h e Gauls, but the w a r b e t w e e n the Franks and the Gauls a n d i n v a d e r s of a different race a n d religion that a l l o w e d the origins of feudalism to b e traced b a c k to something other than an internal conflict b e t w e e n Franks a n d Gauls. A n d the story of the Soissons vasewhich, I think, crops u p in all the history books a n d w h i c h is still taught todaywas certainly studied very seriously throughout the w h o l e of the seventeenth century. The story of the Soissons vase tells the story of a p r o b l e m in constitutional law: w h e n w e a l t h w a s first d i s t r i b u t e d , w h a t w e r e the rights of the king, and w h a t w e r e the rights of h i s w a r r i o r s , and possibly of the nobility ( i n the sense that the nobility were originally w a r r i o r s ) ? W e thought that w e were l e a r n i n g history; but in the nineteenth century, and even the t w e n t i e t h , history books w e r e in fact textbooks on public right. W e w e r e learning about public right and constitutional l a w by looking at pictures from history. So, first point: the a p p e a r a n c e in France of this n e w historical field, w h i c h is q u i t e s i m i l a r ( i n t e r m s of its m a t e r i a l ) to w h a t w a s happ e n i n g in England at the time w h e n the theme of the invasion was b e i n g reactivated in discussions of the p r o b l e m of the monarchy.

There is, however, one basic difference between England and France. In England, the Conquest a n d the N o r m a n / S a x o n racial d u a l i t y was h i s t o r y ' s essential point of articulation, w h e r e a s in France there was, u n t i l t h e end of t h e seventeenth century, no heterogeneity w i t h i n the body of t h e nation. T h e w h o l e system of a fabled k i n s h i p between the G a u l s a n d the Trojans, the Gauls a n d the Germans, a n d then the G a u l s and the Romans, a n d so on, made it possible to guarantee both a continuous transmission of p o w e r a n d the unproblematic homogeneity of the body of the nation. Now it is precisely that homogeneity that w a s shattered at the end of the seventeenth century, not by the s u p p l e m e n t a r y or differential theoretical, or theoretico- mythological, edifice I w a s t a l k i n g about just now, but by a discourse w h i c h is, I believe, absolutely new in terms of its functions, its objects, and its effects. The introduction of the t h e m e of national dualism w a s not a reflection or expression of either the civil or social wars, the religious

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struggles of the Renaissance, or the conflicts of the Fronde. It w a s a conflict, an a p p a r e n t l y lateral p r o b l e m or something that has usually and, I think, w r o n g l y , as you w i l l seebeen described as a r e a r g u a r d action, and it m a d e it possible to c o n c e p t u a l i z e t w o things that had not previously been i n s c r i b e d in either history or p u b l i c right. One w a s the p r o b l e m of w h e t h e r or not the w a r b e t w e e n hostile g r o u p s really does constitute the s u b s t r u c t u r e of the State; the other w a s the problem of w h e t h e r political p o w e r can be r e g a r d e d both as a product of that w a r and, u p to a point, its referee, or whether it is u s u a l l y a tool, the beneficiary of, and the d e s t a b i l i z i n g , partisan element in that war. T h i s is a specific a n d l i m i t e d p r o b l e m , but it is, I t h i n k , also an essential problem because it l e a d s to t h e refutation of the i m p l i c i t thesis t h a t the social body is homogeneous ( w h i c h w a s so w i d e l y accepted that it d i d not h a v e to b e f o r m u l a t e d ) . H o w ? W e l l , because it raises w h a t I w o u l d call a p r o b l e m in political pedagogy: W h a t must the prince k n o w , w h e r e and from w h o m must he a c q u i r e his k n o w l e d g e , and w h o is qualified to constitute the k n o w l e d g e of the p r i n c e ? To b e more specific, this w a s q u i t e s i m p l y the i s s u e of how the due d e Bourgogne s h o u l d b e e d u c a t e d . A s you k n o w , this raised i n n u m e r a b l e problems for a w h o l e host of reasons ( I am t h i n k i n g not just of his e l e m e n t a r y education, as he w a s a l r e a d y an a d u l t at the t i m e of the events I w i l l b e t a l k i n g a b o u t ) . W h a t w a s at s t a k e w a s the body of information about the State, the government, a n d the country needed b y the man w h o w o u l d , in a few y e a r s or after t h e death of Louis X I V , b e called u p o n to l e a d t h a t State, t h a t government, and that country. W e are therefore maque,
10

not t a l k i n g about

Tele-

but about the enormous report on t h e state of France that

Louis X I V ordered his a d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d his i n t e n d a n t s or s t e w a r d s to produce for his heir and grandson, the due de Bourgogne. It w a s a survey of France ( a general s t u d y of the situation of the economy, institutions, and customs of F r a n c e ) , and it w a s i n t e n d e d to constitute the k n o w l e d g e of the king, or the k n o w l e d g e that w o u l d a l l o w him to r u l e . So Louis X I V a s k e d his intendants for these reports. W i t h i n a few months, they were assembled and ready. The due de Bourgogne's

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entouragean entourage made u p of the very kernel of the nobiliary opposition, or of nobles w h o w e r e critical of Louis X l V ' s regime b e cause it h a d eroded their economic m i g h t and political p o w e r r e ceived this report a n d a p p o i n t e d someone called B o u l a i n v i l h e r s to present it to the due de Bourgogne. Because it w a s so enormous, they commissioned him to abridge it, a n d to explain or interpret it: to recode it, if you like. Boulainvilhers filleted or a b r i d g e d these enormous reports, and s u m m a r i z e d t h e m in t w o large volumes. Finally, he w r o t e a preface and a d d e d a n u m b e r of critical comments a n d a discourse: this w a s an essential c o m p l e m e n t to the enormous a d m i n istrative task of providing a description and analysis of the State. The discourse is rather curious, as B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s tried to shed l i g h t on the current state of France by w r i t i n g an essay on the ancient gove r n m e n t s of France down to the t i m e of H u g h C a p e t .
21

Boulainvilliers's t e x t is an a t t e m p t to p u t forward theses favorable to the n o b i l i t y a n d his later w o r k s also deal w i t h the same p r o b l e m .
22

He c r i t i c i z e s the sale of c r o w n offices, w h i c h w o r k e d to the d i s a d vantage of the impoverished nobility; he protests a g a i n s t the tact that the nobility has been dispossessed of its right of jurisdiction, and of the profits that w e n t w i t h it; he insists that the nobility has a right to sit in the Conseil du roi; he is critical of the role p l a y e d by the intendants in the administration of the provinces. But the most i m portant feature of B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s ' s t e x t , and of this recoding of the reports [ p r e s e n t e d ] to the king, is the protest against the tact that the k n o w l e d g e given to the king, a n d then to the prince, is a k n o w l edge manufactured by the a d m i n i s t r a t i v e machine itself. It is a protest against the fact that the k i n g ' s k n o w l e d g e of his subjects has been completely colonized, occupied, prescribed, and defined by the State's k n o w l e d g e about the State. The problem is as follows: M u s t the k i n g ' s k n o w l e d g e of his k i n g d o m a n d his subjects be isomorphic w i t h the State's k n o w l e d g e of the S t a t e ? M u s t the bureaucratic, fiscal, economic, a d m i n i s t r a t i v e , and j u r i d i c a l expertise that is r e q u i r e d to run the monarchy be reinjected into the prince by all the information he is being given, a n d which w i l l allow him to g o v e r n ? Basically, the problem is as follows: Because the prince exercises his arbitrarv and

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will over an a d m i n i s t r a t i o n that is completely in his

hands a n d completely at his disposal, the administration, or the great a d m i n i s t r a t i v e a p p a r a t u s the king had given the monarchy, is in a sense w e l d e d to to the prince himself: they are one a n d the same. T h a t is w h y it is impossible to resist him. But the prince ( a n d the prince's p o w e r m e a n s t h a t he and the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n are one and the s a m e ) must, w h e t h e r he likes it or not, be persuaded to b e c o m e p a r t of the same body as his a d m i n i s t r a t i o n ; he must be w e l d e d to it by the k n o w l e d g e that the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n r e t r a n s m i t s to him, but this t i m e from above. The a d m i n i s t r a t i o n a l l o w s the k i n g to rule the country at w i l l , and subject to no restrictions. A n d conversely, the a d ministration rules the king t h a n k s to the q u a l i t y and n a t u r e of the k n o w l e d g e it forces upon him. I t h i n k that the target of B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s a n d those a r o u n d him at this timeand the target of those who came after h i m in the m i d seventeenth century ( l i k e the comte de B u a t - N a n ^ a y " ) or M o n t l o s i e r ' ( w h o s e problem w a s much more complicated because he w a s writing, in the e a r l y Restoration period, against the i m p e r i a l a d m i n i s t r a t i o n ) t h e real target of all the historians connected to the nob i h a r v reaction is the mechanism of p o w e r - k n o w l e d g e t h a t h a d b o u n d the a d m i n i s t r a t i v e a p p a r a t u s to S t a t e a b s o l u t i s m since the seventeenth century. I t h i n k it is as t h o u g h a nobility that had been impoverished and to some e x t e n t e x c l u d e d from the e x e r c i s e of p o w e r had e s t a b lished as the p r i m e goal of its offensive, of its counteroffensive, not
2

so much the d i r e c t a n d i m m e d i a t e r e c o n q u e s t of its p o w e r s , a n d not the recuperation of its w e a l t h ( w h i c h w a s no d o u b t now forever b e vond its r e a c h ) , as an important link in the system of p o w e r that the nobilitv had a l w a y s overlooked, e v e n at the t i m e w h e n it w a s at the height of its might. The strategic position that the nobility overlooked h a d been physically occupied bv the church, by c l e r k s and m a g i s trates, and then by the bourgeoisie, the a d m i n s t r a t o r s , and even the financiers who collected indirect taxes. The position that had to be reoccupied as a priority, or the strategic objective Boulainvilhers now set the nobility, and the precondition for any possible revenge, w a s not what was, in the vocabulary of the court, termed "the favor

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of the k i n g . " W h a t had to b e r e g a i n e d and occupied w a s now the king's k n o w l e d g e . It w a s the k n o w l e d g e of the king, or a certain k n o w l e d g e shared by k i n g and nobility: an i m p l i c i t l a w , a m u t u a l commitment between the king and h i s aristocracy. W h a t h a d to be

done w a s to r e a w a k e n b o t h the nobles' memory, w h i c h h a d become carelessly forgetful, and the monarch's memories, w h i c h h a d been the

carefullyand p e r h a p s w i c k e d l y b u r i e d , so as to reconstitute

l e g i t i m a t e k n o w l e d g e of the k i n g , w h i c h w o u l d provide legitimate foundations for a l e g i t i m a t e government. W h a t is r e q u i r e d is therefore a c o u n t e r k n o w l e d g e , a whole p r o g r a m of work that w i l l take the form of absolutely n e w historical research. I say c o u n t e r k n o w l e d g e because B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s and his successors i n i t i a l l y define this new k n o w l e d g e and these new methods in negative terms by contrasting it w i t h two scholarly k n o w l e d g e s , w i t h the two k n o w l e d g e s that are the t w o faces ( a n d p e r h a p s also the two p h a s e s ) of a d m i n i s t r a t i v e k n o w l e d g e . At this t i m e , the great enemy of the new k n o w l e d g e the nobility wishes to use to get a n e w g r i p on the k n o w l e d g e of the king, the knowledge that has to be got r i d of, is j u r i d i c a l k n o w l e d g e . It is the knowledge of the court, of the prosecutor, the jurisconsult, and the c l e r k of the court or grejfier. For the nobility, t h i s was i n d e e d a hateful knowledge,

for this was the k n o w l e d g e that had t r i c k e d them, that had dispossessed them b y using a r g u m e n t s they d i d not understand, that had s t r i p p e d t h e m , w i t h o u t their b e i n g able to r e a l i z e it, of their rights of jurisdiction and then of their very possessions. But it w a s also a hateful k n o w l e d g e because it w a s in a sense a circular knowledge w h i c h d e r i v e d k n o w l e d g e from k n o w l e d g e . W h e n the k i n g consulted greffiers and jurisconsults about his rights, w h a t a n s w e r could he ob-

tain, if not a k n o w l e d g e established from the point of v i e w of the judges and prosecutors he himself had c r e a t e d ? The king quite n a t u r a l l y finds therefore power

that it contains eulogies to his own

( t h o u g h they may also conceal the subtle w a y s in w h i c h power has been u s u r p e d by the prosecutors and gejjiers). At all events, a circular

knowledge. A k n o w l e d g e in which the k i n g will encounter only the image of his own absolutism, w h i c h reflects b a c k at h i m , m the form

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of right, a l l the u s u r p a t i o n s the k i n g h a s committed [ a g a i n s t ] his nobility. The n o b i l i t y w a n t s to use another form of k n o w l e d g e against the k n o w l e d g e of the greffier: history. A history whose n a t u r e will a l l o w

it to get outside r i g h t , to get b e h i n d r i g h t a n d to s l i p into its i n t e r stices. O n l y , t h i s history w i l l be u n l i k e any p r e v i o u s history, a n d it w i l l not be a pictorial or d r a m a t i z e d account of the development of p u b l i c right. O n the contrary, it w i l l a t t e m p t to attack p u b l i c r i g h t at the roots, to reinsert the i n s t i t u t i o n s of p u b l i c r i g h t into an older n e t w o r k of deeper, more solemn, a n d more essential commitments. It w i l l u n d e r m i n e the k n o w l e d g e of the greffier, in w h i c h the k i n g finds

nothing b u t eulogies to h i s o w n absolutism ( o r in other w o r d s , the praise of Rome a g a i n ) , b y t a p p i n g historic reserves of e q u i t y . W h a t ever the history of right may say, c o m m i t m e n t s that were not w r i t t e n d o w n , fidelities that w e r e never recorded in w o r d s or t e x t s , have to be revived. Theses that have been forgotten have to reactivated, a n d the noble blood that h a s been s p i l l e d on behalf of the k i n g has to b e r e m e m b e r e d . It h a s t o be d e m o n s t r a t e d that t h e v e r y edifice of right even its most valid institutions, its most explicit a n d w i d e l y recognized ordinancesis the product of a whole series of i n i q u i t i e s ,

injustices, abuses, dispossessions, b e t r a y a l s , a n d infidelities c o m m i t t e d by r o y a l power, w h i c h reneged on its c o m m i t m e n t to the n o b i l i t y , a n d b y the robins or l e g a l s m a l l fry w h o u s u r p e d both the p o w e r of the n o b i l i t y a n d , p e r h a p s w i t h o u t r e a l l y r e a l i z i n g it, royal p o w e r . The history of r i g h t w i l l therefore be a denunciation of b e t r a y a l s , and of all the b e t r a y a l s that w e r e b o r n of the b e t r a y a l s . The g o a l of this history, whose v e r y form i s a challenge to the k n o w l e d g e of the clerks a n d j u d g e s , is to m a k e the prince see u s u r p a t i o n s of w h i c h he is u n a w a r e and to restore to h i m a s t r e n g t h , a n d the memory of bonds, even though it w a s i n his interest to forget t h e m a n d to let them be forgotten. History w i l l be the w e a p o n of a nobility that has been b e t r a y e d and h u m i l i a t e d , a n d it w i l l use it against the k n o w l e d g e of the c l e r k s , w h i c h a l w a y s e x p l a i n s contemporary events in terms of contemporary events, p o w e r i n t e r m s of p o w e r , a n d the l e t t e r of the

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law in t e r m s of the w i l l of the king and vice versa. The form of this history w i l l be profoundly a n t i j u n d i c a l , and, going beyond w h a t has been w r i t t e n down, it w i l l d e c i p h e r and recall w h a t lies beneath

e v e r y t h i n g that has fallen into abeyance, and denounce the blatant hostility concealed by this k n o w l e d g e . That is the iirst great adversary of the historical k n o w l e d g e the nobility w a n t s to create so a s to reocc u p y the k n o w l e d g e of the king. The other great adversary is the k n o w l e d g e not of the judge or the clerk, but of the intendant: not le greffe but le bureau ( t h e c l e r k of the court's office)

( t h e office of the i n t e n d a n t ) . This too is hateful k n o w l -

edge. A n d for symmetrical reasons, as it w a s the k n o w l e d g e of the i n t e n d a n t s that a l l o w e d them to eat into the w e a l t h and p o w e r of the nobles. This too is a k n o w l e d g e that can dazzle the k i n g and hoodw i n k him, as it is thanks to t h i s k n o w l e d g e that the king can impose his might, c o m m a n d obedience, and ensure that taxes are collected. This is an a d m i n i s t r a t i v e k n o w l e d g e , and above all a q u a n t i t a t i v e economic k n o w l e d g e : k n o w l e d g e of actual or potential wealth, k n o w l e d g e of tolerable levels of t a x a t i o n and of useful taxes. The nobility wants to use another form of u n d e r s t a n d i n g against the k n o w l e d g e of the i n t e n d a n t s a n d le bureau: history. This time, however, it is a history

of wealth and not an economic history. This is a history of the d i s placement of w e a l t h , of exactions, theft, sleight of hand, embezzlement, impoverishment, a n d ruin. This, then, is a history that digs

beneath the problem of the production of w e a l t h so as to demonstrate that it w a s ruination, debt, and abusive accumulations that created a certain state of w e a l t h that is, u l t i m a t e l y , no more than a combination of crooked deals done by a k i n g w h o was a i d e d and abetted by the bourgeoisie. The analysis of w e a l t h w i l l , then, be challenged by a history of how the nobles w e r e ruined by endless w a r s , a history of how the church t r i c k e d them into giving it gifts of land and money, a history of how the bourgeoisie got the nobility into debt, and a history of how royal t a x - g a t h e r e r s ate into the income of the nobles. The two great discourses that the history of the nobility is trying to challengethat of the courts and that of le bureaudo not share

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the same chronology. The struggle against juridical knowledge w a s probably at its height, or more active and more intense, in B o u l a i n vilhers's day, or in other w o r d s , b e t w e e n the late seventeenth a n d the early eighteenth centuries; the s t r u g g l e against economic k n o w l e d g e was probably much more violent in the m i d - e i g h t e e n t h century, or at the time of the Physiocrats ( P h y s i o c r a c y w a s B u a t - N a n c a y ' s great a d v e r s a r y ) . " W h e t h e r it i s the k n o w l e d g e of intendants, of le bureau,

economic k n o w l e d g e , the k n o w l e d g e of c l e r k s a n d courts, what is at issue is the k n o w l e d g e that is constituted as the State talks to itself, a n d w h i c h has been r e p l a c e d b y a n o t h e r form of k n o w l e d g e . Its g e n eral profile is that of history. The history of w h a t ? U p to this point, history h a d n e v e r been a n y t h i n g more than the history of p o w e r as told by p o w e r itself, or the history of p o w e r t h a t p o w e r h a d m a d e people tell: it w a s the history of power, a s recounted by p o w e r . The history that the n o b i l i t y now b e g i n s to use against the State's discourse about the State, and p o w e r ' s discourse about power, is a discourse that will, 1 believe, destroy the very w o r k i n g s of h i s torical k n o w l e d g e . It is at this point, I think, that w e see the b r e a k downand this is importantof both the close relationship b e t w e e n the narrative of history on the one h a n d and, on the other hand, the exercise of power, its ritual reinforcement and the picture-book formulation of p u b l i c right. W i t h B o u l a m v i l h e r s a n d t h e reactionary nobility of the late eighteenth century, a new subject of history appears. This means t w o things. On the one hand, there is a new

speaking subject: someone else begins to speak in history, to recount history; someone else b e g i n s to say " 1 " a n d " w e " as he recounts history; someone else begins to tell the story of his o w n history; someone else begins to r e o r g a n i z e the past, events, rights, injustices, defeats, and victories around himself a n d his own destiny. The subject w h o speaks in history is therefore d i s p l a c e d , but the subject of history is also displaced in the sense t h a t the v e r y ob|ect of the narrative is modified: its subject, in the sense of its theme, or object, if vou like. The modification of the first, e a r l i e r or d e e p e r element now a l l o w s rights, institutions, the monarchy, a n d even the land itself to be d e -

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fined in relation to this n e w subject. T h i s subject t a l k s about events that occur b e n e a t h the State, that ignore right, and that are older and more profound than institutions. So w h a t is t h i s n e w subject of history, w h i c h i s b o t h the subject that s p e a k s in the historical n a r r a t i v e a n d w h a t the historical narrative is talking about, this new subject that appears w h e n w e get a w a y from the State's j u r i d i c a l or a d m i n i s t r a t i v e discourse about the State? It i s w h a t a h i s t o r i a n of the period calls a "society." A society, b u t in the sense of an association, g r o u p , or body of i n d i v i d u a l s governed by a statute, a society made u p of a certain number of i n d i v i d u a l s , and w h i c h has its o w n m a n n e r s , customs, a n d even its own l a w . The something that begins to speak in history, that s p e a k s of history, and of w h i c h history w i l l speak, is w h a t the vocabulary of the day called a "nation." A t t h i s t i m e , t h e nation is b y no means something t h a t is defined by its territorial unity, a definite political morphology, or its systematic subordination to some i m p e r i u m . The nation has no frontiers, no definite system of p o w e r , and no State. T h e nation circulates b e h i n d frontiers a n d institutions. The nation, or r a t h e r "nations," or in other w o r d s the collections, societies, g r o u p i n g s of i n d i v i d u a l s w h o s h a r e a status, mores, customs, and a certain p a r t i c u l a r l a w i n the sense of regulatory statutes rather than Statist l a w s . History w i l l be about this, about these elements. A n d it is those elements that w i l l begin to speak: it is the nation that b e g i n s to speak. The nobility i s one nation, as distinct from the many other nations that circulate w i t h i n the State and come into conflict w i t h one another. It is this notion, this concept of the nation, that w i l l give rise to the famous revolutionary problem of the nation; it w i l l , ol course, give rise to the basic concepts of nineteenth-century nationalism. It w i l l also give rise to the notion of race. And, finally, it will g i v e rise to the notion of class. Together w i t h t h i s new subject of historya subject that speaks in a history a n d a subject of w h i c h history s p e a k s w e also have the appearance of a new domain of objects, a new frame of reference, a w h o l e field of processes that had previously been not just obscure, but totally neglected. All the obscure processes that go on at the level

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w h e r e g r o u p s come into conflict b e n e a t h the S t a t e a n d through the l a w rise to the surface a n d become h i s t o r y ' s p r i m a r y t h e m a t i c . This is the d a r k history of alliances, of g r o u p r i v a l r i e s a n d of interests that a r e m a s k e d or b e t r a y e d ; the history of the u s u r p a t i o n of rights, of the displacement of fortunes; the history of fidelities and betrayals, the h i s t o r y of e x p e n d i t u r e , exactions, debts, t r i c k e r y , and of t h i n g s t h a t have been forgotten, a n d of s t u p i d i t y . T h i s i s also a k n o w l e d g e w h o s e methodology is not the r i t u a l reactivation of the acts that founded

power, b u t the systematic i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of i t s evil intentions and the recollection of e v e r y t h i n g t h a t it h a s s y s t e m a t i c a l l y forgotten. Its

method is the p e r p e t u a l denunciation of t h e evil t h a t h a s b e e n done in h i s t o r y . T h i s is no longer the g l o r i o u s h i s t o r y of p o w e r ; it i s the h i s t o r y of its l o w e r depths, its w i c k e d n e s s , a n d i t s b e t r a y a l s . T h i s n e w discourse ( w h i c h h a s , then, a n e w subject a n d a n e w frame of r e f e r e n c e ) i n e v i t a b l y b r i n g s w i t h it w h a t m i g h t b e called a n e w pathos, a n d it is completely different from t h e g r e a t ceremonial r i t u a l t h a t still obscurely a c c o m p a n i e d the discourse of h i s t o r y w h e n it w a s t e l l i n g those stories a b o u t Trojans, G e r m a n s , a n d so on. H i s t o r y no l o n g e r h a s the ceremonial character of s o m e t h i n g t h a t reinforces p o w e r , b u t a n e w pathos w i l l m a r k w i t h i t s splendor a school of thought that w i l l , b r o a d l y s p e a k i n g , b e c o m e French r i g h t w i n g thought. W h a t I mean b y this is, first, an almost erotic passion for historical k n o w l e d g e ; second, the s y s t e m a t i c perversion of i n t e r p r e t i v e understanding; t h i r d , relentless denunciations; fourth, the a r t i c u l a t i o n of history a r o u n d something r e s e m b l i n g a plot, an a t t a c k on the State, a coup d'etat or an assault on the State or against the State. W h a t I h a v e been t r y i n g to show y o u is not exactly w h a t is k n o w n as "the history of i d e a s . " I h a v e not so m u c h been t r y i n g to s h o w you h o w the nobility used historical discourse to e x p r e s s either its d e m a n d s or its misfortunes, as to show how a c e r t a i n instrument of struggle w a s a c t u a l l y forged in the s t r u g g l e s that took place around the w o r k i n g s of p o w e r s t r u g g l e s w i t h i n p o w e r a n d a g a i n s t p o w e r . That instrument is a k n o w l e d g e , a n e w ( o r at least p a r t l y n e w )

k n o w l e d g e : the n e w form of history. The recall of history in this form is basically, I t h i n k , the w e d g e that the n o b i l i t y w i l l try to d r i v e

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b e t w e e n the k n o w l e d g e of the sovereign a n d the expertise of the administration, and it w i l l do so in order to disconnect the absolute will of the sovereign from the absolute docility of his administration. It is not because they are odes to the freedoms of old that the d i s course of history, the old story about Gauls and G e r m a n s , or the long tale of Clovis a n d C h a r l e m a g n e , become instruments in the

struggle against absolutism; it is because they disconnect a d m i n i s t r a tive p o w e r - k n o w l e d g e . That is w h y this type of discoursewhich was o r i g i n a l l y n o b i l i a r y and r e a c t i o n a r y w i l l b e g i n to circulate, w i t h many modifications and many conflicts over its form, precisely w h e n ever a political g r o u p w a n t s , for one reason or another, to attack the hinge that connects power to k n o w l e d g e in the w o r k i n g s of the absolute State of the a d m i n i s t r a t i v e m o n a r c h y . A n d that is w h y you quite n a t u r a l l y find this type of discourse ( a n d even its formulations) on both w h a t m i g h t be called the R i g h t a n d the Left, in both the n o b i l i a r y reaction a n d in texts p r o d u c e d by revolutionaries before or after 1 7 8 9 . Let me just quote you one text about an unjust king, about the king of w i c k e d n e s s and b e t r a y a l s : "What punishment"at this

point, the author is addressing Louis X V I " d o you think befits such a barbarous man, this w r e t c h e d h e i r to a h e a p of p l u n d e r ? Do you t h i n k that God's l a w does not apply to y o u ? Or are you a man for w h o m e v e r y t h i n g must be r e d u c e d to y o u r g l o r y a n d s u b o r d i n a t e d to y o u r satisfaction? A n d w h o are y o u ? For if y o u are not a God, you are a monster!" This w a s not w r i t t e n by M a r a t , but by Buat-Nangay, w h o w a s w r i t i n g to Louis X V I in 1 7 7 8 .
26

Ten y e a r s later, this w o u l d

be r e p e a t e d w o r d for w o r d b y the revolutionaries. You u n d e r s t a n d w h y , a l t h o u g h this n e w type of historical k n o w l edge, t h i s new type of discourse, a c t u a l l y d i d p l a y t h i s important

political role and did act as the hinge b e t w e e n the administrative m o n a r c h y ' s power and its k n o w l e d g e , royal power had to t r y to b r i n g it u n d e r its control. J u s t as this discourse c i r c u l a t e d from R i g h t to Left, from the n o b i l i a r y reaction to a b o u r g e o i s revolutionary project, so royal p o w e r t r i e d to a p p r o p r i a t e or control it. A n d so, from 1 7 6 0 o n w a r d , we begin to see royal powerand this proves the political value, the vital political issue that is at stake in this historical k n o w l -

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e d g e t r y i n g to organize this historical k n o w l e d g e by, so to speak, r e i n t r o d u c i n g it into the play b e t w e e n k n o w l e d g e a n d power, b e t w e e n a d m i n i s t r a t i v e p o w e r a n d the e x p e r t i s e to w h i c h it gave rise. From 1 7 6 0 o n w a r d w e see the emergence of i n s t i t u t i o n s t h a t w e r e roughly equivalent to a m i n i s t r y of history. The process began in about 1 7 6 0 , w i t h the establishment of a B i b l i o t h e q u e de finances, w h i c h h a d to s u p p l y H i s M a j e s t y ' s m i n i s t e r s w i t h the reports, information, and

clarifications t h e y needed. In 1763, a D e p o t de chartes w a s established for those w h o w a n t e d to s t u d y the history a n d public r i g h t of France. In 1781, the t w o i n s t i t u t i o n s w e r e m e r g e d to form a B i b l i o t h e q u e de legislationnote the terms c a r e f u l l y d ' a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , histoire et

droit p u b l i c . A s l i g h t l y later text states t h a t this l i b r a r y is i n t e n d e d for H i s M a j e s t y ' s m i n i s t e r s , those w h o are responsible for d e p a r t m e n t s of the general a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , and for the scholars a n d jurisconsults w h o h a d been a p p o i n t e d b y the chancellor or keeper of the seals a n d w h o w e r e p a i d at H i s M a j e s t y ' s expense to w r i t e books a n d other w o r k t h a t w e r e of use to legislators, h i s t o r i a n s , a n d the p u b l i c .
27

This m i n i s t r y of history h a d an official in c h a r g e of it. H i s name w a s J a c o b - N i c o l a s M o r e a u , and it w a s he, together w i t h a few coll a b o r a t o r s , w h o a s s e m b l e d the h u g e collection of medieval a n d p r e medieval d o c u m e n t s on w h i c h h i s t o r i a n s such as A u g u s t i n T h i e r r y a n d Guizot w o u l d w o r k in the e a r l y n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y .
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A t the time

of its c r e a t i o n at l e a s t , the m e a n i n g of t h i s institutionof this m i n i s t r y of h i s t o r y i s q u i t e clear: A t the t i m e w h e n the political confrontations of the eighteenth century centered on a historical discourse, or, more specifically, at a d e e p e r level, at the t i m e w h e n historical k n o w l e d g e w a s indeed a w e a p o n in the struggle against the absolute mona r c h y ' s a d m i n i s t r a t i v e - s t y l e k n o w l e d g e , the m o n a r c h y w a n t e d , so to speak, to recolonize that k n o w l e d g e . The creation of the ministry of history w a s , if vou like, a concession, a first tacit acceptance on the part of the k i n g that there d i d indeed exist historical material that might, perhaps, reveal the basic l a w s of the k i n g d o m . It w a s the first tacit acceptance of a sort of constitution, ten vears before the Estates General. So, a first concession on the part of royal power, a first tacit acceptance that something might slip b e t w e e n its power a n d its ad-

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ministration: the constitution, basic l a w s , the representation of the people, a n d so on. But at the same time, historical k n o w l e d g e was reinstalled, in an a u t h o r i t a r i a n way, in the very place w h e r e attempts h a d been made to use it against absolutism. That k n o w l e d g e w a s a weapon in the struggle to reoccupy the k n o w l e d g e of the prince, a n d it w a s placed b e t w e e n his power a n d the e x p e r t i s e a n d w o r k i n g s of the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n . A m i n i s t r y of history was established b e t w e e n the prince a n d the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n as a w a y of reestablishing the link, of m a k i n g history part of the w o r k i n g s of monarchic p o w e r a n d its a d ministration. A m i n i s t r y of history w a s created b e t w e e n the k n o w l edge of the prince a n d the expertise of his administration, a n d in order to establish, b e t w e e n t h e king a n d h i s administration, in a controlled w a y , the u n i n t e r r u p t e d t r a d i t i o n of the monarchy. That is more or less w h a t I w a n t e d to s a y to you about the establishment of this new t y p e of historical k n o w l e d g e . I w i l l try to look later at the w a y in w h i c h t h i s k n o w l e d g e l e d to the emergence w i t h i n t h i s element of the struggle b e t w e e n nations, or in other w o r d s what w i l l become the race struggle a n d the class struggle.

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1. There are at least fifty accounts of the Trojan origins of the French, from the PseudoFrdegaire's Historia Francoium (727) to Ronsard's Franciade (1572). It is unclear whether Foucault is referring to this tradition as a whole, or to a specific text. The text in question may be the one referred to bv A. Thierry in his Recti du temps merovingiens, precede de considerations sur I'histoire de France (Paris, 1 8 4 0 ) , or in other words Les Grandes Chroniques de Saint-Denis (which were written in the second half of the twelfth centurv, published by Paulin Paris in 1836, and reprinted by J . Viard in 1 9 2 0 ) . Many of these stones can be consulted in Dom. M. Bouquet, Recueil des historiens de Gaule et de la France (Pans, 1739-1752), vols. 2 and 3. 2. "Know that he is an emperor in his kingdom, and that he can do all and as much as imperial right permits" (J. Boutilher, Somme rurale, oule Grand Coutumier general de pratiques civiles [fourteenth century] [Bruges, 1479]). The 1611 edition of this text is cited by A. Thierry, Considerations sur I'histoire de France. 3. Thierry, p. 41 (1868 ed.). 4. F. Hotman, Franco-Gallia (Geneva, 1573) (French translation: La Gaule franchise [Cologne, 1574], reprinted as La Gaule francaise [Pans: Fayard, 1 9 8 1 ] ) . 5. Cf. Beati Rhenani Rerum Germanicorum lihri tres (Basel, 1531). The edition published in Ulm in 1 6 9 3 should also be consulted; the commentary and notes added by the members of the Imperial Historical College provide a genealogy and eulogy of the "Europa corona" of the Hapsburgs (BeatiRhenani lihri tres Institutionem Rerum Historici Imperialis scopum illustratarum [Ulm, 1 6 9 3 ] , and especially pp. 5 6 9 - 6 0 0 . See also the commentaries appended to the Strasbourg edition: Argentaton, 1 6 1 0 ) . 6. Cf. Hotman, Franco-Gallia, chapter 4, "De ortu Francorum, qui Gallia occupata. eius nomen in Francia, vel Francogalliam mutarunt" ( p p . 40-52 of the 1576 ed.). 7. Etienne Pasquier, Recherxhes de la France, 3 vols. (Pans 1560-1567). Pasquier studied under Hotman. 8. Cf. Hotman, Franco-Gallia, p. 54: "Semper reges Franci h a b u e r u n t . . . non tyrannos, aut camefices: sed liberatis suae custodes, praefectos, tutores sibi constituerunt." 9. Ibid., p. 62. 1 0 . Julius Caesar, Commentariide hello gallico; see especially books 6 , 7, and 8. 11. Hotman, Franco-Gallia, pp. 55-62. 12. Cf. ibid., p. 65i, where Hotman describes "the continuity of the powers of the council" through the various dynasties. 13.Jean du Tillet, Les Manoires et rechenhes (Rouen, 1578); Recueil des Roys de France (Pans, 1 5 8 0 ) ; Remonstrance ou Advertissement a la noblesse tant du parti du Roy que des rebelles (Pans, 1585)- Jean de Serres, Memoires de la troisieme guerre civile, et des dernieis troubles de la France (Pans, 1 5 7 0 ) ; lnventaire general de I'histoire de la France (Pans, 1597). 14. P- Audigier, De torigt'ne des Francois etde leur empire (Pans, 1676). 15.J--E. Tarault, Annales de France, avec les alliances, genealogies, conquetes,fondations e'cclesiasttques et civiles en tune et tautre empire et dans les rvyaumes etrangtrs, depuis Pharamond jusqu'au roi Louis trti^eme (Pans, 1635). 16. P. Audigier, De I'origt'ne des Francois, p. 3. 17. Caesar, De Bella gallico, book 1, p. 1. 18. It was in fact Bishop Ragvaldson who, speaking of the question of the "fabrication of the human race" at the Council of Basel in 1434, described Scandinavia as humanity's original cradle. He based his claim on the fourth-century chronicle of Jordams: "Hac lgitur Scandza insula quasi officina gentium aut certe velut vagina nationum... Gotthi quondam memorantur egressi" (De origine actibusque Getarum in Monumanta Germaniae Historic a, Auctvrum anttquissimorum, vol. 5, part 1 (Berolim, 1882), pp. 53-258 (quotation from p. 6 0 ) . A far-reaching debate on this question began after the rediscovery of Tacitus's De origine et situ Gomaniae, which was published in 1472.

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19- Gregoire de Tours, Historia Francorum ( 5 7 5 - 5 9 2 ) (Paris, 1692). 20. Fenelon, Les Aventures de Telemaque (Pans, 1 6 9 5 ) . 21. The reference is to Etat de la Frame dans lequel on vait tout ce que regarde le gouvernement ecclesiastique, le militaire, la justice, les finances, le commerre, les manufactures, le nomb/e des habitants, et en general tout ce qui peut faire comprendre a fond cette monarchic; extrat't des memoires dresses par les intendants du royaume, par ordre du ray Louis XIV a la sollicitation de Monseigneur le due de Bourgpgie, pere de Louis XV a present regnant. Avec des Memoires historiques sur I'ancient gouvemment de cette monarchic jusqu'a Hugues Capet, par M. le comte de Boulainvilliers, 2 vols, in folio (London, 1727). In 1728, a third volume appeared under the title Etatde la France, contenant XIV lettres sur les anciens Parlemens de France, avec I'histoire de ce royaume depuis le commencement de la monarchic jusqu'a Charles VIII. On y a joint des Me oires presented a M le due d'Orle'ans (London, 1728).
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22. Foucault is alluding to those of Boulamvilliers's historical works that deal with French political institutions. The most important are: Me oire sur la noblesse du wiaume de France fait par le comte de Boulainvilliers (1719; extracts are published in A. Devyver, Le Sange'pure. Les prejuges de race che^ les gentilhommes francais de VAntien Regime [Brussels: Editions de 1'Universite, 1973], pp. 5 0 0 - 4 8 ) ; Memoire pour la noblesse de France contre les Dues et Pairs, s.1. (1717); Memoires pre'sente's a Mgr. le due d Orleans, Regent de France (The Hague/Amsterdam, 1727); Histoire de I'ancient gouvemment de la France avec quator^e lettres historiques sur les Parlements ou Etats Ge'neraux, 3 vols. (The Hague/Amsterdam, 1727) (this is an abridged and revised edition of the Memoires); Traite sur I'origine et les droits de la noblesse ( 1 7 0 0 ) , in Continuation des memoires de litterature et d'histoire (Pans, 1 7 3 0 ) , vol. 9 , pp. 3 - 1 0 6 ( r e published, with numerous modifications, as Essais sur la noblesse contenant une dissertation sur son origiiie et abaissement, par le feu M. le Comte de Boulainvilliers, avec des notes historiques, critiques et politique s [Amsterdam, 1732]); Abrege chronologique de Vhistorie de France, 3 vols. (Pans, 1733); Histoire des anciens parlemans de France ou Etats Ge'neraux du royaume (London, 1737).
m }

23. The historical writings of L. G. comte de Buat-Nancay include Les Origines ou tAncient Gouvernement de la France, de l* Italic, de I'Al/emagtje (Paris, 1757 ); Histoire ancienne despeuples de I'Europe, 12 vols. (Paris, 1772); Elements de la politique, ou Recerche sur les vrais principes de I'economie sociale (London, 1773); Les Maximes du gpuvernement monarxhique pour servir de suite aux elements de la politique (London, 1778). 24. Of the many works by F. de Reynaud, comte de Montlosier, only those that relate to the problems raised by Foucault in his lecture will be mentioned here: De la monarchic francaise depuis son etablisscment fusqu'd nos jours, 3 vols. (Pans, 1814); Memoires sur la Revolution francaise, le Consulat VEmpirc, la Restauration et les principaux evenements qui Vont suivie (Pans, 1 8 3 0 ) . On Montlosier, see the lecture of 10 March below. 25. See L. G. comte de Buat-Nancay, Remarques d'un Franc_ais, ou Examen impartial du litre de M. Necker sur les finances (Geneva, 1785). 26. L. G. comte de Buat-Nanqay, Les Maximes du gpuvernement monarchique, pp. 286-87. 27. On this question, see J . N. Moreau, Plan des travaux littercdres ordonnes par Sa Majeste pour la rechetxhe, la collection et Vemploi des monuments d'histoire et du droit public de la monarchic francaise (Pans, 1782). 28. Cf. J . N. Moreau, Principes de morale, de politique et de droit public puises dans I'histoire de notre monarchic, ou discourse sur I'histoire de France, 21 vols. (Pans, 177^-1789).

seren

18

FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6

Nation decadence Germans.

and nations.

- The Roman conquest. - Boulainvilliers vase. - Origins

- Grandeur

and of the Church,

of the Romans. - The Soissons

on the Jreedom offeudalism. -

right, and the language generalizations institutions

of State. - Boulainvilliers:

three

about war: law of history of war, the calculation of forces.

and law of nature, the - Remarks on war.

L A S T T I M E , I T R I E D to show you h o w the n o b i l i a r y reaction w a s

bound up w i t h , not exactly the invention of historical discourse, b u t r a t h e r the shattering of a p r e e x i s t i n g historical discourse w h o s e function h a d until then been to sing t h e praises of Rome, as Petrarch puts it.
1

U n t i l then, historical discourse h a d been inferior to t h e State's

discourse about itself; i t s function w a s to demonstrate t h e State's r i g h t , to establish its sovereignty, to recount its u n i n t e r r u p t e d g e n e alogy, a n d to use heroes, exploits, a n d d y n a s t i e s to i l l u s t r a t e the l e gitimacy of p u b l i c right. The d i s r u p t i o n of t h e praise of Rome in the late seventeenth a n d early e i g h t e e n t h centuries came a b o u t in t w o w a y s . One the one hand, w e h a v e the recollection, the reactivation, of the fact of t h e invasion, w h i c h , as y o u w i l l remember, Protestant

historiography h a d already used as a n a r g u m e n t against royal absolutism. The evocation of t h e invasion introduced a major b r e a k in time: the Germanic invasion of the fourth to fifth centuries negates right. This is the moment w h e n p u b l i c right is destroyed, the moment w h e n the hordes flooding out of G e r m a n y put a n end to R o m a n

140

"SOCIETY

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BE

DEFENDED"

19. Gregoire de Tours, Histona francorum (575 -592) (Pans, 1692). 20. Fenelon, Les Aventures de Telemaque (Pans, 1695). 21. The reference is to Etal de la France dans lequel on to it tout ce que regarde le gouvernement e'cclesiastique, le militaire, la justice, les finances, le commerce, les manufactures, I enombre des habitants, et en general tout ce qui peut [aire comprendre a jond cette monarchic; extrait des memoires dresses par les intendants du royaume, par ordre du my Louis XIV a la sollicitation de Monseigneur le due de Bourgpgne, pere de Louis XV a present regpant. Avec des Memoires historiques sur Vancient gouvernment de cette monarchic jusqu'a Hugues Capet, par M. le comte de Boulainvilliers, 2 vols, in folio (London, 1727). In 1728, a third volume appeared under the title Etatde la France, contenant XIV lettres sur les anciens Parlemens de France, avec l histoire de ce royaume depuis le commencement de la monarchic jusqu'a Charles VIII. On y a joint des Memoires presenters a M le due d*Orleans (London, 1728).
f

22. Foucault is alluding to those of Boulainvilliers's historical works that deal with French political institutions. The most important are: Memoire sur la noblesse du roiaume de France fait par le comte de Boulainvilliers (1719; extracts are published in A. Devyver, Le Sangepure. Les prejuges de race chevies gentilhommes francais de VAncien Regime [Brussels: Editions de l'Universite, 1973], pp. 500-48); Memoire pour la noblesse de France contre les Dues et Pairs, s. 1. (1717); Memoires presenter a Mgr. le due d Orleans, Regent de France (The Hague/Amsterdam, 1727); Histoire de I'ancient gouvernment de la France avec quator%e lettres historiques sur les Parlements ou Etats Gencraux, 3 vols. (The Hague/Amsterdam, 1727) (this is an abridged and revised edition of the Memoires); I'raite sur I'origine et les droits de la noblesse (1700), in Continuation des memoires de litte'rature et d'histoire ( P a n s , 1730), vol. 9, pp. 3-106 ( r e published, with numerous modifications, as Essais sur la noblesse contenant une dissertation sur son on'gine et abaissement, par le feu M. le Comte de Boulainvilliers, avec des notes historiques, critiques et politiques [Amsterdam, 1732]); Abre'ge ch ronologique de Vhistoric de France, 3 vols. (Pans, 1733); Histoire des anciens parlemans de France ou Etats Ge'neraux du royaume (London,
f

1737).
23. The historical writings of L. G. comte de Buat-Nancay include Les Origines ou I'Ancient Gouvernement de la France, de I'ltalie, de I'AJlemagne ( Pans, 1757 ); Histoire ancienne despeuples de I'Europe, 12 vols. (Pans, 1772); Elements de la politique, ou Recerche sur les vrais principes de I'economie sociale (London, 177)); Les Maximes du gouvernement munarchique pour servir de suite aux elements de la politique (London, 1778). 24. Of the many works by F. de Reynaud, comte de Montlosier, only those that relate to the problems raised by Foucault m his lecture will be mentioned here: De la monarchic francaise depuis son etablissement jusqu'a nos jours, 3 vols. (Pans, 1814); Memoires sur la Revolution francaise, le Consulat l Empire, la Restauration et les principaux evenements qui I'ont suivie (Pans, 1830). On Montlosier, see the lecture of 10 March below. 25. See L. G. comte de Buat Nan<;ay, Remarques d'un Fran^ais, ou Examen impartial du litre de M. Necker sur les finances (Geneva, 178s). 26. L. G. comte de Buat-Nanc.ay, Les Maximes du gouvernement monatvhique, pp. 286-87. 27. On this question, see J. N. Moreau, Plan des travaux litteraires ordonnes par Sa Majeste pour la recherche, la collection et I'em plot' des monuments d'histoire et du droit public de la monarchic francaise (Paris, 1782). 28. Cf. J. N. Moreau, Principes de morale, de politique et de droit public puise's dans i'histoire denotre monaixhie, ou discourse sur I'histoirc de France. 21 vols. (Pans, 177~-1789).
f

seven

18

FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6

Nation decadence Germans.

and nations.

- The Roman conquest. - Boulainvilliers vase. - Origins

- Grandeur

and of the Church,

of the Romans. - The Soissons

on the freedom offeudalism. -

right, and the language generalizations * institutions

of State. - Boulainvilliers:

three

about war: law of history of war, the calculation

and law of nature, the - Remarks on war.

of forces.

L A S T T I M E , I T R I E D to s h o w you h o w the n o b i l i a r y reaction w a s

b o u n d u p w i t h , not e x a c t l y the invention of historical discourse, b u t r a t h e r the shattering of a p r e e x i s t i n g h i s t o r i c a l d i s c o u r s e w h o s e l u n c tion h a d until then been to sing t h e praises of R o m e , as Petrarch p u t s it.
1

Until then, historical discourse h a d been inferior to the State's

discourse about itself; its function w a s to d e m o n s t r a t e the State's right, to e s t a b l i s h its sovereignty, to recount its u n i n t e r r u p t e d g e n e alogy, a n d to use heroes, e x p l o i t s , a n d d y n a s t i e s to i l l u s t r a t e the l e g i t i m a c y of p u b l i c right. T h e d i s r u p t i o n of t h e praise of R o m e in the late seventeenth a n d early eighteenth centuries came about in t w o w a y s . O n e the one h a n d , w e have the recollection, the reactivation, of the fact of the invasion, which, as y o u will remember, Protestant

historiography h a d a l r e a d y used as an a r g u m e n t against royal absolutism. The evocation of the invasion introduced a major b r e a k in time: the Germanic invasion of the fourth to fifth centuries negates right. This is the moment when p u b l i c right is destroyed, the moment w h e n the hordes flooding out of G e r m a n y put an e n d to R o m a n

142

"SOCIETY

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

absolutism. The other break, the other d i s r u p t i v e p r i n c i p l e w h i c h is, I t h i n k , more i m p o r t a n t i s the i n t r o d u c t i o n of a n e w subject of history, b o t h in the sense that the historical narrative a c q u i r e s a new domain of objects, a n d in the sense that a n e w subject b e g i n s to speak in history. History is no longer the State t a l k i n g about itself; it is something else t a l k i n g about itself, a n d the something else that speaks in history a n d t a k e s itself a s the object of its own historical n a r r a t i v e is a sort of n e w entity k n o w n as the nation. " N a t i o n " is, of course, to be understood in t h e broad sense of the term. I w i l l t r y to come b a c k to t h i s point, as it is this notion of a nation that generates or g i v e s rise to notions l i k e n a t i o n a l i t y , race, a n d class. In the eighteenth century, this notion still has to be understood in a very b r o a d sense. It is t r u e that you can find in the Encyc/opedie w h a t I w o u l d call a

Statist definition of the nation because the encyclopedists give four c r i t e r i a for the existence of the nation.
2

First, it must be a great m u l -

t i t u d e of men; second, it must b e a g r e a t m u l t i t u d e of men i n h a b i t i n g a defined country; t h i r d , this defined country must be circumscribed by frontiers; fourth, t h e m u l t i t u d e of m e n w h o h a v e settled inside

those frontiers must obey the same l a w s a n d the s a m e government. So w e have here a definition of the nation w h i c h , so to speak, settles the nation w i t h i n the frontiers of the State on the one hand, a n d w i t h i n the v e r y form of the S t a t e on the other. This i s , I t h i n k , a p o l e m i c a l definition w h i c h w a s intended, if not to refute, at least to r u l e out the b r o a d definition that p r e v a i l e d at this time, and w h i c h we can find b o t h in texts p r o d u c e d b y the n o b i l i t y a n d in texts

p r o d u c e d by the bourgeoisie. A c c o r d i n g to this definition, the nobility w a s a nation, a n d the bourgeoisie w a s also a nation. A l l this w i l l be of vital importance d u r i n g the R e v o l u t i o n , and especially in Sieyes's t e x t about the T h i r d Estate, w h i c h I w i l l try to discuss. But this v a g u e , fluid, shifting notion of the nation, this idea of a nation that does not stop at the frontiers but w h i c h , on the contrary, is a sort of mass of i n d i v i d u a l s w h o move from one frontier to another, through
5

States, b e n e a t h States, a n d at an infra-State level, persists long into the nineteenth centuryin,
s

for

instance,

the

work

of

Augustin

Thierry,* Guizot,

a n d others.

18 February

7976

W e have, then, a new subject of history, and I w i l l try to show you how a n d w h y it w a s the n o b i l i t y t h a t introduced into the great Statist organization of historical discourse this d i s r u p t i v e principle: the nation a s subject-object of the n e w history. But w h a t w a s this n e w history, w h a t did it consist of, and h o w d i d it become established in the early eighteenth c e n t u r y ? I t h i n k t h a t the reasons w h y t h i s n e w t y p e of history is d e p l o y e d in the discourse of the French nobility become clear if w e compare it w i t h the n a t u r e of the English problem in the s e v e n t e e n t h century, or about one h u n d r e d years earlier. In the England of the late s i x t e e n t h a n d early seventeenth centuries, b o t h the p a r l i a m e n t a r y opposition and the p o p u l a r opposition had,

b a s i c a l l y , to solve a relatively s i m p l e problem. They h a d to d e m o n strate t h a t t h e r e w e r e b o t h t w o conflicting systems of r i g h t and t w o n a t i o n s in the English monarchy. On the one hand, there w a s a system of r i g h t corresponding to the N o r m a n nation: the aristocracy and the monarchy w e r e , so to speak, l u m p e d together. T h i s nation brought the

w i t h it an absolutist system of right, and it imposed it through

violence of the invasion. So: monarchy a n d aristocracy ( a b s o l u t i s t t y p e r i g h t a n d i n v a s i o n ) . That system h a d to be challenged by a s serting the s y s t e m of Saxon right: the r i g h t to basic freedoms, w h i c h just h a p p e n e d to be the r i g h t of the e a r l i e s t i n h a b i t a n t s and, at t h e s a m e time, the r i g h t t h a t w a s being d e m a n d e d b y the poorest, or at least b y those w h o d i d not b e l o n g to either the r o y a l family or a r i s tocratic families. So, t w o g r e a t systems. A n d the older and more l i b e r a l system h a d to prevail over the n e w s y s t e m t h a t h a d t h a n k s to the invasionintroduced absolutism. A s i m p l e problem. A c e n t u r y later, or at the end of the s e v e n t e e n t h and the b e g i n n i n g of the eighteenth centuries, the French nobility w a s obviously faced w i t h a much more c o m p l e x p r o b l e m because it had to fight on t w o fronts. On the one hand, against the monarchy and its usurpations of power; on the other, a g a i n s t the T h i r d Estate, w h i c h w a s t a k i n g adv a n t a g e of the absolute monarchy so as to t r a m p l e on the rights of the nobility and to use them to its o w n advantage. So, a s t r u g g l e on two fronts, b u t it cannot be w a g e d in the same w a y on both fronts. In its s t r u g g l e against the absolutism of the monarchy, the nobility

" S O C I E T Y

M U S T

B E

D E F E N D E D "

asserts its right to the basic freedoms w h i c h were supposedly enjoyed by the G e r m a n i c or Frankish people w h o i n v a d e d France at some point. So, in its s t r u g g l e against the monarchy, the nobility claims freedoms. But in the struggle against the T h i r d Estate, the nobility lays claim to the u n r e s t r i c t e d r i g h t s granted to it by the invasion. On the one h a n d , or in the struggle against the T h i r d Estate, it must, in other w o r d s , be a n absolute victor w i t h u n r e s t r i c t e d r i g h t s ; on the other hand, or in the struggle against the monarchy, it has to lay claim to an almost constitutional right to basic freedoms. Hence the c o m p l e x i t y of the p r o b l e m and hence, I t h i n k , the infinitely more sophisticated nature of the analysis that w e find in Boulainvilliers, c o m p a r e d to the analysis w e find a few decades earlier. But I w a n t to t a k e B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s s i m p l y as an e x a m p l e , because there w a s in fact a w h o l e nucleus, a w h o l e n e b u l a of noble historians who b e g a n to formulate their theories in the second half of the seventeenth 1670),
6

c e n t u r y ( t h e comte d'Estaing b e t w e e n about 1 6 6 0 and and they w e n t on doing so u n t i l the comte de B u a t - N a n c a y

8 7

and possibly the comte de M o n t l o s i e r ( w h o w a s w r i t i n g at the time of the R e v o l u t i o n ) , the Empire, and the Restoration. Boulainvillers p l a y s an i m p o r t a n t role because it w a s B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s who t r i e d to retranscribe the reports produced by the intendants for the due de Bourgogne, a n d w e can therefore take him as a point of reference and as a representative figure who can, provisionally, stand for all the others.
9

How does B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s m a k e his a n a l y s i s ? First question:

W h a t did the Franks find when they entered G a u l ? They obviously did not find the lost homeland to w h i c h they w a n t e d to return because of its w e a l t h and civilization ( a s the old historico-legendary story of the twelfth century w o u l d have it when it described the Franks as Gauls who h a d left their h o m e l a n d and then decided to go back to it at some p o i n t ) . The Gaul described by Boulainvilliers is by no means a happy, almost A r c a d i a n Gaul w h i c h had forgotten

C a e s a r ' s violence a n d h a d h a p p i l y merged into a n e w l y constituted unity. W h e n they entered Gaul, the Franks found a land that had been conquered. A n d the fact that it had been conquered meant that Roman absolutism, or the kingly or i m p e r i a l right that had been

1 8 February

1976

145

established by t h e Romans, w a s not a right that h a d been acclimatized to Gaul; it w a s not accepted, a n d d i d not fit in w i t h either the land or the people. This right w a s the result of the conquest; Gaul h a d been subjugated. The right that prevailed there w a s in no sense a consensual sovereignty; it w a s the result of domination. A n d it is the very mechanism of that domination, w h i c h lasted throughout the R o man occupation, that B o u l a i n v i l h e r s is trying to isolate by identifying a number of phases. W h e n the R o m a n s first entered Gaul, their i m m e d i a t e priority w a s obviously to disarm the w a r r i o r aristocracy, w h i c h had been the only m i l i t a r y force to put up any real opposition; they d i s a r m e d the a r i s tocracy a n d h u m i l i a t e d it in both political a n d economic t e r m s b y ( o r at least at the same t i m e a s ) artificially r a i s i n g up the common people and, according to B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s , using the idea of equality to seduce them. In other w o r d s , a device t y p i c a l of all despotisms ( a n d w h i c h h a d , as it h a p p e n s , been d e v e l o p e d in the R o m a n R e p u b l i c from A l a r ms to C a e s a r ) w a s used to convince inferiors t h a t a l i t t l e more e q u a l ity for t h e m w o u l d do t h e m more good than much greater freedom for all. A n d the result of this " e q u a h t a n z a t i o n " w a s a despotic government. In the same w a y , the R o m a n s m a d e Gaulish society more egalitarian by h u m b l i n g the n o b i l i t y , raising up the common people, and establishing their own C a e s a r i s m . This w a s the first phase, a n d it ended w i t h C a l i g u l a ' s systematic massacre of the former Gaulish

nobles w h o had resisted both the Romans and their characteristic policy of humiliation. W e then see the Romans creating the nobility they needed. T h i s w a s not a m i l i t a r y n o b i l i t y w h i c h m i g h t have opposed thembut an a d m i n i s t r a t i v e nobility that w a s designed to

help them organize a Roman Gaul and, above all, to assist them w i t h all the dishonest t r i c k s they w o u l d use to p l u n d e r the w e a l t h of G a u l and to ensure that the t a x system w o r k e d in t h e i r favor. So a new nobility was created, and it w a s a civilian, j u r i d i c a l , and a d m i n i s t r a t i v e nobility characterized, first, by its acute, sophisticated, a n d masterly u n d e r s t a n d i n g of Roman right, and second, by its k n o w l e d g e of the Roman language. It was its k n o w l e d g e of the language and its u n d e r s t a n d i n g of right that a l l o w e d a new nobility to emerge.

