Sunday, March 15, 2009

Foucault on the Human Rights Campaign

This essay will explore Foucault's theory of power and its application to the Human Rights Campaign.
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3 comments:

  1. Anthony PhanMarch 15, 2009 at 5:17 PM

    Foucault theorizes that power is exercised upon society through discipline and punishment and the form of power has changed from sovereign to disciplinary.

    Sovereign power is characterized through public punishment of the criminal’s body when they have transgressed a law (9). By having the audiences see an executioner doing damage to the body, the State attempts to use that experience to instill fear and to deter people from committing crimes. The act of punishment as a spectacle becomes a vehicle to remind people of the State’s power (9). However, Foucault argues that the use of public punishment actually causes the audience to identify with the criminal. Rather than being fearful of the State, the public will become infuriated and will rebel against them. As a result, discipline and punishment becomes more privatized and disciplinary power takes the place of sovereign power (14).

    In contrast to the passionate and public punishment in Sovereign power, Disciplinary power is exercised upon society in a more insidious and private way. The goal of punishment is no longer to instill fear to the masses, but to correct and cure individuals that stray from a societal norm that is produced through what Foucault calls the micro-physics of power – a diffused power created through the intersections of the State, the institutions, and the individuals in society which reproduce a certain kind of normalized knowledge and discourse based around the human sciences (10, 26). Because power exists in various intersecting