146

"SOCIETY

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

This description m a k e s it possible to dispel the old seventeenthcentury m y t h of a h a p p y a n d A r c a d i a n R o m a n Gaul. The refutation

of that myth w a s obviously a w a y of t e l l i n g the king of France: If you claim the r i g h t s of Roman absolutism, you are not l a y i n g claim to basic a n d essential r i g h t over the l a n d of Gaul, b u t to a specific and p a r t i c u l a r history whose t r i c k s are not especially honorable. You are at least inscribing yourself w i t h i n a mechanism of subjugation. W h a t is more, this Roman absolutism, w h i c h w a s established thanks to a certain number of m e c h a n i s m s of domination, w a s finally overthrown, s w e p t a w a y and defeated by the Germansand that had less to do

w i t h the contingencies of a m i l i t a r y defeat than w i t h an inevitable internal decay. This is the starting p o i n t for the second section of Boulainvilliers's a n a l y s i s t h e m o m e n t w h e n he analyzes the real effects of Rome's dominion over Gaul. W h e n they entered Gaul, the Germans ( o r F r a n k s ) found a c o n q u e r e d land that w a s the m i l i t a r y a r m a t u r e of Gaul.* The Romans n o w h a d no one to defend t h e m from invasions from across the R h i n e . Given t h a t they no l o n g e r h a d a n o b i l i t y , they h a d to turn to mercenaries in order to defend the Gaulish l a n d they were occupying. These mercenaries were not fighting their own cause, or to defend their o w n land, but for money. The existence of a m e r c e n a r y army, of a paid army, obviously i m p l i e s a very high level of taxation. Gaul therefore h a d to supply not only mercenaries b u t also the means to pay them. This h a d t w o effects. First, a considerable increase in taxes p a i d in cash. Second, an increase in the amount of money in circulation or, as w e w o u l d say today, devaluation. This leads to t w o things: M o n e y loses its value because it has been d e v a l u e d and, curiously enough, because it becomes increasingly scarce. The l a c k of money t h e n leads to a d o w n t u r n business and to general impoverishment. in

It is this state of general or

desolation that p r o v i d e s the context for the Frankish conquest

w h i c h , rather, makes it possible. G a u l ' s v u l n e r a b i l i t y to a Frankish

*"that was the military armature of Gaul" does not figure m the manuscript, which reads, "a country ruined by absolutism."

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invasion is b o u n d u p w i t h the fact that the country w a s in ruins, and the e x p l a n a t i o n for that is the existence of m e r c e n a r y armies. I w i l l come b a c k later to this t y p e of analysis. But the interesting t h i n g about i t a n d this should be pointed out s t r a i g h t a w a y i s that B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ' s analysis is a l r e a d y very different from the analyses w e find only a few decades e a r l i e r , w h e n t h e question that w a s b e i n g r a i s e d w a s e s s e n t i a l l y t h a t of p u b l i c r i g h t , or in other w o r d s : D i d R o m a n absolutism, a n d its s y s t e m of r i g h t , s u r v i v e t h e F r a n k i s h i n v a s i o n ? D i d the Franks abolish, l e g i t i m a t e l y or o t h e r w i s e , a sovereignty of the R o m a n t y p e ? That, b r o a d l y s p e a k i n g , w a s the historical problem that w a s b e i n g r a i s e d in the seventeenth century. For B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , t h e p r o b l e m is no longer w h e t h e r R o m a n r i g h t d i d or d i d not still exist, or w h e t h e r one r i g h t h a d t h e r i g h t to r e p l a c e another. Those p r o b l e m s are no longer being posed. The problem is u n d e r s t a n d i n g the i n t e r n a l reasons for the defeat, or in other w o r d s , u n d e r s t a n d i n g in w h a t sense the R o m a n government ( l e g i t i m a t e or

otherwise; that is not the p r o b l e m ) w a s logically a b s u r d or p o l i t i c a l l y contradictory. The famous problem of t h e g r a n d e u r a n d decadence of the Romans, w h i c h w i l l b e c o m e one of t h e great cliches of t h e h i s torical or political l i t e r a t u r e of the eighteenth c e n t u r y ,
10

a n d to w h i c h

M o n t e s q u i e u " w i l l r e t u r n long after B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , has a very precise m e a n i n g . W h a t i s , for the first t i m e , t a k i n g shape h e r e is a n analysis of the economico-pohtical type. A n e w model is t a k i n g shape, a n d the problem is no longer simply t h e p r o b l e m of the negation of r i g h t , of the c h a n g e of right, or of the transformation of an absolutist right into a G e r m a n i c - t y p e right. That is the first set of analyses that can be found in B o u l a i n v i l h e r s . I am s y s t e m a t i z i n g it all a bit, but just t r y i n g to save time. To move on from the p r o b l e m of Gaul a n d the Romans, the second problem, or the second set of problems, w h i c h I w i l l t a k e as an e x ample of B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ' s analyses, is the p r o b l e m he raises w i t h reg a r d to the Franks: Who are these Franks w h o came to G a u l ? This is the other side of the p r o b l e m I w a s just talking about: Whence the strength of these people w h o , although they were uncouth, b a r b a r o u s , I'm

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and relatively few in number, could actually invade Gaul a n d destroy the most powerful e m p i r e that history had k n o w n until t h e n ? It is the strength of the Franks and the w e a k n e s s of the Romans t h a t have to be e x p l a i n e d . To b e g i n w i t h t h e strength of the Franks: T h e y enjoyed something the Romans b e l i e v e d they had to do w i t h o u t : the existence of a w a r r i o r aristocracy. The w h o l e of Frankish society was organized a r o u n d its w a r r i o r s , w h o , although they w e r e b a c k e d u p by a w h o l e series of people w h o w e r e serfs ( o r at least servants d e p e n d e n t on c l i e n t s ) , w e r e basically the F r a n k i s h people itself, as the G e r m a n people consists essentially of Leute or kudes, or people who

are all m e n - a t - a r m s , or the v e r y opposite of mercenaries. W h a t is more, these m e n - a t - a r m s or aristocratic w a r r i o r s elect their king, but his only function is to settle d i s p u t e s and juridical problems in peacetime. Its k i n g s are civil magistrates, and nothing more than that. What is more, these k i n g s are chosen by the general consent of g r o u p s of leudes, or groups of men-at a r m s . It is only in times of w a r w h e n a they elect a

strong organization and one power a r e neededthat

l e a d e r , and his l e a d e r s h i p obeys very different p r i n c i p l e s and is a b solute. The leader is a w a r l o r d who is not necessarily the king of civil society b u t w h o may, in certain circumstances, become its king. Someone such as Clovisof [ . . . ] historical importance w a s both civil judge, the civilian magistrate w h o h a d been chosen to resolve d i s p u t e s , a n d w a r l o r d . A t all events, w h a t w e h a v e h e r e is a society in w h i c h p o w e r is minimal, at least in peacetime; it follows t h a t freedom is maximal. Now, w h a t is this freedom that is enjoyed by the members of this w a r r i o r a r i s t o c r a c y ? It is c e r t a i n l y not freedom in the sense of independence, nor is it the freedom that, basically, allows one to respect others. The freedom enjoyed by these G e r m a n i c w a r r i o r s w a s essentially the freedom of egoism, of greeda t a s t e for battle, conquest, and p l u n d e r . The freedom of these warriors is not the freedom of

tolerance a n d equality for all; it is a freedom t h a t can be exercised only through domination. Far from being a freedom based upon respect, it is, in other w o r d s , a freedom based upon ferocity. A n d w h e n he traces the etymology of the w o r d Franc, B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ' s follower

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Freret s a y s t h a t it c e r t a i n l y does not mean "free" in the sense in w h i c h w e n o w u n d e r s t a n d the word; essentially, it m e a n s " ferocious," Jerox. The w o r d franc ferox; has e x a c t l y the same connotations as the Latin w o r d unfavorable

according to Freret, it has all its favorable a n d

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m e a n i n g s . It means "proud, i n t r e p i d , h a u g h t y , c r u e l . "

Here w e h a v e

the b e g i n n i n g s of the famous g r e a t p o r t r a i t of the " b a r b a r i a n " w h i c h w e will go on finding until the late nineteenth century and, of course, in Nietzsche, [for w h o m ] freedom w i l l be equivalent to a ferocity defined a s a taste for p o w e r a n d d e t e r m i n e d g r e e d , an i n a b i l i t y to serve others, a n d constant desire to subjugate others; " u n p o l i s h e d and r o u g h m a n n e r s , a hatred of R o m a n names, t h e Roman l a n g u a g e a n d R o m a n customs. Brave lovers of freedom, bold, fickle, faithless, eager for gain, i m p a t i e n t , restless,"*' et cetera. These are the e p i t h e t s B o u l a i n v i l h e r s a n d h i s successors u s e to d e s c r i b e this n e w great b l o n d b a r b a r i a n w h o , t h a n k s to t h e i r t e x t s , m a k e s h i s solemn e n t r y into European historyI mean into European h i s t o r i o g r a p h y . This portrait of the g r e a t blond ferocity of the G e r m a n s m a k e s it possible to e x p l a i n , first of a l l , h o w , w h e n these Frankish w a r r i o r s came to Gaul, they s i m p l y could not a n d w o u l d not be a s s i m i l a t e d into the G a l l o - R o m a n s and, more specifically, w h y they c o m p l e t e l y refused to s u b m i t to t h i s i m p e r i a l r i g h t . T h e y w e r e much too free, by w h i c h I mean too p r o u d , too arrogant, a n d so on, not to prevent t h e i r w a r l o r d from b e c o m i n g a sovereign in t h e R o m a n sense of the w o r d . T h e i r freedom m a d e t h e m far too intent on conquest a n d d o m i n a t i o n not to seize the l a n d of G a u l for themselves on an i n d i v i d u a l b a s i s . T h e F r a n k i s h victory therefore d i d not m a k e t h e i r w a r l o r d the o w n e r of the l a n d of Gaul, b u t each of h i s w a r r i o r s benefited, d i r e c t l y a n d in his o w n right, from the victory a n d conquest. Each w a r r i o r claimed for himself a piece of the land of Gaul. These are the distant b e g i n nings of feudalism; I w i l l omit the d e t a i l s of B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ' s analysis, as they are so complicated. Each w a r r i o r a c t u a l l y seized a piece of land; the k i n g o w n e d only his o w n l a n d , a n d therefore h a d no Romans t y l e r i g h t of s o v e r e i g n t y over the w h o l e of the land of Gaul. Because
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*Quotation marks in the manuscript.

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they had become i n d e p e n d e n t and i n d i v i d u a l landowners, there was no reason for t h e m to accept a king who ruled over them and who w a s , in some sense, the heir to the Roman emperors. This is the b e g i n n i n g of the story of the vase of Soissonsagain, I should say the historiography of the vase of Soissons. W h a t is the s t o r y ? You p r o b a b l y read it in y o u r school textbooks. It w a s made up by B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , his predecessors, and his successors. They all b o r r o w e d the story from Gregory of Tours, a n d it became one of the cliches of their i n t e r m i n a b l e h i s t o r i c a l discussions. W h e n , after some b a t t l e or otherI can't remember w h i c h C l o v i s w a s sharing out the booty, or rather p r e s i d i n g as a civilian magistrate over the sharing out of the booty, you k n o w , w h e n h e saw a certain vase, he said, "I w a n t that," b u t a w a r r i o r got up a n d said: "You don't have any right to that vase. You might w e l l be k i n g , b u t you w i l l share the booty w i t h the rest of us. You have no p r e e m p t i v e rights, you have no prior or absolute right over the spoils of war. A l l the victors have an a b solute right to the spoils of w a r : they have to be shared out, a n d the k i n g has no p r e e m i n e n t right." This is the first phase of the story of the vase of Soissons. W e will look later at the second. B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ' s description of a G e r m a n i c community therefore
14

allows him to explain w h y Germans completely rejected the Roman organization of p o w e r . But it also allows h i m to e x p l a i n how and why a small n u m b e r of poor people were able to conquer and hold the rich a n d populous land of Gaul. Once again, the comparison to Eng l a n d is interesting. You will recall that the English were faced w i t h exactly the same p r o b l e m : H o w w a s it that s i x t y thousand N o r m a n warriors succeeded in settling in and holding England? Boulainvilhers h a s the same problem. A n d this is how he resolves it. He says this: The reason w h y the Franks w e r e able to survive in the l a n d they had conquered is that the first precaution they took w a s not only not to give the Gauls arms, but to confiscate their weapons. W h i c h left a m i l i t a r y caste that w a s both clearly differentiated from other castes a n d quite isolated from the rest of the country. It w a s a m i l i t a r y caste, and it w a s purely Germanic. The Gauls no longer h a d any weapons, but on the other hand, they w e r e left in actual possession of their

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lands, precisely because warfare was the only occupation of the G e r mans or Franks. The Franks fought, and the Gauls remained on their land and farmed it. T h e y w e r e merely r e q u i r e d to p a y certain taxes to allow the Germans to c a r r y out their m i l i t a r y functions. The taxes were certainly not light, but they were much less onerous than the t a x e s the Romans h a d tried to levy. They were much less onerous because they w e r e , in q u a n t i t a t i v e terms, lower, but above all because, when the R o m a n s d e m a n d e d monetary t a x e s to pay their mercenaries, the peasants could not pay them. They w e r e now being a s k e d only for t a x e s that w e r e p a i d in k i n d , and they could a l w a y s pay them. To that extent, there w a s no longer any hostility b e t w e e n the peasant Gauls, w h o w e r e m e r e l y b e i n g asked to pay t a x e s in kind, and the w a r r i o r caste. W e therefore have a h a p p y and stable Frankish Gaul w h i c h is m u c h less impoverished than R o m a n Gaul w a s at the end of the R o m a n occupation. A c c o r d i n g to B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , the F r a n k s and the Gauls lived h a p p i l y side b y side. Both w e r e free to enjoy w h a t they h a d in peace: the Franks w e r e h a p p y because the i n d u s trious Gauls provided for their needs, and the Gauls w e r e h a p p y because the Franks gave them security. W e h a v e here the sort of nucleus of what Boulainvilliers dreamed up: feudalism as the

historico-juridical system characteristic of society, of European s o c i eties from the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries d o w n to almost the fifteenth. U n t i l B o u l a i n v i l h e r s a n a l y z e d it, this system of feudalism

had been identified b y neither h i s t o r i a n s nor jurists. Such w a s the climate of the j u r i d i c o - p o l i t i c a l u n i t y of feudalism: a contented m i l i t a r y caste s u p p o r t e d and fed by a peasant population that p a i d it

taxes in k i n d . That, so to speak, was the climate of t h e j u r i d i c o p o l i t i c a l unity of feudalism. I w o u l d also like to isolate the t h i r d set of facts t h a t B o u l a i n v i l h e r s analyzes, b e c a u s e t h e y a r e important. I refer to the sequence of events w h e r e b y the n o b i l i t y , or rather the w a r r i o r aristocracy, that had settled in France g r a d u a l l y lost most of its w e a l t h and p o w e r and, u l timately, found itself b e i n g held in check by monarchical power.

B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ' s a n a l y s i s is r o u g h l y a s follows: The k i n g of the F r a n k s w a s originally a t e m p o r a r y k i n g in t w o senses. On the one hand, he

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w a s a p p o i n t e d w a r l o r d only for the d u r a t i o n of the w a r . The absolute character of his power lasted, therefore, only so long as the w a r itself. On the other h a n d , and to the extent that he w a s a civil magistrate, he did not necessarily have to belong to one p a r t i c u l a r d y n a s t y . There w a s no right of succession, a n d he had to be elected. N o w this sovereign, w h o w a s a t e m p o r a r y king in two senses, g r a d u a l l y became the p e r m a n e n t , h e r e d i t a r y , a n d absolute monarch w i t h whom most European m o n a r c h i e s a n d especially the French m o n a r c h y w e r e fam i l i a r . How did this transformation come a b o u t ? First, because of the conquest itself, because of its m i l i t a r y success. Because a small a r m y had settled in an i m m e n s e country w h i c h could be assumed, at least at first, to be hostile to it. It w a s therefore natural that the Frankish army s h o u l d r e m a i n on a w a r footing in the Gaul it h a d just occupied. A s a result, the m a n w h o h a d been w a r l o r d only for the d u r a t i o n of the w a r became b o t h w a r l o r d a n d civilian l e a d e r . The v e r y fact of the occupation k e p t the m i l i t a r y organization intact. It w a s kept intact, but not w i t h o u t problems, not w i t h o u t difficulties, a n d not w i t h o u t rebellions on the part of the Franks themselveson the part of Frankish w a r r i o r s w h o did not agree that a m i l i t a r y dictatorship should b e m a i n t a i n e d i n p e a c e t i m e . In order to r e t a i n h i s p o w e r , the k i n g w a s therefore obliged to turn to mercenaries, and he found them either among the v e r y Gaulish people w h o should have been left disarmed, or among foreigners. For all these reasons, the w a r r i o r aristocracy b e g a n to find itself being squeezed b e t w e e n a monarchic p o w e r that w a s trying to preserve its absolute character, a n d the Gaulish people, w h o w e r e g r a d u a l l y b e i n g asked by the monarch himself to support his absolute p o w e r . W h i c h b r i n g s us to the second episode in the story of the Soissons vase. This is the moment w h e n C l o v i s , who could not stomach being told not to touch the vase, w a s r e v i e w i n g a m i l i t a r y parade a n d noticed the w a r r i o r w h o had told him not to touch the said vase. Taking his great a x , the good C l o v i s smashed the w a r r i o r ' s skull in, telling him: " R e m e m b e r the Soissons vase." Here w e have the precise moment at w h i c h the man w h o should have been nothing more than a civilian m a g i s t r a t e C l o v i s h o l d s on to the m i l i t a r y form of his

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power, but uses it to settle a civil d i s p u t e . The absolute monarch is b o r n at the moment w h e n the m i l i t a r y form of p o w e r a n d d i s c i p l i n e b e g i n s to organize civilian right. The second a n d more significant operation that a l l o w s civil power to t a k e an absolutist form is as follows: On the one hand, then, the civil p o w e r appeals to the people of G a u l to recruit a b a n d of m e r cenaries. B u t another alliance is also formed, a n d this t i m e it is a n alliance b e t w e e n royal p o w e r a n d the o l d G a u l i s h aristocracy. This i s h o w B o u l a m v i l h e r s a n a l y z e s it. H e says: W h e n the Franks came, w h i c h strata of the p o p u l a t i o n of G a u l w e r e w o r s t affected? It w a s not so much the peasants ( w h o s e m o n e t a r y t a x e s were transformed

into taxes in k i n d ) , as the G a u l i s h aristocracy, w h o s e l a n d s w e r e , of course, confiscated b y the G e r m a n a n d F r a n k i s h w a r r i o r s . It w a s t h i s aristocracy t h a t w a s effectively dispossessed. It suffered as a r e s u l t , so w h a t d i d it d o ? G i v e n that it no longer h a d its l a n d s a n d that the R o m a n State no longer e x i s t e d , there w a s only one refuge left; its only r e m a i n i n g s h e l t e r w a s the c h u r c h . The G a u l i s h aristocracy therefore took refuge in the church. It not only d e v e l o p e d the a p p a r a t u s of the church; it also used the church to increase a n d e x p a n d its influence over the people b y p u t t i n g a w h o l e system of beliefs into c i r c u l a t i o n . It w a s also the church t h a t a l l o w e d it to improve its k n o w l e d g e of L a t i n , and t h i r d , it w a s in the church that it s t u d i e d R o m a n l a w , a n d that w a s a n absolutist form of l a w . W h e n the Frankish sovereigns h a d to rely on the s u p p o r t of the people i n t h e i r struggle against the Germanic aristocracy a n d at the same t i m e to found a State ( o r at least a m o n a r c h y ) of the Roman t y p e , what better allies c o u l d t h e y hope to find t h a n these m e n w h o h a d such influence o v e r the p e o p l e on the one h a n d , a n d w h o , because they spoke L a t i n , w e r e so familiar with R o m a n l a w , on the other? The G a u l i s h aristocrats, the G a u l i s h nobility who h a d t a k e n refuge in the church, q u i t e n a t u r a l l y became the n a t u r a l allies of the n e w monarchs once t h e y b e g a n to establish t h e i r absolutism. A n d so the State, w i t h its Latin, its R o m a n l a w , a n d its legal k n o w l e d g e , became the g r e a t a l l y of the absolute monarchy. So you see, B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ascribes g r e a t importance to w h a t m i g h t be t e r m e d the language of k n o w l e d g e s , or the l a n g u a g e - k n o w l e d g e

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system. He shows how the w a r r i o r aristocracy w a s completely b y passed by the a l l i a n c e b e t w e e n the monarchy a n d the people, a n d that alliance w a s based on the State, Latin, and a k n o w l e d g e of the law. Latin became the language of the State, the language of knowledge, and the language of the law. The nobility lost its p o w e r to the extent that it belonged to a different l i n g u i s t i c system. The nobility spoke G e r m a n i c l a n g u a g e s a n d did not u n d e r s t a n d Latin. Which meant that when the n e w system of right w a s b e i n g established b y ordinances in Latin, it did not even u n d e r s t a n d w h a t w a s h a p p e n i n g to it. A n d it understood so l i t t l e a n d it w a s so i m p o r t a n t that it did not understandthat the church on the one hand, and the k i n g on the other, did all they could to ensure that the nobility r e m a i n e d in the dark. B o u l a i n v i l h e r s traces the whole history of how the nobility w a s edu c a t e d by s h o w i n g that the reason the church p l a c e d such emphasis on the afterlife, w h i c h it described as the sole reason for being in this w o r l d , w a s basically that it w a n t e d to convince the w e l l - e d u c a t e d that nothing that h a p p e n e d in this w o r l d w a s of any importance, and that t h e i r true destiny lay in the n e x t world. A n d so it w a s that the

G e r m a n s , w h o had been so eager to possess a n d to dominate, the g r e a t blond w a r r i o r s w h o had b e e n so a t t a c h e d to the present, w e r e g r a d u a l l y transformed into a r c h e t y p a l k n i g h t s and archetypal crusaders w h o took no interest in w h a t w a s going on on their own lands and in their o w n country, a n d w h o found themselves dispossessed of t h e i r fortune and t h e i r p o w e r . The Crusadesthose great p i l g r i m a g e s into the b e y o n d w e r e , in B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ' s v i e w , an expression or manifestation of w h a t h a p p e n e d w h e n this n o b i l i t y ' s attention w a s fully concentrated on the next world. W h a t w a s happening in this world, or in other words, on their lands, w h i l e they were in J e r u s a l e m ? The king, the church, a n d the old G a u l i s h aristocracy w e r e m a n i p u l a t i n g the Latin laws that w o u l d dispossess t h e m of their lands and their rights. Hence B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ' s callfor w h a t ? Essentiallyand this runs throughout the whole of his w o r k h e does not, like the historiographers (and popular historiographers) of parlementaire seventeenth-

century England, call for a rebellion on the p a r t of nobles w h o h a r e

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been dispossessed of t h e i r r i g h t s . W h a t the nobility is being invited to do is, essentially, to open u p its k n o w l e d g e , to reopen its o w n m e m o r y , to become a w a r e a n d to recuperate both expertise and k n o w l e d g e . This is w h a t B o u l a i n v i l h e r s is i n v i t i n g the nobility to do in the first instance: "You w i l l not r e g a i n power if you do not regain the status of the k n o w l e d g e s of w h i c h you have been dispossessed or which, rather, you have never t r i e d to possess. The fact is that you have a l w a y s fought without realizing that there comes a point w h e n the real b a t t l e , or at least the battle w i t h i n society, is no longer fought w i t h weapons, but w i t h k n o w l e d g e . " O u r ancestors, says Boulainvilhers, took a perverse p r i d e in not k n o w i n g w h o they w e r e . Their constant a b i l i t y to forget w h o they w e r e seems to have b o r d e r e d on i m b e c i l i t y or b e w i t c h m e n t . G a i n i n g a n e w self-awareness and tracing the sources of k n o w l e d g e and m e m o r y means denouncing all the m y s tifications of history. If it reinserts itself into the w e b of k n o w l e d g e , the nobility can become a force once more, and can establish itself as the subject of history. So if it w i s h e s to become a historical force, that implies that it must, in the first instance, a c q u i r e a new self-awareness and reinsert itself into the order of k n o w l e d g e . Those are some of the themes I have identified in the voluminous w o r k s of Boulainvilhers, a n d they a p p e a r to me to introduce a t y p e of a n a l y s i s that w i l l be of fundamental importance for all historicopohtical a n a l y s e s from the seventeenth c e n t u r y until the present day. W h y are these a n a l y s e s i m p o r t a n t ? First, because of the g e n e r a l primacy they accord to w a r . But I t h i n k that the really i m p o r t a n t t h i n g a b o u t them, g i v e n t h a t the p r i m a c y accorded to w a r b y these analyses takes the form of the relationship of w a r , is the role B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s g i v e s to that relationship of w a r . N o w I t h i n k that in order to use w a r as a general social a n a l y z e r in the w a y that he does, B o u l a i n v i l h e r s has to generalize w a r in three successive or superimposed w a y s . First, he g e n e r a l i z e s it w i t h respect to the foundations of right; second, he generalizes it w i t h respect to the battle form; and third, he generalizes it w i t h respect to the fact of the invasion and a second phenomenon

that is the invasion's corollary: rebellion. I w o u l d like to look a little at these three generalizations.

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First, g e n e r a l i z a t i o n of w a r w i t h respect to right and the foundations of right. In the earlier analyses of the French parlementaires of

t h e seventeenth century and the English p a r l i a m e n t a r i a n s of the same period, war is a sort of d i s r u p t i v e episode that s u s p e n d s and overturns right. W a r is the ferryman who makes it possible to move from one system of r i g h t to another. In B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , w a r does not play that role; war does not d i s r u p t right. W a r in fact completely conceals right, and even n a t u r a l right, to such an e x t e n t that right becomes unreal, abstract, and, in a sense, fictive. B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s advances three argum e n t s to prove that war has completely concealed right, to such an extent that right becomes no more than a useless abstraction. He argues this in three w a y s . He first speaks in the historical mode and says that you can study history as long as you l i k e , and in any w a y that you l i k e , but you will never discover any natural rights. Natural rights do not e x i s t in any society, no matter w h a t it may b e . W h e n historians t h i n k they find in Saxon or C e l t i c society a sort of little outcrop, a l i t t l e island of natural right, they are completely mistaken. No matter w h e r e w e look, we find only either w a r itself ( b e n e a t h the French, w e find the Frankish invasion; b e n e a t h the Gallo-Romans, we find the R o m a n i n v a s i o n ) or the i n e q u a l i t i e s that result from w a r s and violence. The Gauls, for e x a m p l e , w e r e d i v i d e d into aristocrats and nonaristocrats. W e also find an aristocracy and a people among the M e d e s and the Persians. W h i c h obviously goes to prove that behind that division there w e r e struggles, violence, and w a r s . And

w h e n e v e r w e see the differences b e t w e e n the aristocracy and the people diminishing, w e can be s u r e that the State is about to s i n k into decadence. Once t h e i r aristocracies became decadent, Greece and

Rome lost their status and even ceased to exist as States. Inequality is e v e r y w h e r e , violence creates i n e q u a l i t i e s e v e r y w h e r e , and w a r s are e v e r y w h e r e . No society can last w i t h o u t this sort of w a r l i k e tension b e t w e e n an aristocracy and the popular masses. This same idea is now a p p l i e d at the theoretical level. Boulainvil h e r s says: It is of course conceivable that a sort of p r i m i t i v e freedom did exist before there w a s any domination, any power, any war, or any servitude, but such freedom i s conceivable only if there is no

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relationship of domination b e t w e e n any of the i n d i v i d u a l s concerned. A freedom in w h i c h everyone, in w h i c h every i n d i v i d u a l i s the combination

equal of every other i n d i v i d u a l , this freedom-equality

can, in reality, only be something that has no force a n d no content. B e c a u s e . . . w h a t i s freedom? Freedom obviously does not consist in b e i n g prevented from t r a m p l i n g on someone else's freedom, because at that point it ceases to be freedom. The first criterion that defines freedom is the a b i l i t y to deprive others of their freedom. W h a t w o u l d b e the point of b e i n g free and w h a t , in concrete t e r m s , w o u l d it m e a n , if one could not t r a m p l e on the freedom of others? That i s the p r i m a r y expression of freedom. A c c o r d i n g to B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , freedom is the direct opposite of e q u a l i t y . It is something that is enjoyed t h a n k s to difference, domination, a n d w a r , t h a n k s to a w h o l e system of relations of force. A freedom that cannot b e t r a n s l a t e d into a n o n e g a h t a n a n relationship of force can only be a freedom that it i s w e a k , impotent, a n d abstract. This idea is now a p p l i e d in b o t h historical a n d theoretical t e r m s . B o u l a i n v i l h e r s s a y s ( a n d once again, I a m b e i n g v e r y s c h e m a t i c ) : Let us accept the fact that n a t u r a l right d i d a c t u a l l y exist at some point, that at the founding moment of h i s t o r y t h e r e d i d e x i s t a r i g h t t h a t m a d e people both free a n d e q u a l . The w e a k n e s s of t h i s freedom is such that, precisely because it is an abstract, fictive freedom w i t h no real content, it w i l l i n e v i t a b l y b e defeated b y the historical force of a freedom that functions as n o n e q u a h t y . And w h i l e it is true that somet h i n g r e s e m b l i n g t h i s n a t u r a l freedom, t h i s e g a l i t a r i a n freedom or t h i s natural r i g h t , d i d e x i s t s o m e w h e r e or at some point, it w a s p o w e r l e s s to resist the l a w of history, w h i c h s t a t e s that freedom is strong, v i g orous, and meaningful only w h e n it is the freedom of the few a n d w h e n it e x i s t s at the expense of others, only w h e n a society can guarantee an essential n o n e q u a h t y . The e g a l i t a r i a n l a w of n a t u r e i s w e a k e r than the n o n e g a h t a n a n l a w of history. It is therefore natural that the e g a l i t a r i a n l a w of n a t u r e should have given w a y o n a permanent basisto the n o n e g a h t a n a n l a w of history. It w a s because it w a s primal that n a t u r a l right w a s not, as the jurists claim, foundational; it w a s foreclosed b y the greater

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vigor of history. The l a w of history is a l w a y s stronger than the l a w of nature. This is w h a t B o u l a i n v i l h e r s is a r g u i n g w h e n he says that history finally created a n a t u r a l l a w that m a d e freedom and equality a n t i t h e t i c a l , a n d that this natural l a w is stronger than the l a w ins c r i b e d in w h a t is k n o w n as natural right. The fact that history is stronger than n a t u r e e x p l a i n s , u l t i m a t e l y , w h y history has completely concealed nature. W h e n history b e g i n s , n a t u r e can no longer speak, because in the w a r b e t w e e n history a n d nature, history a l w a y s has the upper hand. T h e r e is a relationship of force b e t w e e n n a t u r e a n d history, a n d it is definitely in history's favor. So n a t u r a l right does not exist, or exists only insofar as it has been defeated: it is a l w a y s h i s t o r y ' s great loser, it is "the other" ( l i k e the Gauls w h o lost to the Romans, l i k e the Gallo Romans w h o lost to the G e r m a n s ) . History is, if you l i k e , G e r m a n i t y , as opposed to n a t u r e . So, a first g e n e r a l i zation: R a t h e r than d i s t u r b i n g or i n t e r r u p t i n g it, w a r conceals history completely. Second g e n e r a l i z a t i o n of w a r w i t h respect to the b a t t l e form: A c c o r d i n g to B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , it i s t r u e that c o n q u e s t s , invasions, a n d the b a t t l e s that are lost a n d won do establish a relationship of force; b u t the relationship of force that finds its expression in the battle w a s , basically, a l r e a d y established, and it w a s established b y something

other than e a r l i e r battles. So w h a t is it that establishes the relationship of force and ensures that one nation will w i n the b a t t l e a n d that the other w i l l lose i t ? Well, it is the nature and organization of m i l itary i n s t i t u t i o n s ; it is the a r m y ; it is m i l i t a r y institutions. T h e s e are important because, on the one hand, they obviously m a k e it possible to w i n victories, b u t also because, on the other hand, they also m a k e it possible to a r t i c u l a t e society as a whole. A c c o r d i n g to B o u l a i n v i l hers, the important t h i n g , t h e t h i n g t h a t m a k e s w a r both the starting point for an analysis of society a n d the deciding factor in social organization, is the problem of m i l i t a r y organization or, q u i t e s i m p l y , this: W h o has the w e a p o n s ? The organization of the G e r m a n s w a s essentially based u p o n the fact that somethe leudeshad weapons

a n d that others d i d not. The characteristic feature of the regime of F r a n k i s h Gaul w a s that it took the precaution of taking the G a u l s '

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w e a p o n s from t h e m a n d reserving t h e m for t h e Germans ( w h o , b e cause t h e y w e r e m e n - a t - a r m s , h a d to b e s u p p o r t e d by t h e G a u l s ) . Things began to change for the worse w h e n the l a w s governing the social d i s t r i b u t i o n of w e a p o n s become confused, when the Romans began to employ mercenaries, w h e n the Frankish k i n g s o r g a n i z e d m i litias, a n d w h e n P h i l i p A u g u s t u s began to u s e foreign k n i g h t s , a n d so on. From t h i s point o n w a r d , the s i m p l e organization that a l l o w e d the G e r m a n s , a n d only t h e G e r m a n s , or t h e w a r r i o r aristocracy to o w n w e a p o n s , c o l l a p s e d in confusion. The p r o b l e m of who has the w e a p o n s is of course b o u n d u p w i t h certain technical problems, a n d it is in that sense t h a t it can provide the s t a r t i n g point for a general a n a l y s i s of society. K n i g h t s , for e x a m p l e , are s y n o n y m o u s w i t h lances and heavy armor but also with a n u m e r i c a l l y small army of rich men. " A r c h e r , " in contrast, is synonymous w i t h light armor and a large army. A s w e can see, this p o i n t s to a whole series of economic and institutional problems. If there is an a r m y of k n i g h t s , a heavy a n d n u m e r i c a l l y s m a l l a r m y of k n i g h t s , the p o w e r s of the k i n g are o b v i o u s l y l i m i t e d , as a k i n g cannot afford such an expensive a r m y of k n i g h t s . The k n i g h t s themselves will be obliged to pay for their own u p k e e p . A n army of foot soldiers, in contrast, is a numerically large a r m y , and a king can afford such an a r m y . Hence the growth of royal p o w e r , but hence too the increase in taxation. So you see, t h i s time it is not because it t a k e s the form of an invasion that w a r leaves i t s m a r k on t h e social body; it is b e cause, t h r o u g h the i n t e r m e d i a r y of m i l i t a r y i n s t i t u t i o n s , it has general effects on the civil o r d e r as a w h o l e . It is therefore no l o n g e r the simple d u a l i t y b e t w e e n i n v a d e r s and i n v a d e d or victors a n d v a n q u i s h e d , the memory of the B a t t l e of Hastings or of the Frankish

invasion, t h a t serves as social a n a l y z e r . It is no longer the s i m p l e binary mechanism t h a t p u t s the seal of w a r on the entire social body; it is a w a r that begins before the b a t t l e a n d continues after it is over. It is w a r insofar a s it is a w a y of w a g i n g w a r , a w a y of p r e p a r i n g for and organizing war. W a r in the sense of the d i s t r i b u t i o n of w e a p o n s , the n a t u r e of the weapons, fighting techniques, the recruitment a n d payment of soldiers, the taxes e a r m a r k e d for the army; w a r as an

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internal institution, and not the r a w event of a battle. This is the operator in B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ' s analyses. H e succeeds in w r i t i n g the h i s tory of France because he constantly traces t h e connecting t h r e a d that, b e h i n d the b a t t l e a n d b e h i n d t h e invasion, b r i n g s into b e i n g the m i l i t a r y institution a n d , g o i n g b e y o n d the m i l i t a r y i n s t i t u t i o n , all the c o u n t r y ' s i n s t i t u t i o n s a n d its w h o l e economy. W a r is a g e n e r a l economy of weapons, an economy of a r m e d people a n d d i s a r m e d people w i t h i n a g i v e n State, a n d w i t h a l l the i n s t i t u t i o n a l a n d economic series t h a t derive from that. It is this formidable generalization of w a r , as o p p o s e d to w h a t it still meant for the historians of the seventeenth century, t h a t g i v e s B o u l a i n v i l h e r s the important dimension I a m t r y ing to show you. The t h i r d a n d final g e n e r a l i z a t i o n of w a r that w e find in B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s ' s analysis is m a d e not w i t h respect to the fact of the battle but w i t h respect to the invasion-rebellion system. Invasion a n d r e b e l l i o n w e r e the t w o main elements that w e r e i n t r o d u c e d to r e d i s cover t h e w a r t h a t goes on w i t h i n societies ( i n , for e x a m p l e , the English h i s t o r i o g r a p h y of t h e seventeenth c e n t u r y ) . Boulainvilliers's problem is not then simply to discover w h e n the invasion took place, or w h a t t h e effects of the invasion w e r e ; nor does it s i m p l y consist in s h o w i n g w h e t h e r there w a s or w a s not a rebellion. W h a t he w a n t s to show is h o w a certain relationship of force, w h i c h h a d been revealed by t h e battle and t h e invasion, w a s g r a d u a l l y , a n d for obscure reasons, inverted. T h e p r o b l e m of t h e English historiographers w a s that they h a d to look e v e r y w h e r e , at all institutions, so as to find out w h e r e the strong ( t h e N o r m a n s ) were, a n d w h e r e the w e a k ( t h e S a x o n s ) w e r e . B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s ' s problem is to discover how the strong became w e a k , a n d how the w e a k became strong. The g r e a t e r part of h i s a n a l ysis is devoted to the p r o b l e m of t h e transition from strength to w e a k n e s s , a n d from w e a k n e s s to strength. Boulainvilliers begins to a n a l y z e a n d describe this change b y looking at w h a t m i g h t b e called the determination of the internal mechanisms of the inversion, a n d e x a m p l e s are easily found. W h a t w a s it that a c t u a l l y m a d e the Frankish aristocracy so strong at the b e g i n n i n g of w h a t w a s soon to become k n o w n as the M i d d l e A g e s ? It w a s the

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fact t h a t , having i n v a d e d a n d o c c u p i e d G a u l , the Franks themselves d i r e c t l y a p p r o p r i a t e d the land. They w e r e therefore landowners in their own r i g h t , and they were therefore in receipt of taxes in k i n d t h a t e n s u r e d both t h a t the p e a s a n t p o p u l a t i o n r e m a i n e d q u i e t a n d t h a t the k n i g h t s r e m a i n e d strong. A n d it w a s p r e c i s e l y this, or in other w o r d s , the source of t h e i r s t r e n g t h , that g r a d u a l l y became the p r i n c i p l e of t h e i r w e a k n e s s . Because the nobles lived on t h e i r separate estates, and because the t a x system financed t h e i r ability to m a k e w a r , they became s e p a r a t e d from the k i n g t h e y h a d created, a n d w e r e preoccupied only w i t h w a r a n d w i t h fighting a m o n g themselves. A s a result, they neglected e v e r y t h i n g that h a d to do w i t h education,

instruction, l e a r n i n g Latin, a n d a c q u i r i n g e x p e r t i s e . A l l these t h i n g s w o u l d l e a d to their loss of p o w e r . If, conversely, y o u t a k e the e x a m p l e of the G a u l i s h a r i s t o c r a c y , it could not have b e e n w e a k e r t h a n it w a s at the b e g i n n i n g of t h e F r a n k lsh invasion: every Gaulish l a n d o w n e r h a d b e e n dispossessed of e v e r y thing. A n d , in historical t e r m s , t h e i r v e r y w e a k n e s s became the source of t h e i r s t r e n g t h , t h a n k s to an i n e v i t a b l e development. The fact that they had b e e n d r i v e n off their land a n d into the a r m s of the church gave them influence over the people, b u t also an u n d e r s t a n d i n g of r i g h t . A n d that g r a d u a l l y put t h e m i n a position to g r o w closer to t h e king, to become advisers to the k i n g , a n d therefore to get t h e i r hands on a political p o w e r a n d an economic w e a l t h t h a t h a d p r e v i ously e l u d e d them. The form a n d the elements t h a t constituted the

w e a k n e s s of the G a u l i s h aristocracy w e r e also, from a certain point o n w a r d , the v e r y t h i n g s t h a t a l l o w e d it to reverse the situation. The problem B o u l a i n v i l h e r s is a n a l y z i n g is therefore not w h o won and w h o lost, but w h o became strong a n d w h o became w e a k . W h y d i d the strong become w e a k , a n d w h y d i d the w e a k become s t r o n g ? History, in other w o r d s , now looks essentially l i k e a calculation of forces. Insofar a s a description of the m e c h a n i s m s of relations of force is r e q u i r e d , w h a t will be the inevitable outcome of this a n a l y s i s ? The conclusion that the simple dichotomy b e t w e e n victors a n d v a n q u i s h e d is no longer strictly pertinent to the description of this w h o l e process. Once the strong become w e a k a n d the w e a k become strong, there w i l l

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be new oppositions, new divisions, and a new distribution of forces: the w e a k will form alliances among themselves, and the strong w i l l try to form a l l i a n c e s w i t h some a n d against others. W h a t w a s still, at the time of the invasion, a sort of p i t c h e d battle in w h i c h armies fought a r m i e s F r a n k s against Gauls, a n d N o r m a n s against Saxons these great national masses will be d i v i d e d and transformed by m u l tiple channels. A n d w e w i l l see the emergence of a d i v e r s i t y of struggles, shifting front lines, conjunctural alliances, and more or less

p e r m a n e n t g r o u p i n g s : monarchical p o w e r w i l l form an alliance w i t h the old G a u l i s h nobility, and they w i l l have the support of the people; the tacit u n d e r s t a n d i n g that existed b e t w e e n the Frankish w a r r i o r s and the peasants w i l l b r e a k down when the impoverished Frankish w a r r i o r s increase their d e m a n d s a n d demand higher taxes; a n d so on. U n t i l the seventeenth century, historians h a d b a s i c a l l y taken the great confrontation of the invasion as their model; this little system of s u p port n e t w o r k s , alliances, a n d internal conflicts w i l l now, so to speak, develop into a form of g e n e r a l i z e d warfare. Until the seventeenth century, a w a r w a s essentially a w a r between one mass a n d another mass. For his part, Boulainvilhers makes the relationship of w a r part of every social relationship, subdivides it into thousands of different channels, a n d reveals w a r to be a sort of p e r m a n e n t state that exists b e t w e e n g r o u p s , fronts, and tactical units as they in some sense civilize one another, come into conflict w i t h one another, or on the contrary, form alliances. There are no more m u l t i p l e a n d stable great masses, but there is a m u l t i p l e w a r . In one sense, it is a w a r of every man against every man, but it is obviously not a w a r of every man against every man in the abstract andI

t h i n k u n r e a l sense in which Hobbes spoke of the w a r of every man against every man when he tried to demonstrate that it is not the w a r of every man against every man that is at w o r k in the social body. W i t h B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s , in contrast, w e have a g e n e r a l i z e d w a r that p e r m e a t e s the entire social b o d y and the entire history of the social body; it is obviously not the sort of w a r in w h i c h individuals fight i n d i v i d u a l s , but one in w h i c h groups fight groups. A n d it is, I

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t h i n k , t h i s g e n e r a l i z a t i o n of w a r that is characteristic of B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s ' s thought. I w o u l d l i k e to end b y s a y i n g this. W h a t does this threefold g e n eralization of w a r l e a d to? It l e a d s to this. It is t h a n k s to this that B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s reaches a point that the h i s t o r i a n s of r i g h t [ . . . ] * For those h i s t o r i a n s w h o identified h i s t o r y w i t h public r i g h t , w i t h the State, w a r w a s therefore essentially a disruption of r i g h t , an enigma, a sort of dark mass or r a w event that had to be accepted as such, and not, c e r t a i n l y not, a p r i n c i p l e of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y . There w a s no question of that; on the contrary, it w a s a d i s r u p t i v e p r i n c i p l e . Here, in contrast, w a r t u r n s the very disruption of r i g h t into a g r i d of i n t e l l i g i bility, a n d m a k e s it possible to d e t e r m i n e the force r e l a t i o n s h i p that a l w a y s u n d e r p i n s a certain r e l a t i o n s h i p of right. Boulainvilliers can thus integrate events such as w a r s , invasions, a n d c h a n g e w h i c h w e r e once seen s i m p l y a s n a k e d a c t s of v i o l e n c e i n t o a w h o l e l a y e r of contents and prophecies that covered society in i t s entirety ( b e c a u s e , as w e have seen, they affect r i g h t , the economy, t a x a t i o n , religion, beliefs, education, the s t u d y of l a n g u a g e s , a n d j u r i d i c a l i n s t i t u t i o n s ) . A history t h a t takes a s its s t a r t i n g p o i n t the fact of w a r itself a n d m a k e s its a n a l y s i s in terms of w a r can r e l a t e all these t h i n g s w a r , religion, politics, manners, a n d charactersand can therefore act as a p r i n c i p l e that allows us to u n d e r s t a n d history. A c c o r d i n g to B o u l a i n villiers, it is w a r that m a k e s society i n t e l l i g i b l e , a n d I t h i n k that the same can b e said of all historical d i s c o u r s e . W h e n I speak of a g r i d of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y , I am obviously not s a y i n g t h a t w h a t B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s said is true. One could p r o b a b l y even d e m o n s t r a t e that e v e r y t h i n g he said w a s false. I am s i m p l y s a y i n g that it could be d e m o n s t r a t e d . W h a t w a s said in the seventeenth century a b o u t the Trojan o r i g i n s of the

*The recording breaks down at this point. The manuscript explicitly states: "In one sense, it is analogous to the juridical problem: How does sovereignty come into being? But this time, the historical narrative is not being used to illustrate the continuity of a sovereignty that is legitimate because it remains within the element of right from beginning to end. It is being used to explain how the specific institution, or the modern historical figure, of the absolute state was born of intersecting relations of force that became a sort of generalized war among nations."

164

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Franks, or about how they e m i g r a t e d a n d left France under the leade r s h i p of a certain Sigovege at some point and then returned, cannot b e s a i d to have a n y t h i n g to do w i t h our r e g i m e of truth and error. In our terms, it is neither true nor false. The g r i d of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y established by Boulainvilliers, in contrast, does, I think, establish a certain regime, a certain division b e t w e e n truth and error, that can be a p p l i e d to B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s ' s own discourse a n d that can say that his discourse is w r o n g w r o n g as a w h o l e and wrong about the det a i l s . Even that it is all w r o n g , if you l i k e . The fact remains that it is this grid of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y that has been established for our historical discourse. The other thing I w o u l d l i k e to stress is that by m a k i n g the force r e l a t i o n s h i p i n t e r v e n e a s a sort of w a r that is constantly going on w i t h i n society, B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s w a s a b l e to recuperatethis time in h i s t o r i c a l termsthe w h o l e k i n d of analysis t h a t w e find in M a c h i avelli. But for M a c h i a v e l l i , the relationship of force w a s essentially d e s c r i b e d as a political t e c h n i q u e that had to be put in the h a n d s of the sovereign. The relationship of force now becomes a historical object that someone other than the sovereignsomething l i k e a nation ( l i k e the aristocracy or, at a later stage, the bourgeoisie)can locate a n d d e t e r m i n e w i t h i n its own history. The relationship of force, w h i c h w a s once an essentially political object, becomes a historical object, or r a t h e r a historico-political object, because it is by a n a l y z i n g this relationship of force t h a t the nobility, for example, can acquire a new self-awareness, recover its k n o w l e d g e , a n d once more become a political force w i t h i n the field of political forces. When, in a discourse such as Boulainvilliers's, this relationship of force ( w h i c h w a s in a sense the exclusive object of the P r i n c e ' s p r e o c c u p a t i o n s ) became an object of k n o w l e d g e for a g r o u p , a nation, a minority, or a class, it became possible to constitute a historico-political field, and to make history function w i t h i n the political struggle. This is how the organization of a historico political field begins. A t this point, it all comes together: History functions w i t h i n politics, a n d politics is used to

calculate historical relations of force. One further remark. As you can see, this is the origin of the idea

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t h a t w a r is basically historical d i s c o u r s e ' s t r u t h - m a t r i x . "Historical discourse's t r u t h - m a t r i x " means this: W h a t philosophy or right w o u l d have us believe n o t w i t h s t a n d i n g , t r u t h does not begin, or t r u t h a n d t h e Logos d o not begin, w h e n violence ceases. On the contrary, it b e g a n w h e n the n o b i l i t y s t a r t e d to w a g e its political w a r against both the T h i r d Estate a n d the m o n a r c h y , a n d it w a s in this w a r a n d by t h i n k i n g of history in t e r m s of w a r t h a t s o m e t h i n g resembling w h a t w e n o w k n o w as historical discourse c o u l d establish itself. P e n u l t i m a t e remark: You are familiar w i t h the cliche that says that classes in the ascendancy are the b e a r e r s of universal v a l u e s a n d the p o w e r of rationality. A n awful lot of effort has gone into t r y i n g to demonstrate that it w a s the b o u r g e o i s i e that invented history, because history isas e v e r y o n e k n o w s r a t i o n a l a n d because the b o u r g e o i s i e of the eighteenth century, b e i n g a r i s i n g class, b r o u g h t w i t h it both u n i v e r s a l i t y a n d rationality. W e l l , I t h i n k that if w e look at t h i n g s a l i t t l e more closely, w e have an e x a m p l e of a class that, precisely b e cause it w a s decadent and had b e e n dispossessed of i t s political and economic power, w a s a b l e to establish a certain historical r a t i o n a l i t y that w a s then taken u p b y the b o u r g e o i s i e a n d then the proletariat. But I w o u l d not say that it w a s because it w a s decadent that the

French aristocracy invented history. It w a s precisely because it w a s w a g i n g a w a r that it w a s a b l e to t a k e w a r as an object, w a r b e i n g at once the starting point for the discourse, the condition of possibility for the emergence of a historical discourse, a frame of reference, a n d the object of that discourse. W a r w a s both this discourse's s t a r t i n g point a n d w h a t it w a s t a l k i n g about. One last r e m a r k , finally. The reason C l a u s e w i t z could say one day, a hundred y e a r s after B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s a n d , therefore, t w o hundred

years after the English historians, that w a r w a s the continuation of politics by other means is that, in t h e seventeenth century, or at the b e g i n n i n g of the eighteenth, someone w a s able to a n a l y z e politics, t a l k about politics, a n d demonstrate that politics is the continuation of w a r by other means.

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1. See the lectures of 28 January and 11 February above. 2. "Collective word used to designate a considerable quantitv of people inhabiting a certain expanse of territory, contained wilhin certain limits, and obedient to the same government." "Nation" in Encyclopedie, ou Dktionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et des metiers (Lucques, 1758), vol. 11, pp. 2 9 - 3 0 . 3. E.-J. Sieyes, Qu'est-ce que le Tiers-Etat? On Sieves, see the lecture of 1 0 March below. 4. On Augustin Thierry, see the lecture of 1 0 March below. 5. On Francois Guizot, see the lecture of 10 March below. 6. Joachim, comte d'Estaing, Dissertation sur la noblesse d'extraction. 7. On Buat-Nanc.ay, see the lecture of 1 0 March below. 8. On Montlosier, see the lecture of 1 0 March below. 9 . The analysis of Boulamvilliers's historical work undertaken by Foucault in this lecture (and the next) is based upon the texts already mentioned in notes 21-22 to the lecture of 11 February and, more specifically, on Memoires de I'histoire du gouvernement de la France^ in Etat de la Fixtnce . . . ; Histoire de tancien gouvernment de la France ; Dissertation sur la noblesse franqaise servant de Preface aux Memoires de la maison de Croi et de Boulainvilliers, in A. Devyer, Le Sang e'pure...; Memoires presented d Mgr le due d'Orle'ans.... 1 0 . This literature begins with Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, written 1513-1517 (Florence, 1531); continues with Bossuet, Dtscoun sur I'histoire universale (Paris, 1 6 8 1 ) , E. W. Montagu, Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republics (London, 1759), and A. Ferguson, The History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic (London, 1783); and ends with Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vols. (London., 1776-1778). 11. Charles-Louis de Montesquieu, Considerations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur decadence (Amsterdam, 1734)12. N. Freret, De I'origine des Francois et de leur etablissement dans la Gaule, in Oeuvres completes (Paris, 1 7 9 6 - 1 7 9 9 ) , vol. % an VII. p. 2 0 2 . 13. Cf. F. Nietzsche, Zar Genealogie der Moral: eine Streitschrift (Leipzig, 1887), Erste Abhandlung: "Gut und Bose," "Gut und Schlecht," 11; Zweite Abhandlung: "Schuld," "Schlechtes Gewissen und Verwandtes," 1 6 , 17, 18. See also Morgenrote: Gedanken uber die moralischen vorutheile (Chemnitz, 1881), Zweite Buch 112. (French translations: Gene'alope de la morale. Vn ecrit polemique [Pans: Gallimard, 1971] and Aumre. Pense'es sur les prej'ttge's moraux [Pans: Gallimard, 1 9 7 0 ] ; English translations by Francis Golffmg, The Genealogy of Morals, in The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals [New York: Doubleday, 1 9 5 6 ] , and by R.J, Hollmgdale, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 9 8 2 J ) . Cf. the quotation from Boulainvilhers in Devyer, Le Sang epure . . . . p. 5 0 8 : "they were great lovers of freedom, bold, fickle, unfaithful, avid for gain, restless and impatient: this is how the ancient authors describe them." 14. The reference is to the defeat of the Roman Syganus and the capture of Soissons in 4 8 6 .

eight

25

FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6

Boulainvilliers continuum. central

and the constitution - Tragedy of history.

of a

historico-political right. - The of the

- Historicism. administration

and public

- The problematic of knowledges. knowledge and

Enlightenment operations effects.

and the genealogy of disciplinary and science.

- The four their knowledges.

- Philosophy

- Disciplining

W H E N I T A L K E D T O you about B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s , I w a s certainly not t r y i n g to prove to y o u that s o m e t h i n g r e s e m b l i n g history b e g a n w i t h h i m , because, after all, t h e r e is no reason to say t h a t h i s t o r y began w i t h B o u l a i n v i l h e r s rather t h a n w i t h , for e x a m p l e , the s i x t e e n t h century j u r i s t s w h o collated the monuments of p u b l i c right, w i t h the parlementaires w h o , throughout the seventeenth century, searched the

archives a n d j u r i s p r u d e n c e of t h e State to discover w h a t the basic l a w s of the k i n g d o m m i g h t b e , or w i t h the B e n e d i c t i n e s , w h o h a d been great collectors of c h a r t e r s even since the late s i x t e e n t h c e n t u r y . W h a t w a s in fact established by B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s in the e a r l y e i g h t e e n t h century wasI t h i n k a histonco-political field. In w h a t sense? First, in this sense: By t a k i n g the nation, or rather nations, as his object, B o u l a m v i l h e r s w a s able to dig b e n e a t h institutions, events, k i n g s a n d their p o w e r , a n d to a n a l y z e something else, n a m e l y those societies, as they w e r e called at the time, that w e r e b o u n d together by interests, customs, a n d l a w s . By t a k i n g them as his object, he changed two things. One the one hand, he began to write ( a n d I think it w a s the

166

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DEFENDED"

1. See the lectures of 28 January and 11 Februarv above. 2. "Collective word used to designate a considerable quantitv of people inhabiting a certain expanse of territory, contained within certain limits, and obedient to the same government." "Nation" in Encyclopedic, on Dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et des metiers (Lucques, 1758), vol. 11, pp. 29-30. 3. E.-J. Sieves, Qu'est<e que le Tiers-Etat? On Sieves, see the lecture of 1 0 March below, 4. On Augustin Thierry, see the lecture of 10 March below. 5. On Franqois Guizot, see the lecture of 10 March below. 6. Joachim, comte d'Estaing, Dissertation sur la noblesse d extraction. 7. On Buat Nancay, see the lecture of 1 0 March below. 8. On Montlosier, see the lecture of 1 0 March below. 9. The analysis of Boulainvilhers's historical work undertaken by Foucault in this lecture (and the nextj is based upon the texts already mentioned in notes 21-22 to the lecture of 11 Februarv and, more specifically, on Memoires de Vhistoire du gouvernement de la France, in Etat de la France,..; Histoire de Vancien gpuvemment de la France...; Dissertation sur la noblesse franchise servant de Preface aux Memoires de la maison de Croi et de Boulainvilliers, in A. Devyer, Le Sang epure ...; Memoires presentes a Mgr le due d'Orleans.... 10. This literature begins with Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, written 1513-1517 (Florence, 1531); continues with Bossuet, Discours sur Thistoitt universelle (Paris, 1681), E, W. Montagu, Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republics (London, 1759), and A. Ferguson, The History of the Prvgress and Termination of the Roman Republic (London, 1783); and ends with Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vols, (London, 1776-1778). 11. Charles Louis de Montesquieu, Considerations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur decadence (Amsterdam, 1734). 12. N. Freret, De I'ort'gine des Franqais et de leur e'tablissement dans la Gaule, in Oeuvrts completes (Paris, 1796-1799), vol. 5, an VII, p. 2 0 2 , 13. Cf. F. Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral: eine Streitschrift (Leipzig, 1887), Erste Abhandlung: "Gut und Bose," "Gut und Schlecht," 11; Zweite Abhandlung: "Schuld," "Schlechtes Gewissen und Verwandtes," 16, 17, 18. See also Morgenrote: Gedanken uber die moralischen vorutheile (Chemnitz, 1881), Zweite Buch 112. (French translations: Gene'alogie de la morale. Un e'erit polemique [Paris: Galhmard, 1971] and Aurore. Pensees sur les prijuge's moraux [Paris: Galhmard, 1 9 7 0 ] ; English translations by Francis Golfflng, The Genealogy of Morals, m The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals [New York: Doubleday, 1956 1, and by R.J. Hollingdale, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 9 8 2 ] ) . Cf. the quotation from Boulainvilhers in Devyer, Le Sang epure'..., p. 5 0 8 : "they were great lovers of freedom, bold, fickle, unfaithful, avid for gain, restless and impatient: this is how the ancient authors describe them." I^i. The reference is to the defeat of the Roman Svgarius and the capture of Soissons in 486,

eight

25

FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6

Boulainvilliers continuum. central

and the constitution - Tragedy of history.

of a

historico-politkal right. - The of the four

~ Historicism. administration

and public

~ The problematic of knowledges. knowledge and

Enlightenment

and the genealogy of disciplinary and science.

- The their

I
effects.

operations ~ Philosophy

- Disciplining

knowledges.

W H E N 1 T A L K E D T O y o u about B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , I w a s certainly not t r y i n g to prove to y o u that something r e s e m b l i n g history b e g a n w i t h him, because, after all, there is no reason to say that history b e g a n w i t h Boulainvilhers r a t h e r than w i t h , for e x a m p l e , the s i x t e e n t h century jurists w h o collated the m o n u m e n t s of p u b l i c right, w i t h the pariementaires w h o , t h r o u g h o u t the seventeenth century, searched t h e

archives a n d j u r i s p r u d e n c e of the State to d i s c o v e r w h a t the basic l a w s of the k i n g d o m m i g h t be, or w i t h the Benedictines, w h o h a d been great collectors of charters e v e n since t h e l a t e sixteenth c e n t u r y . W h a t w a s in fact established b y Boulainvilliers in the early e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y wasI thinka historico-pohtical field. In w h a t sense? First, in this sense: By t a k i n g the nation, or r a t h e r nations, a s h i s object, B o u l a i n v i l h e r s w a s able to d i g b e n e a t h institutions, events, k i n g s and their power, a n d to a n a l y z e something else, namely those societies, as they w e r e called at the time, that were bound together by interests, customs, a n d l a w s . By t a k i n g t h e m as his object, he c h a n g e d t w o things. One the one hand, he b e g a n to w r i t e ( a n d I t h i n k it w a s t h e

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first t i m e this had h a p p e n e d ) the history of subjects, or in other words, to look at p o w e r from the other side. H e thus began to give a historical status to something that w o u l d , w i t h M i c h e l e t in the nineteenth c e n t u r y , become the history of t h e people or the history of peoples.' H e discovered a certain form of, history that existed on the other side of the p o w e r r e l a t i o n s h i p . But he a n a l y z e d this new form of history not as though it w e r e an inert substance, b u t as a forceor forces; power itself w a s no more than one of those forcesan u n u s u a l k i n d of force, or t h e strangest of all the forces that w e r e fighting one another w i t h i n the social body. P o w e r is the p o w e r of

the little group that exercises it b u t has no force; and yet, u l t i m a t e l y , this p o w e r becomes the strongest force of a l l , a force that no other force can resist, except violence or rebellion. W h a t B o u l a i n v i l h e r s w a s discovering w a s that history should not be the history of p o w e r , but the h i s t o r y of a monstrous, or at least strange, couple whose enigmatic nature coufcl not exactly be r e d u c e d or understood by a n y j u r i d i c a l fiction: the couple formed by the p r i m a l forces of the people, a n d the force that h a d finally been constituted by something that h a d no force, but that w a s p o w e r . By d i s p l a c i n g the a x i s , the center of g r a v i t y , of his a n a l y s i s , Boul a i n v i l h e r s d i d something important. First, because he defined the p r i n c i p l e of w h a t m i g h t be called the relational character of power: p o w e r is not something that can be possessed, a n d it is not a form of might; p o w e r is never a n y t h i n g more than a relationship that can, a n d must, be studied only b y looking at the interplay between the t e r m s of that relationship. One cannot, therefore, w r i t e either the history of k i n g s or the history of peoples; one can w r i t e the history of w h a t constitutes those opposing terms, one of w h i c h is never infinity, and the other of w h i c h is never zero. By w r i t i n g that history, by defining the relational character of power, a n d b y a n a l y z i n g it in h i s t o r y , B o u l a i n v i l h e r s w a s c h a l l e n g i n g a n d this, I think, is the other side of w h a t he w a s doingthe juridical model of sovereignty w h i c h had, u n t i l then, been the only w a y of t h i n k i n g of the relationship b e t w e e n people and monarch, or b e t w e e n the people and those w h o govern. Boulainvilhers describes the phenomenon of p o w e r not in

2 5 February

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juridical terms of sovereignty but in historical terms of domination a n d the p l a y of relations of force. A n d he places the object of his historical analysis w i t h i n that field. In doing so, in t a k i n g as h i s object a p o w e r t h a t w a s essentially relational a n d not a d e q u a t e to the j u r i d i c a l form of sovereignty, and by defining a field of forces in w h i c h t h e p o w e r - r e l a t i o n s h i p comes into play, B o u l a i n v i l h e r s is t a k i n g as his object the historical k n o w l e d g e that M a c h i a v e l h a n a l y z e d , b u t only in p r e s c r i p t i v e strategic

termsor in terms of a strategy seen only through the eyes of power and the P r i n c e . You might object that M a c h i a v e l h did not just g i v e the Prince a d v i c e w h e t h e r it is serious or ironic is a different q u e s tionabout h o w to manage a n d o r g a n i z e p o w e r , and that the text of The Prince itself is full of historical references. You might say t h a t B u t for M a c h i a v e l h , h i s t o r y is not
2

M a c h i a v e l h also w r o t e the Discorsi.

the d o m a i n in w h i c h he a n a l y z e s p o w e r relations. For M a c h i a v e l h , history is s i m p l y a source of e x a m p l e s , a s o r t of collection of j u r i s p r u d e n c e or of tactical models for t h e e x e r c i s e of p o w e r . For M a c h lavelh, history s i m p l y records r e l a t i o n s of force a n d the calculations to w h i c h they gave rise. For B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , on the other h a n d ( a n d this, I think, is the important p o i n t ) , r e l a t i o n s of force a n d the p l a y of p o w e r a r e the v e r y stuff of history. H i s t o r y e x i s t s , events occur, and t h i n g s t h a t happen can a n d must b e r e m e m b e r e d , to the e x t e n t that r e l a t i o n s of p o w e r , relations of force, a n d a c e r t a i n p l a y of p o w e r operate in r e lations among men. A c c o r d i n g to B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , historical n a r r a t i v e s and political calculations have e x a c t l y the same object. Historical nar ratives and political calculations m a y not have the same goal, but t h e r e is a definite c o n t i n u i t y in w h a t they a r e t a l k i n g a b o u t , and in w h a t is at s t a k e in both n a r r a t i v e a n d calculation. In B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , w e therefore findfor the first time, I t h i n k a h i s t o n c o - p o h t i c a l con

t i n u u m . One could also say, in a s l i g h t l y different sense, that Bou l a i n v i l h e r s opens u p a h i s t o n c o - p o h t i c a l field. Let me e x p l a i n . A s I have already told y o u a n d I t h i n k t h i s is of fundamental i m p o r t a n c e if w e a r e to u n d e r s t a n d B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ' s s t a r t i n g pointhe w a s t r y i n g to m a k e a c r i t i q u e of the k n o w l e d g e of the intendants, of the sort of

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analysis a n d the projects for government t h a t the intendants or, more generally, the monarchical g o v e r n m e n t w a s constantly d r a w i n g u p for p o w e r ' s benefit. It is t r u e that B o u l a i n v i l h e r s w a s a radical opponent of this k n o w l e d g e , but h e challenges it by r e i m p l a n t i n g it w i t h i n his o w n discourse, and by using for h i s own ends the very analyses that w e find in the k n o w l e d g e of the i n t e n d a n t s . H i s goal w a s to confiscate it and to use it against the system of the absolute monarchy, w h i c h w a s b o t h t h e b i r t h p l a c e a n d the field of a p p l i c a t i o n of this a d m i n i s t r a t i v e k n o w l e d g e , this k n o w l e d g e of the intendants, and this economic k n o w l e d g e . A n d basically, w h e n B o u l a i n v i l h e r s a n a l y z e s the historical evolution of a w h o l e series of specific relations b e t w e e n , if you like, m i l i t a r y organization and taxation, he is s i m p l y acclimatizing, or using for his o w n historical analyses, the v e r y form of relationship, the t y p e of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y a n d the model of relations that h a d been defined b y a d m i n i s t r a t i v e k n o w l e d g e , fiscal k n o w l e d g e , and t h e k n o w l e d g e of the intendants. When, for example, B o u l a i n v i l h e r s explains the relation b e t w e e n the e m p l o y m e n t of mercenaries a n d increased taxation, or b e t w e e n the debts of the p e a s a n t r y and the i m p o s s i b i l i t y of m a r k e t i n g the produce of the land, he is simply raising the issues raised by the intendants a n d financiers of the reign of Louis X I V , b u t he is doing so w i t h i n the historical dimension. You w i l l find e x a c t l y the same speculations in the w o r k of people such as, for e x a m p l e , Boisguilbert' a n d V a u b a n . ' The relation between r u r a l indebtedness a n d urban

p r o s p e r i t y w a s another important topic of discussion t h r o u g h o u t the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. W e find, then, the same mode of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y in b o t h the k n o w l e d g e of the i n t e n d a n t s a n d Boulainvilhers's historical analyses, b u t he is the first to m a k e t h i s type of relation function in the domain of historical n a r r a t i v e . In other w o r d s , B o u l a i n v i l h e r s m a k e s w h a t had until then been no more t h a n S t a t e m a n a g e m e n t ' s p r i n c i p l e of r a t i o n a l i t y function as a p r i n ciple for u n d e r s t a n d i n g history. T h a t a c o n t i n u i t y has been established between historical narrative and the management of the State is, I believe, of vital importance. It is the use of the State's model of managerial rationality as a g r i d for the speculative u n d e r s t a n d i n g of h i s -

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continuum.

that

continuum now m a k e s it possible to use the same vocabulary and the same g r i d of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y to s p e a k of history a n d to a n a l y z e the m a n a g e m e n t of the S t a t e . I t h i n k , finally, that B o u l a i n v i l h e r s establishes a historico-pohtical c o n t i n u u m to the extent that, w h e n he w r i t e s history, he has a specific a n d definite project: h i s specific goal is restore to the nobility both a m e m o r y it has lost a n d a k n o w l e d g e t h a t it has a l w a y s neglected. W h a t B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s is t r y i n g to do by g i v i n g it back its memory a n d its k n o w l e d g e is to g i v e it a n e w force, to reconstruct the nobility as a force w i t h i n the forces of t h e social field. For B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , b e g i n n i n g to speak in the d o m a i n of history, r e c o u n t i n g a history, is

therefore not s i m p l y a m a t t e r of d e s c r i b i n g a r e l a t i o n s h i p of force, or of r e u t i h z i n g on behalf of, for e x a m p l e , t h e n o b i l i t y a calculation of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y that h a d p r e v i o u s l y b e l o n g e d to t h e government. H e is doing so in order the modify the v e r y disposition and the current

e q u i l i b r i u m of the r e l a t i o n s of force. H i s t o r y does not s i m p l y a n a l y z e or i n t e r p r e t forces: it modifies t h e m . The v e r y fact of having control over, or the fact of b e i n g r i g h t in the order of h i s t o r i c a l k n o w l e d g e , in short, of t e l l i n g the t r u t h about history, therefore e n a b l e s him to occupy a decisive strategic position. To sum all t h i s u p , w e can say that the constitution of a historicop o h t i c a l field is an e x p r e s s i o n of the fact t h a t w e h a v e gone from a history whose function w a s to establish r i g h t b y recounting the e x ploits of heroes or k i n g s , their b a t t l e s a n d their w a r s a n d so on, t h a t w e have gone from a history that established r i g h t b y telling the story of w a r s to a history that continues the w a r b y deciphering the w a r a n d the s t r u g g l e t h a t are going on w i t h i n all the institutions of r i g h t a n d peace. History t h u s becomes a k n o w l e d g e of struggles t h a t is d e p l o y e d a n d t h a t functions w i t h i n a field of struggles; there is n o w a l i n k b e t w e e n the p o l i t i c a l fight a n d historical k n o w l e d g e . A n d w h i l e it is no d o u b t t r u e t h a t confrontations have a l w a y s been a c c o m p a n i e d b y recollections, memories, a n d v a r i o u s r i t u a l s of m e m o n a h z a t i o n , I t h i n k that from the eighteenth century o n w a r d a n d it is at this point t h a t p o l i t i c a l life a n d p o l i t i c a l k n o w l e d g e b e g i n to be i n s c r i b e d in

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society's real strugglesstrategy, or the element of calculation inherent in such struggles, will be a r t i c u l a t e d w i t h a historical k n o w l e d g e that takes the form of the interpretation a n d analysis of forces. W e cannot u n d e r s t a n d the emergence of this specifically modern d i m e n sion of politics unless w e u n d e r s t a n d how, from the eighteenth cent u r y o n w a r d , historical k n o w l e d g e becomes an element of the struggle: it is b o t h a d e s c r i p t i o n of struggles a n d a weapon in the struggle. H i s t o r y gave us the idea that w e are at war; a n d w e w a g e w a r through history. H a v i n g e s t a b l i s h e d that, let me m a k e t w o points before w e go b a c k to the w a r that is w a g e d throughout the history of peoples. M y first point concerns h i s t o r i c i s m . Evervone k n o w s of course that historicism is the most dreadful thing in the w o r l d . A n y philosophy w o r t h y of the name, any t h e o r y of societv, anv self-respecting epistemology that has anv claim to distinction obviously has to struggle against the platitudes of h i s t o r i c i s m . No one w o u l d d a r e to a d m i t to b e i n g a historlcist. A n d it can, I t h i n k , easily be d e m o n s t r a t e d t h a t ever since the nineteenth centurv, all the great philosophies h a v e , in one w a y or another, been antihistoricist. One could also, I t h i n k , demonstrate that all the h u m a n sciences survive, or perhaps even exist, only because they are a n t i h i s t o n c i s t .
5

One could also demonstrate that w h e n his-

tory, or the historical d i s c i p l i n e , has recourse to either a philosophy of historv or a j u r i d i c a l a n d moral ideality, or to the h u m a n sciences ( a l l of w h i c h it finds so e n c h a n t i n g ) , it is trying to escape its latal and secret penchant for historicism. But w h a t is this historicism t h a t everyonephilosophy, the h u m a n sciences, h i s t o r y i s so suspicious of? W h a t is this historicism that has to be w a r d e d off at all cost, a n d that philosophical, scientific, and even political m o d e r n i t y have a l w a y s t r i e d to w a r d off? W e l l , I t h i n k t h a t historicism is nothing other than w h a t I have just been t a l k i n g about: the l i n k , the unavoidable connection, between w a r a n d history, a n d conversely, between historv and war. No matter how far b a c k it goes, h i s t o r i c a l k n o w l e d g e n e v e r finds nature, r i g h t , order, or peace. H o w e v e r far back it goes, historical k n o w l e d g e discovers only an u n e n d i n g war, or in other w o r d s , forces that relate to one another

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a n d come into conflict w i t h one another, a n d t h e events in w h i c h r e l a t i o n s of force are decided, b u t a l w a y s in a provisional w a y . H i s tory encounters nothing b u t w a r , b u t h i s t o r y can never r e a l l y look d o w n on this w a r from on high; h i s t o r y cannot get a w a y from w a r , or discover its basic l a w s or impose l i m i t s on it, q u i t e s i m p l y b e cause w a r itself supports t h i s k n o w l e d g e , r u n s t h r o u g h t h i s k n o w l e d g e , a n d d e t e r m i n e s this k n o w l e d g e . K n o w l e d g e is never a n y t h i n g more than a w e a p o n in a w a r , or a tactical d e p l o y m e n t w i t h i n that w a r . W a r is w a g e d throughout historv, a n d t h r o u g h the history that tells the history of w a r . A n d history, for its part, can never do a n y thing more than i n t e r p r e t w a g e d t h r o u g h it. W e l l , then, I t h i n k it is t h i s essential connection b e t w e e n historical k n o w l e d g e a n d the p r a c t i c e of w a r i t is t h i s , g e n e r a l l y speaking, that constitutes the core of historicism, a core that both is i r r e d u c i b l e a n d a l w a y s has to be sanitized, because of a n idea, w h i c h has been in circulation for the last one thousand or t w o t h o u s a n d y e a r s , a n d w h i c h m i g h t be d e s c r i b e d a s " p l a t o n i c " ( t h o u g h w e s h o u l d a l w a y s be w a r y of b l a m i n g poor old Plato for e v e r y t h i n g w e w a n t to b a n i s h ) . It is an idea that is p r o b a b l y b o u n d u p w i t h the w h o l e W e s t e r n o r g a n i z a t i o n of k n o w l e d g e , namely, the idea that k n o w l e d g e a n d t r u t h cannot not belong to the register of o r d e r a n d peace, t h a t k n o w l e d g e a n d t r u t h can never b e found on the side of violence, disorder, a n d w a r . I t h i n k t h a t the i m p o r t a n t t h i n g ( a n d w h e t h e r it is or is not platonic is of no i m p o r t a n c e ) about this idea t h a t k n o w l e d g e a n d t r u t h cannot b e l o n g to w a r , a n d can o n l y belong to order a n d peace, is that the the w a r it is w a g i n g or that is b e i n g

modern State has now r e i m p l a n t e d it in w h a t w e might call the e i g h teenth c e n t u r y ' s " d i s c i p h n a n z a t i o n " of k n o w l e d g e s . A n d it is this idea t h a t m a k e s historicism unacceptable to u s , t h a t m e a n s t h a t w e cannot accept s o m e t h i n g l i k e an indissociable c i r c u l a r i t y b e t w e e n historical k n o w l e d g e a n d the w a r s t h a t it t a l k s about a n d w h i c h at the s a m e t i m e go on in it. So t h i s is the p r o b l e m , a n d t h i s , if y o u l i k e , is our first task: W e m u s t t r y to be historicists, or in other w o r d s , t r y to analyze this perpetual a n d unavoidable r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n the w a r that is recounted b y history a n d the history t h a t is t r a v e r s e d b y the

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w a r it is recounting. A n d it is along these lines that I w i l l now try to go on w i t h the little story of the Gauls and the Franks that I started to tell. So m u c h for m y first r e m a r k , for my first e x c u r s u s on h i s t o n c i s m . To move on to the second: an objection can b e m a d e . There m i g h t be a n o t h e r w a y of a p p r o a c h i n g the theme I touched upon a moment ago, or in other words the d i s c i p l i n a r i z a t i o n of k n o w l e d g e s in the eighteenth centurv. If w e make history, the history of the w a r s that go on throughout history, the great discursive a p p a r a t u s that m a k e s possible the eighteenth-century c r i t i q u e of the State, a n d if w e m a k e the h i s t o r y / w a r relationship the precondition for the emergence of "poli t i c s " [ . . . ] the function of o r d e r w a s to reestablish a continuity in its discourse.* [ A t the time when the jurists were e x p l o r i n g the archives in an a t t e m p t to discover the basic l a w s of the k i n g d o m , a historians' history w a s t a k i n g shape, and it w a s not power's ode to itself. It should not be forgotten that in the seventeenth century, and not only in France, t r a g e d y w a s one of the g r e a t r i t u a l forms in w h i c h public right w a s d i s p l a y e d a n d in w h i c h its p r o b l e m s w e r e discussed. W e l l , S h a k e speare's " h i s t o r i c a l " t r a g e d i e s are t r a g e d i e s about right a n d the king, and they are essentially centered on the p r o b l e m of the u s u r p e r and dethronement, of the murder of k i n g s and the b i r t h of the new b e i n g w h o is constituted by the coronation of a king. H o w can an i n d i v i d u a l use violence, intrigue, murder, and w a r to a c q u i r e a p u b l i c might that can bring about the reign of peace, justice, order, a n d h a p p i n e s s ? H o w can illegitimacy produce l a w ? A t a time w h e n the theory and history of right are t r y i n g to w e a v e the unbroken continuity of public might, S h a k e s p e a r e a n t r a g e d y , in contrast, d w e l l s ]
6

on the w o u n d , on the

repeated injury that is inflicted on the body of the k i n g d o m w h e n kings d i e violent deaths and w h e n i l l e g i t i m a t e sovereigns c o m e to the throne. I t h i n k that Shakespearean tragedy is, at least in terms of one of its a x e s , a sort of ceremony, a sort of r e m e m o r i a l i z a t i o n of the

*It is difficult to establish the meaning on the basis of the tape recording. The first eighteen pages of the manuscript were m fact moved to the end in the lecture itself.

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problems of public right. The same could be said of French tragedy, of t h a t of C o r n e i l l e and, of course, especially R a c i n e . Besides, in g e n eral terms, isn't G r e e k tragedy too a l w a y s , essentially, a tragedy about r i g h t ? I t h i n k that there is a fundamental, essential k i n s h i p b e t w e e n t r a g e d y and r i g h t , b e t w e e n tragedy a n d p u b l i c r i g h t , just as t h e r e is probably an essential k i n s h i p b e t w e e n the novel and the p r o b l e m of the norm. Tragedy and r i g h t , the novel a n d the norm: perhaps w e should look into all this. Be that a s it may, tragedy is a sort of representation of p u b l i c r i g h t , a politico-juridical representation of public might, in seventeenthcentury France too. There is, however, one differenceand this ( g e n i u s a s i d e ) is w h e r e it basically differs from S h a k e s p e a r e . On the one hand, French classical tragedy usually d e a l s only w i t h a n c i e n t k i n g s . This coding is no doubt a matter of political p r u d e n c e . But after a l l , it s h o u l d not b e forgotten that one of the reasons for this reference to a n t i q u i t y is this: In seventeenth-century France, a n d e s p e c i a l l y u n der Louis X I V , monarchic right w a s , b e c a u s e of its form a n d even the continuity of its history, d e p i c t e d as b e i n g d i r e c t l y descended from the monarchies of a n t i q u i t y . W e find the s a m e t y p e of power a n d the same t y p e of monarchy in A u g u s t u s a n d N e r o , or even P y r r h u s , t h a t w e find w i t h Louis X I V . It is the s a m e m o n a r c h y in both substantive and j u r i d i c a l terms. On the other hand, French classical tragedy contains a reference to a n t i q u i t y , but w e can also see the presence of an i n s t i t u t i o n that a p p e a r s to restrict in some w a y the t r a g i c p o w e r s of tragedy, a n d to m a k e it t i p over i n t o a theater of g a l l a n t r y a n d i n trigue: the presence of the court. A n c i e n t tragedy, a n d courtly t r a g e d y . But w h a t is the court, if notand this is d a z z l i n g l y obvious in the case of Louis X I V y e t another lesson in public r i g h t ? The court's essential function is to constitute, to o r g a n i z e , a space for the d a i l y a n d permanent d i s p l a y of royal p o w e r in all its splendor. The court is basically a k i n d of p e r m a n e n t r i t u a l operation that begins again every day and requalifies a man w h o gets up, goes for a w a l k , eats, has his loves and his passions, and w h o is at the same t i m e t h a n k s to all that, because of all that, and because none of all that is e l i m i nateda sovereign. The specific operation of court ritual a n d court
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ceremonial is to make his love affairs sovereign, to make h i s food sovereign, to m a k e his levee a n d his going-to-bed ritual sovereign. A n d w h i l e the court constantly requahfies his daily routine as sovereign in the person of a monarch w h o is the very substance of monarchy, tragedy does the same t h i n g in reverse; t r a g e d y undoes and, if you like, recomposes w h a t court r i t u a l establishes each day. W h a t is the point of classical t r a g e d y , of Racinian t r a g e d y ? Its functionor at least one of its a x e s i s to constitute the underside of the ceremony, to show the ceremony in s h r e d s , the moment w h e n the sovereign, the possessor of p u b l i c m i g h t , is g r a d u a l l y b r o k e n d o w n into a man of passion, a man of a n g e r , a man of vengeance, a man of love, incest, a n d so on. In t r a g e d y , the problem is w h e t h e r or not s t a r t i n g from t h i s decomposition of the sovereign into a man of p a s sion, the s o v e r e i g n - k i n g can be reborn a n d recomposed: the death a n d resurrection of the body of the k i n g in the heart of the m o n a r c h . That is the p r o b l e m ( a n d it is much more j u r i d i c a l than p s y c h o l o g i c a l ) that is posed b y Racinian tragedy. In that sense, you can well u n d e r stand that w h e n Louis X I V a s k e d R a c i n e to be h i s historiographer, he w a s simply being true to the tradition of w h a t the historiography of the monarchy had been u n t i l then, or in other words, an ode to power itself. But he is also a l l o w i n g Racine to go on performing the function he h a d p l a y e d w h e n he w r o t e h i s t r a g e d i e s . He w a s basically a s k i n g him to w r i t e , as a historiographer, the fifth act of a h a p p y t r a g e d y , or in other w o r d s , to trace the rise of the p r i v a t e manthe courtier w h o h a d a heartto the point w h e r e he becomes at once w a r l o r d , monarch, a n d the holder of sovereignty. Entrusting h i s h i s toriography to a tragic poet d i d not d i s t u r b the order of r i g h t , nor d i d it betray h i s t o r y ' s old function of establishing r i g h t , of establishing the r i g h t of the sovereign State. It m a r k e d t h a n k s to a necessity that is b o u n d u p w i t h the absolutism of the k i n g a r e t u r n to the purest a n d most e l e m e n t a r y function of royal historiography in an absolute monarchy. It must not be forgotten that as a result of a sort of strange lapse into archaism, the absolute monarchy made the ceremony of p o w e r an intense political moment, or that the court, w h i c h w a s one of p o w e r ' s ceremonies, w a s a daily lesson in public right, a d a i l y

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demonstration of public right. W e can now u n d e r s t a n d w h y Racine's appointment a l l o w e d the history of the k i n g to take on its purest

form and, in a sense, its magico-poetic form. The history of the k i n g could not but become p o w e r ' s ode to itself. So absolutism, court ceremonial, manifestations of public right, classical t r a g e d y , a n d the h i s t o r i o g r a p h y of the king: I t h i n k they are all p a r t of the same thing. Excuse my speculations about Racine a n d historiography. Let's s k i p a c e n t u r y ( t h e very c e n t u r y t h a t began w i t h B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s ) a n d t a k e the e x a m p l e of the last of the absolute monarchs a n d the last of his historiographers: Louis X V I and J a c o b - N i c o l a s M o r e a u , the distant successor to Racine, of w h o m I have a l r e a d y said a few w o r d s , as he w a s the minister of history a p p o i n t e d by Louis X V I t o w a r d the end of the 1 7 8 0 s . W h o w a s M o r e a u , compared to R a c i n e ? This is a d a n gerous p a r a l l e l , but you might be s u r p r i s e d w h o comes off w o r s e . M o r e a u is the s c h o l a r l y defender of a k i n g w h o , obviously, n e e d e d to be defended on a n u m b e r of occasions d u r i n g h i s lifetime. M o r e a u certainly p l a y e d the role of defender w h e n he w a s appointed in the 1 7 8 0 s a t the v e r y time w h e n the r i g h t s of the monarchy w e r e being attacked in the name of history, and from very different directions not only by the nobility, but also bv the parlementaires a s well as the

bourgeoisie. T h i s w a s the precise moment w h e n h i s t o r y became the discourse t h a t every "nation"in quotation marksor at least e v e r y order or every class u s e d to lay claim to its right; this is the moment w h e n , if you l i k e , history became the general discourse of political struggles. It w a s at t h i s point, then, that a ministry of history w a s created. A n d at this point, you w i l l ask me: Did history really escape the State, given that, a h u n d r e d years after Racine, we see the emergence of a historiographer who h a d at least equally close links w i t h p o w e r of the State because he a c t u a l l y d i d , a s I have just s a i d , have a m i n i s t e r i a l or at least a d m i n i s t r a t i v e function? So w h a t w a s t h e point of creating t h i s central ministry to a d m i n ister h i s t o r y ? Its purpose w a s to arm the k i n g for the political battle insofar as he w a s , after all, no more than one force among others, a n d was being a t t a c k e d bv other forces. It p u r p o s e w a s also to attempt to impose a sort of enforced peace on those historico political s t r u g g l e s .

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Its purpose w a s to code this discourse on history once a n d for all, and in such a w a y t h a t it could be i n t e g r a t e d into the practice of the State. Hence the tasks w i t h w h i c h M o r e a u w a s e n t r u s t e d : collating the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n ' s documents, m a k i n g them available to the a d m i n istration itself ( b e g i n n i n g w i t h the financial a d m i n i s t r a t o r s a n d then the o t h e r s ) , a n d , finally, opening u p these documents, this storehouse of documents, to the people w h o w e r e being p a i d by the k i n g to carry out this research. Quite apart from the fact that M o r e a u is not R a cine, that Louis X V I is not Louis XIV, and that all this is far removed from the ceremonial description of the crossing of the Rhine, w h a t is the difference b e t w e e n M o r e a u a n d R a c i n e , b e t w e e n the old historio g r a p h y ( w h i c h w a s , in a sense, at its purest in the late seventeenth c e n t u r y ) a n d the k i n d of history the State begins to take in h a n d a n d b r i n g u n d e r its control in the late eighteenth c e n t u r y ? Can w e say that history ceases to be the State's discourse about itself, once we have, p e r h a p s , left court h i s t o r i o g r a p h y ? Can w e say that w e are now involved w i t h an a d m i n i s t r a t i v e - t y p e h i s t o r i o g r a p h y ? I think that there is a considerable difference b e t w e e n the two things, or in any case that it has to be measured. So, a n o t h e r n e w e x c u r s u s , if y o u w i l l a l l o w me. The difference
8

between w h a t might be called the history of the sciences a n d the genealogy of k n o w l e d g e s is that the history of sciences is essentially located on an a x i s that i s , r o u g h l y speaking, the cognition-truth axis, or at least the a x i s that goes from the structure of cognition to the demand for truth. U n l i k e the history of the sciences, the genealogy of k n o w l e d g e s is located on a different a x i s , namely the discourse-power a x i s or, if y o u like, the discursive practice-clash of power a x i s . N o w it seems to me that if w e applv it to w h a t is for a w h o l e host of reasons the p r i v i l e g e d period of the eighteenth century, to this domain or this region, the genealogy of k n o w l e d g e must firstbefore it does

a n y t h i n g e l s e o u t w i t the problematic of the Enlightenment. It h a s to o u t w i t w h a t w a s at the t i m e described ( a n d w a s still described in the nineteenth a n d t w e n t i e t h c e n t u r i e s ) as the progress of e n l i g h t enment, the struggle of k n o w l e d g e against i g n o r a n c e , of reason against chimeras, of e x p e r i e n c e against prejudices, of reason against error, and

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so on. A l l this has been described as, or s y m b o l i z e d by, light g r a d u a l l y d i s p e l l i n g d a r k n e s s , a n d it is this, I t h i n k , t h a t w e have to get r i d of [on the c o n t r a r y , ] w h e n w e look at the e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y w e have to see, not this r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n d a y and night, k n o w l e d g e a n d ignorance, but something v e r y different: an immense a n d m u l t i p l e b a t t l e , b u t not one b e t w e e n k n o w l e d g e a n d i g n o r a n c e , but an i m mense a n d m u l t i p l e b a t t l e b e t w e e n k n o w l e d g e s in the p l u r a l k n o w l e d g e s t h a t are in conflict b e c a u s e of t h e i r v e r y morphology, because they are in the possession of enemies, a n d because t h e y h a v e i n t r i n s i c power-effects. I w i l l t a k e one or t w o e x a m p l e s that w i l l , for a moment, t a k e us a w a y from history. T a k e the p r o b l e m of technical or technological k n o w l e d g e . It is often s a i d that the e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y w a s the century that s a w the emergence of technical k n o w l e d g e s . W h a t a c t u a l l y h a p pened in the e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y w a s quite different. First of a l l , w e have the p l u r a l , polymorphous, m u l t i p l e , a n d dispersed existence of different knowledges, which existed w i t h their differencesdiffer-

ences defined by geographical regions, by the size of the w o r k s h o p s or factories, a n d so on. The differences among themI am s p e a k i n g of technological e x p e r t i s e , r e m e m b e r w e r e defined by local categories, education, a n d the w e a l t h of their possessors. A n d these k n o w l edges w e r e s t r u g g l i n g against one another, w i t h one a n o t h e r , in a society where k n o w i n g the secret b e h i n d technological k n o w l e d g e w a s a source of w e a l t h , and in w h i c h the m u t u a l i n d e p e n d e n c e of these k n o w l e d g e s also made i n d i v i d u a l s i n d e p e n d e n t . So m u l t i p l e k n o w l e d g e , k n o w l e d g e - a s - s e c r e t , k n o w l e d g e functioning a s w e a l t h a n d a s a guarantee of i n d e p e n d e n c e : technological k n o w l e d g e functioned

w i t h i n this p a t c h w o r k . N o w , as both the p r o d u c t i v e forces a n d econ o m i c d e m a n d developed, the price of these k n o w l e d g e s rose, a n d the struggle b e t w e e n t h e m , the need to delineate t h e i r i n d e p e n d e n c e a n d the need for secrecy intensified a n d b e c a m e , so to s p e a k , more tense. At the s a m e t i m e , w e s a w the development of processes t h a t a l l o w e d bigger, more g e n e r a l , or more i n d u s t r i a l i z e d k n o w l e d g e s , or k n o w l edges t h a t c i r c u l a t e d more easily, to a n n e x , confiscate, a n d t a k e over smaller, more p a r t i c u l a r , more local, a n d more artisanal k n o w l e d g e s .

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There w a s a sort of immense economico-political struggle around or over these k n o w l e d g e s , their dispersal, or their heterogeneity, an i m mense struggle over the economic inductions and power-effects were bound that

up with the exclusive o w n e r s h i p of a k n o w l e d g e , its

dispersal a n d its secret. W h a t has been called the development of technological k n o w l e d g e in the eighteenth century has to be thought of in t e r m s of a form of m u l t i p l i c i t y , a n d not in terms of the t r i u m p h of l i g h t over d a r k n e s s or of k n o w l e d g e over ignorance. N o w , the State will intervene, either directly or i n d i r e c t l y , in these attempts at annexation, which a r e also a t t e m p t s at generalization, in four main w a y s . First, by e l i m i n a t i n g or disqualifying w h a t m i g h t be termed useless and irreducible l i t t l e k n o w l e d g e s that are expensive in economic t e r m s : e l i m i n a t i o n a n d disqualification, then. Second, b y n o r m a l i z i n g t h e s e k n o w l e d g e s ; t h i s makes it possible to fit t h e m together, to m a k e t h e m communicate w i t h one another, to b r e a k d o w n the b a r r i e r s of secrecy and technological and geographical boundaries. In short, this m a k e s not only k n o w l e d g e s , b u t also those w h o possess them, interchangeable. The normalization of dispersed knowledges. T h i r d operation: the hierarchical classification of k n o w l e d g e s a l l o w s t h e m to become, so to speak, interlocking, starting w i t h the most p a r t i c u l a r and material k n o w l e d g e s , which are also subordinated

k n o w l e d g e s , and ending w i t h the most general forms, w i t h the most formal k n o w l e d g e s , which are also the forms that envelop and direct k n o w l e d g e . So, a hierarchical classification. A n d finally, once a l l this has been done, a fourth operation becomes possible: a p y r a m i d a l cent r a l i z a t i o n that allows these k n o w l e d g e s to be controlled, w h i c h ensures that they can be selected, and both that the content of these k n o w l e d g e s can be t r a n s m i t t e d u p w a r d from the bottom, and that the overall directions and the g e n e r a l organizations it wishes to p r o mote can be t r a n s m i t t e d d o w n w a r d from the top. The tendency to organize technological k n o w l e d g e s brings w i t h it a w h o l e series of practices, projects, and i n s t i t u t i o n s . The for e x a m p l e . The Encyclopedic Encyclopedic

is usually seen only in terms of its po-

litical or ideological opposition to the m o n a r c h y a n d at least one form of C a t h o l i c i s m . Its interest in technology is not in fact a reflection of

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some philosophical m a t e r i a l i s m ; it is a c t u a l l y an attempt to homog e n i z e technological k n o w l e d g e s , a n d it is at once political a n d

economic. The g r e a t studies of handicraft methods, metallurgical techniques, and m i n i n g t h e g r e a t s u r v e y s that w e r e m a d e b e t w e e n the m i d d l e a n d the end of the eighteenth centurycorresponded to this a t t e m p t to n o m a l i z e technical k n o w l e d g e s . The e x i s t e n c e , foundation, or development of grandes ecoles such as the Ecole des M i n e s a n d the

Ecole Ponts et Chaussees, and so on, m a d e it possible to establish both q u a n t i t a t i v e a n d q u a l i t a t i v e levels, b r e a k s a n d strata b e t w e e n these different k n o w l e d g e s , and t h a t a l l o w e d t h e m to b e a r r a n g e d into a h i e r a r c h y . A n d finally, the corps of inspectors w h o , t h r o u g h o u t the k i n g d o m , advised a n d counseled people on how to develop a n d use these different k n o w l e d g e s ensured that k n o w l e d g e w a s centralized. I h a v e t a k e n the e x a m p l e of technical k n o w l e d g e s , b u t the s a m e could b e said of medical k n o w l e d g e . T h r o u g h o u t the w h o l e second half of the eighteenth century w e see a huge effort b e i n g m a d e to homogenize, normalize, classify, a n d centralize m e d i c a l k n o w l e d g e . H o w could

medical k n o w l e d g e b e given a form a n d a content, how could h o mogeneous l a w s b e imposed u p o n the practice of h e a l t h c a r e , how could r u l e s be imposed u p o n the populationnot so much to m a k e it share this k n o w l e d g e , as to m a k e it find it a c c e p t a b l e ? A l l this led to t h e creation of hospitals, dispensaries, a n d of the Societe r o y a l e de medecine, the codification of t h e medical profession, a huge p u b l i c hygiene campaign, a huge c a m p a i g n to i m p r o v e the h y g i e n e of n u r s lings and children, and so on.
9

A l l these projectsand I have cited only two e x a m p l e s b a s i c a l l y had four goals: selection, normalization, hierarchicalization, a n d centralization. These a r e the four o p e r a t i o n s that w e see at w o r k in a fairly d e t a i l e d study of w h a t w e call d i s c i p l i n a r y p o w e r .
10

The e i g h -

teenth century w a s the century w h e n k n o w l e d g e s were d i s c i p l i n e d , or w h e n , in other w o r d s , the i n t e r n a l organization of e v e r y k n o w l e d g e became a discipline w h i c h had, in its own field, c r i t e r i a of selection that a l l o w e d it to eradicate false k n o w l e d g e or n o n k n o w l e d g e . W e also h a v e forms of normalization a n d homogenization of k n o w l e d g e contents, forms of hierarchicahzation, a n d an internal organization

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that could c e n t r a l i z e k n o w l e d g e s around a sort of d e facto a x i o m a t i zation. So every k n o w l e d g e w a s organized into a discipline. These k n o w l e d g e s t h a t had been d i s c i p h n a r i z e d from w i t h i n were then a r r a n g e d , m a d e to communicate w i t h one another, redistributed, and organized into a hierarchy w i t h i n a sort of overall field or overall d i s c i p l i n e t h a t w a s k n o w n specifically as science. Science in the sing u l a r did not e x i s t before the eighteenth century. Sciences existed, k n o w l e d g e s existed, and philosophy, if y o u like, existed. Philosophy w a s , precisely, the organizational system, the system t h a t a l l o w e d k n o w l e d g e s to communicate w i t h one anotherand to t h a t e x t e n t it could p l a y an effective, real, and operational role w i t h i n the d e v e l o p m e n t of technical k n o w l e d g e s . The d i s c i p h n a r i z a t i o n of k n o w l e d g e s , and its p o l y m o r p h o u s s i n g u l a r i t y , now l e a d s to the emergence of a p h e n o m e n o n a n d a constraint t h a t is now an integral p a r t of our society. W e call it "science." A t the same time, and for the same reason, philosophy loses its foundational a n d founding role. Philosophy no longer has any real role to play w i t h i n science and the processes of k n o w l e d g e . A t the same t i m e , and for the s a m e reasons, mathesisor the project of a universal science that could serve as both for

a formal instrument for every science and a rigorous foundation

all sciencesalso disappears. Science, defined as a general domain, as the d i s c i p l i n a r y p o l i c i n g of k n o w l e d g e s , takes over from both p h i l o s ophy a n d mathesis. From now on, it w i l l raise specific p r o b l e m s r e l a t i n g

to the d i s c i p l i n a r y policing of k n o w l e d g e s : p r o b l e m s of classification, p r o b l e m s of h i e r a r c h i c a h z a t i o n , p r o b l e m s of proximity, and so on. A belief in the progress of reason w a s the eighteenth c e n t u r y ' s only awareness of this far-reaching change in the d i s c i p h n a r i z a t i o n of

k n o w l e d g e s a n d the subsequent e l i m i n a t i o n of both the philosophical discourse o p e r a t i n g w i t h i n science and the sciences' internal for a mathesis. project

I think, however, t h a t if w e can g r a s p w h a t w a s going

on b e n e a t h w h a t is called the progress of reasonnamely the disciphnarization of p o l y m o r p h o u s and heterogeneous knowledgeswe

w i l l b e able to u n d e r s t a n d a certain n u m b e r of things. First, the a p pearance of the university. Not of course in the strict sense, as the universities had their function, role, and existence long before this.

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B u t from t h e end of t h e eighteenth a n d b e g i n n i n g of the nineteenth centuries onwardthe Napoleonic university w a s established at p r e cisely this timewe see the emergence of something like a sort of great uniform a p p a r a t u s of k n o w l e d g e s , w i t h its different stages, its different extensions, its different levels, and its pseudopodia. The u n i v e r s i t y ' s p r i m a r y function is one of selection, not so much of people ( w h i c h i s , after a l l , basically not very i m p o r t a n t ) as of k n o w l e d g e s . It can play this selective role because it has a sort of de factoand de juremonopoly, w h i c h means that any k n o w l e d g e that is not b o r n or s h a p e d w i t h i n t h i s sort of institutional fieldwhose l i m i t s a r e in fact relatively fluid b u t w h i c h consists, r o u g h l y s p e a k i n g , of the u n i v e r s i t y a n d official r e s e a r c h b o d i e s t h a t a n y t h i n g t h a t exists outside it, any k n o w l e d g e t h a t e x i s t s in t h e w i l d , any k n o w l e d g e t h a t is b o r n e l s e w h e r e , is a u t o m a t i c a l l y , a n d from the outset, if not a c t u a l l y e x cluded, disqualified a priori. That the a m a t e u r scholar ceased to e x i s t in the eighteenth a n d nineteenth centuries is a w e l l - k n o w n fact. So the university has a selective role: it selects k n o w l e d g e s . Its role is to distinguish b e t w e e n q u a l i t a t i v e and q u a n t i t a t i v e levels of k n o w l e d g e , a n d to d i s t r i b u t e k n o w l e d g e s accordingly. Its role is to teach, w h i c h means respecting the b a r r i e r s that e x i s t b e t w e e n the different floors of the university a p p a r a t u s . Its role is to homogenize k n o w l e d g e s by establishing a sort of scientific c o m m u n i t y w i t h a recognized status; its role is to o r g a n i z e a consensus. Its role i s , finally, to use, either d i r e c t l y or i n d i r e c t l y , State a p p a r a t u s e s to c e n t r a l i z e k n o w l e d g e . W e c a n now u n d e r s t a n d w h y something r e s e m b l i n g a university, w i t h i t s ill-defined extensions a n d frontiers, s h o u l d have emerged a t t h e b e g i n n i n g of the nineteenth century, or in o t h e r w o r d s a t the v e r y t i m e when this disciphnanzation of k n o w l e d g e s , this organization of

k n o w l e d g e s into d i s c i p l i n e s , w a s g o i n g on. T h i s also a l l o w s us to u n d e r s t a n d a second phenomenon, or w h a t m i g h t be termed a change in the form of dogmatism. You see, once the mechanism, or the internal d i s c i p l i n e of k n o w l e d g e s , includes controls, a n d once those controls are exercised by a p u r p o s e - b u i l t a p p a r a t u s ; once w e have this form of controlyou must understand

t h i s w e can do a w a y w i t h w h a t w e m i g h t call the orthodoxy of

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statements. This old o r t h o d o x y w a s costly, for this p r i n c i p l e , w h i c h functioned a s a r e l i g i o u s or ecclesiastical mode of functioning, h a d r e s u l t e d in the condemnation a n d exclusion of a certain n u m b e r of statements t h a t w e r e scientifically t r u e a n d scientifically productive. The d i s c i p l i n e , the d i s c i p l i n a r i z a t i o n of k n o w l e d g e s established in the eighteenth century, w i l l replace that orthodoxy, which a p p l i e d to s t a t e m e n t s themselves a n d sorted those that w e r e a c c e p t a b l e out from those that w e r e unacceptable, w i t h something else: a control that a p plies not to the content of statements themselves, to their conformity or nonconformity to a certain t r u t h , but to the r e g u l a r i t y of e n u n c i ations. The problem is now: W h o is s p e a k i n g , are they qualified to speak, at w h a t level is the statement situated, w h a t set can it be fitted

into, a n d how and to w h a t extent does it conform to other forms a n d other typologies of k n o w l e d g e ? This a l l o w s a liberalism that i s , if not boundless, at least more b r o a d - m i n d e d in terms of the content of statements and, on the other hand, more rigorous, more comprehensiveand has a m u c h g r e a t e r w i n g areaat the level of enunciatory procedures. A s a result, a n d as y o u might have deduced, statements could rotate much more q u i c k l y , and truths became obsolete much more quickly. A s a result, a number of epistemological obstacles could be removed. J u s t as an orthodoxy that concentrated on the content of statements h a d become an obstacle to the r e n e w a l of the stock of scientific k n o w l e d g e s , so, in contrast, d i s c i p l i n a r i z a t i o n at the level of enunciations a l l o w e d the stock to be r e n e w e d much more q u i c k l y . W e move, if you like, from the censorship of s t a t e m e n t s to the d i s c i p l i n a r i z a t i o n of enunciations, or from orthodoxy to w h a t I w o u l d call "orthology," to a form of control that is now exercised on a d i s c i p l i n a r y basis. Right! I've s t r a y e d a w a y from the point w i t h all this. W e h a v e been s t u d y i n g , looking at h o w the d i s c i p l i n a r y t e c h n i q u e s of power,
11

taken

at their most subtle or e l e m e n t a r y level, taken at the level of i n d i v i d ual bodies, succeeded in c h a n g i n g the political economy of p o w e r , and modified its apparatuses; w e have also seen how d i s c i p l i n a r y techniques of p o w e r applied to bodies not only led to an accumulation of k n o w l e d g e , b u t also identified possible domains of k n o w l e d g e . W e

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t h e n saw how t h e application of d i s c i p l i n e s of power to bodies could extract from those subjugated bodies something like a soul-subject, an "ego," a psyche, et cetera. I tried to look at all this last y e a r . " I t h i n k that we now have to study the emergence of a different form

of disciplining, of d i s c i p l i n a r i z a t i o n , w h i c h is contemporary w i t h the first b u t w h i c h a p p l i e s to k n o w l e d g e s a n d not bodies. A n d it can, I t h i n k , be d e m o n s t r a t e d that t h i s d i s c i p l i n a r i z a t i o n of k n o w l e d g e s r e s u l t e d in b o t h the removal of certain epistemological obstacles a n d a n e w form, a n e w r e g u l a r i t y in the proliferation of disciplines. It can be d e m o n s t r a t e d that this d i s c i p l i n a r i z a t i o n established a new mode of relationship b e t w e e n p o w e r a n d k n o w l e d g e . It can, finally, be d e m onstrated t h a t the d i s c i p l i n a r i z a t i o n of k n o w l e d g e s gave rise to a n e w constraint: no longer the constraint of t r u t h , b u t the constraint of science. A l l this is t a k i n g us a w a y from the historiography of the k i n g , Racine, a n d M o r e a u . W e could pick u p the analysis ( b u t I will not do so n o w ) a n d show t h a t at the v e r y moment w h e n history, or historical discourse, w a s e n t e r i n g a g e n e r a l field of conflict, history found itself, for different reasons, in the same position as the technical k n o w l e d g e s I w a s t a l k i n g about a moment ago. These technological k n o w l e d g e s , their dispersal, their v e r y morphology, their localized n a t u r e , and the secrecy that s u r r o u n d e d them w e r e b o t h an issue a n d an i n s t r u m e n t in an economic struggle and a political s t r u g g l e . The S t a t e intervened in the struggle t h a t these technological k n o w l e d g e s w e r e w a g i n g against one another: its function or role w a s to d i s c i p l i n a r i z e t h e m , or in other w o r d s , to select a n d homogenize k n o w l e d g e s , and to arrange them into a h i e r a r c h y . For v e r y different reasons, historical k n o w l e d g e entered a field of s t r u g g l e s and battles at m u c h the same time. Not for directly economic reasons, b u t for reasons pertaining to a struggle, a political s t r u g g l e . W h e n historical k n o w l e d g e , w h i c h h a d until t h e n been part of the discourse that the State or power pronounced on itself, w a s enucleated from t h a t p o w e r , a n d in the political struggle that lasted for the

became an instrument

w h o l e e i g h t e e n t h century, the State attempted, in the same w a y and for the same reason, to take it in hand a n d d i s c i p l i n a n z e it. The

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establishment, at the end of the eighteenth century, of a m i n i s t r y of history, the establishment of the great repository of archives that was to become the Ecole des C h a r t e s in the nineteenth century, w h i c h more or less coincided w i t h the establishment of the Ecole des M i n e s a n d the Ecole d e s Ponts et Chausseesthe Ecole des Ponts et C h a u s sees is a l i t t l e different, not that it mattersalso corresponds to the d i s c i p l i n a r i z a t i o n of k n o w l e d g e . Royal p o w e r ' s objective w a s to d i s cipline historical k n o w l e d g e , or historical k n o w l e d g e s , and thus to establish a State k n o w l e d g e . The difference b e t w e e n this a n d technological k n o w l e d g e is that insofar as history w a s indeedI think an a n t i - S t a t e k n o w l e d g e , there w a s a p e r p e t u a l confrontation b e t w e e n the history that h a d been d i s c i p l i n a r i z e d by the State and that h a d become the content of official teaching, and the history that was

b o u n d u p w i t h struggles because it w a s the consciousness of subjects involved in a s t r u g g l e . D i s c i p l i n a r i z a t i o n d i d not defuse the confrontation. W h i l e it can be said that the d i s c i p l i n a r i z a t i o n introduced in the eighteenth c e n t u r y w a s b r o a d l y effective and successful in the realm of technology, where historical k n o w l e d g e is concerned, disciplinarization did occur, b u t it not only failed to block the non-Statist history, the decentered history of subjects in struggle, but a c t u a l l y made it stronger t h a n k s to a w h o l e set of struggles, confiscations, a n d mutual challenges. A n d to that extent, you a l w a y s have t w o levels of historical k n o w l e d g e and consciousness, and the two levels obviously drift further a n d further apart. But the g a p b e t w e e n the two never prevents either of them from existing. So w e have on the one h a n d a k n o w l e d g e that has effectively been d i s c i p l i n a r i z e d to form a historical discipline, a n d on the other hand, a historical consciousness that is polymorphous, divided, and combative. It is s i m p l y the other side, the other face of a political consciousness. I w o u l d like to try to say a little a b o u t these things by looking at the end of the eighteenth century a n d the beginning of the nineteenth.

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I.Jules Michelet, Le Peuple (Paris, 1 9 4 6 ) . 2. Niccolo Machiavelh, II Principe (Rome, 1532); Discorsi sopra la prima deca di tito Livio, op. at.; Dell'arte della guerra ( Florence, 1521); htoriefiorentini( Florence, 1531). There are manv French translations of II Principe (English translation by George Bull: The Prince [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1 9 6 1 ] ) . The other texts referred to may be consulted in E. Bar inou, ed., Machiavel, Oeuvres completes (Pans: Bibliotheque de la Plei'ade, 1952); this is a revised and updated version of J. Guiraudet's old translations ( 1 7 9 8 ) . English translation by Leslie J . Walker: The Discourse of Nkcolo Machiavel/i (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1 9 5 0 ) . Foucault discusses Machiavelli in "Oranes et singulatim" ( 1 9 8 1 ) and "The Political Technology of Individuals," and in his lecture "On Governmentality"; cf. note 13 to the lecture of 21 January above. 3. Pierre le Pesant de Boisguilbert, Le Detail de la France (s.1, 1 6 9 5 ) ; Factum de la France ( 1 7 0 7 ) , m Economistes financiers du XVIIIe siecle (Paris, 1843); Testament politique de M. de Vauban, Marechal de France, 2 vols. (s.1. 1707); Dissertation sur la nature des richesses, de Vargent et des tributs (Paris, n.d.). 4- Sebastien le Prestre de Vauban, Methode generate et facile pourfaire le de'nombrement des peu pies (Paris, 1 6 8 6 ) ; Pvjet d'une dixme royale (s.1. 1 7 0 7 ) . 5. On the antihistoncism of contemporary knowledge, see in particular chapter 4 of Les Mots et les choses (English translation: The Order of Things). 6. The passage in brackets has been reconstructed from Foucault's manuscript. 7. Characters in, respectively, Corneille's Cinna and Racine's Britannkus and Andromaque. [Trans.] 8. The results of the enormous task undertaken by Moreau will be found in his F*rincipes de morale, de politique, et de droit public; for examples of the criteria used bv Moreau in preparation for this work, and for its history, see also his Plan des travaux litte'raires ordonnes par Sa Majeste. 9- On the procedures of normalization in medical knowledge, the reader is referred to Naissance de la clinique: une axhe'ologie du regard medical (Pans: PUF, 1 9 6 3 ) (English translation bv Alan Sheridan: Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical F*reception [London: Tavistock, 1973]); the lecture given by Foucault in Brazil in 1974 on the history or medicine, "El nacimento de la medicine social" ("La Naissance de la medicine sociale," Dits et ecrits, vol. 3, pp. 207-27); "Incorpoacion del hospital en la tecnologia moderna" ("L'incorporation de I'hopital dans la technologie moderne," in Dits et ecrits, vol. 3, pp. 5 0 8 - 2 1 ) ; and the analysis of medical policing made in "La Politique de la sante au XVIIIe siecle," in Dits et ecrits, vol. 3, pp. 13-27 (English translation: "The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century," in Power/Knowledge, pp. 1 6 6 - 8 2 ) ; and "La Politique de la sante au XVIIIe siecle," in Dits et ecrits, vol. 3, pp. 725-41. 10. On disciplinary power and its effects on knowledge, see in particular Suweiller et punir: Naissance de la prison (Pans: Gallimard, 1975)- English translation by Alan Sheridan: Discipline and Finish: The Birth of the Prison (London: Allen Lane, 1977). 11, See in particular the lectures given at the College de France in 1971-1972: Theories et institutions pe'nales, and in 1972-1973: La socie'te punitive, forthcoming. 12. Michel Foucault, Les Anormaux: Cours au College de France, 7974-7975 (Pans: Gallimard and Le Seuil, 1 9 9 9 ) .

nine

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Tactical generalisation Revolution, barbarian. historical field

of historical history.

knowledge.

Constitution, and the tactics of epistemological of

and cyclical - Three ways

- The savage barbarism: the

of filtering

discourse.

- Questions

of method:

and the antihistoricism discourse

of the bourgeoisie.

- Reactivation

historical

during the Revolution. gothic novel.

- Feudalism

and the

L A S T T I M E , I S H O W E D y o u how a h i s t o n c o - p o h t i c a l d i s c o u r s e , or a

h i s t o n c o - p o h t i c a l field, took shape a n d w a s constituted around t h e n o b i l i a r y reaction of t h e early e i g h t e e n t h century. I w o u l d n o w l i k e to move to a different point in time, or in other w o r d s , to a r o u n d t h e French Revolution a n d to a moment w h e r e w e can, I t h i n k , g r a s p t w o processes. W e can see, on t h e one hand, h o w this discourse, w h i c h was o r i g i n a l l y b o u n d u p w i t h t h e n o b i l i a r y reaction, b e c a m e g e n e r alized not so much, or not only, i n the sense that is became, so to s p e a k , the regular or canonical form of historical discourse, b u t to t h e extent t h a t it became a tactical i n s t r u m e n t t h a t could b e u s e d not only by the nobility, b u t ultimately in v a r i o u s different strategies. In t h e course of t h e eighteenth century, a n d subject to a certain n u m b e r of modifications at t h e level of its basic propositions, historical d i s course e v e n t u a l l y became a sort of d i s c u r s i v e w e a p o n that could be used b y all t h e adversaries present w i t h i n t h e political field. In short, I w o u l d l i k e to show y o u h o w t h i s historical i n s t r u m e n t must not b e seen as the ideology o r an ideological product of t h e nobility or i t s

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class position, a n d that w e are not dealing w i t h an ideology here; w e are d e a l i n g w i t h something else. W h a t I am t r y i n g to identify i s w h a t might, if y o u l i k e , be t e r m e d a discursive tactic, a d e p l o y m e n t of k n o w l e d g e a n d p o w e r w h i c h , insofar as it is a tactic, is transferable a n d e v e n t u a l l y becomes the l a w governing the formation of a k n o w l e d g e and, at the same time, the g e n e r a l form of the political battle. So the discourse on history i s g e n e r a l i z e d , b u t in a tactical sense. The second process w e see t a k i n g shape at the t i m e of the Revolution is the w a y in w h i c h this tactic is d e p l o y e d in three directions w h i c h c o r r e s p o n d to t h r e e different b a t t l e s a n d p r o d u c e three r a t h e r different tactics: One is centered on nationalities, a n d is therefore essentially in continuity w i t h the p h e n o m e n a of l a n g u a g e and, therefore, philology; the second centers on social classes, v i e w s economic domination as the central phenomenon, a n d is therefore closely r e l a t e d to political economy; the t h i r d direction, finally, is centered on neither nationalities nor classes, but upon race, a n d v i e w s biological specification a n d selection as the central phenomenon; t h e r e is, then, a c o n t i n u i t y b e t w e e n this historical discourse a n d the biological problematic. Philology, political economy, biology. Language, labor, life.' W e will see all this b e i n g reinvested in or r e a r t i c u l a t e d around t h i s historical k n o w l e d g e and the tactics that are b o u n d up w i t h it. The first t h i n g I w o u l d l i k e to t a l k to y o u about today is therefore this tactical g e n e r a l i z a t i o n of historical k n o w l e d g e ; how w a s it disp l a c e d from its p l a c e of b i r t h t h e nobiliary reaction of the early e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y a n d how did it become an instrument that could be used in all the political struggles of the late e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y , no m a t t e r how w e look at t h e m ? O u r first q u e s t i o n concerns the reasons for this tactical polyvalence: H o w a n d w h y d i d such a particular i n s t r u m e n t , such a s i n g u l a r discourse w h i c h sang the praises of i n v a d e r s , become a g e n e r a l i n s t r u m e n t to be used in the political tactics a n d confrontations of the eighteenth c e n t u r y ? I t h i n k the e x p l a n a t i o n is something along these lines. Boulainvil h e r s m a d e national d u a l i t y h i s t o r y ' s p r i n c i p l e of intelligibility. Intell i g i b i l i t y m e a n t t h r e e t h i n g s . B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s w a s p r i m a r i l y interested in Bnding the initial conflict ( b a t t l e , w a r , conquest, invasion, et cet

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e r a ) , the n u c l e u s of w a r from w h i c h he c o u l d d e r i v e all the other b a t t l e s , struggles, a n d confrontations because they w e r e either its d i rect effects or the result of a series of d i s p l a c e m e n t s , modifications, or reversals of the r e l a t i o n s h i p of force. So, a sort of great genealogy of the struggles that go on in all the v a r i o u s conflicts recorded by h i s t o r y . H o w c o u l d he find the b a s i c s t r u g g l e , trace the strategic t h r e a d r u n ning through all these b a t t l e s ? The historical i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y that B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s w a n t e d to s u p p l y a l s o meant that he not only h a d to locate t h a t basic kernel of w a r a n d the w a y in w h i c h e v e r y conflict d e r i v e d from it; he also h a d to t r a c e the b e t r a y a l s , the u n n a t u r a l alliances, the ruses t h a t w e r e u s e d on all s i d e s , all t h e negations of right, all t h e i n a d m i s s i b l e calculations, and a l l the unforgivable l a p s e s of m e m o r y t h a t m a d e possible this transformation, a n d , at the same time, the w a t e r i n g d o w n of t h a t relationship of force a n d t h a t basic confron-

tation. He had to u n d e r t a k e a sort of g r e a t e x a m i n a t i o n of h i s t o r y ( " w h o ' s to b l a m e ? " ) a n d therefore t r a c e not only the strategic t h r e a d , b u t also the linesometimes sinuous b u t never brokenof ethical

divisions t h a t r u n s through history. Historical i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y also h a d a t h i r d meaning; it m e a n t g e t t i n g b e y o n d these tactical d i s p l a c e m e n t s and all these historico-ethical m i s a p p r o p r i a t i o n s in o r d e r to d e m o n strate t h a t a certain relationship of force w a s b o t h right a n d fair. B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s w a s concerned w i t h the t r u e r e l a t i o n s h i p of forcein t h e sense that he had to rediscover a relationship of force that w a s not ideal but real, a n d that had, in this case, been recorded and

inscribed by history in the course of a decisive ordeal by strength: the Frankish invasion of Gaul. A r e l a t i o n s h i p of force, then, that w a s historically t r u e a n d historically real and which w a s , secondly, a good relationship of force because it could b e extricated from all the d i s tortions to w h i c h b e t r a y a l s a n d v a r i o u s d i s p l a c e m e n t s h a d subjected it. The theme of his search for historical i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y w a s this: to rediscover a state of affairs that w a s a state of force in i t s primal Tightness. A n d you w i l l find that B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s a n d his successors formulate t h i s project v e r y clearly. B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , for e x a m p l e , said: W e have to r e l a t e our m o d e r n customs to their t r u e origins, discover the p r i n c i p l e s of the nation's common r i g h t , and then look at w h a t

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has changed over t i m e . A few y e a r s later, B u a t - N a n c a y w o u l d say that if w e can u n d e r s t a n d the primitive spirit of government, w e w i l l b e able to l e n d a n e w vigor to certain l a w s , m o d e r a t e those l a w s that are so vigorous as to shift the balance, a n d reestablish harmony and social relations. This project of a n a l y z i n g the i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y of history therefore i m plies three tasks: finding the strategic thread, t r a c i n g the t h r e a d of ethical divisions, a n d reestablishing the r e c t i t u d e of w h a t m i g h t be called t h e "constituent point" of politics a n d history, or the constituent moment of t h e k i n g d o m . I say "constituent point" or "constituent moment" so as to t r y to avoid, w i t h o u t erasing it altogether, the w o r d "constitution." A s you can see, it is indeed a matter of constitution; the point of s t u d y i n g history is to reestablish the constitution, but not at all in the sense of a n e x p l i c i t body of l a w s that w e r e formulated at some g i v e n moment. Nor i s the goal to rediscover a sort of foundational j u r i d i c a l convention w h i c h , at some point in

timeor a r c h i t i m e h a d b e e n established b e t w e e n t h e k i n g , t h e sovereign, a n d his subjects. The p o i n t i s to rediscover something that has its o w n consistency a n d its own historical situation, a n d it is not so much of the order of t h e l a w as of the order of force, not so m u c h of the order of the w r i t t e n w o r d as of the order of an e q u i l i b r i u m . This something is a constitution, b u t almost in the sense that a doctor w o u l d u n d e r s t a n d that term, or in other w o r d s , in the sense of a relationship of force, an e q u i l i b r i u m a n d i n t e r p l a y of proportions, a stable d i s s y m m e t r y or a congruent i n e q u a l i t y . When eighteenth-

century doctors e v o k e d t h e notion of "constitution," they w e r e t a l k i n g about all these t h i n g s . W e can see t h i s idea of a "constitution"in both the m e d i c a l a n d the m i l i t a r y sensetaking shape in the historical l i t e r a t u r e r e l a t i n g to the n o b i l i a r y reaction. It designates both a r e lationship of force b e t w e e n good a n d evil, a n d a r e l a t i o n s h i p of force b e t w e e n adversaries. If w e are able to u n d e r s t a n d and reestablish a basic relationship of force, w e w i l l be able to get back to this constituent point. W e h a v e to establish a constitution, a n d w e w i l l not g e t b a c k to t h a t constitution by reestablishing the l a w s of old, b u t t h a n k s to s o m e t h i n g r e s e m b l i n g a revolutiona revolution in the
2

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sense of a transition from night to d a y , from the l o w e s t p o i n t to t h e highest p o i n t . From B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s o n w a r d a n d t h i s i s , I t h i n k , the i m p o r t a n t pointit is the l i n k i n g t o g e t h e r of the t w o notions of constitution a n d revolution t h a t m a k e s this possible. So long as historicojundical literature, which had essentially been written by the

parlementaires,

understood " c o n s t i t u t i o n " to mean essentially the basic

l a w s of the k i n g d o m , or i n other w o r d s , a j u r i d i c a l a p p a r a t u s or something of the order of a convention, it w a s obvious that t h e r e t u r n of t h e constitution meant s w e a r i n g a n oath to reestablish the l a w s that h a d been revealed. Once "constitution" no l o n g e r meant a j u r i d i c a l a r m a t u r e or a set of l a w s , b u t a r e l a t i o n s h i p of force, i t w a s q u i t e obvious t h a t such a r e l a t i o n s h i p of force could not be reestablished on the b a s i s of nothing; it could be reestablished only w h e n t h e r e existed something r e s e m b l i n g a cyclical historical pattern, or at least something t h a t allowed history to revolve a r o u n d itself a n d b r o u g h t it b a c k to its starting point. Y o u can therefore see h o w t h i s m e d i c o m i l i t a r y i d e a of a constitution, or i n other w o r d s , a r e l a t i o n s h i p of force, r e i n t r o d u c e s s o m e t h i n g r e s e m b l i n g a cyclical philosophy of h i s tory, or at least the i d e a that the d e v e l o p m e n t of h i s t o r y i s c i r c u l a r . A n d w h e n I s a y that his idea "is i n t r o d u c e d , " I a m really s a y i n g that it is reintroduced at the point w h e r e the old m i l l e n a r i a n t h e m e of the return of the past intersects w i t h an a r t i c u l a t e d historical k n o w l edge. This philosophy of history as philosophy of cyclical time b e c o m e s possible from t h e eighteenth c e n t u r y o n w a r d , or i n other w o r d s , once the t w o notions of a constitution a n d a r e l a t i o n s h i p of force b e c o m e established. W i t h B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , w e seeI t h i n k for t h e first t i m e the i d e a of a cyclical h i s t o r y a p p e a r i n g w i t h i n a n a r t i c u l a t e d historical discourse. Empires, s a y s B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s , rise and fall into decadence d e p e n d i n g on h o w the l i g h t of the sun shines upon t h e i r t e r r i t o r y . ' The revolution of the sun, and the r e v o l u t i o n of history: a s you can see, the two t h i n g s are now l i n k e d . So w e h a v e a pair, a l i n k among three things: constitution, revolution, and cyclical history. That, if you like, is one aspect of the tactical instrument that B o u l a i n v i l h e r s perfected.

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Second aspect: W h e n he is looking for the constituent

point

w h i c h is both good and t r u e w h a t is Boulainvilliers t r y i n g to do? It is q u i t e obvious t h a t he refuses to look for that constituent point in the l a w , b u t he also refuses to find it in nature: a n t i j u n d i c a l i s m

( w h i c h is w h a t I have just been telling you a b o u t ) , b u t also n a t u r a l ism. The great adversary of Boulainvilliers and his successors is nature, or natural man. To put it a different w a y , the great adversary of this t y p e of a n a l y s i s ( a n d B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s ' s a n a l y s e s will become i n s t r u mental a n d tactical in this sense t o o ) is, if you like, n a t u r a l m a n or the savage. " S a v a g e " is to be understood in two senses. The savage noble or o t h e r w i s e i s the n a t u r a l man w h o m the jurists or theorists of right d r e a m e d u p , the natural man w h o existed before society e x isted, w h o e x i s t e d in order to constitute society, a n d w h o w a s the element around w h i c h the social body could be constituted. W h e n they look for the constituent point, B o u l a i n v i l h e r s a n d his successors are not t r y i n g to find this savage who, in some sense, exists before the social body. The other thing they are t r y i n g to w a r d off is the other aspect of the savage, that other natural man or ideal element d r e a m e d u p by economists: a man w i t h o u t a past or a history, w h o is motivated only by self-interest and w h o exchanges the p r o d u c t of his labor for another product. W h a t the histonco-pohtical discourse of B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s and his successors is t r y i n g to w a r d off is both the savage w h o emerges from his forests to enter into a contract and to found society, and the savage Homo economicus whose life is devoted to

e x c h a n g e a n d barter. The combination of the savage and exchange is, I t h i n k , basic to juridical thought, and not only to eighteenth-century theories of r i g h t w e constantly find the savage-exchange couple from the e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y theory of r i g h t to the anthropology of the nineteenth and t w e n t i e t h centuries. In both the juridical thought of the eighteenth century and the anthropology of the nineteenth and t w e n t i e t h centuries, the savage is essentially a man w h o exchanges. He is the exchanger: he exchanges rights and he exchanges goods. Insofar as he exchanges rights, he founds society and sovereignty. Insofar as he exchanges goods, he constitutes a social body which is, at the same time, an economic body. Ever since the eighteenth century,

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the savage has been the subject of an e l e m e n t a r y exchange. Well, the h i s t o r i c o - p o l i t i c a l discourse i n a u g u r a t e d by Boulainvilhers creates a n other figure, and he is the a n t i t h e s i s of the savage ( w h o w a s of great importance in e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y juridical t h e o r y ) . This new figure is just as e l e m e n t a r y as the savage of the j u r i s t s ( w h o were soon followed by the a n t h r o p o l o g i s t s ) but is constituted on a very different basis: he is the b a r b a r i a n . The b a r b a r i a n is the opposite of the savage, but in w h a t sense? First, in this sense: The savage is b a s i c a l l y a savage w h o lives in a state of savagery together with other savages; once he enters a relation of a social k i n d , he ceases to be a savage. The b a r b a r i a n , in contrast, is someone w h o can be understood, characterized, and defined only in relation to a civilization, a n d b y the fact that he exists outside it. There can be no b a r b a r i a n unless an island of civilization exists somew h e r e , unless he lives outside it, a n d u n l e s s he fights it. A n d the

b a r b a r i a n ' s r e l a t i o n s h i p w i t h that speck of c i v i l i z a t i o n w h i c h the b a r b a r i a n despises, and w h i c h he w a n t s i s one of hostility a n d perm a n e n t warfare. The b a r b a r i a n cannot e x i s t w i t h o u t the civilization he is t r y i n g to destroy a n d a p p r o p r i a t e . The b a r b a r i a n is a l w a y s the m a n w h o s t a l k s the frontiers of States, the man w h o stumbles into the city w a l l s . U n l i k e the savage, the b a r b a r i a n does not emerge from some natural b a c k d r o p to w h i c h he belongs. He appears only w h e n civilization a l r e a d y exists, a n d only w h e n he is in conflict w i t h it. He does not m a k e his entrance into history by founding a society, b u t by p e n e t r a t i n g a civilization, setting it a b l a z e and destroying it. I t h i n k that the first point, or the difference b e t w e e n the b a r b a r i a n a n d the savage, is this r e l a t i o n s h i p w i t h a civilization, a n d therefore w i t h a history that a l r e a d y exists. There can be no b a r b a r i a n w i t h o u t a p r e e x i s t i n g history: the history of the c i v i l i z a t i o n he sets a b l a z e . W h a t is more, and u n l i k e the savage, the b a r b a r i a n is not a vector for

exchange. The b a r b a r i a n is essentially the vector for something very different from exchange: he is the vector for domination. Unlike the savage, the b a r b a r i a n t a k e s possession a n d seizes; his occupation is not the p r i m i t i v e cultivation of the land, but plunder. His relationship w i t h p r o p e r t y is, in other w o r d s , a l w a y s secondary: he a l w a y s seizes

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existing property; s i m i l a r l y , he m a k e s other serve h i m . He makes others cultivate his land, tend his horses, p r e p a r e his w e a p o n s , and so on. His f r e e d o m is based solely upon the freedom others have lost. A n d in his r e l a t i o n s h i p w i t h power, the b a r b a r i a n , u n l i k e the savage, never s u r r e n d e r s his freedom. The savage is a man who has in his hands, so to speak, a p l e t h o r a of freedom w h i c h he s u r r e n d e r s in order to protect his life, his security, his property, and his goods. The b a r b a r i a n never gives up his freedom. A n d w h e n he does a c q u i r e a power, a c q u i r e a king or elect a chief, he certainly does not do so in order to d i m i n i s h his o w n share of r i g h t but, on the contrary, to increase his s t r e n g t h , to become an even stronger p l u n d e r e r , a stronger thief and rapist, and to become an invader who is more confident of his own strength. The b a r b a r i a n establishes a p o w e r in order to i n crease his o w n i n d i v i d u a l s t r e n g t h . For the b a r b a r i a n , the model government is, in other w o r d s , necessarily a m i l i t a r y government, and

certainly not one that is based upon the contracts and transfer of civil rights that characterize the savage. The t y p e of history established by B o u l a i n v i l h e r s in the eighteenth c e n t u r y is, I think, that of the figure of the b a r b a r i a n . So we can well understand why, in modern jundico-

anthropological t h o u g h t a n d even in t o d a y ' s bucolic and A m e r i c a n Utopias the savage is, despite it all and even t h o u g h it has to be a d m i t t e d that he has done a few bad things and has a few faults, a l w a y s the noble savage. Indeed, how could he not be noble, given that his specific function is to exchange and to give in accordance w i t h his o w n best interests, obviously, but in a form of reciprocity in w h i c h we can, if you like, recognize the acceptableand juridical form of goodness? The b a r b a r i a n , in contrast, has to be b a d and

w i c k e d , even if we have to admit that he does have certain qualities. He has to be full of arrogance a n d has to be inhuman, precisely because he is not the m a n of nature and exchange; he is the man of history, the m a n of pillage and fires, he is the man of domination. "A proud, b r u t a l people, w i t h o u t a homeland, and w i t h o u t l a w s , " said M a b l y ( w h o was, as it happens, very fond of b a r b a r i a n s ) ; "it tolerates atrocious acts of violence because they are regarded as being publicly

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The soul of the b a r b a r i a n is great, noble, and proud, but

it is a l w a y s associated w i t h treachery and c r u e l t y ( a l l this is in M a b l y ) . S p e a k i n g of barbarians, Bonneville said: " [ T ] h e s e adventurers l i v e d only for w a r . . . the s w o r d w a s t h e i r right and they exercised it without remorse."
5

A n d M a r a t , another great a d m i r e r of barbarians,

described them as "poor, uncouth, w i t h o u t trade, without arts, b u t free."

6

The b a r b a r i a n as natural m a n ? Y e s and no. No, in the sense

t h a t he is a l w a y s b o u n d u p w i t h a h i s t o r y ( a n d a p r e e x i s t i n g h i s t o r y ) . T h e b a r b a r i a n a p p e a r s against a b a c k d r o p of history. A n d if he is related to nature, said B u a t - N a n c a y ( w h o w a s getting at his closest enemy, n a m e l y M o n t e s q u i e u ) , it is becausewell, w h a t is the nature of t h i n g s ? "It is the relationship b e t w e e n the sun and the m u d it dries, between the thistle and the d o n k e y that feeds on it."
7

W i t h i n this h i s t o n c o - p o h t i c a l field w h e r e k n o w l e d g e of w e a p o n s is constantly b e i n g used as a political instrument, the g r e a t tactics that are developed in the eighteenth c e n t u r y can, I think, be c h a r acterized b y the w a y t h e y use the four elements present in B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ' s analysis: constitution, revolution, b a r b a r i s m , a n d domination. The p r o b l e m is basically this: H o w can w e establish the best possible fit b e t w e e n unfettered b a r b a r i s m on the one h a n d , and the e q u i h b r i u m of the constitution w e are t r y i n g to rediscover on the o t h e r ? H o w c a n w e arrive at the right balance of forces, a n d h o w c a n w e m a k e use of the violence, freedom, a n d so on t h a t the b a r b a r i a n b r i n g s w i t h h i m ? In other w o r d s , w h i c h of the b a r b a r i a n ' s characteristics do w e have to retain, a n d w h i c h do we have to reject, if we a r e to g e t a fair constitution to w o r k ? W h a t is there in b a r b a r i s m that w e can make use of? Basically, the problem is that of filtering of the b a r b a r i a n and b a r b a r i s m : how can b a r b a r i a n domination be so filtered as to

bring about the constituent r e v o l u t i o n ? It is this problem, and the different solutions to t h e problem of the need to filter b a r b a r i s m so as to b r i n g about the constituent revolution, that will defineboth

in the field of historical discourse a n d in this historico-political iield the tactical positions of different g r o u p s a n d the different interests of the n o b i l i t y , m o n a r c h i c power, or different t e n d e n c i e s w i t h i n the

bourgeoisie. It w i l l define w h e r e the center of the battle lies.

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I t h i n k that in the eighteenth century, this whole set of historical discourses is o v e r s h a d o w e d by this problem: not revolution or b a r barism, but revolution and b a r b a r i s m , or the economy of b a r b a r i s m in the revolution. A text someone gave me the other day as I w a s leaving the lecture, if not proves, at least confirms my belief that this is the case. It is a text by R o b e r t Desnos, and it shows perfectly how, r i g h t up to the t w e n t i e t h century, the p r o b l e m of revolution or b a r b a r i s m I almost s a i d socialism or b a r b a r i s m i s a false problem, and that the real p r o b l e m is revolution and barbarism. I take as my w i t n e s s this text b y R o b e r t Desnos, w h i c h appeared, I assume, in La surrealisteI Revolution
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d o n ' t know because no reference is given here. Here is

the text. Y o u ' d t h i n k it w a s straight from the eighteenth century.

H a v i n g come from the s h a d o w y East, the men w h o had b e e n civilized c o n t i n u e d the same w e s t w a r d m a r c h a s A t t i l a , T a m b u r l a i n e a n d so m a n y other famous men. A n y man w h o can be described as " c i v i l i z e d " w a s once a b a r b a r i a n . They w e r e , i n other w o r d s , t h e bastard sons of t h e adventurers of t h e night, or those the enemy ( t h e Romans, the G r e e k s ) had corrupted. D r i v e n a w a y from the shores of the Pacific and the slopes of the H i m a l a y a s , a n d unfaithful to t h e i r mission, they now found

themselves facing those w h o drove them out in the not so distant times of the invasions. Sons of Kalmouk, g r a n d s o n s of the Huns, if you just s t r i p p e d off the robes b o r r o w e d from a w a r d r o b e in A t h e n s or Thebes, the b r e a s t p l a t e s collected in S p a r t a and Rome, you w o u l d look a s y o u r fathers looked on their l i t t l e horses. A n d you N o r m a n s w h o w o r k the l a n d , w h o fish for sardines and who d r i n k cider, just get back on those flimsy boats that traced a long w a k e b e y o n d the A r c t i c Circle before they reached these d a m p fields and these w o o d s that teem w i t h game. M o b , recognize your master! You thought you could flee it, flee that O r i e n t that drove you a w a y by vesting you w i t h the right to destroy w h a t you could not preserve, a n d now that you have traveled around the world, you find it snapping at y o u r heels again. I beg you, do not imitate a dog trying to catch its tail:

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you w o u l d be r u n n i n g after the West forever. Stop. Say somet h i n g to e x p l a i n your mission to us, g r e a t oriental a r m y , you w h o have now become The Westerners.
9

Right, in an attempt to resituate in concrete terms the various historical discourses and political tactics from w h i c h t h e y derive, B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s a l l at once introduces into h i s t o r y the great blond b a r b a r ian, the juridical a n d historical fact of the invasion, the a p p r o p r i a t i o n of l a n d s and the enslavement of men, and, finally, a very l i m i t e d r o y a l p o w e r . Of all the important a n d i n t e r r e l a t e d features that constitute the fact of b a r b a r i s m ' s i r r u p t i o n into history, w h i c h have to be e l i m i n a t e d ? W h i c h h a v e to be r e t a i n e d so a s to e s t a b l i s h the right r e l a t i o n s h i p of force t h a t w i l l u p h o l d the k i n g d o m ? I w i l l look at the t h r e e great models that w e r e used to filter b a r b a r i s m . There w e r e m a n y others in the eighteenth century; I w i l l t a k e these e x a m p l e s because they w e r e , in political terms, a n d p r o b a b l y in epistemological terms too, the most important, and because each of them corresponds to a very different political position. The first w a y of filtering it is the most v i g o r o u s , the most absolute, a n d it tries to allow no aspect of the b a r b a r i a n into history: this position is an attempt to show that the French m o n a r c h y is not d e scended from some G e r m a n i c invasion w h i c h brought it to France or w h i c h , in some sense, gave b i r t h to it. It a t t e m p t s to s h o w t h a t the n o b i l i t y ' s ancestors w e r e not conquerors from across the R h i n e a n d that the privileges of the n o b i l i t y t h e p r i v i l e g e s t h a t placed it b e tween the sovereign and other subjectswere e i t h e r g r a n t e d to it later or w e r e usurped b y it in some obscure w a y . In a w o r d , the point is not to relate the privileged nobility to the b a r b a r i a n horde that

founded it, but to avoid the issue of the horde, to m a k e it d i s a p p e a r and to leave the nobility in abeyanceto make it look like both a late and an artificial creation. This thesis is, of course, the thesis of the monarchy, a n d you will find it in a w h o l e series of historians from Dubos' to M o r e a u . " W h e n articulated a s a basic proposition, t h i s thesis gives roughly this: The F r a n k s s a y s Dubos and then M o r e a u a r e at bottom s i m p l y

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a myth, an illusion, something that w a s created from scratch by Boul a i n v i l h e r s . The Franks never e x i s t e d , w h i c h q u i t e clearly means that the invasion never took place at all. So w h a t did h a p p e n ? There w e r e invasions, but they w e r e the w o r k of others: the B u r g u n d i a n s invaded, a n d the Goths invaded, a n d the R o m a n s could do nothing about it. A n d it w a s in the face of these invasions that the R o m a n s appealedas alliesto a small p o p u l a t i o n that had some m i l i t a r y v i r t u e s . They w e r e of course the Franks. But the Franks w e r e not greeted as i n v a d ers, as great b a r b a r i a n s w i t h a p r o p e n s i t y for p l u n d e r a n d domination, but as a small p o p u l a t i o n of useful allies. A s a result, they i m m e d i a t e l y received the r i g h t s of c i t i z e n s h i p ; not only w e r e they i m m e d i a t e l y m a d e G a l l o - R o m a n citizens; t h e y w e r e also g r a n t e d the i n s t r u m e n t s of political power ( a n d in this connection, D u b o s recalls that C l o v i s w a s , after all, a R o m a n c o n s u l ) . So there w a s neither an invasion nor a conquest, b u t there w a s i m m i g r a t i o n a n d there w a s an alliance. There w a s no invasion, but it cannot even be said that there w a s a Frankish people, w i t h its own legislation or customs. First, there w e r e quite s i m p l y too few of them, says Dubos, for t h e m to able to treat the Gauls "as T u r k to M o o r "
12

a n d to force them to adopt t h e i r habits

a n d customs. Being lost in the midst of the Gallo-Roman masses, they could not even preserve their o w n habits. So they l i t e r a l l y dissolved. A n d besides, how could they fail to be dissolved into this G a l l o R o m a n political a p p a r a t u s , given that they really h a d no u n d e r s t a n d ing of either a d m i n i s t r a t i o n or g o v e r n m e n t ? D u b o s even claims that their art of w a r had been b o r r o w e d from the Romans. Be that as it may, the F r a n k s w e r e careful not to destroy the m e c h a n i s m s of w h a t D u b o s calls the a d m i r a b l e a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of R o m a n Gaul. D u b o s says that the Franks did not alter the n a t u r e of a n y t h i n g in R o m a n Gaul. Order t r i u m p h e d . So the Franks w e r e absorbed and their k i n g s i m p l y r e m a i n e d , so to speak, at the pinnacle of, on the surface of, a G a l l o R o m a n edifice that could scarcely be p e n e t r a t e d by a few i m m i g r a n t s of Germanic origin. So the king alone remained at the pinnacle of the edifice, precisely because he w a s a king w h o had the Caesarian rights of the R o m a n emperor. There w a s , in other words, no b a r b a r i a n - t y p e aristocracy, as B o u l a i n v i l h e r s believed. The a b s o l u t e monarch ap-

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p e a r e d i m m e d i a t e l y . A n d it w a s several centuries l a t e r that the break occurred, that something like the invasion's analogue took place, b u t it w a s a sort of invasion from w i t h i n . '
1

A t this point, D u b o s ' s analysis moves on to the e n d of the C a r o h n g i a n period and the b e g i n n i n g of the C a p e t i a n period, w h e r e he detects a w e a k e n i n g of the central p o w e r , of the C a e s a r - l i k e absolute p o w e r that the M e r o v i n g i a n s i n i t i a l l y enjoyed. The officers appointed by the king, on the other hand, i l l e g i t i m a t e l y a c q u i r e d more a n d more power; they t r e a t e d e v e r y t h i n g that came w i t h i n their a d m i n i s t r a t i v e remit as t h o u g h it w e r e their fief, as though it w e r e their own p r o p erty. A n d so it w a s that this decomposition of central power gave b i r t h to something k n o w n as feudalism. A s y o u can see, this feudalism w a s a late phenomenon, and it w a s related not to the invasion, b u t to the destruction from w i t h i n of central p o w e r . It w a s an effect, a n d it had the same effects a s an invasion, but it w a s an invasion t h a t w a s l a u n c h e d from w i t h i n b y people w h o h a d u s u r p e d a p o w e r t h a t h a d been delegated to t h e m . "The d i s m e m b e r i n g of sovereignty a n d the transformation of offices into seigneuries"I a m c i t i n g a t e x t by D u bos"had v e r y s i m i l a r effects to a foreign invasion, created a d o m i neering caste b e t w e e n the k i n g a n d the people, a n d t u r n e d Gaul i n t o a l a n d that really had been c o n q u e r e d . "
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D u b o s rediscovers e l e m e n t s

t h a t were, according to B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , typical of w h a t happened at the t i m e of the Franksinvasion, conquest, a n d dominationbut he

sees t h e m as internal phenomena dueor correlativeto the birth of an aristocracy. A n d as you see, it w a s an aristocracy that w a s artificial, a n d completely p r o t e c t e d from, c o m p l e t e l y i n d e p e n d e n t of, the Frankish invasion and the b a r b a r i s m that came w i t h it. A n d so the s t r u g g l e s against this conquest began: s t r u g g l e s against this u s u r p a t i o n and t h i s invasion from w i t h i n . T h e monarch a n d the t o w n s w h i c h h a d retained the freedom of the R o m a n municipes feudal lords. In the discourse of Dubos, M o r e a u , and all the monarchist histor i a n s , you have a c o m p l e t e inversion of B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ' s d i s c o u r s e , but they also transform it in one i m p o r t a n t sense. The focus of the h i s torical analysis is displaced from the fact of the invasion and the early w i l l fight side by side against the

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M e r o v i n g i a n s to t h i s other fact: the b i r t h of feudalism and the first C a p e t i a n s . You can also seeand this is importantthat the invasion of the nobility is a n a l y z e d not as the effect of a m i l i t a r y invasion and of the i r r u p t i o n of barbarism, b u t a s the result of u s u r p a t i o n from

w i t h i n . The fact of the conquest is still there, b u t it i s s t r i p p e d of its barbarian context and the right-effects that might have r e s u l t e d from the m i l i t a r y victory. The nobles are not b a r b a r i a n s , but t h e y are crooks, political crooks. Here w e have the first position, the first tacticaland inverteduse that is made of B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ' s discourse. Now for another, different w a y of filtering b a r b a r i s m . The goal of t h i s different t y p e of discourse i s to dissociate a Germanic freedom,

or in other w o r d s , a b a r b a r i a n freedom, from the exclusive n a t u r e of the p r i v i l e g e s of t h e aristocracy. Its goal i s , in other wordsand to

this extent, this thesis, this tactic r e m a i n s very close to B o u l a i n v i l hers'sto go on l a y i n g claim to the freedoms the b a r b a r i a n s and

Franks b r o u g h t to France b y resisting the Roman absolutism of the monarchy. The h a i r y b a n d s from across the R h i n e did indeed enter Gaul, and they d i d bring their freedoms w i t h them. These h a i r y b a n d s w e r e not, however, b a n d s of G e r m a n w a r r i o r s w h o m a d e u p the n u cleus of an aristocracy that remained an aristocracy w i t h i n the body of G a l l o - R o m a n society. Those w h o flooded in w e r e certainly w a r r i o r s , but they w e r e also a whole people in a r m s . The political and social form that w a s introduced into Gaul w a s not that of an aristocracy but, on the contrary, that of a democracy, that of the w i d e s t possible democracy. You w i l l find t h i s thesis in M a b l y , " in B o n n e v i l l e , even in M a r a t , in Les Chaines de I'esclavage.
10

and

So, the b a r b a r i a n democracy

of the Franks, w h o know no form of aristocracy, and w h o k n o w only an e g a l i t a r i a n people of s o l d i e r - c i t i z e n s . " A proud, b r u t a l people w i t h no homeland and no l a w , " said M a b l y ,
17

and e v e r y citizen-soldier had

only his booty to live on, b u t w o u l d not tolerate any k i n d of p u n i s h ment. There is no consistent a u t h o r i t y over this people, no rational or constituted authority. A n d according to M a b l y , it w a s this b r u t a l , b a r b a r i a n democracy that w a s established in Gaul. A n d its establishment w a s the basis, the starting point for a s e r i e s of processes. The avidity and egoism of the b a r b a r i a n Franks, w h i c h were v i r t u e s w h e n

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it w a s a matter of crossing t h e R h i n e a n d invading Gaul, become vices once they settled there: the F r a n k s are no long interested in a n y t h i n g b u t looting a n d pillage. They neglect both the e x e r c i s e of p o w e r a n d the y e a r l y M a r c h or M a y g a t h e r i n g s w h i c h placed p e r m a n e n t controls on r o y a l p o w e r . T h e y allow the k i n g to do as he likes, and they a l l o w a monarchy, w h i c h h a s absolutist tendencies, to establish itself over them. A n d according to M a b l y , the c l e r g y t h o u g h this w a s p r e s u m ably a reflection of its i g n o r a n c e a n d not its c u n n i n g i n t e r p r e t s G e r m a n i c c u s t o m s in t e r m s of R o m a n right: they believe themselves to b e t h e subjects of a monarchy, w h e n t h e y a r e in fact t h e body of a republic. The sovereign's officer-officials also a c q u i r e more and more p o w e r . A n d so w e begin to move a w a y from t h e general d e m o c r a c y that Frankish b a r b a r i s m had brought w i t h it, and t o w a r d a system w h i c h is b o t h monarchic and aristocratic. This i s a slow process, and t h e r e is a moment of reaction. This occurs w h e n C h a r l e m a g n e , w h o felt increasingly dominated and threatened by the aristocracy, once more t u r n s for s u p p o r t to the people h i s predecessors h a d neglected. C h a r l e m a g n e reestablishes the C h a m p de M a r s and the M a y g a t h e r i n g s ; he allows everyone, i n c l u d i n g n o n w a r n o r s , to attend the assemblies. For a brief m o m e n t w e h a v e , then, a r e t u r n to G e r m a n i c democracy, and the slow process that l e a d s to the d i s a p p e a r a n c e of democracy b e g i n s again after t h i s brief interlude. T w i n figures now appear. On the one hand, that of a monarchy, [ t h e monarchy of H u g h C a p e t ] . H o w does the monarchy succeed in establishing itself? It can d o so to the extent that the aristocrats reject b a r b a r i a n and Frankish d e mocracy a n d agree to choose a k i n g w h o has increasingly absolutist tendencies; on the other h a n d , the C a p e t i a n s r e w a r d the nobles for having consecrated H u g h Capet king by p u t t i n g them in charge of the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n and turning the offices w i t h w h i c h they had been entrusted into fiefs. T h e complicity b e t w e e n the nobles w h o created the k i n g and the k i n g w h o created feudalism t h u s g i v e s b i r t h to the t w i n figures of a m o n a r c h y and an aristocracy, and they d o m i n a t e a barbarian democracy. G e r m a n i c democracy is thus the starting point for a twofold process. The aristocracy a n d the a b s o l u t e monarchy w i l l

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of course e v e n t u a l l y come into conflict, but it must not b e forgotten that, b a s i c a l l y , they are twin sisters. T h i r d type of discourse, third type of analysis, and, at the same time, t h i r d tactic. This is the most subtle tactic and, in historical terms, the most successful, even t h o u g h , at the time of its formulation, it had m u c h less impact than the theses of Dubos or M a b l y . The goal of this t h i r d tactical operation is to make a distinction b e t w e e n two forms of b a r b a r i s m : the b a r b a r i s m of the G e r m a n s w i l l become the b a d b a r b a r i s m from w h i c h w e have to be freed; and then there is a good b a r b a r i s m , or the b a r b a r i s m of the Gauls, which is the only real source of freedom. This performs t w o important operations: on the one h a n d , freedom a n d Germanitv, which h a d been l i n k e d together by B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , are dissociated; on the other, Romanity and absolutism are dissociated. W e w i l l , in other w o r d s , find in Roman Gaul elements of the freedom w h i c h , as all previous theses had more or less accepted, had been imported by the Franks. Broadly speaking, M a b l y a r r i v e d at his thesis by transforming B o u l a i n v i l h e r s ' s thesis: German freedoms were destroyed democratically. B r e q u i g n y , sal,
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a n d others arrive at this new thesis by intensifying a n d displac-

ing the sort of passing comment D u b o s made w h e n he said that the k i n g and then the t o w n s , w h i c h had resisted feudal usurpation, r e belled against feudalism. The B r e q u i g n y - C h a p s a l thesis, w h i c h w i l l , because it is so important, become that of the bourgeois h i s t o r i a n s of the nineteenth century ( A u g u s t i n Thierry, G u i z o t ) , basically consists in s a y i n g that there

w e r e two tiers to the political system of the R o m a n s . At the level of central government, of the great Roman administration, w e are, of courseat least from the time of the e m p i r e o n w a r d d e a l i n g w i t h an absolute power. But the Romans left the Gauls to enjoy their own primal freedoms. A s a result, Roman Gaul w a s indeed in one sense part of a great absolutist e m p i r e , but it w a s also permeated or penetrated by a whole series of pockets of freedom: the Gaulish or C e l t i c freedoms of old. The Romans left them alone, a n d they c o n t i n u e d to function in the t o w n s , or in the famous munkipes of the Roman Empire

w h e r e the archaic freedoms, the ancestral freedoms of the Gauls and

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the C e l t s , continued to function in forms t h a t w e r e , a s it happens, more or less borrowed from the old R o m a n city. Freedom is therefore a phenomenon that is compatible w i t h R o m a n absolutism ( a n d this

is, I t h i n k , the first t i m e this argument a p p e a r s in these historical a n a l y s e s ) ; it is a Gaulish phenomenon, but it is above all an u r b a n phenomenon. Freedom belongs to the towns. A n d it is to the precise extent that it belongs to the t o w n s that freedom can s t r u g g l e a n d become a political force. The t o w n s will of course be destroyed w h e n the F r a n k i s h a n d G e r m a n i c invasions t a k e place. But, b e i n g n o m a d i c peasants or at least b a r b a r i a n s , the Franks and G e r m a n s neglect the t o w n s and settle in the countryside. So the t o w n s , w h i c h w e r e neglected by the F r a n k s , are r e b u i l t a n d enjoy a new prosperity at this point. W h e n feudalism is established at the end of the r e i g n of the C a r o h n g i a n s , the g r e a t secular-ecclesiastical lords w i l l of course t r y to get t h e i r h a n d s on the r e c o n s t i t u t e d w e a l t h of the cities. But at this point, the t o w n s , w h i c h had g r o w n historically strong t h a n k s to their wealth and their freedoms, but t h a n k s also to the fact that they formed a c o m m u n i t y , a r e able to struggle, resist, and rebel. Hence all the great rebellious movements t h a t d e v e l o p in the free t o w n s d u r i n g the r e i g n of the first C a p e t i a n s . A n d they eventually forced both royal power and the aristocracy to respect t h e i r r i g h t s and, to a certain extent, their l a w s , t h e i r t y p e of economy, their forms of life, their customs, and so on. This h a p p e n e d centuries. So you see, this time we have a thesis w h i c h , much more than in the fifteenth and s i x t e e n t h

p r e v i o u s theses a n d even more than M a b l y ' s thesis, will become the thesis of the T h i r d Estate, because this is the first t i m e that the history of the t o w n , the history of u r b a n institutions, and the history of

wealth and its political effects could be articulated within a historical analysis. T h i s history creates, or at least begins to create, a T h i r d Estate that is a product not merely of the concessions g r a n t e d by the k i n g , b u t of its o w n e n e r g y , its w e a l t h , its t r a d e , a n d of a h i g h l y sophisticated u r b a n l a w that is in part borrowed from R o m a n l a w , but w h i c h is also articulated w i t h the freedom of old, or in other w o r d s , the Gaulish b a r b a r i s m of old. From this point o n w a r d , and

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for the first time, a Romanity w h i c h , in the historical a n d political thought of the eighteenth century, had a l w a y s been tinged w i t h a b solutism and had a l w a y s been on the side of the king, now becomes tinged with l i b e r a l i s m . A n d far from being the theatrical form in w h i c h royal p o w e r reflects its history, R o m a n i t y w i l l , thanks to the analyses I a m discussing, become an issue for the bourgeoisie itself. The bourgeoisie w i l l be able to recuperatein the form of the GalloRoman municepsa R o m a n i t y that supplies, so to speak, its letters of

nobility. The G a l l o - R o m a n m u n i c i p a l i t y is the Third Estate's nobility. A n d it is this municipality, this autonomy, a n d this form of m u n i c i p a l freedom that the T h i r d Estate w i l l d e m a n d . All this must, of course, be seen in the context of the debate that took place in the eighteenth century around, precisely, municipal freedoms and autonomy. I refer you, for e x a m p l e , to a text by Turgot t h a t dates from 1776. But you can also see that on the eve of the Revolution, R o m a n i t y can also lose all the monarchist and absolutist connotations it h a d h a d throughout the eighteenth century. A liberal Romanity becomes possible, and even those who are not monarchists or absolutists can revert to it. Even the b o u r g e o i s can revert to R o m a n i t y . A n d as you k n o w , the Revolution w i l l have no hesitation in doing so. The other important thing about the discourse of B r e q u i g n y , C h a p sal, and the rest of them is that it a l l o w s , you see, the historical field to be g r e a t l y e x t e n d e d . W i t h the English historians of the seventeenth century, a n d w i t h B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s too, w e basically start with the small nucleus of the invasion, w i t h the few decades, or at most the century, d u r i n g w h i c h the b a r b a r i a n hordes flooded into Gaul. So you see, we have a g r a d u a l extension of the field. W e have seen, for instance, the importance M a b l y ascribes to a figure such as C h a r l e m a g n e ; w e have also seen how D u b o s e x t e n d e d the historical analysis to i n c l u d e the early C a p e t i a n s and feudalism. W i t h the analyses of B r e q u i g n y , C h a p sal, and others, the domain of historically useful a n d politically prod u c t i v e k n o w l e d g e can, on the one hand, b e e x t e n d e d u p w a r d , a s it now goes back to the m u n i c i p a l organization of the Romans and, u l t i m a t e l y , to the ancient freedoms of the Gauls and the Celts. On the other hand, history can be e x t e n d e d d o w n w a r d to include all the
2

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struggles, all the urban r e b e l l i o n s which, ever since the beginning of feudalism, led to the emergence, or at least the partial emergence, of the bourgeoisie a s an economic and political force in the fifteenth a n d sixteenth centuries. The field of historical and political debate now covers one a n d a half thousand y e a r s of history. The j u r i d i c a l a n d historical fact of the invasion has now been completely shattered, a n d w e are now dealing w i t h an i m m e n s e field of g e n e r a l i z e d s t r u g g l e s covering fifteen h u n d r e d y e a r s of history a n d involving a great v a r i e t y of actors: kings, the nobility, the clergy, soldiers, r o y a l officers, the T h i r d Estate, the bourgeoisie, the peasants, the townspeople, a n d so on. T h i s i s a h i s t o r y that t a k e s as its s u p p o r t institutions such a s Roman freedoms, m u n i c i p a l freedoms, the church, education, trade, language, a n d so on. A g e n e r a l explosion in the field of history; a n d it is in this precise field that the h i s t o r i a n s of the nineteenth century w i l l b e g i n their w o r k . You m i g h t ask: W h y all the d e t a i l s , w h y locate these different t a c tics within the field of h i s t o r y ? It is true that I could quite s i m p l y have moved directly on to A u g u s t i n T h i e r r y , Montlosier, a n d all the o t h e r s w h o u s e d this i n s t r u m e n t a t i o n of k n o w l e d g e to t r y to t h i n k about the revolutionary p h e n o m e n o n . I l i n g e r e d over this for two

reasons. First, for methodological reasons. A s you have seen, one can v e r y easily, from B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s o n w a r d , t r a c e the constitution of a historical and political discourse whose domain of objects, p e r t i n e n t elements, concepts, a n d methods of analysis are all closely i n t e r r e l a t e d . The eighteenth c e n t u r y saw the formation of a sort of historical d i s course w h i c h w a s common to a w h o l e series of historians, even though their theses, hypotheses, and political d r e a m s were very different. One can q u i t e easily, a n d w i t h o u t a n y b r e a k s at a l l , trace the e n t i r e netw o r k of basic propositions that s u b t e n d each t y p e of analysis: all the transformations t h a t t a k e u s from a history t h a t [ p r a i s e s ] the F r a n k s ( s u c h as M a b l y , such as D u b o s ) to the very different history of F r a n k ish democracy. One can q u i t e easily move from one of these histories to the n e x t b y identifying a few very simple transpositions at the level of their basic propositions. W e have then all these historical d i s courses, and they form a very closely woven w e b , no matter w h a t

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their historical theses or political objectives may be. Now the fact that this epistemic web is so t i g h t l y woven certainly does not mean that everyone is t h i n k i n g along the same lines. It is in fact a precondition for not t h i n k i n g along the same lines or for t h i n k i n g along different lines; and it is that w h i c h m a k e s the differences politically pertinent. If different subjects are to be able to s p e a k , to occupy different tactical positions, and if they are to be able to find themselves in mutually adversarial positions, there has to be a tight field, there h a s to be a very t i g h t l y woven n e t w o r k to r e g u l a r i z e historical k n o w l e d g e . A s the field of k n o w l e d g e becomes more regular, it becomes increasingly possible for the subjects w h o s p e a k w i t h i n it to be d i v i d e d along strict lines of confrontation, a n d it becomes increasingly possible to make the contending discourses function as different tactical units w i t h i n overall strategies ( w h i c h are not s i m p l y a matter of discourse and t r u t h , but also of power, status, a n d economic i n t e r e s t s ) . The tactical reversibility of the discourse is, in other w o r d s , directly proportional to the homogeneity of the field in w h i c h it is formed. It is the regu l a r i t y of the epistemological field, the homogeneity of the discourse's mode of formation, that a l l o w s it to be used in struggles that are extradiscursive. That, then, is the methodological reason w h y I emphasized that the different discursive tactics are distributed across a historico-political field that is coherent, woven.
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regular, and very tightly

I also stress it for a second reasona factual reasonpertaining to w h a t happened at the time of the Revolution. W h a t I mean is this: Leaving aside the last form of discourse that I have just been telling you about ( B r e q u i g n y or C h a p s a l ) , you can see that, basically, those w h o had the least interest in investing their political projects in history were of course the people of the bourgeoisie or the T h i r d Estate, because going b a c k to a constitution or d e m a n d i n g a return to something r e s e m b l i n g an e q u i l i b r i u m of forces i m p l i e s in some w a y that you k n o w w h e r e you stand in that e q u i l i b r i u m of forces. N o w it w a s quite obvious that the T h i r d Estate or the bourgeoisie could scarcely, at least u n t i l the m i d d l e of the M i d d l e A g e s , identify itself as a h i s torical subject w i t h i n the play of relations of force. So long as history

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concentrated on the M e r o v i n g i a n s , the C a r o l i n g i a n s , the Frankish i n v a d e r s , or e v e n C h a r l e m a g n e , how c o u l d it find anything relating to t h e T h i r d Estate or t h e b o u r g e o i s i e ? W h i c h is w h y , whatever has been s a i d to the c o n t r a r y , the b o u r g e o i s i e w a s , in the eighteenth century, certainly the class that w a s most hostile, most resistant to history. In a profound sense, it w a s the aristocracy that w a s historical. The monarch w a s historical, a n d so too w e r e the parlement'aires. But for a long

time, the bourgeoisie remained antihistoncist or, if you like, a n t i h i s tonc. The antihistoric character of the bourgeoisie manifests itself in t w o w a y s . First, throughout the w h o l e of the first half of the eighteenth century, the bourgeoisie tended to be in favor of an enlightened d e s potism, or in other w o r d s , of a w a y of m o d e r a t i n g monarchical power that w a s not grounded in history but in the restrictions imposed by k n o w l e d g e , philosophy, technology, and a d m i n i s t r a t i o n . A n d t h e n in the second half of the eighteenth century, and especially before the Revolution, the bourgeoisie t r i e d to escape the a m b i e n t histoncism

by d e m a n d i n g a constitution w h i c h w a s precisely not a re-constitution a n d w h i c h w a s essentially, if not antihistorical, at least ahistorical. Hence, as you can u n d e r s t a n d , the recourse to n a t u r a l right, the recourse to something like the social contract. The Rousseauism of the bourgeoisie at the end of the e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y , before and d u r i n g the Revolution, w a s a direct response to the h i s t o n c i s m of the other political subjects w h o were fighting in the field of theory a n d historical analysis. Being a Rousseauist, a p p e a l i n g to the savage and a p pealing to the contract, w a s a w a y of escaping an entire landscape that had been defined bv the b a r b a r i a n , his history, and his relationship w i t h civilization. T h i s a n t i h i s t o n c i s m of the bourgeoisie obviously d i d not r e m a i n unchanged, a n d it w a s no obstacle to a complete r e a r t i c u l a t i o n of history. You will see t h a t at the moment w h e n the Estates General w e r e called, the registers of g r i e v a n c e s are full of historical references, but the most important are, of course, those made by the nobility

itself. A n d w h e n the bourgeoisie in its turn reactivated a whole series of historical k n o w l e d g e s , it w a s simplv responding to the m u l t i p l e

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references that had been made to the capitulars, to the Edict of Piste,

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and to the practices of the Merovingians and the Carolingians. It was a sort of polemical reply to the multiplicity of historical references you find in the nobility's register of grievances. And then you have a second reactivation of history, which is probably more important and more interesting. I refer to the reactivation, during the Revolution itself, of a certain number of moments or historical forms that function as, if you like, the splendors of history. Their reappearance in the Revolution's vocabulary, institutions, signs, manifestations, festivals made it possible to visualize it as a cycle and a return. So the juridical Rousseauism that had long been its main theme led, in some sense, to the reactivation of two great historical forms during the Revolution. On the one hand, you have the reactivation of Rome, or rather of the Roman city, or in other words, of an archaic Rome that was both republican and virtuous, rather than the GalloRoman city with its freedoms and its prosperity. Hence the Roman festival, or the political rituahzation of a historical form which, in constitutional or basic terms, derived from those freedoms. The other figure to be reactivated is that of Charlemagne; w e have seen the role Mably gave him and how he became the point where Frankish and Gallo-Roman summoned freedoms merged; Charlemagne was the man who the people to the Champ de Mars. Charlemagne as

sovereign-warrior, but also as the protector of trade and the towns. Charlemagne as both Germanic king and Roman emperor. Right from the beginning of the Revolution, a whole Carolingian dream unfolds, and it goes on unfolding throughout the Revolution, but much less has been said about it than about the Roman festival. The festival held on the Champ de Mars on 14 J u l y 1 7 8 9 is a Carolingian festival; it takes place on the Champ de Mars itself, and it permits the reconstitution or reactivation of a certain relationship between the people gathered there and their sovereign. And the modality of that relationship is Carohngian. That kind of implicit historical vocabulary is at least present in the festival of 14 July 1 7 8 9 . The best proof of that is that in June 1 7 8 9 , or a few weeks before the festival, someone in the Jacobin Club demanded that in the course of the festival, Louis

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X V I should forfeit the title of king, that the title of king should be replaced by that of emperor, that w h e n he passed by, the cry should not be "Long live the king!" but "Louis the Emperor!" because the man who is emperor "imperat sed not regit": he commands but does not govern, because he is an emperor and not a king. According to this project, Louis X V I should return from the Champ de Mars with the imperial crown on his head.
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A n d it is of course at the point where

the Carolingian dream ( w h i c h is not very well k n o w n ) and the Roman dream meet that we find the Napoleonic empire. The other form of historical reactivation that we find in the Revolution is the execration of feudalism, or of what Antraigues, a noble who had rallied to the bourgeoisie, called "the most terrible scourge that heaven, in its anger, could have visited upon a free nation."
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Now, this execration of feudalism takes several forms. First, a straightforward inversion of Boulainvilhers's thesis, or the invasion thesis. And so you find texts which saythis one is by Abbe Proyart: "Listen, you Frankish gentlemen. We outnumber you by a thousand to one; we have been your vassals for long enough, now you become our vassals. It pleases us to come into the heritage of our fathers."
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That

is what Abbe Proyart wanted the Third Estate to say to the nobility. And in his famous text on the Third Estate, to which I will come back next time, Sieyes said: "Why not send them all back to the forests of Franconia, all these families that still make the insane claim that they are descended from a race of conquerors, and that they have inherited the right of conquest?"
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And in either 1 7 9 5 or 1 7 9 6 1

can't rememberBoulay de la M e u r t h e said, after the mass emigration of the nobility: "The emigres represent the last vestiges of a conquest from which the French nation has gradually liberated itself."
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What you see taking shape here will be just as important in the early nineteenth century: the French Revolutionand the political and social struggles that went on during itare being reinterpreted in terms of the history of races. And it is no doubt this execration of feudalism that supplies the context for the ambiguous celebration of the gothic that we see appearing in the famous medieval novels of the revolutionary period, in those gothic novels that are at once tales of

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terror, fear, and mystery, and political novels. They are a l w a y s about the abuse of p o w e r and exactions; they are fables about unjust sovereigns, pitiless and bloodthirsty seigneurs, arrogant priests, and so on. The gothic novel is both science fiction a n d politics fiction: politics fiction in the sense that these novels essentially focus on the abuse of

power, and science fiction in the sense that their function is to reactivate, at the level of the imaginary, a w h o l e k n o w l e d g e about feudalism, a w h o l e k n o w l e d g e about the gothica k n o w l e d g e that has, basically, a g o l d e n age. It w a s not l i t e r a t u r e and it w a s not the imagination that introduced the themes of the gothic and feudalism at the end of the e i g h t e e n t h century, and they w e r e neither new nor renovated in a n y absolute sense. They were in fact inscribed in the order of the i m a g i n a r y to the precise extent that the gothic and feudalism h a d been a n issue in w h a t was now a h u n d r e d - y e a r - l o n g struggle at the level of k n o w l e d g e a n d forms of power. Long before the first

gothic novel, almost a century before it, there had been a r g u m e n t s over w h a t the feudal lords, their fiefs, their powers, and their forms of domination meant in both historical a n d political terms. The w h o l e of the e i g h t e e n t h century w a s obsessed w i t h the p r o b l e m of feudalism at the level of right, history, and politics. And it w a s only at the time of the Revolutionor a hundred years after all that w o r k had been done at the level of k n o w l e d g e and the level of politicsthat there was finally a t a k i n g up again of these themes, at the level of the

imaginary, in these science-fiction and politics-fiction novels. It was in this domain, therefore, that you had the gothic novel. But all this has to be situated in the context of the history of k n o w l e d g e and of the political tactics that it m a k e s possible. A n d so, next time, I will talk to y o u about history as a r e w o r k i n g of the Revolution.

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1. This is obviously a reworking and genealogical reformulation of the fields of knowledge and forms of discursivity that Foucault discusses in "archaeological" terms in Les Mots et les choses (The Order of Things). 2. The medical doctrine of "constitution" has a long history, but Foucault is presumably referring to the anatomo-pathological theory that was formulated in the eighteenth century on the basis of the work of Sydenham, Le Brun, and Bordeu, and which was further developed in the first half of the nineteenth century by Bichat and the Pans school. See Naissance de la clinique (Birth of the C/m/c). 3- In his discussion of the "decline" and "decadence" of ancient Rome in his Essai sur la noblesse de Trance contenant une dissertation sur son origine et abaissement (which was probably written in about 1 7 0 0 , and which was published in 1730 in his Continuation des memoires de littemtwe, vol. 1 0 ) , Boulainvilhers accepts that decadence is "the common destiny of all States that exist for a long time," and then adds: "The world is the plaything of a continuous succession; why should the nobility and its privileges be an exception to the general rule?" Nevertheless, he remarks of this succession that "One of our children will no doubt pierce the darkness in which we live and restore its ancient luster to our name" (p. 85)- A contemporary version of the idea of a cycle is also to be found in G. B. Vico's Scien^a nuova (Naples, 1725 ) In his Astrvlogie mondiale of 1711 (which was published by Renee Simon in 1 9 l 9 ) , Boulainvilhers formulates what might be called the preHegelian idea of "the transfer of monarchies from one country or nation to another." This, according to Boulainvilhers, involves an "order" in which "nothing is ever fixed, because no society will endure forever and because the greatest and most feared empires are subject to destruction by the same means as those who created them; other societies will be born of them, will wear them down by force and persuasion, will conquer the old societies and subdue them in their turn" (pp. 141-42).
z

4- "A proud, brutal people without a homeland and without laws . . . The French could even tolerate atrocious acts of violence on the part of their chief because, for them, they were in keeping with public morals." G. B. de Mably, Observations sur Vhistoin de Trance (Paris, 1823), chap. 1, p . 6 (first ed., Geneva, 1765). 5-N. de Bonneville, Histoire de fEurope moderne depuis tirruption des peuples du Nord dans I'Empire rvmain jusqu'a la paix de 7735 (Geneva, 1 7 8 9 ) , vol. 1, part 1, p. 2 0 . The quotation ends: "The sword was their right, and they exercised it without remorse, as though it were a natural right." 6. "Poor, uncouth, without trade, without art, without industry, but free." Les Chaines de I'esclavage. Ouvrage destine a de'velopper les noirs attentats des princes contre le peuple (chapter entitled "Des vices de la constitution politique"), an I (reprinted: Paris: LJnion generale des editions, 1 9 8 8 ) , p. 30. 7. C. L.G. comte du Buat-Nancay, Elements de la politique, vol. 1, book 1, chaps. 1-11, "De J'egalite des hommes." W e have been unable to trace this quotation (if it is a quotation), but this could be its context. 8. Foucault is alluding to the study group which, from 1948 onward, began to gather around Cornelius Castoriadis and which began to publish Socialisme ou barbaric in 1 9 4 9 . The journal ceased publication in 1 9 6 5 , with issue 4 0 . LJnder the leadership of Castoriadis and Claude Lefort, this group of dissident Trotskyists, activists, and intellectuals (who included Edgar M o n n , Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jean Laplanche, and Gerard Genette) developed such themes as the critique of the Soviet regime, the question of direct de mocracy, and the critique of reformism. 9- Robert Desnos, "Description d'une revoke prochaine," La Revolution surrealist?, no. 3, April 1 9 2 5 , p. 25; reprinted in La Revolution surre'aliste ( 1 9 2 4 - 1 9 2 9 ) (Paris, 1975 [facsimile edition]).

214

"SOCIETY

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

1 0 . J . - N . Dubos, Histoire critique de Ntahlissement de la monarchicfrancaise dans les Gaules (Pans, 1734). 11. J.-N. Moreau, Lemons de morale, de politique et de droit public, puise'es dans Vhistoire del a monarchic (Versailles, 1773); Expose historique des administrations populaires aux plus anciennes epoques de notre monarchic (Paris, 1 7 8 9 ) ; Defense de notre constitution monarchique franchise, precede'e de I'Histoire de toutes nos assemblies nationales ( Pans, 1789). 12. An old expression meanjng "to treat someone as the Turks treat the Moors." Dubos writes: "I ask the reader to pay particular attention to the natural humor or the inhabitants or Gaul, who, in the absence or any proof to the contrary, have never been regarded in any century as being stupid or cowardly: as we shall see, it is impossible tor a handful of Franks to treat the one million Romans living in Gaul de turc a Maure." Histoire critique, vol. 4. book 6, pp. 212-13. 13. For Dubos's critique of Boulainvilliers, see ibid., chaps. 8 and 9. 14. It seems that only the last sentence is a direct quotation. Having spoken of the usurpation of royal offices and of how the commissions granted to the dukes and counts were converted into hereditary dignities, Dubos writes: "It was at this time that the Gauls became a conquered land." Ibid., book 4, p. 2 9 0 (1742 ed.). 15. G.-B. de Mably, Observations sur I'kistoire de France. 16. N. de Bonneville, Histoire de I'Europe moderne depui* I'irruption des peuples du Nord. 17. Mably, Observations, p. 6. 18. L. G. O. F. de Brequigny, Diplomata, chartae, epistolae et alia monumenta ad resJranciscas spectantia (Pans, 1679-1783); Ordonnances des rot's de France de la troisieme race (Pans, vol. 11, 1769, vol. 12, 1776). 19. J.-F. Chapsal, Discours sur la feodalite et I'allodia/ite, suivi de Dissertations sur le france-alleu des coutumes d'Auvergne, du Bourbonnais, du Nivernois, de Champagne (Pans, 1791). 2 0 . R. J . Turgot, Memoire sur les municipalites (Paris, 1776). 21. This passage makes a significant contribution to the debates and controversies provoked by the concept of the episteme, which Foucault elaborates in Les Mots et les choses and then reworks in L'Arche'ologie du savoir, part 4, chap. 6. 22. A council held in Pistes (or Pistres) in 8 6 4 under the influence of Archbishop Hincmar. Its resolutions are known as the Edict of Pistes. The organization of the monetary system was discussed, the destruction of castles built by seigneurs was ordered, and several towns were given the right to mint coins. The assembly put Pipin II of Aquitaine on trial and declared that he had forfeited his position. 23. The reference is to a motion put to the Jacobin Club on 17 June 1789. Cf. F.-A. Aulard, La Societe des jacobins (Paris, 1 8 8 9 - 1 8 9 7 ) , vol. 1, p. 15324. E. L. H. L., comte d'Antraigues, Memoires sur la constitution des Etats provinciaux (Vivarois, 1788), p. 61. 25. L. B. Proyart, Vie du Dauphin pere de Louis XV (Paris and Lyon, 1872), vol. 1, pp. 357-58, cited in A. Devyer, Le Sang epure, p. 370. 26. E.-J. Sicyes, Qu'est-ce que le Tiers-Etat, chap. 2, pp. 10-11. In the original, the sentence begins: "Why shouldn't it [the Third Estate) . . . " 27. A. J . Boulay de la Meurthe, Rapport presentt Ie 25 Vende'miaire an VI au Conset'l des CinqCents sur les mesures d'ostracisme, d'exil, d expulsion les plus convenables aux principes de justice et de liberie, et les plus propres a consolider la republique, cited in A. Devyer, Le Sange'pure, p. 415.

ten

10

MARCH

1976

it * f I

The political Revolution: historical

reworking Sieyes.

of the idea of the nation during the implications and effects on intelligibility: Augustin

- Theoretical

discourse.

- The new history's

grids of and

domination

and totalization. Thierry.

- Montlosier

- Birth of the

dialectic.

I T H I N K T H A T IN trie eighteenth century it w a s essentially, a n d almost e x c l u s i v e l y , the discourse of history t h a t m a d e w a r the p r i mary, a n d almost exclusive, a n a l y z e r of political relations. The d i s course of history, then, a n d not the discourse of right a n d not the discourse of political t h e o r y ( w i t h its contracts, its savages, its men of the p r a i r i e s a n d the forests, its s t a t e s of n a t u r e a n d its w a r of every man against every man, a n d so o n ) . It w a s not that; it w a s the d i s course of history. So I w o u l d now l i k e to show you how, in a r a t h e r paradoxical w a y , the element of w a r , w h i c h a c t u a l l y constituted h i s torical i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y in the e i g h t e e n t h century, w a s from the Revolution o n w a r d g r a d u a l l y , if not e l i m i n a t e d from the discourse of

history, at least reduced, restricted, colonized, settled, scattered, civilized if you like, and u p to a point pacified. T h i s is because it w a s , after all, history ( a s w r i t t e n by B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , or B u a t - N a n c a y , not that it m a t t e r s ) that conjured u p the great threat: the great danger t h a t we w o u l d be caught up in a w a r w i t h o u t end; the great d a n g e r that all our relations, w h a t e v e r they might be, w o u l d a l w a y s be of the order of domination. A n d it is this twofold threata w a r w i t h o u t

"SOCIETY

MUST

BE

DEFENDED"

1 0 . J . - N . Dubos, Histoire critique de I'e'tablissement

de la monarchic franqaise

dans les Gaules (Paris,

1734). 11. J . - N . Moreau, Ltcpns de morale, de politique et dedwit public, puise'es dans t histoire dela monarchic (Versailles, 1773); Expose hi storique des administrations popul aires aux plus anciennes epoques de notre monanhie (Pans, 1 7 8 9 ) ; Defense de notre constitution monajxhique franchise, pre'cede'e de I'Histoire de toutes nos assemblies nationales (Pans, 1 7 8 9 ) . 12. An old expression meaning "to treat someone as the Turks treat the Moors/* Dubos writes: "I ask the reader to pay particular attention to the natural humor of the inhabitants of Gaul, who, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, have never been regarded in any century as being stupid or cowardly: as we shall see, it is impossible for a handful of Franks to treat the one million Romans living in Gaul de tun d Maure." Histoire critique, vol. 4, book 6, pp. 212-13. 13. For Dubos's critique of Boulainvilliers, see ibid., chaps. 8 and 9 . 14. It seems that only the last sentence is a direct quotation. Having spoken of the usurpation of royal offices and of how the commissions granted to the dukes and counts were converted into hereditary dignities, Dubos writes: "It was at this time that the Gauls became a conquered land." Ibid., book 4, p. 2 9 0 (1742 ed.). 15- G. B. de Mably, Observations sur I'histoire de France. 16. N. de Bonneville, Histoire de I'Europe moderne depuh I'irruption des peuples du Nord. 17. Mably, Observations, p. 6. 18. L. G. O. F. de Brequigny, Diplomata, chartae, epistolae et alia monumenta ad res franciscas spectantia (Pans, 1679 -1783); Ordonnances des wis de France de la tnineme race (Paris, vol. 11, 1 7 6 9 , vol. 12, 1776). 19-J.-F. Chapsal, Discours sur la fe'odalite et I'allodialite, suivi de Dissertations sur lefrance-alleu des coutumes d'Auvergne, du Bourbonnais, du Nivernois, de Champagne (Pans, 1791). 20. R.-J. Turgot, Memoire sur les municipalites (Pans, 1776). 21. This passage makes a significant contribution to the debates and controversies provoked by the concept of the episteme, which Foucault elaborates in Les Mots et les choses and then reworks in LArche'ologie du savoir, part 4, chap. 6. 22. A council held in Pistes ( or Pistres) in 864 under the influence of Archbishop Hincmar. Its resolutions are known as the Edict of Pistes. The organization of the monetary system was discussed, the destruction of castles built by seigneurs was ordered, and several towns were given the right to mint coins. The assembly put Pipin II of Aquitaine on trial and declared that he had forfeited his position. 23. The reference is to a motion put to the Jacobin Club on 17 June 1789. Cf. F. A. Aulard, La Societe des jacobins (Pans, 1 8 8 9 - 1 8 9 7 ) , vol. 1, p. 15324. E. L. H. L., comte d'Antraigues, Me'moires sur la constitution des Etats prvvinciaux (Vivarois, 1 7 8 8 ) , p. 61. 25. L. B. Proyart, Vie du Dauphin pere de Louis XV (Pans and Lyon, 1872), vol. 1, pp. 357-58, cited in A. Devyer, Le Sang epure, p. 370. 26. E.-J. Sieyes, Qu'est-ce que le Tiers-Etat, chap. 2, pp. 10-11. In the original, the sentence begins: "Why shouldn't it [the Third Estate] . . . " 27. A. J. Boulay de la Meurthe, Rapport presente le 25 Vendemiaire an VI au Conseil des CinqCents sur les mesures d'ostracisme, d'exil, d'expulsion les plus convenables aux principes de justice et de liberie, et les plus prvp/es d consolider la republique, cited in A. Devyer, Le Sang epure, p. 415-

ten

10

MARCH

1976

The political Revolution: historical

reworking Sieyes.

of the idea of the nation during the implications and effects on intelligibility: Augustin

- Theoretical

discourse.

- The new history's

grids of and

! ^

domination

and totalisation. Thierry.

- Montlosier

- Birth of the

dialectic.

I T H I N K T H A T I N the eighteenth c e n t u r y it was essentially, a n d almost exclusively, the discourse of history t h a t m a d e w a r the p r i m a r y , and a l m o s t exclusive, a n a l y z e r of political r e l a t i o n s . The d i s course of history, then, and not the d i s c o u r s e of r i g h t a n d not the discourse of political t h e o r y ( w i t h its contracts, its savages, its m e n of the p r a i r i e s a n d the forests, its states of n a t u r e a n d i t s w a r of every m a n against every m a n , and so o n ) . It w a s not that; it w a s the d i s course of h i s t o r y . So I w o u l d now l i k e to show you h o w , in a r a t h e r paradoxical w a y , the element of w a r , w h i c h a c t u a l l y constituted h i s torical i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y in the e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y , w a s from the R e v o lution o n w a r d g r a d u a l l y , if not e l i m i n a t e d from the discourse of

history, at least reduced, restricted, colonized, settled, scattered, civilized if you l i k e , a n d u p to a point pacified. This is because it w a s , after all, history ( a s written b y B o u l a i n v i l h e r s , or B u a t - N a n c a y , not t h a t it matters ) that conjured u p the great threat: the great danger t h a t we w o u l d be caught u p in a w a r w i t h o u t end; the great danger t h a t all our relations, whatever they m i g h t be, w o u l d a l w a y s be of the order of domination. A n d it is this twofold threata w a r w i t h o u t

216

"SOCIETY

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BE

DEFENDED"

end as the basis of history and the relationship of domination as the e x p l a n a t o r y element in historythat w i l l , in the historical discourse of the nineteenth century, be lessened, b r o k e n down into regional threats and transitory episodes, and retranscribed in the form of crises and violence. What is more important still is, I think, the fact that this danger is, essentially, destined to fade a w a y in the end, not in the sense that w e w i l l achieve the good and true e q u i l i b r i u m that the e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y historians w e r e t r y i n g to find, but in the sense that reconciliation w i l l come about. I do not think that this inversion of the problem of w a r w i t h i n the discourse of history is an effect of its transplantation or, so to speak, of the fact that a dialectical p h i l o s o p h y took control. I t h i n k that w h a t occurred w a s something like an internal dialecticalization, a self-

dialecticalization of historical discourse, and that there is an obvious connection b e t w e e n this and its embourgeoisement. The p r o b l e m we have to u n d e r s t a n d is this: How, after this displacement (if not d e c l i n e ) of the role of w a r w i t h i n historical discourse, does the relationship of w a r w h i c h has been mastered w i t h i n historical discoursereappear, but this time w i t h a negative role, w i t h a sort of external r o l e ? Its role is no longer to constitute h i s t o r y but to protect and preserve society, w a r is no longer a condition of existence for society a n d political relations, b u t the precondition for its survival in its political relations. At this point, we see the emergence of the idea of an internal w a r that defends society against t h r e a t s born of and in its own body. The idea of social w a r makes, if you l i k e , a great retreat from the historical to the biological, from the constituent to the medical. Today I am g o i n g to t r y to describe the process of the autodialecticalization, and therefore the embourgeoisement, of history, of historical discourse. Last time, I t r i e d to show you how and w h y , in the historico-political field that was constituted in the eighteenth century, it w a s u l t i m a t e l y the bourgeoisie that w a s in the most difficult position, that found it most difficult to use the discourse of history as a w e a p o n in the political fight. I w o u l d now like to show y o u how certain obstacles w e r e removed. This c e r t a i n l y did not occur because the bourgeoisie at some point somehow a c q u i r e d a history or recog-

70

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217

n i z e d i t s o w n history, b u t a s a result of something v e r y specific: the r e w o r k i n g i n p o l i t i c a l a n d not historical termsof the famous notion of the "nation," which the aristocracy h a d made both the subject and the object of h i s t o r y in the eighteenth century. It w a s that role, that political r e w o r k i n g of the nation, of the i d e a of the nation, that led to the transformation that made a new type of historical discourse

possible. A n d I will t a k e S i e y e s ' s famous text on the T h i r d Estate as, if not e x a c t l y a s t a r t i n g point, an e x a m p l e of t h i s transformation. A s you know, the text asks three questions: "What is the Third Estate? Everything. W h a t has it been u n t i l now in the political o r d e r ? N o t h ing. W h a t is it a s k i n g to be? To become s o m e t h i n g in that order."
1

The t e x t is both famous and h a c k n e y e d , but if w e look at it a l i t t l e more closely, it does, I t h i n k , b r i n g a b o u t a n u m b e r of essential t r a n s formations. S p e a k i n g of the nation, you k n o w in general t e r m s ( I am g o i n g over things I have a l r e a d y said in order to s u m m a r i z e t h e m ) that the absolute m o n a r c h y ' s thesis w a s that the nation d i d not exist, or at least that if it d i d exist, it did so only to the extent that it found its condition of possibility, and its substantive unity, in the person of the king. The nation did not exist s i m p l y because there w a s a g r o u p , a crowd, or a m u l t i p l i c i t y of i n d i v i d u a l s i n h a b i t i n g the same l a n d , speaking the same language, a n d o b s e r v i n g the same c u s t o m s and the s a m e l a w s . T h a t is not w h a t m a k e s a nation. W h a t m a k e s a nation is the fact that there exist i n d i v i d u a l s who, insofar as they exist a l o n g side one another, are no more than i n d i v i d u a l s a n d do not even form a u n i t . But they do all h a v e a certain i n d i v i d u a l relationshipboth j u r i d i c a l a n d p h y s i c a l w i t h the real, living, a n d b o d i l y person of the king. It is the b o d y of the king, in his p h y s i c o - j u n d i c a l r e l a t i o n s h i p w i t h each of his subjects, that c r e a t e s the b o d y of the nation. A jurist of the late e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y said: "Every p a r t i c u l a r subject r e p r e sents only a single i n d i v i d u a l to the k i n g . " * The nation does not

T h e manuscript has "the king represents the entire nation and" before "everv particular." The reference for the quotation is given as "P. E. Leraontev, Ckurrcs, Paris, vol. V, 1 8 2 9 p. 15."

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"SOCIETY

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DEFENDED"

constitute a body. The nation in its e n t i r e t y resides in the person of the king. And the n o b i l i a r y reaction derived a m u l t i p l i c i t y of nations ( w e l l , at least t w o ) from this n a t i o n w h i c h is in a sense merely a juridical effect of the b o d y of the king, and w h i c h is real only because of the u n i q u e and i n d i v i d u a l r e a l i t y of the king. The nobiliary reaction then establishes relations of w a r and domination between those

nations; it makes the k i n g a n i n s t r u m e n t that one nation can use to w a g e w a r on and dominate another. It is not the k i n g w h o constitutes the nation; a nation acquires a king for the specific purpose of fighting other nations. A n d the history w r i t t e n by the nobiliary reaction made those relations the w e b of historical i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y . W e find a v e r y different definition of the nation in Sieyes, or rather a double definition. On the one hand, a j u r i d i c a l state. Sieyes says that if a nation is to exist, it must have t w o things: a common l a w and a l e g i s l a t u r e . So much for the j u r i d i c a l state. This initial definition of the nation ( o r rather this first set of essential preconditions for the existence of a n a t i o n ) demandsbefore we can s p e a k of a
2

nationmuch less than w a s d e m a n d e d by the definition advanced by the absolute monarchy. The nation does not, in other w o r d s , need a k i n g in order to exist. It is not even necessary for there to be a government. Provided that it is e n d o w e d w i t h a common l a w because there is an agency that is qualified to establish laws, the nation exists even before any government is formed, even before the sovereign is born, and even before power is delegated. That agency is the legislature itself. So the nation is m u c h less than w h a t w a s r e q u i r e d by the absolute monarchy's definition. But in another sense, it is much more than what w a s required b y the nobiliary reaction's definition. According to that definition, and according to history as w r i t t e n by Boulainvilhers, all that was r e q u i r e d for the nation to exist were men who were b r o u g h t together by certain interests, and who had a certain number of things in common, such as customs, habits, and possibly a language. If there is to be a nation, there must, according to Sieyes, be explicit laws, and agencies to formulate them. The l a w - l e g i s l a t u r e couple is

TO March

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219

the formal precondition for the existence of a nation. This is, however, only the first stage of the definition. If a nation is to survive, if its l a w is to be applied and if its legislature is to be recognized ( n o t only abroad, or by other nations, but a l s o w i t h i n the nation itself), if its survival a n d prosperity a r e to be not only a formal precondition for its juridical existence, but also a historical precondition for its e x i s tence in history, then there must be s o m e t h i n g else, other preconditions. Sieyes now t u r n s his attention to these other preconditions. They are in a sense the substantive preconditions for the existence of the nation, and Sieyes d i v i d e s t h e m into t w o groups. T h e first are w h a t he c a l l s " w o r k s , " or first, a g r i c u l t u r e ; second, handicrafts a n d i n d u s t r y ; t h i r d , t r a d e ; and, fourth, the l i b e r a l arts. But in a d d i t i o n to these " w o r k s , " there must also be w h a t he c a l l s "functions": the a r m y , justice, the church, and the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n . " W o r k s " and "functions"; w e w o u l d no doubt use the more accurate terms "functions" and
5

" a p p a r a t u s e s " to describe these t w o sets of historical p r e r e q u i s i t e s for nationhood. The important point is, however, that it is at this level of functions and apparatuses that the nation's historical conditions of e x istence are defined. By defining t h e m at this level, a n d by i n t r o d u c i n g historical conditions as jundico-formal preconditions for nationhood, Sieyes i s , I t h i n k ( a n d t h i s is the first t h i n g that has to be pointed o u t ) , reversing the direction of all previous analyses, no matter w h e t h e r they adopted the monarchist thesis or took a Rousseauist line. Indeed, so long as the j u r i d i c a l definition of the nation p r e v a i l e d , w h a t w e r e the e l e m e n t s a g r i c u l t u r e , commerce, i n d u s t r y , et cetera that Sieyes isolates as the substantive preconditions for the existence of t h e n a t i o n ? They w e r e not a precondition for the nation's existence; on the c o n t r a r y , they w e r e effects of the nation's existence. It w a s precisely w h e n men, or i n d i v i d u a l s s c a t t e r e d across the surface of the l a n d , on the e d g e s of the forests or on the p l a i n s , decided to develop their a g r i c u l t u r e , to t r a d e and to be able to have economic r e l a t i o n s w i t h one another, t h a t they gave themselves a l a w , a S t a t e , or a government. In other w o r d s , all these functions w e r e in fact effects of the juridical constitution of the nation, or at least its consequences. It w a s

220

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DEFENDED"

only w h e n the juridical constitution of the nation w a s an established fact that these functions could be deployed. Nor w e r e apparatuses such as the army, justice, and the a d m i n i s t r a t i o n preconditions for

the existence of the nation; they w e r e , if not effects, at least its instruments a n d guarantors. It w a s only w h e n the nation had been

constituted that it could a c q u i r e things l i k e an a r m y or a system of justice. So you see, Sieyes inverts the analysis. His w o r k s and functions, or these functions and a p p a r a t u s e s , exist before the nationif not in historical terms, at least in terms of conditions of existence. A nation can exist as a nation, and can enter history and survive through h i s tory, only if it is capable of c o m m e r c e , a g r i c u l t u r e , and handicrafts; only if it has i n d i v i d u a l s w h o are capable of forming an a r m y , a magistrature, a church, and an administration. This means that a group of i n d i v i d u a l s can always come together and can a l w a y s give itself l a w s and a legislature; it can give itself a constitution. If that group of individuals does not have the capacity for commerce, h a n d icrafts, and a g r i c u l t u r e , or the ability to form an a r m y , a magistrature, and so on, it w i l l never, in historical terms, be a nation. It might be a nation in j u r i d i c a l terms, but never in historical terms. A contract, a law, or a consensus can never really create a nation. Conversely, it is perfectly possible for a group of i n d i v i d u a l s to have the

w h e r e w i t h a l , the historical ability to develop w o r k s , to exercise functions, w i t h o u t ever h a v i n g been given a common law and a l e g i s l a t u r e . Such people would, in a sense, be in possession of the substantive and functional elements of the nation; they are not in possession of its but they w i l l not

formal elements. Thev are capable of nationhood, be a nation.

On the basis of this, it is possible to a n a l y z e a n d Sieyes does a n a l y z e w h a t he thought w a s going on in France at the end of the eighteenth century. A g r i c u l t u r e , commerce, handicrafts, and the l i b eral arts do exist. W h o fulfills these various functions? The Third Estate, and only the T h i r d Estate. W h o runs the a r m y , the church, the administration, and the system of j u s t i c e ? W e do of course find

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people belonging to t h e aristocracy in important positions, b u t ac cording to Sieyes, it is the T h i r d Estate that r u n s nine out of ten of these a p p a r a t u s e s . On the other h a n d , the T h i r d Estate, w h i c h has assumed responsibility for the nation's substantive conditions of e x istence, has not been given the formal status of a nation. There are no common l a w s in France; there is a series of l a w s , some a p p l i c a b l e to the nobility, some to the T h i r d Estate, and some to the clergy. No c o m m o n l a w s . No l e g i s l a t u r e either, because l a w s a n d ordinances a r e established b y w h a t Sieyes calls an " a u l i c " system,' meaning a c o u r t l y system, or a r b i t r a r y r o y a l p o w e r . This analysis has, I t h i n k , a n u m b e r of implications. Some are o b v i o u s l y of an i m m e d i a t e l y political o r d e r . T h e y are i m m e d i a t e l y p o litical in this sense: the point is, y o u see, t h a t France is not a nation, because it lacks the formal, j u r i d i c a l preconditions for nationhood:
1

common l a w s and a l e g i s l a t u r e . A n d yet there is " a " nation in France, or in other w o r d s , a g r o u p of i n d i v i d u a l s w h o have the potential capacity to ensure the s u b s t a n t i v e a n d historical existence of the nation. These people supply the historical conditions of existence of both a nation a n d the n a t i o n . H e n c e the c e n t r a l formulation of Sieyes's text, w h i c h cannot be understood unless w e q u i t e specifically see it in

terms of its p o l e m i c a l e x p l i c i t l y p o l e m i c a l r e l a t i o n s h i p w i t h the theses of B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s , B u a t - N a n c a y , a n d the rest of them: "The T h i r d Estate is a c o m p l e t e nation."
5

The formula means this: T h i s

concept of n a t i o n , w h i c h the aristocracy w a n t e d to reserve for a g r o u p of individuals whose only assets were common customs a n d a common s t a t u s , is not e n o u g h to describe the historical r e a l i t y of the nation. But, on the other hand, the Statist e n t i t y constituted b y the k i n g d o m of France is not really a nation to the e x t e n t that it does not e x a c t l y coincide w i t h the historical conditions that are necessary and sufficient to constitute a nation. Where, then, are w e to find the historical core of a nation that can become "the" n a t i o n ? In the T h i r d Estate, and only in the T h i r d Estate. The T h i r d Estate is in itself the historical precondition for the existence of a nation, b u t that nation should, by r i g h t s , coincide w i t h the State. The T h i r d Estate is a nation. It con-

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tains the constituent elements of a nation. Or, to translate the same propositions differently: " A l l that is national is ours," says the Third Estate, "and all that is ours is the nation."
6

Sieyes d i d not invent this political formula, and he w a s not alone in formulating it, b u t it obviously becomes the m a t r i x for a whole political discourse w h i c h , as you w e l l know, is still not exhausted

today. The m a t r i x of this political discourse displays, I think, two characteristics. First, a certain new relationship between p a r t i c u l a r i t y and u n i v e r s a l i t y , a certain relationship w h i c h is precisely the opposite of that w h i c h characterized the discourse of the nobiliary reaction. What, basically, did the nobiliary reaction do? It extracted from the social body constituted by the k i n g and his subjects, it extracted from the monarchic u n i t y , a certain s i n g u l a r right that w a s sealed in blood and asserted by victory: the s i n g u l a r right of the nobles. A n d it

claimed, whatever the constitution of the social body that surrounded it, to reserve the absolute and singular privilege of that right for the nobility; it extracted, then, this p a r t i c u l a r right from the totality of the social body and made it function in its singularity. A n d now,

something quite different is b e g i n n i n g to be said. It is b e g i n n i n g to be said that, on the contrarv ( a n d this is w h a t the T h i r d Estate w i l l s a y ) : " W e are no more than one nation among other i n d i v i d u a l s . But the nation that w e constitute is the only one that can effectively constitute the nation. Perhaps w e are not, in ourselves, the totality of the social body, but w e are capable of guaranteeing the totalizing function of the State. We are capable of Statist u n i v e r s a l i t y . " A n d so, and this is the second characteristic of this discourse, w e have an inversion of the temporal axis of the demand. The demand will no longer be

a r t i c u l a t e d in the name of a past right that w a s established by either a consensus, a victory, or a n invasion. The demand can now be articu l a t e d in terms of a potentiality, a future, a future that is immediate, w h i c h is a l r e a d y present in the present because it concerns a certain function of Statist universality that is already fulfilled by " a " nation w i t h i n the social body, and w h i c h is therefore d e m a n d i n g that its status as a single nation must be effectively recognized, and recognized in the juridical form of the State.

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So m u c h , if y o u l i k e , for the political implications of this t y p e of analysis and discourse. It has theoretical implications too, a n d they are as follows. You see, w h a t , in these conditions, defines a nation is not its archaism, its ancestral nature, or its relationship w i t h the past; it is its r e l a t i o n s h i p w i t h something else, w i t h the State. This means several things. First, t h a t the nation is not essentially specified by its relations w i t h other nations. W h a t characterizes "the" nation is not a horizontal r e l a t i o n s h i p with other groups ( s u c h as other nations, hostile or e n e m y n a t i o n s , or the nations w i t h w h i c h it is j u x t a p o s e d ) . W h a t does characterize the n a t i o n i s , in contrast, a vertical r e l a t i o n ship b e t w e e n a b o d y of i n d i v i d u a l s w h o are capable of constituting a State, and the actual existence of the State itself. It is in terms of this vertical n a t i o n / S t a t e a x i s , or this Statist p o t e n t i a l i t y / S t a t i s t r e a l i z a tion axis, that the nation is to be c h a r a c t e r i z e d and situated. This also m e a n s that w h a t constitutes the strength of a nation is not so m u c h its physical vigor, its m i l i t a r y a p t i t u d e s , or, so to speak, its b a r b a r i a n intensity, w h i c h is w h a t the noble historians of the early e i g h t e e n t h century w e r e t r v i n g to describe. W h a t does constitute the strength of a nation is now s o m e t h i n g like its capacities, its potentialities, a n d t h e y a r e all organized a r o u n d the figure of the State: the greater a nation's Statist capacity, or the greater its potential, the stronger it will be. W h i c h also means that the defining characteristic of a nation is not r e a l l y its dominance over other nations. The essential function a n d the h i s t o r i c a l role of the n a t i o n is not defined b y its a b i l i t y to exercise a r e l a t i o n s h i p of domination over other nations. It is s o m e thing else: its a b i l i t y to a d m i n i s t e r itself, to manage, govern, and g u a r antee the constitution and w o r k i n g s of the figure of the State a n d of State power. Not domination, but State control. The nation is

therefore no longer a partner in b a r b a r o u s and w a r l i k e relations of domination. The nation is the active, constituent core of the State. The nation is the State, or at least an outline State. It is the State insofar as it is b e i n g born, is being shaped and is finding its historical conditions of existence in a g r o u p of i n d i v i d u a l s . Those are, if vou like, the theoretical i m p l i c a t i o n s at the level of w h a t is understood bv "nation." N o w for its implications for historical

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discourse. W h a t w e now have is a historical discourse w h i c h reintroduces the p r o b l e m of the State and which, u p to a point, once more sees it as its central problem. A n d to that extent, w e have a historical discourse w h i c h , u p to a point, is close to the historical discourse that existed in the seventeenth c e n t u r y and w h i c h was, as I have tried to show you, essentially a w a y of a l l o w i n g the State to t a l k about itself. The functions of that discourse w e r e justificatory or liturgical: the State recounted its own past, or in other words, establ i s h e d its o w n legitimacy by m a k i n g itself stronger, so to speak, at the level of its basic rights. This w a s still the discourse of history in the seventeenth century. It w a s against this discourse that the nobili a r y reaction l a u n c h e d its s c a t h i n g attack, or a different t y p e of d i s course in which the nation w a s , precisely, something that could be used to b r e a k d o w n t h e u n i t y of t h e State and to demonstrate that, beneath the formal facade of the State, there w e r e other forces and that they w e r e precisely not forces of the State, but the forces of a p a r t i c u l a r group w i t h its own history, its own relationship with the past, its own victories, its own blood, and its own relations of domination. W e now have a discourse on history that is more sympathetic to the State a n d w h i c h is no longer, in its essential functions, anti-State. The objective of this new history is not, however, to let the State speak its own self-justificatory discourse. It is to w r i t e the history of the relations that are forever being woven between nation and State, b e t w e e n the nation's Statist potential and the a c t u a l totality of the State. This makes it possible to w r i t e a history w h i c h w i l l obviously not become t r a p p e d in the circle of revolution and reconstitution, of a revolutionary return to the p r i m i t i v e order of things, as w a s the case in the seventeenth century. W h a t w e do now have, or what w e may have, is a history of a rectilinear kind in which the decisive moment is the transition from the v i r t u a l to the real, the transition from the national totality to the universality of the State. This,

therefore, is a history that is polarized t o w a r d the present and t o w a r d the State, a history that culminates in the imminence of the State, of the total, complete, and full figure of the State in the present. A n d

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this w i l l a l s o m a k e it possiblesecond pointto w r i t e a history in w h i c h the relations of force t h a t a r e in p l a y are not of a w a r l i k e nature, but completely civilian, so to speak. I tried to show you how, in B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s ' s analysis, the clash between the different nations that exist w i t h i n a single social body is of course mediated by institutions ( t h e economy, education, language, k n o w l e d g e , et c e t e r a ) . But the use of civil institutions w a s , in his analysis, p u r e l y instrumental, and the w a r w a s still b a s i c a l l y a w a r . Institutions w e r e merely the i n s t r u m e n t s of a domination w h i c h w a s still a domination of the w a r l i k e kind, like an invasion. W e now have, in contrast, a history in which w a r t h e w a r for d o m i n a t i o n w i l l be replaced b y a struggle that is, so to speak, of a different substance: not an a r m e d clash, but an effort, a r i v a l r y , a s t r i v i n g t o w a r d the universality of the State. The State, a n d the u n i v e r s a l i t y of the State, become both w h a t is at stake in the s t r u g g l e , and the battlefield. T h i s w i l l therefore be an essentially civil struggle to the extent that domi n a t i o n is neither its goal nor its expression, a n d to the extent that the State is both its object and its space. It w i l l t a k e place essentially in and around the economy, institutions, production, and the a d m i n istration. W e w i l l have a civil struggle, and the m i l i t a r y s t r u g g l e or bloody struggle w i l l become no more than an exceptional moment, a crisis or an episode w i t h i n it. Far from b e i n g the real content of every confrontation a n d every struggle, the civil w a r w i l l in fact b e no more t h a n an episode, a critical phase in a s t r u g g l e t h a t now h a s to b e seen not in t e r m s of w a r or domination, but in n o n m i l i t a r y or civilian terms. A n d this, I think, raises one of the basic questions about history and politics, not only in the nineteenth century, but also in the t w e n tieth. H o w can w e u n d e r s t a n d a s t r u g g l e in p u r e l y civilian t e r m s ? Can w h a t we call strugglethe economic struggle, the political s t r u g gle, the struggle for the Stateactually be a n a l y z e d not in terms of w a r , but in truly economico-political t e r m s ? Or do w e have to go beyond all that and discover precisely the n e v e r - e n d i n g s u b s t r a t u m of w a r a n d domination that the historians of the eighteenth century w e r e t r y i n g to l o c a t e ? From the nineteenth c e n t u r y o n w a r d , or after

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the redefinition of the notion of the nation, w e do at least have a new history. It differs from the history w r i t t e n in the eighteenth century in that it is t r y i n g to find w i t h i n the space of the State, the civil basis for the struggle that must replace the w a r l i k e , m i l i t a r y , and bloody basis discovered b y the historians of the eighteenth century. W e have here, if y o u l i k e , the new historical discourse's conditions of possibility. W h a t concrete form w i l l this new history t a k e ? I t h i n k that if w e w a n t to describe it in overall t e r m s , w e can say t h a t it w i l l be characterized by the i n t e r p l a y b e t w e e n , the fitting together, of t w o g r i d s of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y that are juxtaposed, that intersect, a n d that, u p to a point, correct each other. The first is the g r i d of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y t h a t w a s constructed and used in the eighteenth century. W h e n Guizot, A u g u s t i n T h i e r r y , and T h i e r s a n d M i c h e l e t toowrite history, they take as their starting point a relationship of force, a relationship of struggle, a n d it takes a form that h a d a l r e a d y been recognized in the e i g h t e e n t h century: a w a r , a b a t t l e , an invasion, or a conquest. A n d historians of, say, the type that is still aristocratic, such as M o n t losier
7

( b u t also Augustin Thierry, a n d Guizot t o o ) a l w a y s assume

that this struggle is the m a t r i x of, if y o u like, a history. A u g u s t i n Thierry, for example, says: " W e believe ourselves to be a nation, but we are two nations w i t h i n one land, two nations w h i c h are enemies because of w h a t they remember a n d because their projects are irreconcilable: one once conquered the other." Of course some of the masters have gone over to the side of the v a n q u i s h e d , but the others, or those w h o r e m a i n e d masters, are " a s foreign to our affections and our customs as if they h a d come among us y e s t e r d a y , as deaf to our w o r d s of freedom a n d peace as if our language were as u n k n o w n to t h e m as that of our ancestors w a s u n k n o w n to theirs. They w e n t their own w a y , and took no heed of our w a y . "
8

And Guizot said: "For more

than thirteen centuries, France contained t w o peoples: a victorious people a n d a v a n q u i s h e d p e o p l e . " So even at this time, we still have the same starting point, the same grid of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y , as in the eighteenth century. In a d d i t i o n to t h i s first g r i d , there is another, a n d it both complements a n d inverts this p r i m a l duality. This is a g r i d w h i c h , rather
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than functioning w i t h a point of origin such as t h e first w a r , t h e first invasion, or the first national d u a l i t y , w o r k s b a c k w a r d a n d starts w i t h the present. The fundamental moment is no longer the origin, a n d i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y ' s s t a r t i n g point is no longer the archaic element; it is, on the contrary, the present. A n d w e have here, I t h i n k , an important phenomenon: the inversion of the value of the present in historical and political discourse. In the history and the historico-political field of the eighteenth century, the present w a s , b a s i c a l l y , a l w a y s the negative moment. It w a s a l w a y s the t r o u g h of the w a v e , a l w a y s a moment of apparent calm a n d forgetfulness. The present w a s the moment

w h e n , t h a n k s to a whole series of displacements, b e t r a y a l s , a n d m o d ifications of the relationship of force, the p r i m i t i v e state of w a r h a d become, as it w e r e , m u d d l e d a n d unrecognizable. Not just unrecognizable, b u t completely forgotten by those w h o should have been able to use it to t h e i r advantage. The nobles' ignorance, a b s e n t m i n d e d n e s s , laziness, a n d greed, all that h a d m a d e t h e m forget the basic forcerelations t h a t defined t h e i r r e l a t i o n s h i p w i t h the other people l i v i n g on t h e i r l a n d s . A n d w h a t is more, the discourse of royal p o w e r ' s clerks, j u r i s t s , a n d a d m i n i s t r a t o r s h a d covered u p t h i s i n i t i a l relationship of force. For eighteenth-century history, the present was

therefore a l w a y s the moment of a profound forgetfulness. Hence the need to escape the present t h a n k s to a sudden a n d violent r e a w a k e n i n g that m u s t b e g i n , first and foremost, w i t h a great reactivation of the p r i m i t i v e m o m e n t in the order of k n o w l e d g e . The present w a s a moment of extreme forgetfulness; it w a s also the moment w h e n a consciousness must be r e a w a k e n e d . A n d now w e have a very different g r i d of historical i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y . Once history is polarized a r o u n d the n a t i o n / S t a t e , v i r t u a l i t y / a c t u ality, functional totality of the n a t i o n / r e a l u n i v e r s a l i t y of the State, you can see c l e a r l y t h a t the present b e c o m e s the fullest moment, the moment of the g r e a t e s t intensity, the solemn m o m e n t w h e n the u n i versal m a k e s its e n t r y into the real. It is at t h i s point t h a t the universal comes into contact w i t h the real in the present ( a present that has just passed and w i l l p a s s ) , in the imminence of the present, and it is this that gives the present both its value a n d its intensity, and that

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establishes it as a p r i n c i p l e of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y . The present is no longer the moment of forgetfulness. On the contrary, it is the moment w h e n the t r u t h comes out, w h e n w h a t w a s obscure or v i r t u a l is revealed in the full light of day. As a result, the present both reveals the past and a l l o w s it to be a n a l y z e d . I t h i n k t h a t history, a s w e see it functioning in the nineteenth

century, or at least the first half of the nineteenth century, uses both g r i d s of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y . It uses both the g r i d that begins w i t h the initial w a r w h i c h r u n s through all historical processes a n d i m p e l s all their developments, a n d a different g r i d of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y w h i c h w o r k s b a c k w a r d from the topicality of the present, from the totalizing realization of the State to the past, and which reconstitutes its genesis. The two g r i d s in fact never function in isolation: they are a l w a y s used almost concurrently, a l w a y s overlap, are more or less superimposed, a n d to some extent intersect at the edges. Basically, w e have on the one hand a history w r i t t e n in the form of d o m i n a t i o n w i t h w a r in the b a c k groundand on the other, a history w r i t t e n in the form of totalizationa history in w h i c h w h a t has h a p p e n e d and w h a t is going to happen, namely the emergence of the State, exists, or is at least i m minent, in the present. A history that is written, then, both in terms of an initial rift and a totalizing completion. A n d I t h i n k that the utility, the political u t i h z a b i h t y , of historical discourse is basically defined by the interplay b e t w e e n these t w o g r i d s , or by the w a y in which one or the other of them is p r i v i l e g e d . Broadly s p e a k i n g , if the first g r i d of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y t h e initial rift is privileged, the result will be a history that can, if you l i k e , be described as reactionary, aristocratic, and rightist. If the secondthe present moment of u n i v e r s a l i t y i s privileged, w e w i l l have a history of the l i b e r a l or bourgeois type. But neither of these histories, each of w h i c h has its own tactical position, can actually avoid having to use both g r i d s in one w a y or another. I w o u l d like to show you two e x a m p l e s of this. One is b o r r o w e d from a typically rightist or aristocratic history w h i c h is, up to a point, a direct descendant of

e i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y history but w h i c h in fact displaces it considerably and does, despite everything, w o r k with the grid of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y that

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takes the present as its starting point. The other is a converse e x a m p l e : 1 w i l l , m o t h e r w o r d s , take a historian w h o is r e g a r d e d as liberal and bourgeois, and show the play between the t w o g r i d s and even the g r i d of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y that b e g i n s w i t h w a r , even though historians l i k e this do not privilege it in any absolute sense. So, first e x a m p l e . In t h e early nineteenth century, Montlosier a p pears to b e w r i t i n g a history of the rightist type in the tradition of the nobiliary reaction of the eighteenth c e n t u r y . In such a history, w e do indeed find that relations of domination a r e privileged from t h e outset: throughout history, w e find the relationship of national d u ality, and the relation of domination characteristic of national d u a l i t y . M o n t l o s i e r ' s book i s M o n t l o s i e r ' s books arefull of polemics like this one, w h i c h is addressed to the Third Estate: "You are an e m a n cipated race, a race of slaves, a t r i b u t a r y people, you w e r e given license to be free, b u t not to b e noble. For us, it is a l l a m a t t e r of right; for you, it is all a matter of grace. W e do not belong to your c o m m u n i t y ; w e are a w h o l e u n t o ourselves." Once again, you find the famous

theme I told you about w h e n w e were discussing Sieyes. S i m i l a r l y , Jouffroy could w r i t e a sentence such as this in some journal or o t h e r ( I can't r e m e m b e r w h i c h ) : "The n o r t h e r n race seized Gaul without

d r i v i n g out the v a n q u i s h e d ; it b e q u e a t h e d its successors c o n q u e r e d l a n d s to be governed, a n d c o n q u e r e d m e n to r u l e . "

10

The national d u a l i t y thesis i s asserted by all those historians w h o are, b r o a d l y speaking, emigres w h o returned to France a n d w h o , at the time of the ultrareaction, reconstructed the invasion a s a s o r t of privileged moment. But if w e look at it m o r e closely, M o n t l o s i e r ' s analysis functions very differently from the analysis w e s a w in the eighteenth century. M o n t l o s i e r obviously does speak of a relation of domination that r e s u l t s from a w a r , or r a t h e r a m u l t i p l i c i t y of w a r s , but he does not really t r y to situate it. A n d he says that the important thing is not really w h a t happened at the time of the Frankish invasion, because relations of domination existed long before that and because they w e r e m u l t i p l e . Long before the R o m a n s invaded Gaul, there w a s already a relation of domination between a nobility and a people that paid it t r i b u t e . It w a s the result of an ancient w a r . The Romans came,

230

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a n d b r o u g h t t h e i r w a r w i t h them, b u t they also b r o u g h t the r e l a tionship of domination that existed b e t w e e n t h e i r aristocracy a n d peop l e who were no more than the clients of those rich people, those nobles a n d aristocrats. That relationship of domination resulted from an old w a r too. A n d t h e n the G e r m a n s came along, w i t h their o w n internal relationship of subjugation b e t w e e n those w h o w e r e free w a r r i o r s a n d those w h o w e r e merely subjects. So w h a t happened at the b e g i n n i n g of the M i d d l e A g e s , at the d a w n of feudalism, w a s not just that a victorious people w a s superimposed on a v a n q u i s h e d people. What w a s established w a s a c o m b i n a t i o n of three systems of internal domination: that of the Gauls, that of the Romans, a n d that of the Germans.'
1

The feudal nobility of the M i d d l e Ages w a s , at bottom,

no more t h a n a m i x t u r e of three aristocracies, a n d it established itself as a n e w aristocracy that exercised a r e l a t i o n s h i p of domination over people who w e r e themselves a m i x t u r e of G a u l i s h t r i b u t a r i e s , Roman clients, a n d G e r m a n subjects. A s a result, w e have a relationship of domination b e t w e e n something w h i c h w a s a nobility, w h i c h w a s a nation, b u t w h i c h w a s also the nation in its entirety, or in other w o r d s the feudal n o b i l i t y ; and then w e have ( o u t s i d e that nation, or as an object or p a r t n e r in that relationship of d o m i n a t i o n ) a w h o l e people of t r i b u t a r i e s , serfs, a n d so on w h o are not really the other part of that nation, w h o exist outside it. Montlosier, then, operates w i t h a monism at the level of the nation, a n d w i t h a dualism at the level of domination. A n d w h a t , according to Montlosier, i s the m o n a r c h y ' s role in all t h i s ? W e l l , the role of the monarchy is to forge this extranational massthe p r o d u c t , the mixture of G e r m a n subjects, R o m a n clients, and G a u l i s h t r i b u t a r i e s i n t o a nation, into a different people. That is the role of royal p o w e r . The monarchy freed tributaries, granted rights to the towns a n d made t h e m i n d e p e n d e n t of the nobility; it even freed the serfs and created from scratch what Montlosier calls a n e w people. It h a d the same rights as the old people, or in other w o r d s , the n o b i l i t y , b u t it w a s numerically superior. Royal power, says Montlosier, created an immense class.
12

This t y p e of analysis does of course reactivate all t h e elements we

10 March

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saw b e i n g used in t h e eighteenth c e n t u r y , but w i t h one

important

modification. The difference is, you see, that in M o n t l o s i e r ' s view, the processes of politicsall that had happened b e t w e e n the M i d d l e A g e s a n d the seventeenth and eighteenth c e n t u r i e s d i d not simply modify or d i s p l a c e the relations of force that existed b e t w e e n two p a r t n e r s w h o w e r e there from the outset, and w h o had been enemies ever since the invasion. What h a p p e n e d w a s that something n e w w a s created w i t h i n an entity that w a s once mononational a n d totally concentrated around the n o b i l i t y : a n e w nation, a new people, or w h a t M o n t l o s i e r calls a n e w class w a s created.' The m a k i n g , then, of a class, of classes, w i t h i n the social body. Now, w h a t w i l l h a p p e n once t h i s n e w class has been c r e a t e d ? The k i n g w i l l use t h i s n e w class to t a k e a w a y the n o b i l i t y ' s economic and political p r i v i l e g e s . W h a t means does he u s e ? Once again, M o n t l o s i e r repeats w h a t h i s predecessors h a d said: lies, b e t r a y a l s , u n n a t u r a l alliances, a n d so on. The k i n g also used the r a w energy of this n e w class; he uses the rebellions: u r b a n r e b e l l i o n s against feudal lords, a n d peasant jacqueries against l a n d o w n e r s . A n d w h a t , a s k s Montlosier, do w e see at w o r k in these r e b e l l i o n s ? The discontent of the n e w class, obviously. B u t above a l l , the h a n d of t h e k i n g . It w a s t h e k i n g w h o i n s p i r e d all the r e b e l l i o n s , because every rebellion w e a k e n e d the p o w e r of the nobles a n d therefore strength5

ened the p o w e r of the king, w h o urged the nobles to make concessions. A n d thanks to a circular process, every royal act of

emancipation m a d e the people stronger and m o r e arrogant. Every concession the k i n g m a d e to t h i s n e w class led to further M o n a r c h y and popular rebellions. the

rebellion w o r k e d h a n d in glove. A n d

w e a p o n s that w e r e used to transfer to the monarch all of the political p o w e r s t h e nobility once h a d w e r e essentially these r e b e l l i o n s , these rebellions that w e r e fomented and inspired, or at least supported and encouraged, by royal power. Once this has been done, the monarchy itself usurps power, b u t it can m a k e it function, or can exercise it, only by t u r n i n g to this n e w class. It therefore entrusts its justice and a d m i n i s t r a t i o n to this n e w class, w h i c h finds itself in control of all the functions of the State. A s a result, the final moment of the process can only be the u l t i m a t e

232

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rebellion: having fallen into the hands of this n e w class, or into the hands of the people, the State is no longer under the control of royal power. All that r e m a i n s is a n a k e d encounter b e t w e e n a king w h o has in reality only the p o w e r he h a s been given by popular rebellions, a n d a popular class w h i c h has all the i n s t r u m e n t s of the State in its h a n d s . T h i s i s the final episode, the final rebellion. Against w h o m ? Against the m a n w h o has forgotten that he w a s the last aristocrat w h o still h a d any power: the king. In M o n t l o s i e r ' s analysis, the French Revolution therefore looks like the final episode in the transferential process that established royal a b s o l u t i s m . " The Revolution completes the constitution of monarchic power. But surely the Revolution overthrew the k i n g ? Not at all. The Revolution finished w h a t the k i n g s h a d begun, and l i t e r a l l y speaks its t r u t h . The Revolution has to be read as the culmination of the monarchy; a tragic c u l m i n a t i o n perhaps, but a culmination that is politically t r u e . The king may w e l l have been decapitated d u r i n g that scene on 21 J a n u a r y 1793; they decapitated the king, but they crowned the monarchy. The Convention is the t r u t h of the monarchy stripped bare, a n d the sovereignty that the k i n g snatched away from the nob i l i t y i s now, in a w a y that is absolutely necessary, in the h a n d s of a people w h i c h , according to Montlosier, proves to be the kings' legitimate heir. M o n t l o s i e r , aristocrat, emigre, and savage opponent of the least attempt at l i b e r a l i z a t i o n under the Restoration, can write this: "The sovereign people: w e should not condemn it with too much

bitterness. It is s i m p l y c o n s u m m a t i n g the w o r k of its sovereign p r e d e cessors." The people is therefore the heir, and the legitimate heir, of the kings; it is s i m p l y completing the work of the sovereigns who preceded it. It followed, point by point, the route traced for it by kings, by parlementaires, by men of the l a w , and by scholars. A s you

can see, then, M o n t l o s i e r ' s historical analysis is framed by the thesis that it all began with a state of w a r and a relation of domination. The political d e m a n d s put forward d u r i n g the Restoration period certainly i n c l u d e d the claim that the rights of the nobility must be restored, that the p r o p e r t y that had been nationalized should be returned to it, a n d that the relations of domination it had once exercised over the

TO March

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whole people should be reestablished. Of course that assertion w a s made, but you can see that the nucleus, the central content of the historical discourse that is being spoken is indeed a historical d i s course t h a t m a k e s the present function as the m o m e n t of fullness. It is the moment of effectuation, the m o m e n t of totalization. From t h i s m o m e n t [ o n w a r d ] all the historical processes t h a t established relations between the aristocracy and the monarchy finally reach their c u l m i n a t i n g point in the constitution of a Statist t o t a l i t y that is in the h a n d s of a national collectivity. A n d to t h a t extent, w e c a n say thatregardless of the political themes or the elements of the a n a l y s i s that are b o r r o w e d from the history of B o u l a i n v i l h e r s or Buat Nancay, or w h i c h are directly transposed from i t t h i s discourse actually functions in accordance with a different model.

To close, I w o u l d like to t a k e a different, a d i a m e t r i c a l l y different, type of history. It is the history of A u g u s t i n Thierry, w h o w a s M o n t losier's e x p l i c i t a d v e r s a r y . For Thierry, history's privileged point of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y is, of course, the present. He is quite explicit about t h i s . It is the second g r i d , w h i c h begins w i t h the present, w i t h the fullness of the present, so as to reveal the elements and processes of the past, that will be used. Statist totalization; that is w h a t must be projected onto the past. W e have to t r a c e the genesis of that totalization. For A u g u s t i n T h i e r r y , the present is indeed " t h a t moment of fullness." The Revolution ishe saysthe moment of reconciliation. The s e t t i n g for this reconciliation, for this constitution of the Statist totality, is the famous scene w h e n B a i l l y , you know, w e l c o m e d the representatives of the nobility and the clergy into the very place w h e r e the

representatives of the Third Estate w e r e meeting, w i t h the w o r d s : " N o w the family is reunited.'''^ So let us start w i t h the present. The present moment i s that of national totalization in the form of the State. But the fact remains that this totalization could occur only through the violent process of the Revolution, and that this full moment of reconciliation still h a s the featuresand bears the scarsof a w a r . A n d Augustin Thierry s a y s that the French Revolution w a s , basically, nothing more t h a n the final episode in a struggle t h a t had been going on for more than

"SOCIETY

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BE

DEFENDED"

thirteen hundred years, and that it was a struggle between the victors and the vanquished.'
6

According to Augustin Thierry, the whole

problem of historical analysis is to show how a struggle between victors and vanquished that goes on throughout history can lead to a present that no longer takes the form of a war and a dissymmetrical domination which either perpetuates them or takes them in a different direction; the problem is to show how such a war could lead to the genesis of a universality in which struggles, or at least war, inevitably cease. Why is it that only one of these two parties can be the agent of universality? That, for Augustin Thierry, is the problem of history. And his analysis therefore consists in tracing the origins of a process that was duahstic when it began, but both monist and umversahst when it ended. According to Augustin Thierry, the important thing about this confrontation is that what happened obviously has its starting point in something like an invasion. But although the struggle or confrontation went on throughout the Middle Ages and is still going on, that is not because the victors and the vanquished clashed within institutions; it is because two different societies were constituted. They were not of the same economico-juridical type, and they fought over the administration and over who controlled the State. Even before medieval society was established, a rural society did exist: it was organized after the conquest and in a form that very quickly developed into feudalism. And then there emerged a rival urban society based on both a Roman model and a Gaulish model. In one sense, the confrontation was basically the result of the invasion and the conquest, but it was essentially, or in substantive terms, a struggle between two societies. The conflict between the two did at times take the form of armed conflict, but for the most part it took that of a political and economic confrontation. It may well have been a war, but it was a war between right and freedoms on one side, and debt and wealth on the other. The confrontation between these two types of society over the constitution of a State will become the basic motor of history. Until the ninth or tenth century, the towns were on the losing side in this

7 0 March

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confrontation, in this struggle for the State and the universality of the State. And then, from the tenth and eleventh centuries onward, the towns underwent a renaissance. Those in the south adopted the Italian model, and the towns of the northern regions adopted the Nordic model. In both cases, a new form of juridical and economic organization came into being. And the reason urban society eventually triumphed is not at all that it won something like a military victory, but quite simply that it had wealth on its side, but also an administrative ability, a morale, a certain way of life, what Augustin Thierry calls innovatory instincts, and its activity. All these things gave it such strength that, one day, its institutions ceased to be local and became the country's institutions of political right and civil right. Umversallzation therefore began not w i t h a relationship of domination that gradually swung completely in its favor, but with the fact that all the constituent elements of the State were born of it, were in its hands or had come into its hands. Its force was the force of the State and not the force of war, and the bourgeoisie did not make w a r l i k e use of it except when it was really obliged to do so. There are two great episodes, two main phases in this history of the bourgeoisie and the Third Estate. First, when the Third Estate sensed that it was in control of all the forces of the State, what it proposed to the nobility and the clergy was, well, a sort of social pact. Hence the emergence of both the theory and the institutions of the three orders. This was, however, an artificial unity that did not really correspond to either the realities of the relationship of force or the will of the enemy. The Third Estate had in fact the whole State in its hands, and its enemy, or in other words, the nobility, refused to recognize that the Third Estate had any right at all. It was at this point, in the eighteenth century, that a new process began, and it w a s to be a more violent process of confrontation. A n d the Revolution itself w a s to be the final episode in a violent war. It naturally reactivated the old conflicts, but it was, in some sense, nothing more than the military instrument of a conflict and struggle that were not in themselves warlike. They were essentially civil, and the State w a s both their object and the space in which they took place. The disappear-

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ance of the three-order system, and the violent shocks of the Revolution, s i m p l y provided a b a c k d r o p for a single event: this is the moment w h e n , having become a nation and then having become the nation by absorbing all the functions of the State, the T h i r d Estate w i l l effectively take sole control of both nation a n d State. The fact that it alone is the nation and that the State is under its sole control allows it to assume the functions of universality which will automatically do a w a y w i t h both the old d u a l i t y and all the relations of domination that have hitherto been at w o r k . The bourgeoisie or Third Estate thus becomes the people, and thus becomes the nation. It has the m i g h t of the universal. And the present momentthe moment when

when A u g u s t i n Thierry is w r i t i n g i s precisely the moment

dualities, nations, and even classes cease to exist. "An immense evolution," said Thierrv, " w h i c h causes all violent or i l l e g i t i m a t e ine q u a l i t i e s m a s t e r a n d slave, victor a n d vanquished, lord a n d serf to vanish one by one from the land in w h i c h w e live. In their place, it finally reveals one people, one l a w that applies to all a n d one free and sovereign nation.'"
7

So you see, with analyses l i k e this we obviously have, first, the elimination of w a r ' s function as an analyzer of historico-political processes, or at least its strict c u r t a i l m e n t . W a r is now no more than an e p h e m e r a l a n d instrumental aspect of confrontations w h i c h are not of a w a r l i k e nature. Second, the essential element is no longer the relationship of domination that exists b e t w e e n one nation and another or one g r o u p and another; the fundamental relationship is the State. A n d you can also see, in analyses like this, the outline of something that can, in my view, be i m m e d i a t e l y likened, i m m e d i a t e l y transposed, to a philosophical discourse of a dialectical t y p e . The p o s s i b i l i t y of a philosophy of history, or in other words the appearance, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, of a philosophy that finds in history, and in the plenitude of the present, the moment w h e n the universal speaks its truth, vou seeI am not saying that the ground is being p r e p a r e d for this philosophy; I am saying that it is a l r e a d y at w o r k w i t h i n historical discourse. What took place w a s a self dialecticalization of historical discourse, and it occurred

7 0 March

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i n d e p e n d e n t l y of any e x p l i c i t transpositionor anv explicit u t i l i z a tionof a dialectical philosophy into a historical discourse. But the bourgeoisie's u t i l i z a t i o n of a historical discourse, the bourgeoisie's modification of the basic elements of the historical intelligibility t h a t it h a d p i c k e d u p from the e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y , w a s at the same t i m e a self-dialecticahzation of historical discourse. A n d so y o u can u n derstand how, from this point o n w a r d , relations c o u l d be established b e t w e e n the discourse of h i s t o r y a n d the discourse of philosophy. Basically, the philosophy of h i s t o r y d i d not e x i s t in the eighteenth century, except in the form of speculations about the g e n e r a l l a w of history. From t h e nineteenth century o n w a r d something newand, I think, something fundamentalbegan to happen. History and p h i l o s ophy b e g a n to a s k the s a m e q u e s t i o n : W h a t is it, in the present, t h a t is the agent of the u n i v e r s a l ? W h a t is it, in the present, t h a t is the t r u t h of the u n i v e r s a l ? That is the question asked b y history. It is also the question asked b y philosophy. T h e dialectic is born.

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1. E.-J. Sieyes, Qu'est-ce que le Tiers-Etat? p. 1. 2. "A common law and a common representation, that is what makes a nation." Ibid., p. 12. 3. "What is required for the survival and prosperity ol a Nation? Particular works and public functions." Ibid., p. 2; cf. chap. 1, pp. 2-9. \. Ibid., chap. 2, p. 17. 5. Ibid., chap. 1, p. 2. 6. "The Third Estate comprises all that belongs to the nation; and all that is not the Third Estate cannot be regarded as belonging to the nation. What is the Third Estate? Everything." Ibid., p. 9. 7. F. de Reynaud, comte de Montlosier, De la monanhie francaise depuis son e'tablissementjusqu'a nos jours (Pans, 1 8 1 ^ ) , vols. 1-38. Augustin Thierry, "Sur I'antipathie de race qui dmse ta nation franchise," Le Censeur europeen, 2 April 1 8 2 0 , reprinted in Dix ans d'etudes h'storiques (Pans, 1 9 3 5 ) . p. 292. 9. F. Guizot, Du Gouvernement de la France depuis la Restauration et du ministre actuel (Pans, 1 8 2 0 ) , p. 1. 1 0 . Foucault is alluding to Achille Joufrroy d'Abbans ( 1 7 9 0 - 1 8 5 9 ) . He was a supporter of the Bourbons and published articles supporting divine right, absolute power, and ultra Montanism in L'Observateur. After the fall of Charles X, he published a journal called La Le'gitimite, which was banned from being distributed in France. He is the author of, inter alia, a brochure entitled Des Ide'es liberales du Francais ( 1 8 1 5 ) , a novel about the Revolution entitled Les Pastes de I'ananhie ( 1 8 2 0 ) , and a historical study of Gaul, Les Siecles de la monanhie francaise ( 1 8 2 3 ) . The quotation from Joufrroy is from VObservateur des colonies, de la marine, de la politique, de la litterature et des arts, 9th installment ( 1 8 2 0 ) , p. 2 9 9 . CI. A. Thierry, "Sur 1'antipathie de race . . . " 11. F. de Reynaud, comte de Montlosier, De la monanhie francaise, book 1, chap. 1, p. 150. 12. Ibid, book 3, chap. 2, p. 152f. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid., book 2, chap. \ p. 2 0 9 . 15- A. Thierry, Lssai sur I'histoire de la formation et du progres du Tiers-Etat, in Oeuvres completes (Paris, 1 8 6 8 ) , vol. 5, p- 3- Thierry writes: "The family is complete." 16. See in particular A. Thierry, "Sur Tantipathie de race . . . " and "Histoire veritable de Jacques Bonhomme," Le Censeur europeen, May 1820, reprinted in Dix ans d'etudes historiques. 17. A. Thierry, Essai sur t'histoire ... du Tiers-Etat, p. 1 0 . The inaccurate quotation has been checked against the original and emended.

eleven

17

MARCH 1 9 7 6

From the power

of sovereignty

to power

over life. - Make

live

and let die. - From man as body to man as species: biopower. death, - Biopower's fields of application.

the birth of - Of

- Population. -

and of the death of Franco in particular. and regulation: workers' housing,

Articulations and the and

of discipline

sexuality,

norm. - Biopower domains.

and racism.

- Racism: functions Socialism.

- Nazism. -

IT IS T I M E TO end then, to try to pull together w h a t I have been saying this y e a r . I have been t r y i n g to raise the problem ol w a r , seen as a g r i d lor u n d e r s t a n d i n g historical processes. It seemed to me that w a r w a s regarded, initially a n d throughout practically the whole ol the eighteenth century, a s a w a r between races. It w a s that w a r be t w e e n races t h a t I w a n t e d to t r y to reconstruct. A n d last time, I t r i e d to show you h o w the very notion ol w a r w a s eventually e l i m i n a t e d from historical a n a l y s i s by the p r i n c i p l e of n a t i o n a l universality.* I would now like to show you how, w h i l e the t h e m e of race does not disappear, it does become part of something very different, n a m e l y S t a t e r a c i s m . So t o d a y I w o u l d like to tell you a little about State racism, or at least situate it for you. It seems to me t h a t one of the b a s i c p h e n o m e n a of the nineteenth century w a s w h a t might be called p o w e r ' s hold over life. W h a t I mean is the acquisition of p o w e r over man insofar as man is a living being,

*In the manuscript, the sentence continues: "at the time of the Revolution."

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1. , J . Sieves, Qu'est-ce que le Tiers-Fjat? p. 1. 2. "A common law and a common representation, that is what makes a nation." Ibid., p. 12. 3. "What is required for the survival and prosperity of a Nation? Particular^/orVs and public functions." Ibid., p. 2; cf. chap. 1, pp. 2-9. \. Ibid., chap. 2, p. 17. 5. Ibid., chap. 1, p. 2. 6. "The Third Estate comprises all that belongs to the nation; and all that is not the Third Estate cannot be regarded as belonging to the nation. What is the Third Estate? Every thing." Ibid., p. 9. 7. F. de Reynaud, comte de Montlosier, De la monarchicfraruraise depuis son etablissement jusqu'd nos jours (Paris, 18V|), vols. 1-38. Augustin Thierry, "Sur I'antipathie de race qui divise la nation francaise," he Censeur europeen, 2 April 1 8 2 0 , reprinted i n Dix ans d'etvdes historiques (Pans, 1935), p- 292. 9. F. Guizot, Du Gouvernement de la France depuis la Restauration et du ministre actuel (Paris, 1820), p. 1. 10. Foucault is alluding to Achille Jouffroy d'Abbans ( 1 7 9 0 - 1 8 5 9 ) . He was a supporter of the Bourbons and published articles supporting divine right, absolute power, and ultra Montanism i n L'Observateur. After the fall of Charles X, he published a journal called La Le'gitimite, which was banned from being distributed in France. He is the author of, inter alia, a brochure entitled Des Idecs liberales du Francais ( 1 8 1 5 ) , a novel about the Revolution entitled Les Fastes de /'anarchic ( l 8 2 0 ) , and a historical study of Gaul, Les Siecles de la monarchic francaise ( 1 8 2 3 ) . The quotation from Jouffroy is from L'Observateur des colonies, de la marine, de la politique, de la literature et des arts, 9th installment ( 1 8 2 0 ) , p. 2 9 9 . Cf. A. Thierry, "Sur I'antipathie de race . . . " 11. F. de Reynaud, comte de Montlosier, De la monarchic francaue, book 1, chap. 1, p. 1 5 0 . 12. Ibid., book 3, chap. 2, p. 152f. 13. Ibid. 14- Ibid., book 2, chap. 3, p. 2 0 9 . 15. A. Thierry, Essai sur Phistoire de la formation et du pwgres du Tiers-Etat, i n Oeuvres completes (Paris, 1 8 6 8 ) , vol. 5, p. 1 Thierry writes: "The family is complete." 16. See i n particular A. Thierry, "Sur 1'antipathie de race . . . " and "Histoire veritable de Jacques Bonhomme," Le Censeur eumpeen, May 1 8 2 0 , reprinted in Dix ans d'etvdes historiques. 17. A. Thierry, Essai sur t'histoire... du Tiers-Etat, p. 1 0 . The inaccurate quotation has been checked against the original and emended.

eleven

17

MARCH

1976

From the power

of sovereignty

to power

over life. - Make

live

and let die. - From man as body to man as species: biopower. death, - Biopower's fields of application.

the birth of - Of

- Population. -

and of the death

of Franco workers'

in particular. housing, - Racism:

Articulations and the and

of discipline

and regulation:

sexuality, functions

norm. - Biopower * domains.

and racism.

~ Nazism. -

Socialism.

IT IS T I M E T O end then, to try to pull together w h a t I have been saying this year. I have been t r y i n g to raise the problem of w a r , seen as a g r i d for u n d e r s t a n d i n g historical processes. It seemed to me that war w a s r e g a r d e d , initially and throughout practically the whole of

the eighteenth century, as a w a r b e t w e e n races. It was that w a r b e tween races t h a t I w a n t e d to try to reconstruct. A n d l a s t t i m e , I tried to show you how the very notion of w a r w a s eventually e l i m i n a t e d from historical a n a l y s i s by the p r i n c i p l e of national universality.* I w o u l d now like to show you how, w h i l e the t h e m e of race does not disappear, it does become part of s o m e t h i n g very different, namely State racism. So today I w o u l d like to tell you a little about State racism, or at least situate it for you. It seems to me that one of the basic phenomena of the nineteenth century w a s w h a t m i g h t b e called p o w e r ' s hold over life. W h a t I m e a n is the acquisition of p o w e r over m a n insofar as man is a l i v i n g being,

*In the manuscript, the sentence continues: "at the time of the Revolution."

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that the biological came under State control, that there was at least a certain tendency that leads to what might be termed State control of the biological. And I think that in order to understand what was going on, it helps if we refer to what used to be the classical theory of sovereignty, which ultimately provided us with the backdrop toa picture ofall these analyses of war, races, and so on. You know that in the classical theory of sovereignty, the right of life and death was one of sovereignty's basic attributes. Now the right of life and death is a strange right. Even at the theoretical level, it is a strange right. What does having the right of life and death actually mean? In one sense, to say that the sovereign has a right of life and death means that he can, basically, either have people put to death or let them live, or in any case that life and death are not natural or immediate phenomena which are primal or radical, and which fall outside the field of power. If we take the argument a little further, or to the point where it becomes paradoxical, it means that in terms of his relationship with the sovereign, the subject is, by rights, neither dead nor alive. From the point of view of life and death, the subject is neutral, and it is thanks to the sovereign that the subject has the right to be alive or, possibly, the right to be dead. In any case, the lives and deaths of subjects become rights only as a result of the will of the sovereign. That is, if you like, the theoretical paradox. And it is of course a theoretical paradox that must have as its corollary a sort of practical disequilibrium. What does the right of life and death actually mean? Obviously not that the sovereign can grant life in the same way that he can inflict death. The right of life and death is always exercised in an unbalanced way: the balance is always tipped in favor of death. Sovereign power's effect on life is exercised only when the sovereign can kill. The very essence of the right of life and death is actually the right to kill: it is at the moment when the sovereign can kill that he exercises his right over life. It is essentially the right of the sword. So there is no real symmetry in the right over life and death. It is not the right to put people to death or to grant them life. Nor is it the right to allow people to live or to leave them to die. It

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is the right to take lit e or let live. And this obviously introduces a startling dissymmetry. And I think that one of the greatest transformations political right underwent in the nineteenth century was precisely that, I wouldn't say exactly that sovereignty's old rightto take lite or let livewas replaced, but it came to be complemented by a new right which does not erase the old right but which does penetrate it, permeate it. This is the right, or rather precisely the opposite right. It is the power to "make" live and "let" die. The right of sovereignty was the right to take life or let live. And then this new right is established: the right to make live and to let die. This transformation obviously did not occur all at once. We can trace it in the theory of right ( b u t here, I will be extraordinarily rapid). The jurists of the seventeenth and especially the eighteenth century were, you see, already asking this question about the right of life and death. The jurists ask: When we enter into a contract, what are individuals doing at the level of the social contract, when they come together to constitute a sovereign, to delegate absolute power over them to a sovereign? They do so because they are forced to by some threat or by need. They therefore do so in order to protect their lives. It is in order to live that they constitute a sovereign. To the extent that this is the case, can life actually become one of the rights of the sovereign? Isn't life the foundation ot the sovereign's right, and can the sovereign actually demand that his subjects grant him the right to exercise the power of lite and death over them, or in other words, simply the power to kill them? Mustn't life remain outside the contract to the extent that it was the tirst, initial, and foundational reason for the contract itselt? All this is a debate within political philosophy that we can leave on one side, but it clearly demonstrates how the problem of life began to be problematized in the field of political thought, of the analysis of political power. I would in fact like to trace the transformation not at the level of political theory, but rather at the level of the mechanisms, techniques, and technologies of power. And this brings us back to something familiar: in the sev-

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enteenth a n d eighteenth centuries, w e saw the emergence of techn i q u e s of power that were essentially centered on the body, on the i n d i v i d u a l body. They i n c l u d e d all devices that w e r e used to ensure the spatial distribution of i n d i v i d u a l bodies ( t h e i r separation, their alignment, their serialization, a n d their s u r v e i l l a n c e ) a n d the organization, a r o u n d those i n d i v i d u a l s , of a w h o l e field of visibility. They were also t e c h n i q u e s that could be used to t a k e control over bodies. A t t e m p t s w e r e m a d e to increase their p r o d u c t i v e force through e x ercise, drill, a n d so on. They w e r e also t e c h n i q u e s for rationalizing and strictly economizing on a power that h a d to b e used in the least costly w a y possible, t h a n k s to a whole system of surveillance, h i e r archies, inspections, bookkeeping, and r e p o r t s a l l the technology that can be described as the d i s c i p l i n a r y technology of labor. It w a s established at the end of the seventeenth century, and in the course of the eighteenth.' N o w I t h i n k w e see s o m e t h i n g n e w e m e r g i n g in the second half of the e i g h t e e n t h century: a n e w technology of power, but this t i m e it is not disciplinary. This technology of p o w e r does not e x c l u d e the former, does not e x c l u d e d i s c i p l i n a r y technology, b u t it does dovetail into it, integrate it, modify it to some extent, and above all, use it by sort of infiltrating it, e m b e d d i n g itself in existing disciplinary techniques. This n e w technique does not s i m p l y do a w a y w i t h the d i s c i p l i n a r y technique, because it exists at a different level, on a different scale, and because it has a different bearing area, and m a k e s use of very different i n s t r u m e n t s . U n l i k e discipline, w h i c h is a d d r e s s e d to bodies, the n e w n o n d i s c i p h n a r y p o w e r is applied not to m a n a s - b o d y b u t to the l i v i n g man, to m a n -as-hving-being; u l t i m a t e l y , if you like, to man-as-species. To be more specific, I w o u l d say that d i s c i p l i n e tries to r u l e a m u l t i p l i c i t y of men to the extent that their m u l t i p l i c i t y can a n d must b e dissolved into i n d i v i d u a l bodies that can b e kept under surveillance, trained, used, and, if need be, p u n i s h e d . A n d that the new technology that is b e i n g established is addressed to a m u l t i p l i c i t y of men, not to the extent that they are nothing more than their i n d i v i d u a l bodies, b u t to the extent that they form, on the contrary, a g l o b a l m a s s that is

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affected by overall processes characteristic of b i r t h , death, production, illness, a n d so on. So after a first s e i z u r e of power over the body in an i n d i v i d u a l i z i n g mode, w e h a v e a second s e i z u r e of power that is not i n d i v i d u a l i z i n g but, if you l i k e , massifying, t h a t is d i r e c t e d not at m a n - a s - b o d y b u t at m a n - a s - s p e c i e s . After the a n a t o m o - p o h t i c s of the h u m a n b o d y established in the course of t h e eighteenth century, w e have, at the end of t h a t century, t h e emergence of something t h a t is no l o n g e r an anatomo-pohtics of the h u m a n body, but w h a t I w o u l d call a " b i o p o h t i c s " of the h u m a n race. W h a t does this new technology of p o w e r , t h i s b i o p o h t i c s , t h i s b i o p o w e r t h a t is b e g i n n i n g to establish itself, i n v o l v e ? I told y o u v e r y briefly a m o m e n t ago; a set of processes such as the r a t i o of b i r t h s to deaths, the r a t e of reproduction, the fertility of a population, a n d so on. It is these processesthe b i r t h rate, the mortality rate, longevity, a n d so ontogether w i t h a w h o l e series of r e l a t e d economic a n d

political p r o b l e m s ( w h i c h I w i l l not come b a c k to for t h e m o m e n t ) w h i c h , in the second half of the e i g h t e e n t h century, become b i o p o l l t i c s ' first objects of k n o w l e d g e a n d t h e t a r g e t s it s e e k s to control. It is at any r a t e at this m o m e n t that the first d e m o g r a p h e r s b e g i n to m e a s u r e these p h e n o m e n a in statistical t e r m s . They b e g i n to observe the more or less spontaneous, more or less compulsory t e c h n i q u e s t h a t the population a c t u a l l y u s e d to control the b i r t h r a t e ; in a w o r d , if you l i k e , to identify the p h e n o m e n a of b i r t h - c o n t r o l p r a c t i c e s in the eighteenth c e n t u r y . W e also see the b e g i n n i n g s of a natahst policy, p l a n s to i n t e r v e n e in all p h e n o m e n a r e l a t i n g to the b i r t h r a t e . This biopohtics is not concerned w i t h fertility alone. It also deals w i t h the problem of m o r b i d i t y , b u t not s i m p l y , as h a d p r e v i o u s l y been the case, at the level of the famous e p i d e m i c s , the threat of w h i c h h a d h a u n t e d political p o w e r s ever since the early M i d d l e A g e s ( t h e s e famous e p i d e m i c s w e r e t e m p o r a r y disasters that caused m u l t i p l e

deaths, times w h e n e v e r y o n e seemed to b e in danger of i m m i n e n t d e a t h ) . At the end of the eighteenth century, it w a s not e p i d e m i c s that w e r e the issue, but s o m e t h i n g e l s e w h a t m i g h t b r o a d l y b e called endemics, or in other w o r d s , the form, n a t u r e , extension, d u r a t i o n , a n d intensity of the illnesses prevalent in a p o p u l a t i o n . These w e r e

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illnesses that w e r e difficult to eradicate a n d that w e r e not r e g a r d e d as e p i d e m i c s that caused more frequent deaths, but as permanent the

factors w h i c h a n d that is how they w e r e dealt w i t h s a p p e d

population's strength, shortened the w o r k i n g week, w a s t e d energy, and cost money, both because they led to a fall in production and

because treating them w a s expensive. In a word, illness a s phenomena affecting a population. D e a t h w a s no longer something that s u d d e n l y swooped d o w n on lifeas in an epidemic. D e a t h w a s now something permanent, something that slips into life, p e r p e t u a l l y g n a w s at it,

d i m i n i s h e s it a n d w e a k e n s it. These are the phenomena that begin to be t a k e n into account at the end of the eighteenth century, and they result in the development of a medicine w h o s e m a m function w i l l now be public hygiene, w i t h i n s t i t u t i o n s to coordinate medical care, centralize power, and norm a l i z e k n o w l e d g e . A n d w h i c h also takes the form of c a m p a i g n s to teach hygiene and to m e d i c a h z e the population. So, problems of reproduction, the b i r t h rate, a n d the p r o b l e m of the mortality rate too. Biopohtics' other field of intervention w i l l be a set of phenomena

some of which are universal, and some of w h i c h are accidental but w h i c h can never be completely e r a d i c a t e d , even if they are accidental. They have s i m i l a r effects in that they incapacitate i n d i v i d u a l s , put them out of the circuit or neutralize them. This is the problem, and it w i l l become very i m p o r t a n t in the early nineteenth century ( t h e time of i n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n ) , of old a g e , of i n d i v i d u a l s w h o , b e c a u s e of their age, fall out of the field of capacity, of activity. The field of biopohtics also i n c l u d e s accidents, infirmities, and various anomalies. A n d it is in order to deal w i t h these phenomena that this biopohtics w i l l establish not only c h a r i t a b l e i n s t i t u t i o n s ( w h i c h h a d been in existence for a v e r y long t i m e ) , but also much more s u b t l e mechanisms that w e r e much more economically rational than an i n d i s c r i m inate charity w h i c h was at once w i d e s p r e a d and patchy, and w h i c h w a s essentially under church control. W e see the introduction of more subtle, more rational mechanisms: insurance, individual and collective savings, safety measures, and so on.
2

Biopolitics' last d o m a i n is, finallyI a m e n u m e r a t i n g the main

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ones, or at least those that a p p e a r e d in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; m a n y others w o u l d appear latercontrol over relations between the h u m a n race, or h u m a n b e i n g s insofar as they are a species, insofar as they are living beings, a n d their environment, the milieu in w h i c h they live. This i n c l u d e s the direct effects of the geographical, climatic, or h y d r o g r a p h i c environment: the problem, for instance, of s w a m p s , and of e p i d e m i c s l i n k e d to the existence of s w a m p s throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. A n d also the p r o b l e m of t h e environment to t h e extent that it is not a n a t u r a l environment, that it has been created by the population and therefore has effects on that population. This is, essentially, the urban problem. I am s i m p l y pointing out some of b i o p o h t i c s ' s t a r t i n g points, some of i t s practices, a n d t h e first of i t s d o m a i n s of intervention, k n o w l e d g e , a n d power: b i o p o h t i c s w i l l d e r i v e its k n o w l e d g e from, a n d define its p o w e r ' s field of i n t e r v e n t i o n in t e r m s of, the b i r t h rate, the m o r t a l i t y rate, v a r i o u s biological disabilities, a n d the effects of the e n v i r o n m e n t . In a l l this, a n u m b e r of t h i n g s are, I t h i n k , important. The first

a p p e a r s to b e this: the a p p e a r a n c e of a new elementI almost said a new characterof w h i c h both the theory of right a n d d i s c i p l i n a r y practice k n e w nothing. The theory of r i g h t basically k n e w only t h e i n d i v i d u a l a n d society: the contracting i n d i v i d u a l a n d the social b o d y constituted by the v o l u n t a r y or i m p l i c i t contract a m o n g i n d i v i d u a l s . Disciplines, for their part, dealt w i t h i n d i v i d u a l s a n d t h e i r b o d i e s in p r a c t i c a l t e r m s . W h a t w e are d e a l i n g w i t h in this n e w technology of p o w e r is not exactly society ( o r at least not t h e social b o d y , as defined by the j u r i s t s ) , nor is it the m d i v i d u a l - a s - b o d y . It is a n e w body, a m u l t i p l e body, a b o d y with so many heads that, w h i l e they might not be infinite in n u m b e r , cannot necessarily b e counted. Biopohtics d e a l s w i t h the p o p u l a t i o n , w i t h the p o p u l a t i o n as political problem, as a p r o b l e m that is at once scientific and political, as a biological p r o b l e m and a s p o w e r ' s problem. A n d I t h i n k t h a t biopohtics emerges at t h i s time. Second, the other important t h i n g q u i t e aside from the a p p e a r ance of the " p o p u l a t i o n " element itselfis the nature of the p h e n o m ena that are t a k e n into consideration. You can see t h a t they a r e

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collective phenomena w h i c h have their economic and political effects, and that they become pertinent only at the mass level. They are phenomena that are a l e a t o r y and u n p r e d i c t a b l e w h e n taken in themselves or i n d i v i d u a l l y , but w h i c h , at the collective level, display constants that are easy, or at least possible, to establish. A n d they are, finally,

phenomena that occur over a period of time, w h i c h have to be studied over a certain period of time; they are serial phenomena. The phenomena addressed by biopohtics are, essentially, aleatory events that occur w i t h i n a population that exists over a period of time. On this basisand this i s , I t h i n k , the t h i r d important pointthis

technology of power, this biopolitics, w i l l introduce mechanisms w i t h a certain number of functions that are very different from the functions of d i s c i p l i n a r y mechanisms. The mechanisms introduced by b i o pohtics i n c l u d e forecasts, statistical estimates, and overall measures. And their purpose is not to modify any given phenomenon as such, or to modify a given individual insofar as he is an individual, but, essentially, to intervene at the level at w h i c h these general phenomena are determined, to intervene at the level of their generality. The mortality rate has to be modified or lowered; life expectancy has to be increased; the b i r t h rate has to be stimulated. A n d most important of all, regulatory mechanisms m u s t be established to establish an e q u i l i b r i u m , m a i n t a i n an average, establish a sort of homeostasis, and compensate for variations w i t h i n this general population and its aleatory field. In a w o r d , security mechanisms have to be installed a r o u n d the random element inherent in a population of living beings so a s to optimize a state of life. Like d i s c i p l i n a r y mechanisms, these mechanisms are designed to m a x i m i z e and extract forces, but they w o r k in v e r y different w a y s . U n l i k e disciplines, they no longer train i n d i v i d u a l s by w o r k i n g at the level of the body itself. There is absolutely no question relating to an i n d i v i d u a l body, in the w a y that discipline does. It is therefore not a matter of t a k i n g the individual at the level of i n d i v i d u a l i t y but, on the contrary, of using overall mechanisms and acting in such a w a y as to achieve overall s t a t e s of e q u i l i b r a t i o n or regularity; it is, in a w o r d , a m a t t e r of t a k i n g control of life and the

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biological processes of man-as-species and of ensuring that they are not d i s c i p l i n e d , but r e g u l a r i z e d . ' Beneath that g r e a t absolute power, beneath the d r a m a t i c and somber absolute p o w e r that w a s the power of sovereignty, and w h i c h consisted in the power to t a k e life, w e now have the emergence, w i t h this technology of biopower, of this technology of p o w e r over " t h e " population a s such, over m e n insofar a s they are living beings. It i s continuous, scientific, a n d it is the p o w e r to m a k e live. Sovereignty took life a n d let live. A n d now w e have the emergence of a power that I w o u l d call the power of regularization, and it, in consists in m a k i n g live and l e t t i n g d i e . I t h i n k that w e can see a concrete manifestation of t h i s p o w e r in the famous g r a d u a l disqualification of d e a t h , w h i c h sociologists a n d h i s t o r i a n s have discussed so often. E v e r y o n e k n o w s , t h a n k s in p a r t i c ular to a c e r t a i n n u m b e r of recent s t u d i e s , that the great p u b l i c ritu a h z a t i o n of death g r a d u a l l y began to disappear, or at least to fade away, in the late eighteenth century and that it is still doing so today. So m u c h so that d e a t h w h i c h has ceased to be one of those spectacular ceremonies in w h i c h i n d i v i d u a l s , the family, the group, a n d p r a c tically the w h o l e of society took parthas become, in contrast, contrast,

something to be h i d d e n away. It has become the most private a n d shameful t h i n g of all ( a n d u l t i m a t e l y , it is now not so much s e x a s death that is the object of a t a b o o ) . N o w I t h i n k t h a t the reason w h y death h a d become something to be h i d d e n a w a y is not t h a t a n x i e t y h a s somehow been d i s p l a c e d or that repressive m e c h a n i s m s have been modified. W h a t once ( a n d until the end of the e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y ) made death so spectacular and r i t u a l i z e d it so much w a s the fact that it w a s a manifestation of a transition from one p o w e r to Death w a s the moment another. one

w h e n w e made the transition from

powerthat of the sovereign of this w o r l d t o anotherthat

of the

sovereign of the next w o r l d . W e w e n t from one court of l a w to a n other, from a civil or p u b l i c right over life and death, to a right to either eternal life or eternal damnation. A transition from one power to another. Death also meant the transmission of the power of the

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dying, and that p o w e r w a s t r a n s m i t t e d to those w h o survived him: last w o r d s , last recommendations, last w i l l s and testaments, and so on. A l l these phenomena of p o w e r w e r e r i t u a l i z e d . N o w that p o w e r is decreasingly the power of the right to t a k e life, a n d increasingly the right to intervene to m a k e live, or once power b e g i n s to intervene mainly at this level in order to improve life by e l i m i n a t i n g accidents, the r a n d o m element, and deficiencies, death becomes, insofar as it is the end of life, the term, the limit, or the end of p o w e r too. D e a t h is outside the p o w e r relationship. Death is b e y o n d the reach of power, a n d p o w e r has a g r i p on it o n l y in general, overall, or statistical terms. Power has no control over death, but it can control mortality. A n d to that extent, it is only natural that death should now be privatized, and should become the most private thing of all. In the r i g h t of sovereignty, death w a s the moment of the most obvious a n d most spectacular manifestation of the absolute power of the sovereign; death now becomes, in contrast, the moment w h e n the individual escapes all power, falls b a c k on himself and retreats, so to speak, into his own privacy. Power no longer recognizes death. Power literally ignores death. To s y m b o l i z e all this, let's take, if you will, the death of Franco, w h i c h is after all a v e r y , very interesting event. It is very interesting because of the s y m b o l i c values it b r i n g s into play, because the man w h o d i e d had, as you k n o w , exercised the sovereign right of life and death with great savagery, w a s the bloodiest of all the dictators, w i e l d e d an absolute right of life a n d death for forty years, a n d at the moment when he himself w a s dying, he entered this sort of new field of p o w e r over life w h i c h consists not only in managing life, but in k e e p i n g i n d i v i d u a l s alive after they are dead. A n d t h a n k s to a power that is not s i m p l y scientific prowess, but the actual exercise of the political b i o p o w e r established in the eighteenth century, w e h a v e become so good at k e e p i n g people alive that w e ' v e succeeded in k e e p i n g t h e m alive w h e n , in biological terms, they should have been dead long ago. And so the man w h o had exercised the absolute power of life and death over h u n d r e d s of thousands of people fell u n d e r the influence of a power that managed life so w e l l , that took so little heed of

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death, and he d i d n ' t even realize that he w a s dead and w a s b e i n g k e p t a l i v e after his death. I t h i n k that this minor but joyous event symbolizes the clash b e t w e e n two s y s t e m s of power: that of sovereignty over death, a n d that of the r e g u l a n z a t i o n of life. I w o u l d now l i k e to go b a c k to c o m p a r i n g the regulatory technology of life a n d t h e d i s c i p l i n a r y technology of the b o d y I w a s t e l l i n g you about a moment ago. From the eighteenth century o n w a r d (or at least the end of the eighteenth century o n w a r d ) w e have, then, two technologies of power which w e r e established at different times and which w e r e superimposed. One t e c h n i q u e is d i s c i p l i n a r y ; it centers on t h e body, produces i n d i v i d u a l i z i n g effects, a n d m a n i p u l a t e s the body as a source of forces that have to b e rendered both useful and docile. A n d w e also have a second technology w h i c h is centered not upon the body but upon life: a technology w h i c h brings together the mass effects characteristic of a population, w h i c h tries to control the series of r a n d o m events that can occur in a l i v i n g mass, a technology w h i c h tries to predict the p r o b a b i l i t y of those events ( b y modifying it, if n e c e s s a r y ) , or at least to compensate for their effects. This is a technology w h i c h aims to establish a sort of homeostasis, not by t r a i n ing i n d i v i d u a l s , b u t b y a c h i e v i n g an overall e q u i l i b r i u m that protects the security of the w h o l e from i n t e r n a l dangers. So, a technology of drilling, as opposed to, as distinct from, a technology of s e c u r i t y ; a disciplinary technology, as distinct from a reassuring or regulatory technology. Both technologies are obviously technologies of the body, b u t one is a technology in w h i c h the body is i n d i v i d u a l i z e d as a n organism e n d o w e d with capacities, w h i l e the other is a technology in which bodies are replaced b y general biological processes. One might say this: It is as though power, w h i c h used to have sovereignty as its modality or organizing schema, found itself u n a b l e to g o v e r n the economic a n d political body of a society that w a s un dergoing both a d e m o g r a p h i c explosion and i n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n . So

m u c h so that far too m a n y things w e r e escaping the old mechanism of the power of sovereignty, both at the top and at the bottom, both at the level of detail a n d at the mass level. A first adjustment w a s m a d e to t a k e care of t h e d e t a i l s . D i s c i p l i n e had meant adjusting p o w e r

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mechanisms to the i n d i v i d u a l body by using surveillance and training. That, of course, w a s the easier a n d more convenient thing to adjust. That is w h y it w a s the first to be introducedas early as the seventeenth century, or the b e g i n n i n g of the eighteenthat a local level, in i n t u i t i v e , empirical, a n d fragmented forms, a n d in the restricted framework of institutions such as schools, hospitals, b a r r a c k s , w o r k shops, and so on. A n d then at the end of the eighteenth century, you have a second adjustment; the mechanisms are adjusted to phenomena of population, to the biological or biosociological processes characteristic of h u m a n masses. This adjustment w a s obviously much more difficult to m a k e because it i m p l i e d c o m p l e x systems of coordination a n d centralization. So w e have t w o series: the b o d y - o r g a n i s m - d i s c i p l i n e - i n s t i t u t i o n s series, a n d the population-biological processes-regulatory mechanismsState.* An organic institutional set, or the organo-discipline of the institution, if y o u like, and, on the other hand, a biological and Statist set, or b i o r e g u l a t i o n by the State. I a m not t r y i n g to introduce a complete dichotomy b e t w e e n State and institution, because disciplines in fact a l w a y s tend to escape the i n s t i t u t i o n a l or local framework in w h i c h they are trapped. W h a t is more, they easily take on a Statist dimension in a p p a r a t u s e s such as the police, for e x a m p l e , w h i c h is both a d i s c i p l i n a r y a p p a r a t u s and a State a p p a r a t u s ( w h i c h just goes to prove that discipline is not a l w a y s i n s t i t u t i o n a l ) . In similar fashion, the g r e a t overall regulations that proliferated throughout the nineteenth century are, obviously enough, found at the State level, but they are also found at the s u b - S t a t e level, in a whole series of subState i n s t i t u t i o n s such as m e d i c a l institutions, welfare funds, insurance, a n d so on. That is the first r e m a r k I w o u l d like to m a k e . W h a t is more, the t w o sets of mechanismsone d i s c i p l i n a r y and the other r e g u l a t o r y d o not exist at the same level. W h i c h means of course that they are not m u t u a l l y exclusive and can be articulated w i t h each other. To take one or two e x a m p l e s . Take, if you l i k e , the e x a m p l e of the t o w n or, more specifically, the rationally planned lay-

*The manuscript has "assuring" in place of "regulatory."

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out of the model t o w n , the artificial town, the t o w n of Utopian reality that w a s not only d r e a m e d of b u t actually built in the nineteenth

century. W h a t w e r e w o r k i n g - c l a s s housing estates, as they existed in the nineteenth c e n t u r y ? One can easily see how the very g r i d pattern, the very layout, of the estate a r t i c u l a t e d , in a sort of p e r p e n d i c u l a r w a y , the d i s c i p l i n a r y m e c h a n i s m s that controlled the body, or bodies, b y l o c a l i z i n g familes ( o n e to a h o u s e ) a n d i n d i v i d u a l s ( o n e to a r o o m ) . The layout, the fact that i n d i v i d u a l s were made visible, a n d the normalization of b e h a v i o r m e a n t t h a t a sort of spontaneous p o licing or control w a s c a r r i e d out by the spatial layout of the t o w n itself. It i s e a s y to identify a w h o l e s e r i e s of d i s c i p l i n a r y m e c h a n i s m s in the w o r k i n g - c l a s s estate. A n d t h e n you have a w h o l e series of mechanisms w h i c h are, b y contrast, r e g u l a t o r y mechanisms, w h i c h a p p l y to the population as such and w h i c h a l l o w , w h i c h encourage patterns of saving related to housing, to the r e n t i n g of accommodations and, in some cases, their p u r c h a s e . H e a l t h - i n s u r a n c e systems, old-age pensions; rules on hygiene that guarantee the optimal

l o n g e v i t y of the population; the pressures that the very organization of the t o w n b r i n g s to bear on s e x u a l i t y a n d therefore procreation;

child care, education, et cetera, so you have [ c e r t a i n ] d i s c i p l i n a r y m e a s u r e s a n d [ c e r t a i n ] regulatory mechanisms. T a k e the v e r y differentthough it is not altogether that different t a k e a different axis, something like s e x u a l i t y . Basically, w h y did s e x uality become a field of vital strategic importance in the nineteenth

c e n t u r y ? I think that s e x u a l i t y w a s important for a w h o l e host of reasons, and for these reasons in particular. On the one h a n d , s e x u ality, being an eminently corporeal mode of behavior, is a m a t t e r for i n d i v i d u a l i z i n g d i s c i p l i n a r y controls that t a k e the form of permanent surveillance ( a n d the famous controls that w e r e , from the late e i g h teenth to the t w e n t i e t h century, placed both at home a n d at school on c h i l d r e n w h o m a s t u r b a t e d represent precisely this aspect of the disciplinary control of s e x u a l i t y . But because it also has procreative effects, s e x u a l i t y is also inscribed, takes effect, in broad biological processes that concern not the bodies of i n d i v i d u a l s but the element, the m u l t i p l e u n i t y of the population. S e x u a l i t y e x i s t s at the point

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w h e r e body and population meet. A n d so it is a matter for discipline, but also a matter for regularization. It is, I think, the p r i v i l e g e d position it occupies between organism and population, b e t w e e n t h e body and general phenomena, that e x plains the e x t r e m e emphasis placed upon s e x u a l i t y in the nineteenth century. Hence too the medical idea that w h e n it is undisciplined and irregular, s e x u a l i t y also has effects at two levels. A t the level of the body, of the u n d i s c i p l i n e d body that is immediately sanctioned by all the individual diseases that the s e x u a l debauchee brings d o w n upon himself. A c h i l d w h o masturbates too much w i l l be a lifelong invalid: disciplinary sanction at the level of the body. But at the same time, debauched, perverted s e x u a l i t y has effects at the level of the population, as anyone w h o has been s e x u a l l y debauched is assumed to have a heredity. Their descendants also w i l l be affected for generations, unto the seventh generation and unto the seventh of the seventh and so on. This is the theory of degeneracy: given that it is the source of i n d i v i d u a l diseases and that it is the nucleus of degeneracy, sexuality represents the precise point where the d i s c i p l i n a r y and the regulatory, the body and the population, are articulated. Given these conditions, you can u n d e r s t a n d how and why a technical k n o w l e d g e such as
4

m e d i c i n e , or rather the combination of medicine and hygiene, is in the nineteenth century, if not the most i m p o r t a n t element, an element of considerable importance because of the l i n k it establishes between scientific k n o w l e d g e of both biological and organic processes ( o r in other words, the p o p u l a t i o n and the b o d y ) , and because, at the same time, medicine becomes a p o l i t i c a l intervention-technique w i t h specific power-effects. M e d i c i n e is a p o w e r - k n o w l e d g e that can be a p p l i e d to b o t h the body and the population, both the organism and biological processes, and it w i l l therefore have both disciplinary effects and regulatory effects. In more general terms still, w e can say that there is one element that w i l l circulate b e t w e e n the d i s c i p l i n a r y and the regulatory, which w i l l also be a p p l i e d to body and population alike, w h i c h will make it possible to control both the d i s c i p l i n a r y order of the body and the aleatory events that occur in the biological m u l t i p l i c i t y . The element

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that c i r c u l a t e s b e t w e e n the two is the norm. The norm is something that can be a p p l i e d to both a b o d y one w i s h e s to discipline and a population one w i s h e s to r e g u l a r i z e . The normalizing society is

therefore not, under these conditions, a sort of generalized d i s c i p l i n a r y society whose d i s c i p l i n a r y i n s t i t u t i o n s have s w a r m e d and finally t a k e n over everythingthat, I think, is no more than a first and i n a d e q u a t e interpretation of a normalizing society. The normalizing society is a society i n w h i c h the norm of d i s c i p l i n e and the norm of regulation intersect a l o n g an orthogonal a r t i c u l a t i o n . To say that p o w e r took possession of life in the n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y , or to say t h a t p o w e r at least t a k e s life u n d e r its care in the nineteenth century, is to say that it has, thanks to the play of technologies of discipline on the one h a n d a n d technologies of regulation on the other, succeeded in c o v e r i n g the w h o l e surface that lies b e t w e e n the o r g a n i c a n d the biological, b e t w e e n b o d y and population. W e are, then, in a power that has t a k e n control of both the b o d y and life or that h a s , if you l i k e , t a k e n control of life in g e n e r a l w i t h the body a s one pole a n d the p o p u l a t i o n a s the other. W e can therefore i m m e d i a t e l y identify the p a r a d o x e s that appear at the points w h e r e the exercise of this b i o p o w e r r e a c h e s its limits. The p a r a d o x e s become a p p a r e n t if we look, on the one hand, at atomic power, w h i c h is not s i m p l y the p o w e r to kill, in accordance w i t h the r i g h t s that are g r a n t e d to any sovereign, m i l l i o n s a n d h u n d r e d s of m i l l i o n s of people (after all, that is t r a d i t i o n a l ) . The w o r k i n g s of contemporary political p o w e r are such that atomic p o w e r represents a p a r a d o x that is difficult, if not impossible, to get around. The p o w e r to manufacture and use the atom bomb represents the d e p l o y m e n t of a sovereign p o w e r that kills, but it is also the p o w e r to k i l l life itself. So the p o w e r that is b e i n g exercised in this atomic p o w e r is e x e r c i s e d in such a w a y t h a t it is capable of s u p p r e s s i n g life itself. A n d , therefore, to s u p p r e s s itself insofar as it is the p o w e r that guarantees life. Either it is sovereign and uses the a t o m b o m b , and therefore cannot be power, biopower, or the power to guarantee life, a s it h a s been ever since the nineteenth century. Or, at the opposite extreme, you no longer have a sovereign right that is in excess of biopower, b u t a

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biopower that is in excess of sovereign right. This excess of biopower appears when it becomes technologically and politically possible for man not only to manage life but to m a k e it proliferate, to create living matter, to b u i l d the monster, and, u l t i m a t e l y , to build viruses that cannot be controlled and that are u n i v e r s a l l y destructive. This form i d a b l e extension of biopower, u n l i k e w h a t I w a s just s a y i n g about atomic power, w i l l put it b e y o n d all human sovereignty. You must excuse this long digression into biopower, but I think that it does provide us w i t h a basic a r g u m e n t that w i l l allow us to get b a c k to the problem I w a s t r y i n g to raise. If it is true that the p o w e r of sovereignty is increasingly on the retreat and that d i s c i p l i n a r y or regulatory disciplinary power is on the advance, how w i l l t h e p o w e r to k i l l and the function of m u r d e r operate in this technology of power, w h i c h t a k e s life as both its object and its objective? How can a power such as this kill, if it is t r u e that its basic function is to improve life, to prolong its duration, to improve its chances, to avoid accidents, and to compensate for failings? How, u n d e r these conditions, is it possible for a political power to k i l l , to call for deaths, to d e m a n d deaths, to give the order to kill, and to expose not only its enemies but its o w n citizens to the r i s k of d e a t h ? Given that t h i s p o w e r ' s objective is essentially to m a k e live, how can it let d i e ? H o w can the power of death, the function of death, be exercised in a political system centered upon b i o p o w e r ? It is, I think, at this point that racism intervenes. I am certainly not saying that racism w a s invented at t h i s time. It had already been in existence for a v e r y long t i m e . But I t h i n k it functioned elsewhere. It is i n d e e d the emergence of this biopower that inscribes it in the mechanisms of the State. It is at t h i s moment that racism is inscribed as the basic mechanism of power, as it is exercised m modern States. As a result, the modern State can scarcely function w i t h o u t becoming involved w i t h racism at some point, w i t h i n certain l i m i t s a n d subject to certain conditions. W h a t in fact is r a c i s m ? It is p r i m a r i l y a w a y of i n t r o d u c i n g a break into the domain of life that is under power's control: the break bet w e e n what must live and what must die. The appearance w i t h i n the

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race of races, the

distinction

among races, the hierarchy of races, the fact that certain races are described as good a n d t h a t others, in contrast, are d e s c r i b e d as inferior: all this is a w a y of fragmenting the field of the biological that p o w e r controls. It is a w a y of separating out the groups that exist w i t h i n a population. It is, m short, a w a y of establishing a biologicaltype caesura w i t h i n a population that appears to be a biological domain. This will allow power to treat that population as a m i x t u r e of races, or to be more accurate, to treat the species, to subdivide the species it controls, into the subspecies k n o w n , precisely, as races. That is the first function of racism: to fragment, to create caesuras w i t h i n the biological c o n t i n u u m addressed by biopower. Racism also has a second function. Its role i s , if you l i k e , to a l l o w the establishment of a p o s i t i v e r e l a t i o n of t h i s t y p e : "The more you kill, the more d e a t h s you w i l l c a u s e " or "The v e r y fact that you let more die w i l l a l l o w you to live more." I w o u l d s a y t h a t this relation ("If you w a n t to live, you must t a k e lives, you must be able to k i l l " ) w a s not invented b y either racism or the modern State. It i s the r e l a t i o n s h i p of w a r : "In order to live, you must destroy y o u r e n e m i e s . " But racism does m a k e the r e l a t i o n s h i p of war"If you want to live, the other m u s t die"function in a w a y t h a t is completely new a n d t h a t is q u i t e compatible w i t h the exercise of b i o p o w e r . On the one hand, racism m a k e s it possible to establish a relationship b e t w e e n m y life a n d the death of the o t h e r that is not a m i l i t a r y or w a r l i k e relationship of confrontation, but a b i o l o g i c a l - t y p e r e l a t i o n s h i p : "The

more inferior species d i e out, the more abnormal i n d i v i d u a l s are e l i m inated, t h e fewer degenerates there will be in the species a s a w h o l e , a n d the more Ias species rather t h a n i n d i v i d u a l c a n live, the

stronger I w i l l be, the more vigorous I w i l l be. I w i l l be able to proliferate." The fact that the other dies does not mean s i m p l y that I live in the sense that his death g u a r a n t e e s my safety; the death of the other, the d e a t h of the b a d race, of the inferior race ( o r the degenerate, or the a b n o r m a l ) is something that will m a k e life in general healthier: healthier a n d purer. This is not, then, a m i l i t a r y , w a r l i k e , or political relationship, but

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a biological relationship. A n d the reason this mechanism can come into play is that the enemies w h o have to b e done away w i t h are not adversaries in the political sense of the term; they are threats, either external or internal, to the population a n d for the population. In the biopower system, in other w o r d s , k i l l i n g or the i m p e r a t i v e to k i l l is acceptable only if it results not in a victory over political adversaries, but in the elimination of the biological threat to and the improvement of the species or race. There is a direct connection b e t w e e n the two. In a n o r m a l i z i n g society, race or racism is the precondition that makes k i l l i n g acceptable. W h e n you have a n o r m a l i z i n g society, y o u have a power w h i c h is, at least superficially, in the first instance, or in the first line a biopower, a n d racism is the indispensable precondition that allows someone to be k i l l e d , that allows others to be killed. Once the State functions in the b i o p o w e r mode, racism alone can justify the m u r d e r o u s function of the State. So you can u n d e r s t a n d the importanceI almost said the vital

importanceof racism to the exercise of such a power: it is the precondition for exercising the right to kill. If the power of normalization w i s h e d to exercise the old sovereign right to k i l l , it must become racist. A n d if, conversely, a p o w e r of sovereignty, or in other words, a p o w e r that has the right of life and death, w i s h e s to w o r k w i t h the i n s t r u m e n t s , mechanisms, and technology of normalization, it too must become racist. W h e n I say " k i l l i n g , " I obviously do not mean simply m u r d e r as such, b u t also every form of indirect murder: the fact of exposing someone to death, increasing the risk of death for some people, or, quite simply, political death, expulsion, rejection, a n d so on. I think that w e are now in a position to u n d e r s t a n d a number of things. W e can understand, first of all, the link that w a s quicklyI almost said i m m e d i a t e l y e s t a b l i s h e d b e t w e e n nineteenth-century biological theory and the discourse of power. Basically, evolutionism, understood in the broad senseor in other words, not so much Darw i n ' s theory itself as a set, a b u n d l e , of notions ( s u c h as: the hierarchy of species that grow from a common evolutionary tree, the struggle for existence among species, the selection that e l i m i n a t e s the less fit)

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i naturally became w i t h i n a few years during the nineteenth century I not simply a w a y of t r a n s c r i b i n g a political discourse into biological terms, and not simplv a way of dressing up a political discourse in scientific clothing, but a real w a y of t h i n k i n g about the relations b e t w e e n colonization, the necessity for w a r s , criminality, the phenomena of madness and mental illness, the history of societies with their i different classes, a n d so on. W h e n e v e r , in other words, there w a s a a k i l l i n g or the r i s k of death, the nineteenth century

I confrontation,

j w a s quite literally obliged to t h i n k about them in the form of evo!

1

lutionism. A n d w e can also understand w h y racism s h o u l d h a v e developed in modern societies that function in the biopower mode; w e can u n d e r stand whv racism broke out at a number of p r i v i l e g e d moments, and w h y they w e r e precisely the moments w h e n the right to t a k e life w a s i m p e r a t i v e . Racism first develops w i t h colonization, or in other w o r d s , w i t h colonizing genocide. If you are functioning in the biopower

mode, how can you justify the need to k i l l people, to k i l l populations, a n d to kill c i v i l i z a t i o n s ? By using the themes of evolutionism, b y a p p e a l i n g to a racism. W a r . H o w can one not only w a g e w a r on one's adversaries but also expose one's o w n citizens to w a r , and let them be k i l l e d by the m i l lion ( a n d this is precisely w h a t h a s been going on since the nineteenth century, or since the second half of the nineteenth c e n t u r y ) , e x c e p t by activating the theme of r a c i s m ? From this point o n w a r d , w a r is about t w o t h i n g s : it is not s i m p l y a matter of d e s t r o y i n g a political adversary, but of destroying the enemy race, of destroying that [ s o r t ] of biological threat that those people over there represent to our race. In one sense, this is of course no more than a biological extrapolation from the theme of the political enemy. But there is more to it than that. In the nineteenth c e n t u r y a n d this is completely n e w w a r will be seen not only as a w a y of improving one's o w n race by e l i m i n a t i n g the enemy race ( i n accordance w i t h the themes of natural selection and the struggle for e x i s t e n c e ) , but also a s a w a y of regenerating one's own race. As more a n d more of our n u m b e r die, the race to w h i c h we belong will become all the p u r e r .

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A t the end of the n i n e t e e n t h century, w e have then a new racism m o d e l e d on war. It w a s , I think, r e q u i r e d because a b i o p o w e r that w i s h e d to w a g e w a r had to articulate the will to destroy the adversary w i t h the risk that it might kill those whose lives it had, by definition, to protect, manage, and m u l t i p l y . The same could be said of criminality. Once the m e c h a n i s m of b i o c r i m i n a l w a s called u p o n to make it possible to execute or b a n i s h criminals, c r i m i n a l i t y w a s conceptualized in racist terms. The same applies to madness, and the same applies to v a r i o u s anomalies. I t h i n k that, b r o a d l y speaking, racism justifies the death-function

in the economy of b i o p o w e r b y a p p e a l i n g to the p r i n c i p l e that the death of others m a k e s one biologically stronger insofar as one is a m e m b e r of a race or a population, insofar as one is an element in a u n i t a r y l i v i n g p l u r a l i t y . You can see that, here, w e are far removed from the o r d i n a r y racism that takes the traditional form of mutual c o n t e m p t or h a t r e d b e t w e e n races. W e are also far removed from the racism that can be seen as a sort of ideological operation that allows States, or a class, to displace the hostility that is directed toward

[ t h e m ] , or w h i c h is tormenting the social body, onto a m y t h i c a l a d versary. I t h i n k that this is something much deeper than an old tradition, m u c h deeper than a new ideology, that it is something else. The specificity of modern racism, or w h a t gives it its specificity, is not b o u n d up w i t h mentalities, ideologies, or the lies of power. It is bound up with the technique of power, w i t h the technology of power. It is bound up w i t h this, and that takes us as far a w a y as possible from the race w a r and the i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y of history. W e are dealing w i t h a mechanism that a l l o w s b i o p o w e r to w o r k . So racism is bound up w i t h the w o r k i n g s of a State that is obliged to use race, the elimination of races and the purification of the race, to exercise its sovereign power. The juxtaposition ofor the w a y b i o p o w e r throughthe old sovereign power of life and death functions

i m p l i e s the

w o r k i n g s , the introduction and activation, of racism. And it is, I think, here that we find the actual roots of racism. So you can understand how and why, given these conditions, the most m u r d e r o u s States are also, of necessity, the most racist. Here, of

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course, w e have to t a k e the e x a m p l e of N a z i s m . After all, Nazism w a s in fact the paroxysmal development of the new power mechanisms that h a d been established since the eighteenth century. Of course, no S t a t e c o u l d have more d i s c i p l i n a r y p o w e r than the N a z i regime. N o r w a s there any other State in w h i c h the biological w a s so tightly, so insistently, r e g u l a t e d . D i s c i p l i n a r y p o w e r a n d b i o p o w e r : all this p e r meated, u n d e r p i n n e d , N a z i society ( c o n t r o l over the biological, of procreation and of h e r e d i t y ; control over illness a n d accidents t o o ) . No society could be more d i s c i p l i n a r y or more concerned w i t h prov i d i n g insurance than that established, or at least planned, by the N a z i s . Controlling the random element inherent in biological processes w a s one of the r e g i m e ' s immediate objectives. But this society in w h i c h insurance a n d reassurance w e r e universal, this universally d i s c i p l i n a r y a n d r e g u l a t o r y society, w a s also a society w h i c h unleashed m u r d e r o u s power, or in other w o r d s , the old sovereign right to t a k e life. This power to k i l l , w h i c h ran through e n t i r e social b o d y of N a z i society, w a s first manifested w h e n the the

p o w e r to t a k e life, the p o w e r of life and death, w a s g r a n t e d not only to the State b u t to a w h o l e series of i n d i v i d u a l s , to a considerable n u m b e r of people ( s u c h as the S A , the SS, and so o n ) . U l t i m a t e l y , e v e r y o n e in the N a z i State had the p o w e r of life a n d death over his or her n e i g h b o r s , if only because of the practice of informing, w h i c h effectively meant d o i n g a w a y w i t h the people n e x t d o o r , or h a v i n g them done a w a y w i t h . So m u r d e r o u s p o w e r a n d sovereign p o w e r a r e unleashed t h r o u g h out the entire social body. They w e r e also unleashed b y the fact that w a r w a s e x p l i c i t l y defined as a political objectiveand not s i m p l y as a basic political objective or as a means, but as a sort of u l t i m a t e a n d decisive phase in a l l political processespolitics h a d to lead to w a r , and w a r had to be the final decisive phase that would complete everything. The objective of the N a z i r e g i m e w a s therefore not really the destruction of other r a c e s . The d e s t r u c t i o n of other races w a s one aspect of the project, the other being to e x p o s e its o w n race to the absolute and universal t h r e a t of d e a t h . R i s k i n g one's life, being e x posed to total destruction, w a s one of the p r i n c i p l e s inscribed in the

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basic duties of the obedient Nazi, a n d it w a s one of the essential objectives of N a z i s m ' s policies. It had to reach the point at w h i c h the e n t i r e population w a s exposed to death. Exposing the entire p o p u lation to universal death w a s the only w a y it could truly constitute itself as a superior race and bring about its definitive regeneration once other races had been either e x t e r m i n a t e d or enslaved forever. W e have, then, in Nazi society something that is really quite e x t r a o r d i n a r y : this is a society w h i c h has generalized biopower in an absolute sense, b u t w h i c h has also g e n e r a l i z e d the sovereign right to k i l l . The two mechanismsthe classic, archaic mechanism that gave the State the right of life and d e a t h over its citizens, and the new mechanism organized around discipline and regulation, or in other w o r d s , the new mechanism of biopowercoincide exactly. W e can therefore say this: The N a z i State m a k e s the field of the life it manages, protects, guarantees, and cultivates in biological terms absolutely coextensive w i t h the sovereign right to k i l l anyone, meaning not only other people, but also its own people. There w a s , in Nazism, a coincidence b e t w e e n a g e n e r a l i z e d b i o p o w e r and a dictatorship that was at once absolute and retransmitted throughout the entire social body b y this fantastic extension of the right to kill and of exposure to death. W e have an absolutely racist State, an absolutely murderous State, and an absolutely suicidal State. A racist State, a murderous State, and a suicidal State. The three w e r e necessarily superimposed, and the result w a s of course both the "final solution" ( o r the a t t e m p t to eliminate, by e l i m i n a t i n g the J e w s , all the other races of w h i c h the J e w s w e r e both the symbol and the m a n i f e s t a t i o n ) of the years 1 9 4 2 1 9 4 3 , and then Telegram 71, in which, in April 1 9 4 5 , Hitler gave the order to destroy the German people's own living conditions.
5

The final solution for the other races, and the absolute suicide of the [ G e r m a n ] race. That is w h e r e this mechanism inscribed in the w o r k i n g s of the modern State leads. Of course, Nazism alone took the play between the sovereign right to kill and the mechanisms of biopower to this paroxysmal point. But this plav is in fact inscribed in the w o r k i n g s of all States. In all modern States, in all capitalist

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S t a t e s ? P e r h a p s not. But I do t h i n k t h a t b u t t h i s w o u l d be a w h o l e new a r g u m e n t t h e socialist State, socialism, is as m a r k e d by racism as the w o r k i n g s of the modern State, of the capitalist State. In addition to the State racism that developed in the conditions I have been telling you about, a social-racism also came into being, and it did not w a i t for the formation of socialist States before m a k i n g its appearance.

Socialism w a s a racism from the outset, even in the nineteenth century. No matter w h e t h e r it is Fourier at the b e g i n n i n g of the c e n t u r y
6

or the anarchists at the end of it, you will a l w a y s find a racist component in socialism. I find this very difficult to t a l k about. To speak in such terms is to m a k e enormous claims. To prove the point would really t a k e a w h o l e series of lectures ( a n d I w o u l d l i k e to do t h e m ) . But at least let me just say this: In general terms, it seems to meand here, I am speculating somewhatthat to the extent that it does not, in the first instance, raise the economic or j u r i d i c a l problems of t y p e s of property o w n e r s h i p or modes of productionor to the extent that the problem of the mechanics of power or the mechanisms of p o w e r is not posed or a n a l y z e d [ s o c i a l i s m therefore] i n e v i t a b l y reaffected or reinvested the very p o w e r - m e c h a n i s m s constituted by the capitalist State or the industrial State. One t h i n g at least is certain: Socialism h a s m a d e no c r i t i q u e of the theme of b i o p o w e r , w h i c h developed at the end of the eighteenth c e n t u r y a n d throughout the n i n e t e e n t h ; it has in fact t a k e n it u p , developed, r e i m p l a n t e d , a n d modified it in c e r t a i n respects, but it has certainly not r e e x a m i n e d its b a s i s or its m o d e s of w o r k i n g . U l t i m a t e l y , the idea that the essential function of society or the State, or w h a t e v e r it is t h a t must replace the State, is to t a k e control of life, to manage it, to compensate for i t s aleatory nature, to explore and reduce biological accidents a n d possibilities . . . it seems to me that socialism takes this over wholesale. A n d the result is that w e i m m e diately find ourselves in a socialist State w h i c h must exercise the right to k i l l or the right to e l i m i n a t e , or the right to disqualify. A n d so, quite n a t u r a l l y , w e find that racismnot a t r u l y ethnic racism, b u t racism of the evolutionist k i n d , biological racismis fully operational

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in the w a y socialist States ( o l the Soviet Union t y p e ) deal with the mentally i l l , c r i m i n a l s , political adversaries, and so on. So much for the State. The other thing I find interesting, and w h i c h has caused me probl e m s for a long time, is that, once again, it i s not simply at the level of the socialist State that w e find this racism at work; w e also find it in the v a r i o u s forms of socialist analysis, or of the socialist project t h r o u g h o u t the nineteenth century, and it seems to me that it relates to this: w h e n e v e r a socialism insists, basically, that the transformation of economic conditions is the precondition for the transformation, for the transition from the capitalist State to the socialist State ( o r in other w o r d s , w h e n e v e r it tries to e x p l a i n the transformation in terms of economic processes), it does not need, or at least not in the immediate, racism. Whenever, on the other hand, socialism has been forced to stress the problem of struggle, the struggle against the enemy, of the e l i m i n a t i o n of the enemy w i t h i n capitalist society itself, and w h e n , therefore, it has had to t h i n k about the physical confrontation w i t h the class enemy in capitalist society, racism does raise its head, because it is the only way in w h i c h socialist thought, w h i c h is after all v e r y much bound up w i t h the themes of biopower, can rationalize the m u r d e r of its enemies. W h e n it is simply a matter of e l i m i n a t i n g the adversary in economic t e r m s , or of t a k i n g a w a y his privileges, there is no need for racism. Once it is a matter of coming to t e r m s w i t h the thought of a one-to-one encounter w i t h the adversary, and w i t h the need to fight him p h y s i c a l l y , to risk one's o w n life and to try to k i l l h i m , there is a need for racism. Whenever you have these socialisms, these forms of socialism or these moments of socialism that stress the problem of the struggle, you therefore have racism. The most racist forms of socialism were, therefore, B l a n q u i s m of course, and then the C o m m u n e , and then

a n a r c h i s m m u c h more so t h a n social democracy, much more so than the Second International, a n d much more so than M a r x i s m itself. Socialist racism w a s l i q u i d a t e d in Europe only at the end of the nineteenth centurv, and only bv the domination of social democracy ( a n d , it has to be said, bv the reformism that w a s bound up w i t h i t )

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on the one hand, and bv a n u m b e r of processes such as the Dreyfus affair in France on the other. Until the Dreyfus affair, afl socialists, or at least the v a s t majority of socialists, w e r e basically racists. A n d I t h i n k that they were r a c i s t s to the extent that ( a n d I will finish h e r e ) they d i d not reevaluateor, if you l i k e , accepted as self-

evidentthe m e c h a n i s m s of b i o p o w e r that the d e v e l o p m e n t of society and State had b e e n establishing since the eighteenth century. H o w can one both make a b i o p o w e r function and exercise the rights of w a r , the r i g h t s of murder a n d the function of death, w i t h o u t b e c o m i n g racist? That w a s the problem, a n d that, I think, i s still the problem.

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1. On the question of disciplinary technology, see Surveiller et punir. 2. On all these questions, see Cours an College de France, annee 1978-1979: Le Pouvoirpsychiatrique forthcoming. ). Foucault comes back to all these disciplines, especially in Cours au College de France 19771978: Securite, territoire et population and 1978-1979: Naissance de la biopolitique, forthcoming. 4. Foucault refers here to the theory elaborated in mid-nineteenth-century France by certain alienists and in particular by B.-A, Morel (Traite de degtnerescences physiques, intellectueties et morales de Vespice humaine [Paris, 1857], Traite's des maladies mentales [Paris, 1 8 7 0 ] ) ; V. Magnan (Lemons cliniques $ur les maladies mentales [Pans, 189)]); and M. Legrain and V. Magnan (Les De'gtnere's, e'tat mental et syndromes eptsodiques [Pans, 1 8 9 5 ] ) - This theory of degeneracy, which is based upon the principle that a so-called hereditary taint can be transmitted, was the kernel of medical knowledge about madness and abnormality in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was quickly adopted by forensic medicine, and it had a considerable effect on eugenicist doctrines and practices, and was not without its influence on a whole literature, a whole criminology, and a whole anthropology.
s

5- As early as 19 March, Hitler had drawn up plans to destroy Germany's logistic infrastructure and industrial plant. These dispositions were announced in the decrees of 3 0 March and 7 April. On these decrees, see A. Speer, Erinnerungen (Berlin: ProplyaenVerlag, 1 9 6 9 ) (French translation: Au Coeur du Tromeme Rekh [Paris: Fayard, 1971]; English translation by Richard and Clara Winton: Inside the Third Rekh: Memoirs [London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1 9 7 0 ] ) . Foucault had definitely read J. Fest's book Hitler (Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, and Vienna: Verlag Ulstein, 1 9 7 3 ) (French translation: Hitler [Pans: Gallimard, 1973]; English translation by Richard and Clara Winton, Hitler [London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1974])6. In this connection, see in particular Charles Fourier, Theorie des quatre mouvements et des destinies gene'rales (Leipzig and Lyon, 1 8 0 8 ) ; Le Nouveau Monde industriel et societaire (Paris, 1 8 2 9 ) ; La Fausse Industrie moixelee, repugnante, mensongere, 2 vols. (Paris, 1 8 3 6 ) .

COURSE SUMMARY

I N O R D E R T O M A K E a concrete analysis of power relations, w e m u s t a b a n d o n the j u r i d i c a l model of s o v e r e i g n t y . T h a t model in effect p r e supposes that the individual is a subject w i t h natural rights or p r i m itive powers; it sets itself the t a s k of a c c o u n t i n g for the ideal genesis of the State; a n d finally, it m a k e s the l a w the basic manifestation of power. W e should b e trying to study p o w e r not on the b a s i s of t h e p r i m i t i v e t e r m s of t h e relationship, b u t on t h e b a s i s of the r e l a t i o n s h i p itself, to the extent that it is the r e l a t i o n s h i p itself that d e t e r m i n e s the elements on w h i c h it b e a r s : rather than a s k i n g ideal subjects w h a t part of themselves or their p o w e r s they have s u r r e n d e r e d in order to let themselves become subjects, w e h a v e to look at h o w relations of subjugation can manufacture subjects. S i m i l a r l y , rather than l o o k i n g for the s i n g l e form or the central point from w h i c h all forms of p o w e r derive, either b y w a y of consequence or development, w e must b e g i n

First published in Annuaire du College de France, 76eme annee, Histoire des systemes de pensie, anne'e 1975-1976 ( 1 9 7 6 ) , pp. 3 6 1 - 6 6 ; reprinted in Dih et cents, vol. 3, pp. 124-30. An alternative translation, by Robert Hurley, appears in Ethks: The Essential Works, vol. 1, pp. 5 9 - 6 6 .

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by letting them operate in their multiplicity, their differences, their specificity, and their reversibility; we must therefore study them as relations of force that intersect, refer to one another, converge, or, on the contrary, come into conflict and strive to negate one another. And, finally, rather than privileging the law as manifestation of power, we would do better to try to identify the different techniques of constraint that it implements. If we have to avoid reducing the analysis of power to the schema proposed by the juridical constitution of sovereignty, and if we have to think of power in terms of relations of force, do we therefore have to interpret it in terms of the general form of w a r ? Can war serve as as an analyzer of power relations? This question masks several other questions:

Must war be regarded as a primal and basic state of affairs, and must all phenomena of social domination, differentiation, and hierarchicalization be regarded as its derivatives? Do processes of antagonism, confrontations, and struggles among individuals, groups, or classes derive in the last instance from general processes of w a r ? Can a set of notions derived from strategy and tactics constitute a valid and adequate instrument for the analysis of power relations? Are military and warlike institutions, and more generally the processes that are implemented to wage war, the nucleus of political institutions in either an immediate or a remote sense, in either a direct or an indirect sense? But the first question that has to be asked is perhaps this: How, when, and in what way did people begin to imagine that it is war that functions in power relations, that an uninterrupted conflict undermines peace, and that the civil order is basically an order of battle?

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This is the question that has been posed in this year's lectures. How did people begin to perceive a war just beneath the surface of peace? Who tried to find the principle that explained order, institutions, and history in the noise and confusion of war and in the mud of battles? Who was the first to think that war is the continuation of politics by other means?

A paradox appears at first glance. As States evolve from the early Middle Ages onward, the practices and institutions of war appear to have undergone an obvious evolution. On the one hand, they tended to be concentrated in the hands of a central power which alone had the right and the means to wage war; as a result, they tended to disappear, if only gradually, from the individual-to-individual or group-to-group relationship, and increasingly became, as a result of this line of development, a State privilege. What is more, and as a result of this, war tends to become the professional and technical prerogative of a carefully defined and controlled military apparatus. In a word: a society completely permeated by w a r l i k e relations was gradually replaced by a State endowed with military institutions. Now this transformation had no sooner been completed than there appeared a certain type of discourse about relations between society and war. A discourse developed about relations between society and war. A historico-pohtical discoursewhich was very different from the philosophico-juridical discourse organized around the problem of sovereigntymade war the permanent basis of all the institutions of power. This discourse appeared shortly after the end of the Wars of Religion and at the beginning of the great political struggles of seventeenth-century England. According to this discourse, which w a s exemplified in England by Coke or Lilburne and in France by Boulainvilliers and then by Buat-Nan(;ay, it was war that presided over the birth of States: not an ideal warthe war imagined by the phi losophers of the state of naturebut real wars and actual battles; the laws were born in the midst of expeditions, conquests, and burning

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t o w n s ; b u t the w a r continues to r a g e w i t h i n the m e c h a n i s m s of power, or at least to constitute the secret motor of institutions, l a w s , and order. Beneath the omissions, the illusions, a n d the lies of those w h o w o u l d h a v e us b e l i e v e in the necessities of n a t u r e or the functional r e q u i r e m e n t s of order, w e have to rediscover w a r : w a r is the c i p h e r of peace. It d i v i d e s the e n t i r e social b o d y , a n d it does so on a perm a n e n t basis; it p u t s all of us on one side or the other. A n d it is not e n o u g h to rediscover t h i s w a r as an e x p l a n a t o r y p r i n c i p l e ; it has to b e reactivated. W e h a v e to force it out of the silent, l a r v a l forms in w h i c h it goes on w i t h o u t anyone r e a l i z i n g it, a n d w e m u s t p u r s u e it u n t i l the decisive battle for w h i c h w e h a v e to prepare if w e w i s h to b e the victors. T h i s t h e m a t i c , w h i c h I h a v e so far c h a r a c t e r i z e d in v e r y vague t e r m s , allows us to u n d e r s t a n d the i m p o r t a n c e of t h i s form of analysis.

1. The subject w h o s p e a k s in this discourse cannot occupy the position of the jurist or the philosopher, or in other w o r d s , the position of the u n i v e r s a l subject. In t h i s general s t r u g g l e of w h i c h he is s p e a k ing, he is inevitably on one side or t h e other. He is caught u p in the b a t t l e , has a d v e r s a r i e s a n d is fighting to w i n . No doubt he is t r y i n g to assert a right; b u t it i s his right t h a t i s at issueand it is a s i n g u l a r right that is m a r k e d b y a r e l a t i o n s h i p of conquest, domination, or seniority: t h e r i g h t s of a race, the rights of t r i u m p h a n t invasions or of m i l l e n n i a l occupations. A n d w h i l e he also s p e a k s about the t r u t h , he is s p e a k i n g a b o u t the perspectival and strategic t r u t h that w i l l a l l o w h i m to b e victorious. W e h a v e , then, a p o l i t i c a l and historical discourse that l a y s claim to t r u t h and right, b u t w h i c h e x p l i c i t l y e x c l u d e s itself from j u r i d i c o - p h i l o s o p h i c a l u n i v e r s a l i t y . Its role is not the role that legislators a n d philosophers, from Solon to Kant, have dreamed of: standing b e t w e e n the adversaries, at the center of and above the fray, imposing an armistice, e s t a b l i s h i n g an order that

b r i n g s reconciliation. It is a matter of establishing a right that is s t a m p e d w i t h d i s s y m m e t r y and that functions as a privilege that has

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to be either m a i n t a i n e d or reestablished; it is a matter of establishing a t r u t h that functions as a w e a p o n . For a subject s p e a k i n g such a discourse, the universal t r u t h and general r i g h t are illusions or traps.

2. W e are also d e a l i n g w i t h a discourse that inverts the traditional v a l u e s of i n t e l l i g i b i l i t y . A n e x p l a n a t i o n from below, which does not explain t h i n g s in t e r m s of w h a t is simplest, most elementary, and clearest, but in t e r m s of w h a t is most confused, most obscure, most disorganized, a n d most h a p h a z a r d . It uses as an i n t e r p r e t i v e p r i n c i p l e the confusion of violence, passions, h a t r e d s , r e v e n g e , a n d the tissue of t h e m i n o r circumstances that create defeats a n d victories. T h e e l l i p tical a n d d a r k god of b a t t l e s m u s t e x p l a i n the l o n g d a y s of order, w o r k , a n d peace. Fury m u s t e x p l a i n h a r m o n i e s . The b e g i n n i n g s of history a n d r i g h t a r e traced b a c k to a series of b r u t e facts ( p h y s i c a l strength, force, c h a r a c t e r t r a i t s ) a n d a s e r i e s of accidents ( d e f e a t s , victories, the success or failure of conspiracies, rebellions, or a l l i a n c e s ) . A g r o w i n g r a t i o n a l i t y t h e r a t i o n a l i t y of calculations and s t r a t e g i e s w i l l emerge, b u t it does so only on top of t h i s tangle, a n d as w e move u p w a r d and as it develops, it becomes more a n d more fragile, more and more w i c k e d , more and more b o u n d u p w i t h illusions, chimeras, and mystification. So w e have the v e r y opposite of those t r a d i t i o n a l analyses that t r y to find b e n e a t h the a p p a r e n t or superficial confusion, beneath the visible b r u t a l i t y of b o d i e s a n d passions, a basic r a t i o n a l i t y w h i c h is both p e r m a n e n t and related, by its v e r y essence, to the just and the good.

3. This t y p e of discourse develops e n t i r e l y w i t h i n the historical dimension. It does not attempt to gauge history, unjust government,

and abuses and violence by the s t a n d a r d of the ideal p r i n c i p l e of reason or l a w ; on the contrary, it looks beneath the form of i n s t i t u tions and l e g i s l a t u r e s , and tries to revive the forgotten past of real

struggles, concealed defeats and victories, and the blood that has d r i e d

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on the codes. It takes as its field of reference the never-ending movement of history. But it is also possible for it to look for support to traditional mythical forms ( t h e lost age of the great ancestors, the coming of the new kingdom that will wipe awav the defeats of old): this is a discourse that is capable of expressing both the nostalgia of declining aristocracies and the ardor of the people's revenge. In short, and unlike the philosophico-juridical discourse organized around the problem of sovereignty and the law, the discourse that deciphers war's permanent presence within society is essentially a historico-pohtical discourse, a discourse in which truth functions as a weapon to be used for a partisan victory, a discourse that is darkly critical and at the same time intensely mythical.

This year's course was devoted to the emergence of this form of analysis: how has war ( a n d its different aspects: invasions, battles, conquests, relations between victors and vanquished, pillage and appropriation, uprisings) been used as an analyzer of history and, more generally, social relations? 1. We must begin by ruling out certain false paternities. Especially Hobbes. What Hobbes calls the war of every man against every man is in no sense a real historical war, but a play of presentations that allows every man to evaluate the threat that everv man represents to him, to evaluate the willingness of others to fight, and to assess the risk that he himself would run if he resorted to force. Sovereignty be it that of a "commonwealth by institution" or that of a "commonwealth by acquisition" is established not by the fact of warlike domination but, on the contrary, by a calculation that makes it possible to avoid war. For Hobbes, it is a nonwar that founds the State and gives it its form. 2. The history of wars as the wombs of States was no doubt outlined in the sixteenth century, and at the end of the Wars of Religion ( b y Hotman, for example, in France). But it was mainlv in the sev-

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enteenth century that this type of analysis was developed. First in England, by the parliamentarian opposition and the Puritans, with the idea that English society had been a society of conquest ever since the eleventh century: the monarchy and the aristocracyand their institutionswere Norman imports, while the Saxon people had, not without difficulty, preserved a few traces of their primitive freedoms. With this backdrop of warlike domination, English historians such as Coke or Selden reconstructed the main episodes in the history of England; each episode is analyzed as either an effect or a resumption of the historically primal state of war that exists between two hostile races which have different institutions and different interests. The revolution, of which these historians are the contemporaries, witnesses, and sometimes the protagonists, is seen as the last battle in that old war, and as its revenge. An analysis of the same type is also found in France, but at a later date, and especially in aristocratic milieus at the end of the reign of Louis XIV. Boulainvilhers supplies its most vigorous formulation; but this time the story is told, and the rights are demanded, in the name of the victor; when it gives itself a Germanic origin, the French aristocracy claims a right of conquest, and therefore the preeminent possession of all the lands of the kingdom and absolute domination over all its Gaulish or Roman inhabitants. But it also claims prerogatives with respect to royal power, which could not originally have been established without its consent, and which must be kept within the limits established at that time. This is no longer, as in England, a historv of a perpetual confrontation between vanquished and victors, and its basic categories are not uprisings and the winning of concessions; it is the history of how the king usurped and betrayed the nobihtv from which he was descended, and of his unnatural collusion with a bourgeoisie of Gallo-Roman descent. When reworked by Freret and especially Buat-Nan<;ay, this schema was the focus of a whole series of polemics, and it stimulated extensive historical research until the Revolution. The important point is that the principle of historical analysis was

272

Course

Summary

sought in racial duality and the war between races. On this basis, and through the intermediary of the works of Augustin and Amedee Thierry, two types of historical interpretation developed in the nineteenth century: one will be articulated with the class struggle, and the other with a biological confrontation.

SITUATING THE LECTURES

Alessandro Fontana and Mauro Bertani

THESE

LECTURES

WERE

DELIVERED

between

7 January

and

17

March 1976, or between the publication of Surveiller etpunir (February 1975) and La Volonte' de savoir (October 1 9 7 6 ) , and they occupy a specific, one might say strategic, position in Foucault's thought and research. They mark a sort of pause, a momentary halt and no doubt a turning point, in which he evaluates the road that he has traveled and outlines future lines of investigation. Foucault's course of lectures on "Society Must Be Defended" opens with a sort of survey or summary of the general features of "disciplinary" powera power that is applied to individual bodies by techniques of surveillance, normalizing sanctions, and the panoptic organization of punitive institutionsand ends with an outline presentation of what he calls "biopower"a power that is applied in general ways to the population, life, and living beings. In an attempt to establish a "genealogy" for this power, Foucault subsequently investigated "governmentahty," or the power that has, since the late sixteenth century, been exercised through the apparatuses and technologies of reason of State and "policing." The question of d i s -

272

Course

Summary

sought in racial duality and the war between races. On this basis, and through the intermediary of the works of Augustin and Amedee Thierry, two types of historical interpretation developed in the nineteenth century: one will be articulated with the class struggle, and the other with a biological confrontation.

SITUATING THE LECTURES

Alessandro Fontana and Mauro Bertani

THESE

LECTURES

WERE

DELIVERED

between

7 January

and

17

March 1976, or between the publication of Suiveiller etpunir (February 1975) and La Volonte de savoir (October 1 9 7 6 ) , and they occupy a specific, one might say strategic, position in Foucault's thought and research. They mark a sort of pause, a momentary halt and no doubt a turning point, in which he evaluates the road that he has traveled and outlines future lines of investigation. Foucault's course of lectures on "Society M u s t Be Defended" opens with a sort of survey or summary of the general features of "disciplinary" powera power that is applied to individual bodies by techniques of surveillance, normalizing sanctions, and the panoptic organization of punitive institutionsand ends with an outline presentation of what he calls "biopower"a power that is applied in general w a y s to the population, life, and living beings. In an attempt to establish a "genealogy" for this power, Foucault subsequently investigated "governmentahty," or the power that has, since the late sixteenth century, been exercised through the apparatuses and technologies of reason of State and "policing." The question of d i s -

274

Situating

the

Lectures

ciplines was discussed in the lectures of 1972 -1973 ( " T h e Punitive Society"), 1973-1974 ("Psychiatric P o w e r " ) , and 1974 -1975 ( " T h e A b normals"), and in the book Discipline and Punish; governmentality and Sexuality biopower are discussed in the first volume of The History of

(December 1976), and then in the lectures of 1977-1978 ("Security, Territory, and Population") and 1978-1979 ( " B i r t h of Biopolitics") and in the first lecture of the 1979-1980 course ( " O f the Government of the L i v i n g " ) . A s the question of the two powers, their specificity, and their articulation is central to these lecturesas is that of war as "analyzer" of power relations and that of the birth of the historico political discourse of race struggleit seems appropriate to attempt to "situate" them by evoking a number of points which, in our view, have given rise to misunderstandings, errors, false interpretations, and sometimes falsifications. They relate on the one hand to the birth of Foucault's problematic of power, and on the other to the workings of apparatuses and technologies of power in liberal societies and in totalitarianisms, to the "dialogue" with Marx and Freud about processes of production and sexuality, and, finally, to the question of resistance. We will try to deal with these points by using direct quotations, most of them taken from the texts collected in Dits et e'erits. It should, however, be stressed that the full dossier on the question of power will not be available until the lectures have been published in full, and that we will have to wait until then before we can attempt to give a definitive account. Foucault never devoted a book to power. H e outlined a general theory of power on a number of occasions; he tirelessly explained himself; and he was not stinting when it came to corrections and clarifications. H e tended, rather, to study the workings, the effects and the "how" of power in the many historical analyses he made of asylums, madness, medicine, prisons, sexuality, and "policing." The question of power runs through all these analyses, is an integral part of them, is imminent within them, and is therefore indissociable from them. Since the problematic was enriched both by the pressure of events and by its own internal development, it would be futile to try

Situating

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275

at all cost to make it part of a coherent whole or an unbroken linear continuity. It was, rather, a constant process of reworking. It is typical of Foucault's approach that until the end of his life, he constantly "reread," resituated, and reinterpreted his early work in the light of his later work and, so to speak, constantly updated it. That is why he always denied having tried to formulate a "general theory" of power, even though it was certainly claimed that that was what he was trying to do with, for example, panopticism. Speaking of t r u t h / power and power/knowledge relations in 1977, he said: " [ l ] t is difficult to grasp this stratum of objects, or rather this stratum of relations; and as we have no general theory to apprehend them, I am, if you like, a blind empiricist or in other words, I am in the worst of all situations. I have no general theory and I have no reliable instruments." H e also remarked in 1 9 7 7 that the question of power "began to be raised in its nudity" in about 1955, and against the backdrop of "two gigantic shadows," of the "two black heritages" that fascism and Stalinism represented for him and his generation. " T h e nonanalysis of fascism is one of the most important political facts of the last thirty years." If, he said, the nineteenth century's question had been that of poverty, the question raised by fascism and Stalinism was that of power: "too little wealth" on the one hand, and "too much power" on the other.' In the 1930s, Trotskyist circles began to analyze the phenomenon of bureaucracy and the bureaucratization of the Party. The question of power was taken up again in the 1950s, in connection with the "black heritages" of fascism and Stalinism, and it is at this point that we begin to see a divergence between the old theory of wealth, which was born of the "scandal" of poverty, and the problematic of power. These were the years of the Khrushchev report, of the beginnings of "de-Stalinization," and of the Algerian war. Power relations, phenomena of domination, and practices of subjugation are not specific to "totalitarianisms"; they also exist in the societies we describe as "democratic," or those that Foucault studied in his historical analyses. What is the relationship between a totalitarian societv and a democratic society? What are the similarities and differences between their political rationalities, and the use they make
2 1

276

Situating

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Lectures

of the technologies and apparatuses of power? Speaking of the relationship between the two, Foucault remarked in 1978: "Western societies, which are in general the industrial and developed societies of the late nineteenth century, are societies that are haunted by this secret fear, or even by quite explicitly rebellious movements that call into question that sort of overproduction of power that Stalinism and fascisms no doubt demonstrate in a naked, monstrous fashion." A n d slightly earlier in the same lecture: " O f course fascism and Stalinism were both responses to a precise and very specific situation. Of course fascism and Stalinism expanded their effects to hitherto unknown dimensions, and it is, if not to be rationally expected, at least to be hoped, that we w i l l never see their l i k e again. They are therefore unique phenomena, but it cannot be denied that, in many respects, fascism and Stalinism simply extended a whole series of mechanisms that already existed in the social and political systems of the West. After all, the organization of great parties, the development of political apparatuses, and the existence of techniques of repression such as labor camps, all that is quite clearly the heritage of liberal Western societies, and all Stalinism and fascism had to do was to stoop down and pick it u p . '
H

There would therefore appear to be a very strange kinship between "liberal societies" and totalitarian States, or between the normal and the pathological, and sooner or later it must be investigated. Speaking in 1982 of the twin "diseases" of power, of the two "fevers" known as fascism and Stalinism, Foucault wrote: "One of the numerous reasons why they are, for us, so puzzling, is that in spite of their historical uniqueness they are not quite original. They used and extended mechanisms already present in most other societies. More than that: in spite of their own internal madness, they used to a large extent the ideas and devices of our political rationality."
5

A transfer and

extension of technology; all that is missing is the madness and the monstrosity. There is also a "continuity" between fascism and Stalinism at the level of the biopolitics of the exclusion and extermination of the politically dangerous and the ethnically impurethe biopolitics established as early as the eighteenth century by medical policing and

Situating

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Lectures

277

then taken over in the nineteenth by social Darwinism, eugenics, and medico-legal theories of heredity, degeneracy, and race. The reader is referred to the remarks made by Foucault in the last (17 M a r c h ) lecture in the Society Must Be Defended series. After all, one of the objectives, if not the essential objective, of this course of lectures is to analyze the way fascism in particular ( b u t also Stalinism) could make use of racial biopolitics in the "government of the living" by stressing the importance of racial purity and ideological orthodoxy. When it comes to relations between power and political economy, Foucault maintained a sort of "uninterrupted dialogue" with M a r x . Marx was in fact not unaware of the question of power and its disciplines: one has only to look at the analyses of "The Working Day," "The Division of Labor and Manufacture," and "Machinery and Large-Scale Industry" in the first volume of Capital and of "The Process of Circulation of Capital" in volume 2. But in Marx, relations of domination in the factory appear to be established solely by the play and the effects of the "antagonistic" relations between capital and labor. For Foucault, in contrast, that relationship is possible only because of the subjugations, training, and surveillance that have already been produced and administered by disciplines. In this connection, he remarks: "When, because of the division of labor, there was a need for people who were capable of doing this or of doing that, and when there was a fear that popular resistance movements, inertia, or rebellion might upset the entire capitalist order that w a s being born, every individual had to be under a precise and concrete surveillance, and I think that the medicalization I was talking about is bound up with this."' It w a s therefore not the "capitalist" bourgeoisie of the nineteenth century that invented and imposed relations of domination; it inherited them from the disciplinary mechanisms of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and simply had to use them, to modify them by intensifying some and attenuating others. "All these power relations do not, therefore, emanate from a single source; it is the overall effect of a tangle of power relations that allows one class or group to dominate another."
8 6

"Basically," wrote Foucault in

1 9 7 8 , "it is true that the question I was asking w a s being asked of

278

Situating

the Lectures

Marxism and of other conceptions of history and politics, and it was this: With respect to, for example, the relations of production, don't relations of power represent a level of reality that is both complex and relativelybut only relativelyindependent?"" A n d we can then ask ourselves whether "capitalism," or the mode of production in which these power relations are inscribed, might not represent in its turn a great apparatus for coding and intensifying those "relatively autonomous relations"relations between the labor force and capital that were certainly "economic" and conflictualthanks to the divi sions, the hierarchies, and the division of labor that had been established in manufactures, workshops, and factories, but also and above all by disciplinary rules, the subjugation of bodies, and the sanitary regulations that adapted, intensified, and bent the labor force to the economic constraints of production. It is therefore not labor that introduced the disciplines; it is more a case of disciplines and norms making it possible to organize labor in the way that it is organized in the so-called capitalist economy. One could say the same of "sexuality" ( b u t this time the dialogue is with nineteenth-century medicine and with Freud in particular, and the tone is sharper). Foucault never denied that sexuality was "central" to medical discourses and practices from the early eighteenth century onward. But he did dismiss the idea, which was prefigured by Freud and then theorized by "Freudo-Marxism," that this sexuality was simply denied, repressed, or suppressed; on the contrary, according to Foucault, it gave rise to a whole proliferation of eminently positive discourses that actually allowed power biopower to control and normalize individuals, behavior, and the population. "Sexuality" is therefore not a repository of secrets from which one can, provided one knows how to detect and decode them, extract the truth about individuals; it is, rather, a domain in which, ever since the campaign against childhood onanism suddenly began in England in the first half of the eighteenth century, power over life has been exercised in the twin forms of the "anatomo-politics of the human body" and the "biopolitics of population." Both powersthat of bodily disciplines and that of the government of the populationare thus

Situating

the

Lectures

279

articulated around sexuality, and they support and reinforce each other. In the introduction to The History of Sexuality, Foucault writes: "The disciplines of the body and the regulations of the population constituted the two poles around which the organization of power over life was deployed. The setting up, in the course of the classical age, of this great bipolar technologyanatomic and biological, individualizing and specifying, directed toward the performance of the body, with attention to the processes of lifecharacterized a power whose highest function w a s perhaps no longer to kill, but to invest life through and through."
10

Hence the importance of sex, not as a

repository of secrets or basic truths about individuals, but rather as a target, as a political issue. "On the one hand it was tied to the disciplines of the bodv: the harnessing, intensification, and distribution of forces, the adjustment and economy of energies. On the other hand, it was applied to the regulation of populations, through all the far-reaching effects of its a c t i v i t y . . . . It was employed as a standard for disciplines and as a basis for regulations."" The specificity and the importance of labor and sexualityand the fact that they are "cathected" or "hypercathected" by the discourse of political economy on the one hand and by medical knowledge on the otherarise from the fact that they are the points where relations of disciplinary power and biopower's normalizing techniques intersect and therefore intensify their effects and strengthen their hold. These two powers therefore do not, as has sometimes been said, constitute two separate "theories" within Foucault's thought. One does not preclude the other; one is not independent of the other. One does not derive from the other; they are, rather, knowledge/power's two conjoint modes of functioning, though it is true that they do have their own specific foci, points of application, finalities, and enjeux: the training of bodies on the one hand, and the regulation of the population on the other. For further discussion, the reader is referred to Foucault's analyses of the town, the norm, and sexuality in the lecture of 17 March in "Society Must Be Defended" introduction to The History of Sexuality over Life"). and to the final chapter of the ("Right of Death and Power

280

Situating

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Lectures

Where there is power, there is always resistance, and the two things are coextensive: "As soon as there is a power relation, there is a possibility of resistance. We can never be ensnared by power: we can always modify its grip in determinate conditions and according to a precise strategy."" The field in which power is deployed is therefore not that of a doleful and stable domination: "The struggle is everywhere. . . . at every moment, we move from rebellion to domination, from domination to rebellion, and it is all this perpetual agitation that I would like to try to bring out."" The characteristic feature of power, its aims and its maneuvers, is therefore not so much its boundless might as a sort of congenital mefficacy: "Power is not omnipotent or omniscient; on the contrary," Foucault remarked in 1 9 7 8 of the analyses made in The History of Sexuality. "The reason power relations have produced ways of investigating and analyzing models of knowledge is precisely that," he went on, "power is not omniscient, that power is blind, that it finds itself in an impasse. The reason why we have seen the development of so many power relations, so many systems of control, and so many forms of surveillance is precisely that power has always been impotent."" In The History of Sexuality Foucault asks: History being the ruse of reason, is power the ruse of history, and does it always emerge the w i n n e r ? Quite the contrary: "This would be to misunderstand the strictly relational character of power relationships. Their existence depends upon a multiplicity of points of resistance: these play the role of adversary, target, support, or handles m power relations. These points of resistance are present everywhere in the power network."
1,s

But how is this resistance, how are these resistances manifested, what form do they take, and how can they be analyzed? Here, one thing has to be stressed from the outset. If, as Foucault says m the first two lectures, power is not deployed and is not exercised in the forms of right and law, and if it is not something that can be taken or exchanged; if it does not consist of interests, a will, or an intention; if it does not originate within the State, and if it therefore cannot be deduced from or understood in terms of the juridico-political category of sovereignty (even if right, law, and sovereignty can represent a sort

Situating

ike

Lectures

28)

of coding of power, or can even reinforce i t ) , then neither is resistance a matter of right, or of a right. It is therefore always outside the juridical framework of what has, ever since the seventeenth century, been called "the right to resist": it is not based upon the sovereignty of a preexisting subject.'
0

Power and resistance confront each other,

and use multiple, mobile, and changing tactics, in a field of relations of force whose logic is not so much the regulated and codified logic of right and sovereignty, as the strategic and warlike logic of struggle. The relationship between power and resistance must therefore be analyzed m the strategic form of struggle rather than in the juridical form of sovereignty. This is a major theme m these lectures, which were delivered at a time when Foucault was taking a close interest in military institutions and the army.'" The question he was raising is this: Can these struggles, confrontations, and strategies be analyzed in the general binary form of domination ( d o m i n a n t / d o m i n a t e d ) and, therefore in the last instance, w a r ? "Should we turn the expression around, then, and say that politics is war pursued by other means? If we still wish to maintain a separation between war and politics, perhaps we should postulate rather that this multiplicity of force relations can be coded in part but never totallyeither in the form of 'war' or in the forms of 'polities'; this would imply two different strategies ( b u t the one always liable to switch into the other) for integrating these unbalanced, heterogeneous, unstable, and tense force relations.'"* Pointing out to Marxists that when they discuss the concept of "class struggle," they concentrate on investigating "class" rather than "struggle,"' Foucault states: "What I would like to discuss, starting with Marx, is not the problem of the sociology of classes, but the strategic method con cerning struggles. That is the source of my interest in Marx, and it is on that basis that 1 would like to raise problems." " Foucault had already devoted his lecture of 10 January 1973 ("The Punitive Society" ) to relations between war and domination. Here he denounces Hobbes's theory of "the war of every man against everv man," analyzes the relationship between civil war and power, and describes the defensive measures taken bv society against the criminal,
2 0

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Lectures

w h o b e c a m e a "social e n e m y " from t h e seventeenth century o n w a r d . A s Daniel Defert r e m i n d s us in h i s "Chronology," Foucault w a s r e a d ing T r o t s k y , 1968.
21

Guevara,

Luxemburg,

and

C l a u s e w i t z in 1 9 6 7

and

He w a s also r e a d i n g the w r i t i n g s of the Black Panthers at that

time, a n d he r e m a r k s in a letter that " t h e y are developing a strategic analysis that has e m a n c i p a t e d itself from M a r x i s t t h e o r y . "
22

In a l e t t e r

w r i t t e n in D e c e m b e r 1972, he s a y s that he w a n t s to analyze p o w e r relations b y l o o k i n g at "the most disparaged of all w a r s : neither Hobbes, nor C l a u s e w i t z , nor the class struggle: civil w a r . "
23

A n d in

another letter, w r i t t e n in A u g u s t 1974, he w r i t e s : " M y m a r g i n a l s a r e i n c r e d i b l y familiar a n d repetitive. I feel like looking at something else: political economy, s t r a t e g y , politics." '
2 1

Foucault seems, h o w e v e r , to have been v e r y u n s u r e a b o u t

how

useful the strategic model w o u l d b e for the analysis of p o w e r relations: " A r e n ' t processes of domination more complex, more complicated,

than w a r ? " he a s k e d in an i n t e r v i e w given in December 1 9 7 7 " A n d in t h e questions he a d d r e s s e d to the journal Herodote 1 9 7 6 ) , he w r o t e : T h e notion of s t r a t e g y is essential if one w a n t s to a n a l y z e power a n d its relations w i t h k n o w l e d g e . Does that necessarily i m p l y t h a t w e are w a g i n g w a r through the k n o w l e d g e in q u e s t i o n ? Doesn't strategy a l l o w us to analyze power relations as a techn i q u e of d o m i n a t i o n ? Or do w e have to say that d o m i n a t i o n is a continued of w a r ?
2 6

(July-December

form

A n d shortly afterward, he added: "Is the relation b e t w e e n forces in the order of politics a w a r l i k e one: I don't personally feel p r e p a r e d to a n s w e r this w i t h a definite yes or no."
27

The lectures p u b l i s h e d here are, essentially, devoted to these questions. Foucault analyzes the t h e m e s of w a r a n d domination in the h.storico-political discourse of race s t r u g g l e used b y the English

Diggers a n d Levellers, a n d in B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s . Their stories about the N o r m a n s ' domination of the Saxons after the B a t t l e of Hastings, and

Situating

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283

of the G e r m a n i c Franks' domination of the G a l l o - R o m a n s after the conquest of Gaul, are based on the h i s t o r y of the conquest, w h i c h they contrast w i t h both "fictions" of n a t u r a l right and the universallsm of the l a w . It i s , according to Foucault, here and not in M a c h i avelli or Hobbes that w e see the birth of a radical form of history w h i c h s p e a k s of w a r , conquest, a n d domination, and w h i c h can b e used a s a w e a p o n against royalty a n d t h e n o b i l i t y in England, and against royalty and the T h i r d Estate in France. Foucault calls this historico-political discourse on conquest "historicism," a n d thus p i c k s u p , either d i r e c t l y or i n d i r e c t l y , the thesis formulated, in a very different context and for very different p u r p o s e s , in 1 9 3 6 by Friedrich M e i n e c k e in his Die Entstehung des Historismus. T h i s i s a discourse of

struggles, a discourse of battles, and a discourse of races. In the n i n e teenth century, the " d i a l e c t i c " a p p e a r s to have coded, a n d therefore " n e u t r a l i z e d , " these s t r u g g l e s . A u g u s t i n T h i e r r y h a d already made use of t h e m in his w r i t i n g s on the N o r m a n Conquest and the formation of the T h i r d Estate, a n d N a z i s m w o u l d use the racial theme in the policies of d i s c r i m i n a t i o n and extermination w i t h which w e are only too familiar. A n d w h i l e it is t r u e that this historico-political discourse forces the historian to t a k e sides and to a b a n d o n t h e " m e d i a n position of referee, judge, or universal witness," * w h i c h has been that of philosophers from Solon to Kant, and w h i l e it is also t r u e that these discourses are born of w a r and not of peace, the fact r e m a i n s that the b i n a r y r e l a t i o n s h i p w h i c h is i n t r o d u c e d i n t o these discourses by t h e phenomena of domination, a n d w h i c h the m o d e l of w a r e x p l a i n s , does not really e x p l a i n either the m u l t i p l i c i t y of the real struggles that are provoked b y d i s c i p l i n a r y p o w e r or the effects government has on the modes of behavior produced b y b i o p o w e r . After 1 9 7 6 , Foucault's research shifted t o w a r d the analysis of t h i s k i n d of p o w e r , a n d p e r h a p s t h a t is one of the reasons w h y , w h i l e he does not abandon the problematic of w a r , h e does at least b e g i n to discuss it again. It r e m a i n s a central issue in "Society Must Be Defended."
29 2

W h e n the real is "polemical," "We all fight each other," he said in 1 9 7 7 .

W e should not, however, b e fooled b y this s e e m i n g l y H o b b e s i a n r e m a r k . T h i s is not a reference to the great b i n a r y confrontation, to the

28-1

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Ltctures

intense and violent form that the struggles take at certain moments, and only at certain moments, in history. It is, rather, a wav ol saying that the massive tact ol domination and the binarv logic of war cannot understand either all the episodic or sporadic struggles that take place in the field ot power, or the multiplicity of local, unpredictable, and heterogeneous resistances. Toward the end ot his lite, in 1982 in a text which is in a sense his philosophical "testament" and in which he tried, as he did so oftenso much so that it seems lo be one ot the "figures" ot his thought to rethink all these questions in the light ot his latest work and to bring a new perspective to bear on them, Foucault wrote that what he had been trying to do w a s not "to analyze the phenomena ot power, nor to elaborate the foundation ot such an analysis," but rather to produce "a history of the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects." " In his view, the exercise ot power consisted primarily in "directing conduct" in the sense that Christian pastoralism and "governmentahty" direct conduct. He wrote: "Basically, power is less a confrontation between two adversaries or the linking ot the one to the other than a question of government."" And he concluded (though the text has to be read in full) that "Every strategy ot confrontation dreams of becoming a relationship ot power and everv relationship ot power leans toward the idea that, it it follows its own line of development and comes up against direct confrontation, it may become the winning strategy."" Foucault first began to raise the question of power in Histoire de la folic, which looks at the power that is at work in and that is exercised through the administrative and Statist techniques used in the "great confinement" ot dangerous individuals (vagabonds, criminals, and the m a d ) . He returned to it in the earlv 1970s in the lectures given at the College de France on the production of truth and truth-regimes in ancient Greece, on the punitive mechanisms used in Europe from the Middle Ages onward, and on the normalizing apparatuses ol the disciplinary society. But in the background to all this, there is the politico military context, or the "historical circumstances," as Can guilhem called them, ot international conflicts and social struggles in France after 1968.
3

Situating

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285

It is not possible to retrace the history of those "circumstances" here. For the record, let us briefly recall that these were the years of war in Vietnam, ot "Black. September" in Jordan ( 1 9 7 0 ) , of student protests against the Salazar regime ( 1 9 7 1 ) three years before the Carnation Revolution, ot the IRA's terrorist offensive in Ireland ( 1 9 7 2 ) , ot the resurgence ot the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Yom Kippur War, of normalization in Czechoslovakia, ot the colonels' regime in Greece, ot the fall ot Allende in Chile, ot fascist terrorism in Italy, ot the miners' strike in England, ot the terrible death agony ot Francoism in Spain, ot the Khmer Rouge's seizure ot power in Cambodia, and ot civil war in Lebanon, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, and many African states. Foucault's interest in power stems from the vigilance, attention, and interest with which he followed what Nietzsche called "die grosse Politik": the rise ot fascisms around the world, civil wars, the establishment of military dictatorships, the oppressive geopolitical aims of the great powers ( a n d especially of the United States in Vietnam). It is also, and above all, rooted in his "political practice" in the 1970s; this allowed him to understand the workings of the carceral system at first hand or on the ground, to observe the fate reserved for prisoners, to study their material living conditions, to denounce the practices ot the penitentiary administration, and to support conflicts and rebellions wherever they broke out. As tor racism, this was a theme that appeared and was dealt with in the seminars and lectures on psychiatry, punishment, the abnormals, and all the knowledges and practices associated with the medical theory ot "degeneracy," the forensic theory ot eugenicism and social Darwinism, and the penal theory ot "social defense," which in the nineteenth century developed techniques tor identifying, isolating, and normalizing "dangerous" individuals: the early dawn ot ethnic cleansings and labor camps ( a s Foucault himself reminds us, at the end ot the nineteenth century, the French criminologist J . Leveille advised his Russian colleagues to build labor camps in Siberia when he attended an international penitentiary conference held in St. Peterb u r g ) . " A new racism was born when "knowledge ot heredity"to

286

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which Foucault planned to devote his future research, as he explains in his candidacy presentation to the College de France"was combined with the psychiatric theory of degeneracy. Addressing his audience in the last ( 1 9 March 1 9 7 5 ) of the 1 9 7 4 - 1 9 7 5 course of lectures on "The Abnormals," Foucault said: "You see how psychiatry can use this notion of degeneracy, these analyses of heredity to establish a connection with, or rather to give rise to a racism." ' He added that Nazism had simply linked, in its turn, this new racism to the ethnic racism that was endemic in the nineteenth century, when it was used to provide an internal social defense against the abnormals. Against this backdrop of war, of the wars, struggles, and rebellions of those years when, as the saying went, "there was red in the air," "Society Must Be Defended" might be described as the meeting point, the hinge or the point of articulation of the political problem of power and the historical question of race: the genealogy of racism, beginning with the historical discourse of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries on the race struggle, and the transformations they underwent in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In terms of war, of the war that traverses the field of power, leads to conflict, distinguishes between friend and foe, and generates dominations and rebellions, one might evoke one of Foucault's "childhood memories," which he himself described in an interview given in 1 9 8 3 . He speaks of the "fright" that gripped him when Chancellor Dollfuss w a s assassinated in 1934: "The menace of war was our background, our framework of existence. Then the war arrived. Much more than the activities of family life, it was these events concerning the world which are the substance of our memory. 1 say 'our' because 1 am nearly sure that most boys and girls in France at this moment had the same experience. Our private life was really threatened, maybe that is the reason why 1 am fascinated by history and those events of which we are a part. 1 think that is the nucleus of my theoretical desires.'"
0 , i

As for the "intellectual conjuncture" of the years leading up to these lecturesyears marked bv the crisis in Marxism and bv the rise of neohberal discourseit is difficult, if not impossible, to know which books Foucault is referring to, either directly or indirectly, in

Situating "Society Must Be Defended."

the

Lectures

287

Works by Max Weber, Hannah Arendt,

Ernst Cassirer, Max Horkheimer, T . W. Adorno, and Aleksandr S o l zhenitsyn had been translated and published since 1970. In one lec ture, Foucault pays explicit tribute to Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattart's Anti-Oedipus. Foucault did not, it appears, keep any record of the books he read, and he was not fond of debates with individual authors; he preferred problematization to polemic.' We can therefore do no more than speculate as to his way of reading books, using documentation, and exploiting sources ( a l l this, or the production of his books, should be the object of a study in its own right). Nor do we know very much about how he prepared his lectures. The lectures published here are written out almost in full, and, thanks to the courtesy and help of Daniel Defert, we have also been able to consult the manuscript. It does not, however, correspond exactly to the words that were actually spoken. The manuscript consists of "blocks of thought" that Foucault used as markers, points of reference, and guidelines. H e often improvised around them, developing or expanding on this or that point, anticipating the next lecture and going back to others. One also has the impression that he did not work to a preestablished plan, but tended, rather, to begin with a problem or certain problems, and that the lecture developed "on the spot" through a sort of spontaneous generation. There were digressions and remarks about future lectures, and some things were dropped (such as the promised lecture on "repression," which was never given but which appears in The History of Sexuality.) I n 1977, Foucault described his work and his way of working thus: " I am neither a philosopher nor a writer. I am not creating an oeuvre. I do research which is at once historical and political; I am often drawn to problems that I have encountered in one book, that I have not been able to resolve in that book, and I therefore try to deal with them in the next book. There are also conjunctural phenomena which, at a given moment, make some problem look like a particularly urgent problem, a politically urgent problem to do with current affairs, and that's why it interests me."' A s for methodology and The Archaeology
8 7

of Knowledge,

he said:

" I do not have a methodology that I apply in the same way to different

288

Situating

the

Lectures

domains. O n the contrary, I w o u l d say that I try to isolate a single field of objects, a domain of objects, by using the instruments I can find or that I can forge as I am a c t u a l l y doing my research, but w i t h out p r i v i l e g i n g the problem of methodology in any w a y . "
5 9

T w e n t y y e a r s after the event, these lectures have lost nothing of t h e i r topicality and urgency. Foucault rejects j u r i d i c a l theories and political doctrines that are incapable of accounting for relations of p o w e r and relations of force w i t h i n confrontations b e t w e e n k n o w l edges and in real struggles. He rereads the a g e of the Enlightenment, a n d s h o w s t h a t it r e v e a l s not the progress of reason, b u t how " m i n o r " k n o w l e d g e s w e r e disqualified in order to promote the centralization, normalization, a n d d i s c i p h n a n z a t i o n of dominant k n o w l e d g e s , r a t h e r than the progress of reason. He critiques the idea that history is an invention or the heritage of a bourgeoisie that w a s on the ascendancy in the eighteenth century. He p a y s an e x t e n d e d t r i b u t e to " h i s t o r i cism," to a h i s t o r y that s p e a k s of c o n q u e s t s and dominations, a " h i s t o r y - b a t t l e " in the t r u e sense of the w o r d w h i c h developed out of the race s t r u g g l e , as opposed to n a t u r a l right. A n d finally, he s h o w s how the transformation of this s t r u g g l e d u r i n g the nineteenth century raised a problem: that of the biopolitical regularization of behavior, the p r o b l e m of recent memory a n d of the near future, of the b i r t h and development of racism and fascism. Being accustomed to his

changes of s c e n e r y a n d the w a y he alters h i s perspective w i t h r e spect to r u l i n g ideas and established k n o w l e d g e s , Foucault's r e a d e r s w i l l not be surprised. A s for the specialists, one can only suggest that they should not forget that this text is not a book, b u t a set of lectures, a n d that it has to be read as such: it is not a w o r k of scholarship, but r a t h e r a w a y of posing an " u r g e n t " problemthat of racismand of opening u p lines of investigation, of outlining a g e nealogical trace in order to rethink it. So how should one read i t ? One m i g h t recall, to conclude, w h a t Foucault said in 1977: " P h i l o s o p h y ' s question . . . is the question as to w h a t w e ourselves are. That is w h y contemporary philosophy is e n t i r e l y political and entirely his torical. It is the politics i m m a n e n t in history and the history indis pensable for p o l i t i c s . " '
0

Situating

the

Lectures

289

A s to the studies Foucault may have consulted w h i l e p r e p a r i n g these lectures, w e can only speculate. The sources a r e cited in the notes, but it is practically impossible to tell w h e t h e r Foucault h a d r e a d the texts in question or w a s b o r r o w i n g from secondary works. A "scientific" b i b l i o g r a p h y could b e established only on the basis of the careful notes t a k e n by Foucault, w i t h one quotation per sheet, together w i t h the b i b l i o g r a p h i c a l references to the edition a n d page; b u t he then filed them thematically, and not as a dossier r e l a t i n g to any p a r t i c u l a r book or lecture. The task ot reconstructing Foucault's " l i b r a r y " remains to be u n d e r t a k e n , a n d it is certainly far beyond the scope ot this note. In order to open up a few p a t h s a n d to provide a g u i d e for future r e a d e r s a n d researchers, w e w i l l for the moment s i m p l y signal a few books that relate to the questions raised in the lectures, and w h i c h w e r e a v a i l a b l e at the t i m e w h e n Foucault w a s p r e p a r i n g them.

The "Trojan

Myth"

and the History

of Races de la doctrine des races ( B r u s s e l s :

T. S i m a r , Etude critique

sur laJortnation

Lamerti, 1 9 2 2 ) ; J . Barzun, The French Race ( N e w York: C o l u m b i a University Press, 1 9 5 2 ) ; M . Bloch, " S u r les g r a n d e s invasions. Q u e l q u e s positions de problemes," Revue The Idea of a Perfect in Renaissance History; de synthese, Erudition 1 9 4 0 - 1 9 4 5 ; G. H u p p e r t , and Historical Philosophy

Historical

France ( U r b a n a : U n i v e r s i t y ot Illinois Press, 1 9 7 0 ) ( t r . [Paris: Flammarion, 1 9 7 } ] ) ; L. Poliakov, His( Paris: C a l m a n n - L e v y ,

L'Idee de t histoire parfaite toire de I'anti-semitisme, 1 9 6 8 ) a n d Le Mythe Celtes et Gaulois

111: De Voltaire a Wagner

aryen ( P a r i s : Calmann Levy, 1971), C . G. Dubois, Le Deve/oppement d'un mythe litteraire

au XVIe siecle.

( P a r i s : V r m , 1 9 7 2 ) ; A . Devyer, Le Sang epure. les gentilhommes fran^ais de I'Ancien Regime,

Les Prejuges

de race che^

1560-1720

( Brussels: Editions au XVIe

de l ' l ' n i v e r s i t e , 1975); A . J o u a n n a , L'Idee siecle et au debut du XVUe siecle,

dc race en France

thesis defended

in J u n e 1975 at the

Universite de P a r i s II a n d d i s t r i b u t e d bv Editions Champion in 1 9 7 6 .

290

Situating

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It should also be pointed out that the problem of the historiography of races w a s raised, after Meinecke, by Georg Lukacs in chapter 7 of Die Zersorungder Vemuft ( Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1954. French, Le Destruction de la raison [Paris: L'Arche, 1 9 5 8 - 1 9 5 9 ] ) and in Der historische Roman ( B e r l i n : Aufbau Verlag, 1 9 5 6 ) (Le Roman historique [Paris: Payot, 1 9 6 5 ] ; The Historical Novel, tr. Hannah Mitchell and Stanley Mitchell [London: Merlin Press, 1 9 6 2 ] ) . Two early German studies of the Trojan myth should also be mentioned: E. Luthgen, Dies Quellen undderhistorische jasage desJrdnkischen Trojanersagen Wert des frdnkischen Tro(Bonn: R. Weber, 1 8 7 6 ) and M. Klippel's thesis, Die Darstellung

( M a r b u r g : Beyer und Hans Knecht, 1 9 3 6 ) .

On the Levellers and J. Frank, The Diggers

Diggers ( C a m b r i d g e , Mass.: Harvard University Press, ed. C. Origins

1955); H . N . Brailsford, The Levellers and the English Revolution, and Revolution (London: Seeker & Warburg, 1961); Intellectual

Hill (London: Cresset Press, 1961); and especially C. Hill, Puritanism of the English Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1 9 6 5 ) ; and The

World Turned Upside Down (London: Temple Smith, 1972). On the Imperial Roman Theme and the Translation Imperii from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (London

F. A. Yates, Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1 9 7 5 ) (Astraea 1989]). On Boulainvilliers historien, politique, philosophe,

[Paris: Boivin,

R. Simon, Henry de Boulainvilliers,

astrologue

(Paris: Boivin, 1942) and Un Revoke du grand siecle: Henry de Boulainvilliers (Garches: Ed. du Nouvel Humanisme, 1 9 4 8 ) . On the Eighteenth-Century over the French Monarchy, XVllle Dispute between Historiography, et le probleme "Romanists" and and "Gcimanists"

"Constitution" de la constutition franqaise au

L Carcassonne, Montesquieu

siecle (Paris: PUF, 1927; Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1 9 7 0 ) ;

Situating L. Althusser, Montesquieu: New Left Books, 1972]).

the

Lectures

291

La Politique et I'histoire (Paris: PUF, 1959) [London:

("Montesquieu: Politics and History" in Politics and History

On A. Thierry and Historiography under the July Monarchy

in France during the Restoration

and

P. Moreau, L'Histoire de France au XIXe siecle (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1935); K . J . Carroll, Some Aspects Thierry of the Historical Thought of Augustin Writings (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press,

1951); F. Engel-Janosi, Four Studies in French Romantic Historical L'Historiographie romantiquefrancaise (18T>-1830) Uses of History

(Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955); B. Reizov, (Editions de Moscou, in the French Restoration 1957); S. Mellon, The Political

(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1958); M. Seliger, "Augustin Thierry: Race-Thinking during the Restoration," Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 19 ( 1 9 5 8 ) , R. N. Smithson, Augustin Thierry: in the Evolution of Historical Method Social and Political Consciousness Droz, 1972). (Geneva:

"Anti-Semitism"

and the French Left in the Nineteenth

Century judaismefrancais Histoire de

R. F. Byrnes, Antisemitism in Modern France ( 1 9 5 0 ; reprint, New York: H. Fertig, 1 9 6 9 ) ; Rabi [W. Rabinovitch], Anatomie du (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1962); L. Poliakov, I'antisemitisme, So^talisten

vol. 3 (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1 9 6 8 ) . Foucault may also (Berlin: Colloquim Verlag, 1962), and with

have been familiar with the many works of E. Silberner collected as ^ur Judenfrage Zosa Szajikowski, Jews and the French Revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848 (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1970, reprinted 1972).

It should also be pointed out that R. Aron's two volume Penser la guerre, Clausewit^was published by Gallimard in February 1976.

292

Situating

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Lectures

1. " K e n r y o k u t o chi ( ' P o u v o i r et savoir'),'" Dits et ecrits, v o l . 3, p. 4 0 4 . 2. "Powers and Strategies," in Colin G o r d o n , ed., Power/Knowledge: Selected Writmp and Other Writings 1972-1977 ( H e m e ! Hempstead: Harvester, 1 9 8 0 ) ; p. 1 3 9 ; French original: "Pou voirs et strategies," Dits et ecrits, vol. 3, p. 422. 3. "Gendai no K e n r y o k u no butai ('La Philosophie a n a l v u q u e du p o u v o i r ' ) , " Dits et ecrits, vol. 5, p. 5 3 6 . 4- "Gcndai no K e n r y o k u w o tou," p p . 5 3 5 - 3 6 . 5. " W h y Study Power: In Quest of the Subject," in Hubert L, Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutks, with an A f t e r w o r d by Michel Foucault ( H c m e l Hempstead: Harvester, 1 9 8 2 ) , p. 2 0 9 ; French version: "Le Sujet et le pouvoir," Dits et ecrits, vol. 1, p. 224. 6 . Cf. "As malhas do poder {'Les Mailles du p o u v o i r ) , " Dits et ecrits, vol. 4, p p . 1 8 2 - 2 0 1 and especially p. l86ff. 7. "El poder, una bestia magnihca ('Le Pouvoir, une bete magnifique')," Dits et ecrits, vol. 3, p. 3741

8. Ibid., p. 3 7 9 . 9 . "Precisazioni sul potere. nposta ad alcuni critici ('Precisions sur le pouvoir. reponses a certaines critiques')," Dits et ecrits, vol. 3, p. 6 2 9 . 1 0 . The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley ( Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1 9 8 1 ) , p. 1 3 9 1 1 . Ibid., p p . Y\% V\to. 12. "Power and Sex," trans. David J . Parent, m Lawrence D. K r i t z m a n , ed.. Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings, 7977- f9$4 ( N e w Y o r k and London: Routledge. 1 9 8 8 ) , p. 123; French original: "Non au sexe roi," Dits et e'crits, vol, 3, p. 2 6 7 . 13. "Kcnrvoku to chi," p. 4 0 7 . 14. "Precisazioni sul potere." p. 6 2 9 . 15. The History of Sexuality, Volume I, p. 9 5 . 16. CI. ''Power and Strategies," pp. Vil-42; "Governmentality," p. 1 0 2 . 17. "Han/.ai tosite no chishiki ('Le Savon eomme crime')," Dits et ecrits, v o l . 5, p. 8 9 : "Power and Sex," p. 123; "Vivre autrement le temps," Dits et ecrits, vol. 3. p. 2 6 8 ; "Incorporation del hospital en la teenologia moderna (LTncorporation de l'hopital dans la technology moderne)," ibid., p. 5 1 5 ; "Governmenialilv," p. 97; and later, "As malhas do poder," pp. 1 8 2 - 2 0 1 . 1 8 . The History of Sexuality, Volume I, p. 9 3 . 19. Cf. "Power a n J Sex," p. 123; "The Confession of the Flesh," p. 2 ()8. 2 0 . "Sckhai ninshiki no hoho: marx shusi w o do shimatsu suruka ('Methodologie pour la connaissance du monde: comment se debarasser du m a r x i s m e ' D i t s et ecrits, vol. 3, p. 6 0 6 . 21. Daniel Delert, " C h r o n o l o g i c " Dits ci ecrits, vol. 1, p p . 3 0 - 3 2 . 22. Ibid., p. 33. 2.3. Ibid., p. >\2. 21. 25. 26. 27. Ibid., p- 45. "Des Questions d c Michel Fouc;iult a He'rodote," Dits ft ecrits, vol. p. 9'tIbid. "L'Oeii de pouvoir," Dits ft ecrits, vol. 3, p. 2 0 6 ; English translation: "The Eve of Power," m Power/Knowledge, p. 16-428. "Questions a Michel Foucault sur ia geographie," Dits et ecrits, vol. 3, p. 2 9 : "Questions on Gtrographv" in Power/Knowledge, p. 6 5 . 29- "Non au sexe rot," Dits ct ccrits, vol. 3. p. 2 0 0 : "The Confession of the Flesh," in Power*' Knowledge, p. 20H,

Situating
1

the

Lectures

293

30. "The Subject and Power,* in Dreyfus and Rabinow, eds., Michel Foucauh, p. 203; Dits et ecrits, vol. 4, p. 23731. "The Subject and Power," p. 221; Dits et edits, vol. 4, p. 237. 31. Ibid., pp. 25-26; Dits et ecrits. vol. 4, p. 242. 33- "Le Jeu de Michel Foucault," Dits et ecrits, vol. 3, p. 32S; "The Confession of the Flesh," p. 225Dits et ecrits, vol. 1, pp. 842-86; Ltkks; The Essentia/ Works, vol. 1. pp. 5 -10. 35. Les Anormaux: Cours au College de Trance, 1974-1975 (Paris: Gallimard and Le Seuil, 1999), p. 2 9 9 . 36. "The Minimalist Self" (interview with Stephen Riggins), in Knuman, ed., Michel foucault, p. 7; French translation: "Une Interview de Michel Foucault par Stephen Riggins," Dits et ecrits, vol. 4, p. 528. 37. Cf. ''Polemics, Politics and Problematizations" in Paul Rabinow, ed., The Toucault Reader (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986); pp. 381 -90; French version: "Polemique, politique et problematisations," Dits et ecrits, vol. 4, pp. 591-98. 38. E1 poder, una bestia magnifica," pp. 376-7739. "Kenryoku to chi," p. 40440. "Power and Sex," p. 12; Non au sexe roi," p- 2 6 6 .
M a

INDEX

administrative knowledge, 1 3 0 - 3 3 A d o r n o , T. W . , 2 8 7 Africa, modern, 2 8 5 Alexander the G r e a t , 57 Algerian w a r , 275 Allende, Salvador, 2 8 5 amateur scholarship, 1 8 3 anarchism, 5, 2 6 2 anatamo-pohtics, 2 4 0 annals a n d chronicles, 6 7 antihistoricism, 172, 2 0 8 - 9 antipsychiatry, 5, 12 antiquity, end of, 74-75 anti-Semitism, 8 7 - 8 9 State-supported, in 1 9 t h century, 8 9 Antraigues, E. L. H. L., comte d\ 211 Arab-Israeli conflict, 2 8 5 archers, 1 5 9 A r e n d t , Hannah, 2 8 7 Argentina, 2 8 5

Athens, 1 0 6 atom b o m b , 253 Audigier, P., 122-23 Augustus, 175 Austin, J . L., xix autodialecticalization, of historicopohtical discourse, 2 1 6 , 236-37

B a b y l o n / R o m e , 71, 74 Bailly, J e a n Sylvain, 233 barbarians character of, 149, 1 9 6 - 9 8 and civilization (aim of destruction), 195-96 compared to savages, 1 9 6 freedom of, 1 9 6 , 2 0 2 and revolution (historical development), 1 9 7 - 2 0 6 Battle of Hastings, 1 0 3 - 4 Battle of Poitiers, 125 Benedictines, 167 Bible, J e w i s h , as vehicle for protest, 71 Bibhotheque de finances, 137 Bibhotheque de legislation d'admimstration, histoire et droit public, 137-38 biological sphere. State control of, 2 3 9 biological theory, applied to politics, 256-57

Argumentum Anti-Normannicum, 1 0 4
aristocracy decadence of, and decline of States, 156 popular resistance t o , 1 0 7 - 8 , 1 5 6 See also nobility, French armies, royal, 1 5 9 A r t h u r i a n legend, 1 0 0 artificial life, 254 asylum, the, critiques of, 7

296

Index
bureaucratization, of Communist Party, 275 Burgundians, 2 0 0

biopolitics, 243 -45, 2 7 6 biopower, 24), 2 5 3 - 6 3 limits and excesses of, 253 -54 origin of, in 1 9 t h century, 2 5 ) as promoting State racism, 2 5 6 - 6 ) birth control practices, in 1 8 t h century, 24) birth rate, 2 4 ) Black Panthers, 2 8 2 Blackwood, Sir W i l l i a m , 1 0 2 - ) Blanquism, 2 6 2 body control of, d u r i n g bourgeois era, ) 1 , 35)6 disciplinary control of, 1 8 5 , 242, 2 4 9 50 surveillance of, ) 6 , 242, 2 5 1 Boisguilbert, P i e r r e le Pesant de, 1 7 0 Bonneville, N. d e , 1 9 7 , 2 0 2 Boulainvilliers, H. de, 5 0 , 128, 1 ) 0 , D ) , 144-65, 167-71, 1 9 0 - 9 7 , 2 0 0 , 2 0 6 , 215, 218, 2 2 1 , 225, 2 ) ) analysis of w a r , 1 5 5 - 6 5 Boulay de la M e u r t h e , A . J . , 2 1 1 bourgeoisie and control of body, ) 5 - ) 6 historiography of, 1 6 5 , 2 0 8 - 1 0 , 2 1 6 17 interest of the, and repression, ) 1 - 3 ) as nation, 217-22 political struggles of, 4 9 - 5 0 , 9 9 Bourgogne, due de, 127 -28 Boutillier, J . , 1 1 6 Brazil, 2 8 5 Brequigny, L. G . O. F. de, 2 0 4 , 2 0 6 Bretons, 1 0 0 Brittany, 1 0 0 Buat-Nancay, L. G., comte de, 1 2 9 , 1 3 3 , 136, 144, 1 9 2 , 1 9 7 , 2 1 5 , 2 2 1 , 233 Buonarroti, F., 5 0 bureau, 132 -33

Caligula, 145 Cambodia, 2 8 5 Canguilhem, Georges, 2 8 4 Capetians, 2 0 1 , 2 0 2 , 2 0 3 , 2 0 6 capitalism, 3 1 , 277-78 Carolingian period, 2 0 1 Cassirer, Ernst, 2 8 7 Catholics, political theories of, 35, 1 2 1 Celts, 7 6 , 1 0 0 , 1 5 6 , 2 2 9 freedoms of, 2 0 4 - 6 C h a m p de M a r s and M a y assemblies, 1 2 0 , 125, 203, 2 1 0 Chapsal, J . - F . , 2 0 4 , 2 0 6 charitable institutions, 244 Charlemagne, 57, 1 2 5 , 2 0 3 , 2 0 6 reactivation of, in French Revolution, 210-11 Charles Martel, 125 Charles V , Emperor, 1 0 2 Charles X , French king, 2 3 8 n . 1 0 children masturbation in, 251, 278 sovereignty of parents over, 9 5 - 9 6 Chile, 2 8 5 C h u r c h , t h e , 153-54, 161 Churchill, William ( 1 7 t h century English historian), 1 0 5 cities. See towns; u r b a n society civilization, barbarians and destruction of, 195-96

civil war, 225, 2 8 2 class justice, 5 class struggle economics and, 14 French Revolution as, 2 3 3 - 3 6 idea of, derived from race w a r , 7 9 , 80

knowledge of, 1 6 9 - 7 0

Index
M a r x i s t use of t e r m , 281 race w a r redehned as, 6 0 , 8 2 - 8 ) , 262 reactivation of, 79 State supported (Soviet s t y l e ) , 8 ) Clausewitz, Carl von, 15-16, 4 7 - 4 8 , 1 6 5 , 282 clergy, 2 0 ) , 2)5 Clovrs, 6 9 , 72, 12), 125, 1 4 8 , 2 0 0 Coke, Edward, 5 0 , 1 0 6 College de France, I X , x v , 1 lectures at, x colonialism effect on colonizing country, 1 0 ) genocidal, 257 commonwealths, by institution and by acquisition ( H o b b e s ) , 9 ) - 9 5 Commune, the (Paris, 1 8 7 1 X 2 6 2 Communist P a r t y , bureaucratization of, 275 conquest, right of, 9 9 - 1 0 0 constitution based on natural right, 2 0 9 medical sense of w o r d , applied to the political, 1 9 2 - 9 ) original, finding and reviving, 121-22, Darwin, Charles, 6 0 , 2 5 6 death

297

disqualification of, present-day, 24749 episodic rather than epidemic, in 1 8 t h century, 244 rituals of, in former times, 2 4 7 - 4 8 as taboo, 247 deduction, overly facile examples of, )1)2 Defert, Daniel, xiv, xix, 2 8 2 , 2 8 7 degeneracy, sexual, 252, 2 8 6 Deleuze, Gilles, xvi, 10 and Felix G u a t t a r i , Anti-Oedipus, 287 democracy, p r i m i t i v e , of G e r m a n s , 202-) democratic society, similarity of totalitarian society t o , 275-77 demography, 1 8 t h century interest in, 24) Depot de chartes, 1)7 Desnos, Robert, 1 9 8 despotisms, promotion of egalitarianism by, 145 de-Stahnization, 275 dialectic, applied t o historico political discourse, 5 8 - 5 9 , 2 8 ) Diggers, 1 0 2 , 1 0 7 , 1 0 8 - 9 disciplinarization, of science, 1 8 2 - 8 6 disciplinary p o w e r normalization and, 2 5 ) Statist, 2 5 0 - 5 1 disciplines discourse of, delining n o r m s not rights, ) 7 - ) 8 industrial, 277-78 institutional, 2 5 0 - 5 1 p o w e r exercised by, in the modern state, ) 6 - ) 8 disciplining of the body, 185, 242. 2 4 9 - 5 0 5,

191-95
See also France: original constitution of contract. See social contract theory Cornville, Pierre, 175 counterhistory, 6 6 - 7 6 court, the, 175-77 C o u r t e t de I'Isle, A . V., 5 0 criminals, disciplining ol, 2 5 8 , 2 6 2 , 2 8 5 critiques of institutions, 5 - 6 localized, vs. centralized theory systems, 6 - 8 Crusades, participation of nobility in,

154
Czechoslovakia, 2 8 5

298

Index
modern, 2 8 5 monarchy, 75, 124 race w a r discourse in, 101-11, 126, 143 radical thought in, 17th century, 7 6 , 98, 102 resistance to monarchy in, 4 9 - 5 0 , 5 9 See also Norman Conquest Enlightenment, normalizing role of, 178-

disciplining {continued) of criminals, 258, 2 6 2 , 2 8 5 of labor force, 242 of sexuality, 251-52, 2 7 8 - 7 9 diseases, sexual, 252 divine right, 1 0 2 Dollfuss assassination, 286 domination in capitalist economy, 277-78 concealment of, by the t h e o r y of sovereignty, 37-38 distinguished from sovereignty, 27, 45 history as unending story of, 111 and rebellion, cycle of, 280-81 research into relationships of, 4 5 - 4 6 support of the judicial system for, 2 6 27 Dreyfus affair, 2 6 3 D u b o s , J . N . , 199, 2 0 1 - 2 , 2 0 6 du Tillet, J e a n , 121

80
environment, natural and urban, harmful effects of, 245 epidemics, 243-44 equality, 9 0 - 9 3 , 1 5 7 - 5 8 Estaing, J o a c h i m comte d \ 5 0 , 144 Estates General, calling of, 2 0 9 - 1 0 Etat de la France... ( 1 7 2 7 ) , 127-28 eugenics, 5 0 , 264n.4 evolution theory, 6 0 , 2 5 6 - 5 7 exchange of goods, by natural man, 1 9 4 95

Ecole des Chartes, 1 8 6

factories and workshops, knowledges of, 179 fascism analysis of, 275 similarities to democratic society, 2 7 6 feudalism execration of, in French Revolution, 211 historical awareness of, 75 origin of, as means of administration, 149-52, 2 0 3 origin of, as usurpation, 2 0 1 - 2 as r e w a r d to Frankish warriors, 123 sovereignty theory and, 35 w a r with towns, 234-35 Final Solution ( N a z i ) , 2 6 0 force as political technique for use by the sovereign ( Machiavelh), 1 6 4 206 See also power

Ecoles, grand es, 181, 1 8 6

economic man, 194-95 economics, political p o w e r related to, 1314 Edward the Confessor, 57, 1 0 0 , 1 0 3 egalitarianism despotisms' promotion of, 145 primitive, fiction of, 157 eighteenth century birth control practices in, 243 historico-political discourse of, 171-72 interest in demography of, 243 normalization of knowledges in, 179-85 emigres, 211, 2 2 9

Encylope'die, V|2, 180-81

endemics, 243-44 Engels, Friednch, 7 9 England historical discourse in, 78, I60,

Index
forensic medicine, 264n.4 Foucault, Michel etymology of name, 148-49 historical appearance of, 75 invasion of, 6 9 , 7 5 , 117-24, 144-48, 160-61, 191, 204-6, 229 invasion of, denied, 1 9 9 - 2 0 2 limited p o w e r of kings, 1 4 9 - 5 0 origin m y t h of, 1 1 5 - 1 8 rule of, 1 5 0 - 5 1 Frederick I Barbarossa, Emperor, 57

299

The Archaeology of Knowledge, 287

books r e a d by and referred to, 2 8 6 91 childhood memories, 2 8 6

The History of Sexuality, x v n , xix, 2 7 9 ,

287 lectures. See lectures, the present

Madness and Civilisation (Histoire de la Frederick II, Emperor, 5 7 , 8 2 folie), 284 freedom
research of, mconclusiveness and discontinuities of, J - 5 research of, these lectures as r e p o r t on, 1-3 sperm whale analogy, 4 Fourier, Charles, 2 6 1 , 2 6 4 n . 6 France after 1 9 6 8 , 284-85 as heir of Rome, 1 1 6 - 1 7 , 123 -24 historical discourse in, 78 history of, 5th to 9 t h century, 124-26 national totalization of, w i t h the French Revolution, 2 ) 3 - 3 6 not a nation, according to Sieyes, 221 original constitution of, 124, 1 2 5 - 2 6 , 137-38, 192 racial d u a l i t y in, 1 2 6 , 2 2 9 - 3 6 racial homogeneity in, assumed, 1 2 6 27 report on t h e state of ( 1 7 2 7 ) , 127 -28 resistance t o monarchy in, 5 9 , 7 6 , 7 8 reviving a former constitution of, 1 2 1 22 three estates of, 5 1 , 235 See also monarchy, French; nobility, French Franco, Francisco, death of, 248-49 Francoism, 2 8 5 Franks barbarian democracy of, 2 0 2 - 3 character of, 147-49 Gallo-centrism, 122-24 Gailo-Romans, 6 9 Gaul, pre-Roman, 2 2 9 nobility of, destruction of, 145 Gaul, Roman administration of, taken over by Franks, 2 0 0 depleted condition of, from Roman rule, 144-45 existence of, ignored by some historians, 117 of barbarians, 1 9 6 , 2 0 2 a n d equality, opposition of, 157-58 ferocious, of t h e Franks, 148-49 p r i m i t i v e , fiction of, 1 5 6 - 5 8 of towns, 2 0 1 , 2 0 4 - 6 French language, in England, lOO French nation, 1 2 0 - 2 7 , 2 3 6 French Revolution as conflict of nations, 2 1 1 as culmination of absolute monarchy, 232 as culmination of class struggle, 23336 historical discourse a t time of, 1 8 9 212 as race w a r , 6 0 Freret, N., 5 0 , 1 4 9 Freud, Sigmund, 1 5 , 278

300

Index
Harold, King, 1 0 0 , 1 0 3 - 4 Hegel, G. W. F., 15 dialectic of, 5 8 Henry III of France, 121 Henry I V of France, 121 Henry V I I of England, 9 9 - 1 0 G heroes, mythical, r e t u r n of, 5 6 - 5 7 historical discourse, generally disciplinarization of, 1 8 5 - 8 6 extension of the field of, in time and subject area, 2 0 6 - 1 0 as historical force in itself, 171 official historiography, 176-78, 1 8 5 - 8 6 , 224 State ministries and libraries in support of (reign of Louis X V I ) , 1 3 6 - 3 8 , 177-78, 186 subjugated knowledge revealed by, 7 taught in schools, in support of public right, 1 2 5 - 2 6 t r u t h matrix of, 1 6 5 w a r as main element of, in 1 8 t h century, 215-16, 2 2 6 historical discourse, traditional (annals and chronicles) genealogical and memorialization tasks of, 6 6 - 6 7 opposed by race w a r discourse, 73-7't, 7 7 - 8 0 , 133-35 power justified by, 6 6 - 6 9 , 73-74, 141, 171 the State justified by, 224 superceded by historico-political discourse, 141-43 historical mvths of conquerors and the conquered, 100-109 of Gaulish primacy, 122-24 of r e t u r n of defeated ancestors, 5 6 - 5 7 , 82 historicism, 111, 172-74, 283 attempt to discredit, 111

Gaul, Roman (continued) frontiers of, 123 as homeland of the Franks, 123-24 nobility of, Romanized, 145, 153-54, 161-62 subjugation u n d e r Roman rule, 1 2 0 21, 144-47, 2 0 0 , 229

surviving freedoms in, 2 0 4 - 6 Gauls as foundation of French nation, 122-25 as foundation of other European nations, 122-24 u n d e r Frankish rule, 150-51 as h e i r s of Rome, 115-18 historical appearance of, 7 6 liberation of, by Franks, 120-22 survival of, after the Frankish invasion, 2 0 4 - 6 weapons confiscated from, 150, 158-59 genealogies of knowledge, 8-12, 178 genocide, 257 G e r m a n Empire, 117-18 Germans and defeat of Roman Empire, 118-21 kinship to F r e n c h , 1 2 0 - 2 4 political constitution of ( e l e c t i o n of kings, etc.), 120-21 primitive democracy of, 202-3 racial mythology of, 82 gothic novels, 211-12 Goths, 200

governmentahty, 284 Greece, 285 G r e e k tragedy, 175 greffiers, 130-32 Gregory of Tours, 125, 1 5 0 grid pattern of towns, 251 grids of intelligibility, 171, 2 2 6 - 3 6 grvsse Politik ( N i e t z s c h e ) , 285 Guattari, Felix, 5, 287 Guevara, Che, 282 G u i z o t , Francois, 137, 142, 2 2 6

Index
historico-pohtical discourse, 5 1 - 6 2 as assault on the State (confrontational), 1 3 5 - 3 6 , 186, 224 autodialecticalization of, 2 1 6 , 2 3 6 - 3 7 becomes the regular form of discourse, 141-43, 1 8 9 - 9 0 , 2 0 7 - 8 as challenge to royal p o w e r , 5 8 - 5 9 , 143-44 as continuation of the struggles of history, 171-72 dialectic applied t o , 5 8 - 5 9 , 2 8 3 in France in 17th century, 4 9 , 5 9 , 164 grids of intelligibility in, 171, 2 2 6 - 3 6 invention of, by French nobility, 165, ideology, and support of centralized power, 33-34 illness, affecting labor, 243-45 individuals escape from power, in death, 2 4 8 exercise of power or submission to power by, 2 9 - 3 0 in social contract theory, 245 Horkheimer, M a x , 287

301

Hotman, Francois, Franco-Ga/lia, 118-22 Hugh Capet, 2 0 3 hygiene, 244-45, 252

167
origin and aim of, 5 9 , 1 6 7 - 6 9 , 1 8 9 9 0 , 283 v s . philosophico-]uridical discourse, 57-58, 9 8 - 9 9 reactionary-aristocratic vs. liberalbourgeois, similar approaches of, 228-36 related to political calculations, 169-

Indo-European system, of representing power, 6 8 , 73-74 industrialization, 244, 277-78 infantile sexuality, repression of, in bourgeois era, 31-33 inferior races and groups, killing of, 2 5 5 56 informers, power of, to kill, 2 5 9 institutions critiques of, in modern period ( f r o m the 1 9 5 0 s ) , 5 - 6 disciplinary power of, 2 5 0 - 5 1 insurance, 244 intendants and le bureau, 132-33 knowledge of, 1 6 9 - 7 0 IRA, 2 8 5 Ireland, 2 8 5 Italy, 2 8 5

71
to revive forgotten rights, 131-33 and revolution, 7 8 - 8 0 , 1 0 9 - 1 1 h i s t o r y (events of the p a s t ) cycle of, 173, 193 explained as brutality and chance justified after the fact by rationality, 54-56 finding a strategic thread in, 1 9 1 - 9 2 law of, vs. natural l a w , 157-58 philosophy of, 236-37 unending war in, 111, 172-74, 215-16 Hitler, Adolf, 2 6 4 n . 5 Hobbes, Thomas, 18, 5 9 , 8 9 - 9 9 , 281 on birth of the S t a t e , 9 3 - 9 9 Leviathan, 2 8 - 2 9 , 110-11 on society as-body, 51 on w a r of every man against every man, 8 9 - 9 3

Jacobins, 210 James I of England. 1 0 2 Jerusalem, vs. B a b y l o n / R o m e , 71, 74 J e w i s h history, 71 Jews elimination of, by Nazis, 2 6 0 seen as biologically foreign, 8 9 Jordan, 2 8 5

302

Ind ex
as memorv ol struggles, 8 and networks of power, 33-34 normalization of, 178-85 organization and consolidation of, in 18th century, 1 7 9 - 8 5 and p o w e r , 2 7 9 secret, technical, 1 7 9 - 8 0 subjugated, reappearance of, 6 - 1 2 useless, l o v e r s of, 4-5 victorious vs. subjugated, 8 - 1 2

Jouffroy d'Abbans, Achille, 2 2 9 , 238n.10 judicial system attacks on, 5 centered around royal power, 2 5 - 2 6 domination supported by, 2 6 - 2 7 escaped f r o m r o y a l control, 2 6 justified by sovereignty theory, 37 J u l i u s Caesar, 1 2 0 , 123 J u q u i n , M . ( C o m m u n i s t d e p u t y ) , 12 juridical knowledge, 1 3 0 - 3 3 juridico-political discourse on feudalism, 151 on p o w e r and resistance, 2 8 0 - 8 1 on sovereignty, 1 6 8 - 6 9 on succession, 119 jurisconsults, 130-32, 1 6 7

See also particular types, e.g., king(s):

knowledge ol

labor camps, 2 7 6 , 2 8 5 labor force in capitalist era, 31, 278 disciplining ol, 2^2 regulation of, 243-45

K a n t , Immanuel, 53, 2 8 3 keeping people alive medically, 2 4 8 - 4 9 K h m e r Rouge, 2 8 5 K h r u s h c h e v report, 275 kill, right to (of the State), 2 4 0 - 4 2 , 25460 of inferior races and groups, 2 5 5 - 5 6 king(s) as b o d y of the nation, 217 -18 education of, 1 2 7 - 2 9 election of, 120-21, 148, 152 history of, 1 6 8 illegitimate, 174 knowledge of, 1 2 9 - 3 3 of the past, return of, 5 6 - 5 7 knights, 154, 1 5 9 knowledge disciplinarization of, 1 8 4 - 8 5 disciplines of, 1 8 1 - 8 5 genealogies of, 8 - 1 2 , 1 7 8 juridical a n d administrative, 1 3 0 - 3 3 local, of particular groups and occupations, 7-8, 1 7 9 - 8 0

land c o n t r o l of, economics and politics based on, 3 6 nobility's base on, 1 6 1 language-knowledge system, 153 -54 last w o r d s , last wills and testaments, etc., 248 Latin language, 145, 153-54 law b i r t h of, from war, 5 0 , 174 codes of, w r i t t e n in dried blood, 5 6 in England, after Norman Conquest, 100 illegitimate, 1 0 7 - 9 vs. normalization, 3 8 - 4 0 Lebanon, 2 8 5 lectures, the present course summarv prepared bv Foucault, xiu, 2 6 5 - 7 2 Foucault's delivery of, xv, 3 Foucault's method of preparing, 2, 287 relation to Foucault's writings, 273 transcription of, xu

Index
legitimacy, of power, 2 6 , 44-46, 171 Legrain, M., 264n.4 Leute or leudes ( G e r m a n ) , 148 Magnan, V., 264n.4 man-as-species, 242-43

303

M a r a t , J e a n Paul, 1 9 7 , 2 0 2 Marcuse, Herbert, 5 M a r x , Karl, 79, 1 0 0 , 277, 281 Marxism concept of power, D -14 and psychiatry, 5 and Socialism, compared, 2 6 2 as theory, 6, 9 - 1 0 masturbation, 2 5 1 , 278 mat he sis, 1 8 2 medicahzation, medicine biopohtical use of, 244-45, 252 conflict of old and n e w modes of thought in, ) 9 normalization of, in 18th century, 181 Meinecke, F n e d n c h , mentally ill, 2 6 2 mercenaries, 146, 1 5 2 , 1 5 9 Merovingian period, 2 0 1 Merovius, 125 Michelet, J u l e s , 1 6 8 , 2 2 6 M i d d l e Ages the Bible's role in, 71 continuity w i t h and break from antiquity, 74 -76 history writing in, 6 6 - 6 9 , 1 0 1 political theories current in, )4 racism in, 8 7 - 8 9 military institutions analysis of, 2) p o w e r maintained by, 1 5 8 - 6 0 State monopoly on, 48-49 28) )9

Leveille, J . , 285 Levellers, 5 9 , 1 0 2 , 1 0 7 - 9 Leviathan ( H o b b e s ) , 34, 8 9 - 9 0 , 9 3 . See also Hobbes, Thomas Levi-Strauss, Claude, xv libraries of history, set up by royal power, 1 ) 7 38 useless knowledge in, 4 life, artificial, 254 life and death nineteenth century concern w i t h matters of, 2 ) 9 , 253 p o w e r over, of sovereignty, 240-41 Lilburne, J o h n , 5 0 , 1 0 7 - 8 live, r i g h t to make, 241-42, 247 Livy, 6 8 longevity, 243 Louis X I V of France asks for a survey of France to be prepared, 1 2 7 - 2 8 c o u r t and splendor of, 175 -77 era of, 49, 5 9 European policy of, 122, 1 2 ) Louis X V I of France asked to resign kingship and claim emperorship, 2 1 0 - 1 1 era of, 177 -78 execution of, 2 ) 2 rebuked as tyrant, 1 ) 6 Luxemburg, Rosa, 2 8 2

Mably, G. B. de, 1 9 6 - 9 7 , 2 0 2 , 2 0 6 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 1 8 , 5 9 , 1 6 4 , 1 6 9 The Prince, 169

The Mirrors

of Justice,

106

monarchists, ) 5 monarchy absolute, 1 2 0 - 2 2 , 1 2 8 - 2 9 , 1 ) 6 , 152-54, 170, 2 0 0 , 20)

madness, confinement of, in bourgeois era, ) 1 - ) ) Magna Carta, 1 0 1 , 1 0 5

constitutional, 1 2 1 , 2 0 9

304

Index
as groups within a State, 134, 142-43, 223-24 as object of historico-political discourse, 1 6 7 - 6 8 , 1 9 0 - 9 1 prerequisites for ( S i e y e s ) , 218-22 natural man (savage), 1 9 4 - 9 5 natural rights, 1 5 6 - 5 8 , 2 0 9 nature, not discoverable by history, 172 Nazism collapse of, 13 racist ideal of, 82, 2 5 9 - 6 0 , 283, 2 8 6 Nero, 1 7 5 Nietzsche, F. W., x x , 285 on barbarians, 149 on p o w e r , 1 6 nineteenth century concern with matters of life and death in, 239, 253 historical discourse in, 84 nationalism in, 134 nobility, French emigration of, 211, 229 historico-pohtical discourse as tactic of, 1 8 9 - 9 0 loss of knowledge of itself, 153-55, 171 loss of power of, 1 5 1 - 5 4 , 1 6 1 - 6 2 as m i x t u r e of three ancient aristocracies, 2 2 9 - 3 0 as nation, 142-43 and peasants, 1 5 1 rights claimed by, 222, 232-33 struggle against monarchy and bureaucracy, 49 -50, 5 9 , 7 6 , 78, 1 2 8 -

monarchy (continued) limited, 1 2 0 - 2 2 See alio monarchy, French; royal power monarchy, French absolute, 1 2 0 - 2 2 , 1 2 8 - 2 9 , 1 3 6 , 152-54, 170, 2 0 0 , 2 0 3 alliance w i t h people against nobility, 230-32 challenge t o , from historico-political discourse, 5 8 - 5 9 , 143 -44 continuity w i t h antiquity, 175 increase in p o w e r of, 1 5 1 - 5 4 limited p o w e r of, in earliest days, 1 2 0 22 nobility's resistance t o , 4 9 - 5 0 , 5 9 , 7 6 , 7 8 , 1 2 8 - 3 6 , 143 -44, 1 6 5 , 1 7 0 people's o v e r t h r o w ol, 2 3 1 - 3 2 restrictions on, attempted, 1 3 6 supposed descent from Troy, 75 Monmouth's Rebellion, 1 0 1 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de, 147, 197 Montlosier, F. de Raymond, c o m t e de, 1 2 9 , 144, 2 0 7 , 226, 2 2 9 - 3 3 morbidity, control of, 243-44 Moreau, Jacob-Nicolas, 137, 177 -78, 1 9 9 , 201 Morel, B. A., 2 6 4 n . 4 mortality rate, 243 Moses, l a w s of, 1 0 6 munkipes, 204

Napoleonic codes, 3 6 Napoleonic empire, 211 natahst policv, 243 nationalism, 1 9 t h century, 134 national universality, 233-36, 2 3 9 nations conflict of, in French Revolution, 211 1 8 t h century concept of, 1 3 4 , 142-43, 217-24

36, 143-44, 1 6 5 , 1 7 0 struggle against Third Estate, 143-44, 165, 235 usurpations by, and founding of feudalism ( D u b o s ) , 2 0 1 - 2 noble savage, 1 9 6 normalization increase of, at the expense of law, 3 8 40

Index
of knowledge, 178-85 of society, 6 1 - 6 2 , 253 for the purposes of discipline and regularization, 253 Norman Conquest, 75, 98-111 Normans, 6 9 , 78, 1 0 0 - 1 0 9 usurpations of, 1 0 5 , 1 0 8 , 143 Petrarch, 74, 8 3 Philip II Augustus of France, 1 5 9 philosophers/philosophy disinterested search f o r truth by, ideal of, 52-5 l. 283 Foucault's view of, 288 relations w i t h historical discourse,
/

305

237
relations w i t h science, 1 8 2 onanism, 251, 2 7 8 order, social, history as guarantor of, traditional questions of, 24 philosophico-|uridical discourse, vs. historico political discourse, 57-58,

68
orthodoxy, 183-84 orthology, 184

98-99
Physiocrats, 133 Pipin, 125 planned towns, 2 5 0 - 5 1

parental sovereignty, 9 5 - 9 6 parlementaires, 156, 167, 193

Plato, 173 police, 2 5 0 political theory discourse, 34> 35, 5 0 ,

Parliament, English, 1 0 5 parliamentarians, English, 1 0 3 - 8 , 1 5 6 parties, political, of Partv States, 276 Pasquier, Etienne, 1 1 9 peace, social as continuation of w a r , 15-16, 5 0 - 5 1 equality of strength as conducive to, 90-93 peasants, relation to nobility, 151 penal system attacks on, 5 historical description of, 28 people, the become the nation, at time of the French Revolution, 2 3 6 as heir of monarchy, 232 history of, 7 6 , 7 8 , 1 6 8 resist the aristocracy, 1 0 7 - 8 , 1 5 6 role of monarchy in forming, 2 3 0 - 3 2 t u r n against the king and seizes power, 231-32 See also Third Estate Peru, 2 8 5 Petitjean, Gerard, x

121, 215
politics biological theory applied to, 256-57 historical study of. See historicopolitical discourse

as war, 15-16, 47-48, 165, 259, 281

population (mass of m e n ) aleatory events within, dealing with,

246
homeostasis in, 246, 249 regulation of demographics of, 242-49 regulation of sexuality of, 251-52 Portugal, k i n g of, 57 power circulation of, among individuals ( n e t w o r k of), 2 9 - 3 0 demand for, by the powerless, 73 economic analysis of ( p o w e r as p r o p e r t y ) , 13-14 escape of mdividuaf from, in death,

248
exercise of, as concealed domination, 37-38

306

Index
psychiatry attacks on, in recent period, 5, 12 connection to racism, 2 8 6 limited usefulness of theory, 6 public hygiene, 244-45, 252 public right. See right punishment, history of, 2 8 Puritans, 5 9 Pyrrhus, 175

exercise of, as repression by force, 15-

18
exercise of, through b o t h right and disciplines, 3 6 - 4 0 as a force, 1 6 8 - 6 9 Foucault's researches on, 274-91 historico-political discourse on, from ca. 1 6 0 0 o n w a r d , 4 9 - 6 2 inequality in distribution of, 3 0 - 3 1 justified b y historical discourse, 6 6 6 9 , 73-74, 141, 171 knowledge and, 2 7 9 legitimacy of, 2 6 , 4 4 - 4 6 , 171 mechanisms of, economic utility of, 3233 noneconomic analysis of, 1 4 - 1 6 practice of, in local institutions, 2 8 regional v s . centralized manifestations of, 2 7 - 2 8 relationship of right and t r u t h w i t h , 24-27 and resistance, 2 8 0 - 8 1 study of, methodological in, 27-34 surrender of, to sovereignty, 1 6 - 1 7 tactics of using ( M a c h i a v e l l i ) , 1 6 9 theories of, economic and noneconomic, 1 6 - 1 8 and truth, 24-27 two faced image of, in Indo-European system, 6 8 , 73-74 unity of, multiple p o w e r s derived from, 4 4 - 4 6 as w a r , 15-19, 23, 4 6 - 5 1 , 88, 1 6 3 - 6 5 present, role of, v s . the past, 227-28 prisons, critiques of, 7 private war, 4 8 - 4 9 Protestants historiography, Vi1 political theories of, 35, 121 Proyart, L. B 211 precautions

race conflict between superrace and subrace, 6 1 - 6 2 , 7 0 - 7 4 defined by biology, 8 0 - 8 2 defined b y distinct language and history, 77 purity of, maintaining, 8 1 - 8 2 regeneration of one's own, through exposure to risk of death and death itself, 2 5 7 - 6 0 theory of, 6 0 race w a r biological transcription of, 5 0 , 6 0 - 6 2 as normalization of society, 6 1 - 6 2 primacy of, in social history, 6 0 - 6 2 redefined as class struggle, 6 0 , 7 9 , 80, 82-83, 262

in Soviet state, 2 6 2 race war discourse, 6 5 - 8 4 , 2 3 9 counterhistorical function of, 6 6 - 7 6 in England, 1 0 1 - 1 1 , 126, 143 oppositional function of, to royal and feudal power, 76, 1 2 8 - 2 9 and traditional historical discourse, compared, 73-74, 77-80, 133-35 See also histonco-political Racine, Jean, 175, 176-77 racism functions of, 2 5 4 - 5 6 in M i d d l e Ages, 8 7 - 8 9 discourse

Index
S t a t e - s p o n s o r e d , e.g., N a z i s m , 8 1 - 8 2 , 89, 2 3 9 , 2 5 4 - 6 3 , 2 8 3 , 2 8 5 - 8 6 traditional, 258 racist d i s c o u r s e , o r i g i n of, in race w a r discourse, 8 0 - 8 1 reason, belief i n p r o g r e s s of, 182 r eb ell ion a n d d o m i n a t i o n , cycle of, 2 8 0 - 8 1 fomented b y the k i n g , 2 3 0 historical n e e d for, 110 reformism, 262 r e g u l a r i z a t i o n , p o w e r of, 247, 253 r e g u l a t i o n of p o p u l a t i o n s , 242-52 R e i c h , R e i m u t , 31 R e i c h , W i l h e l m , 5, 15 r e power, 16 re s e x u a l i t y , 31 r e l i g i o n , u n i t y v s . freedom of, 119-20 religious racism (e.g., a n t i - S e m i t i s m ) , 88-89 representative government, 93-94 repression c r i t i c i s m of notion of, 17 -18, 4 0 , 2 7 8 m e c h a n i s m s of, at t h e l o w e s t level, r e s e a r c h on, 32-33 p o w e r a s , 17 -18, 44 of s e x u a l i t y , 31-33 r e s i s t a n c e , a n d p o w e r , r e l a t i o n of, 2 8 0 - 8 1 R e s t o r a t i o n p e r i o d , 232 r e t u r n of defeated a n c e s t o r s , m y t h of, 56-57, 82 r e t u r n s of k n o w l e d g e , 6-12 revolution b a r b a r i a n s ' c o n t r i b u t i o n to, 1 9 7 - 2 0 6 constitution reestablished b y means of, 1 9 2 - 9 3 as h i s t o r i c a l subject, 8 3 - 8 4 service of h i s t o r i c a l d i s c o u r s e to, 7 8 - 8 0 S t a t e r a c i s m u s e d as a l t e r n a t i v e to, 8182 See also F r e n c h R e v o l u t i o n ; r e b e l l i o n R h e n a n u s , B e a u t u s , 118 R i c h e l i e u , C a r d i n a l , 122, 123 right a s s e r t i o n of, b y philosophical a d v e r s a r i e s , 52-54 of c o n q u e s t , 9 9 - 1 0 0 h i s t o r y of, 125-26, 174-78

307

r u l e s of, d e l i n e a t e d b y power, 24-27 and w a r , r e l a t i o n s h i p of, 156-58 r i g h t , d i s c o u r s e of, 215, 241, 245 r i g h t s , revival of, historico-political d i s c o u r s e a n d , 131-33 Robin Hood tales, 1 0 0 R o m a n a n n a l i s t s , 6 6 - 6 9 , 71-72 Roman Empire defeat of, b y G e r m a n s , 118 -21 f r e e d o m s in, s u r v i v i n g into M i d d l e Ages, 204-6 h e i r s of, 115 -18, 123-24 o c c u p a t i o n of G a u l , 120-21, 144-47, 2 0 0 , 229 R o m a n G a u l . See G a u l , R o m a n Romanity, 2 0 6 R o m a n l a w , 153 r e a c t i v a t i o n of, 34, 35 R o m a n R e p u b l i c , 145 Rome (ideal of) as B a b y l o n , 71, 74 c o n t i n u i n g p r e s e n c e of, in M i d d l e A g e s , 74-75 g r a n d e u r and d e c a d e n c e of, 147 r e a c t i v a t i o n of, i n F r e n c h R e v o l u t i o n , 210 R o u s s e a u , J e a n J a c q u e s , 35 Rousseauism, 2 0 9 - 1 0 royal power j u d i c i a l s y s t e m as benefiting, 2 5 - 2 6 s o v e r e i g n t y t h e o r y as benefiting, 3435, 116-17 r u r a l i n d e b t e d n e s s , 170 R u s s i a , Tsarist, 2 8 5

508
SA, 2 5 9

Index
society binary structure of, as concept, 51, 74, 8 0 , 8 8 , 1 0 9 - 1 0 , 117-18, 134-35 explained from the b o t t o m up, 5 4 - 5 6 history of, 134-35 metaphor of, as human body, 51 monist structure of, as concept, 8 0 - 8 1 normalization of, 6 1 - 6 2 , 253 of, power of, as continuation of w a r , 151 6 , 18-19, 1 6 3 - 6 5 p y r a m i d structure of, 51 ternary structure of, 51, 73 Soissons vase, 125, 1 2 6 , 1 5 0 , 152 Solon, 53, 2 8 3 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, 287 sovereignty as defense (a poor one) against power of disciplines, democratization of, 37 as derived from a contract, 13, 4 3 - 4 6 domination distinguished from, 27, 37, 45 as enslaving, 6 9 - 7 0 history as justification of, 7 9 - 8 0 , 1 1 0 juridical model of, 1 6 8 - 6 9 life and death power, as attribute of, 240-41 origin of, in contract ( H o b b e s ) , 2 8 39-40

safety measures, 244 Salazar, Antonio, 2 8 5 savage, 1 9 4 - 9 5 "noble," 1 9 6 savings, individual, 244 Saxons, 6 9 , 7 8 , 1 0 0 - 1 0 9 Right ( l a w s of), 1 0 5 - 7 , 143, 1 5 6 school systems, p o w e r mechanisms 45-46 science disciplinarization of, 182 exact sciences, relation to human sciences, 3 8 history of, 1 7 8 - 8 2 institutionalized, p o w e r of, 9 - 1 0 , 12 philosophy and, 182 Scott, W a l t e r , 1 0 0 Second Internationa), 2 6 2 Selden, John, 1 0 6 S e r r e s . J e a n de, 121 sexuality disciplining and regulation of, 251-52, 278-79 repression of, 31-33 Shakespearean tragedy, 174 Siberia, 285 Sieyes, E. J . , 5 0 , 142, 211, 2 2 9 on nations, 218-22 on T h i r d Estate, 217, 2 2 0 - 2 2 Slavs, 8 2 social contract theory, 16-17, 1 9 4 - 9 5 , 2 0 9 , 241, 245 social democracy, 2 6 2 Socialism achievement of, by struggle and elimination of the enemy, 2 6 2 racism inherent in, 2 6 1 - 6 3 social war, 6 0 Societe royale de medecme,

2 9 , 34, 9 3 - 9 9
representative, 93-94 resistance of, to revolution, 8 1 - 8 2 rights of, 2 6 , 6 7 , 1 0 2 , 116-17 rights derived from, 4 0 succession to, from old to new regimes, 119, 147 surrender of power to, 16-17 theory of, elements of (subject, unitv, law), 43-46 theory of, instrumental in political change, 34 35 theory of, survival into bourgeois era, 35-38

181

Index
Soviet state psychiatry in, 12 race w a r interpreted as class w a r in, 82-83, 262 Spain, 2 8 5 Sparta, 1 0 6 SS, 2 5 9 Stalinism analysis of, 275 r e t r e a t of, 13 similarities to democratic society, 2 7 6 State, the actualization of, from virtual relations of power, 2 2 7 - 2 8 administration of, rationality in, 1 7 0 birth of, from w a r , 5 0 , 8 9 - 9 0 , 9 3 - 9 9 death and succession of States, 1 1 9 disciplinary p o w e r of, 2 5 0 - 5 1 knowledge of itself, 1 2 8 - 2 9 murderous and suicidal, 2 5 8 - 6 0 nations within and forming, 134, 14243, 223-24 official history of, 1 7 7 - 7 8 , 1 8 5 - 8 6 , 224 p o w e r relationships of, as w a r , 4 6 - 5 1 , 88 as protector of racial purity, 8 1 - 8 2 rise and fall of, 193 struggle to control, 2 2 5 - 2 6 , 2 3 6 unity of, 1 1 9 - 2 0 S t a t e racism, 8 1 - 8 2 , 8 9 , 2 3 9 , 2 5 4 - 6 3 , 283, 2 8 5 - 8 6 struggle. See class struggle; war subjects created from relations of subjugation, 45, 284 history w r i t t e n from the point of view of, 1 6 8 relation to the king, 217, 2 4 0 sovereignty constituted from (Hobbes), 2 8 - 2 9 , 43-46 succession, from old to new regimes, question of legitimacy, 1 1 9 , 147 Tacitus, 124 Tarault, J . E., 122 taxation, 1 4 6 , 151 Telegram 71, 2 6 0 , 2 6 4 n . 5

309

surveillance, continuous, and control of the b o d y , 3 6 , 242, 251 survival of the fittest, 8 0 , 2 5 6 swamps, draining ot, by State, 245 Syndicat de la magistrature, 3 9

theoretical systems (global, totalitarian) inhibiting effect of, 6 - 1 2 struggle against, of localized knowledge, 12 Thierry, Amedee, 6 0 Thierry, Augustin, 5 0 , 6 0 , 117, 137, 142, 2 0 7 , 2 2 6 , 233-36, 283 Thiers, A . , 8 0 , 2 2 6 Third Estate history of, 2 0 6 , 2 0 8 - 1 0 as nation, 217-22 nobility's resistance to, 143-44, 1 6 5 , 235 Third Reich, 57, 8 2 totalitarian society, similarities to democratic society, 275-77 towns freedom of, 2 0 I , 2 0 4 - 6 planned, 2 5 0 - 5 1 w a r with feudalism, 234-35 tragedy, 174-76 Shakespearean, 174 Trotsky, Leon, 2 8 2 Trotskyites, 275 Troy, myth of, 75. 115-18, 122, 163-64 truth discourses of, effect of power on, 2427 disinterested search for, by philosophers, 52-54, 283

310

Index
p e r p e t u a l , to r e v e n g e old w r o n g s , a p p e a l of to t h e m a s s e s , 5 6 - 5 7 p e r p e t u a l a n d u n e n d i n g , in h i s t o r y , 111, 172-74, 215-16 p o l i t i c s a s , 15-16, 4 7 - 4 8 , 1 6 5 , 2 5 9 , 2 8 1 p o w e r as, 15-19, 23, 4 6 - 5 1 , 8 8 , 1 6 3 - 6 5 p r i m a c y of, i n r e s p e c t to o t h e r r e l a t i o n s , 47, 5 9 - 6 0 , 1 5 5 - 5 8 , 1 6 3 - 6 5 , 215-16 p r i v a t e , a b o l i t i o n of, 4 8 - 4 9 b e t w e e n r a c e s , l 8 t h - c e n t u r y i d e a of, 239 State monopoly on, 48-49 S t a t e s formed by, 9 4 - 9 5 s t u d y of, 47, 215-16, 2 2 6

t r u t h (continued) m i s t a k e n l y a s s u m e d to be on the s i d e of p e a c e a n d o r d e r , 17} n e u t r a l , ideal of, 52-54 o n e - s i d e d , of p h i l o s o p h i c a l c o m b a t a n t s , 52-54, 57 p r o d u c t i o n of, d e m a n d e d b y p o w e r , 24-25 Tudor dynasty, 1 0 0 T u r k e y , 75 twentieth century (from the 1 9 5 0 s ) , a t t a c k s on conventional d u r i n g , 5-6 institutions

ultrareaction, 229 u n i v e r s a l , a g e n t of, in h i s t o r y , 2 3 6 - 3 7 u n i v e r s i t i e s , n o r m a l i z a t i o n of k n o w l e d g e s in, 182-84 u r b a n s o c i e t y , 2}4-}5, 2 4 5 . See alio towns

superseded by economic and political struggle, in the State, 225-26, 236 t o t a l , t h r e a t to o w n p o p u l a t i o n , 25760 v i c t o r y in, m i l i t a r y o r g a n i z a t i o n as key, 1 5 8 - 6 0 See also c i v i l w a r ; c l a s s s t r u g g l e w a r l o r d , G e r m a n i c , 1 4 8 - 5 0 , 152

V a u b a n , Sebastien le P r e s t r e d e , 1 7 0 Vietnam war, 285 v i r u s e s , a r t i f i c i a l , 254 V u i l l e m i n , J u l e s , ix

Warr, John, 107 w a r r i o r a r i s t o c r a c y , G e r m a n i c , 148 -54, 160-61 W a r s of R e l i g i o n , 3 5 , 117-21 w e a p o n s , confiscation of, from c o n q u e r e d Gauls, 1 5 0 , 1 5 8 - 5 9

war B o u l a i n v i l l i e r s ' s a n a l y s i s of, 1 5 5 - 6 5 of e v e r y m a n against e v e r y m a n (Hobbes), internal, 216 peace a s c o n t i n u a t i o n of, 1 5 - 1 6 , 5 0 - 5 1 perpetual, between groups 89-93

Weber, Max, 287 W e s t e r n s o c i e t i e s , fear of o v e r u s e of power in, 2 7 6 W i l l i a m t h e C o n q u e r o r , 72, 9 9 , 102, 103-5, 108 w o r k e r s h o u s i n g , 251

(Bougainvilliers), 162-63 p e r p e t u a l , of H o b b e s , 8 9 - 9 3 , 162 Yom Kippur War, 285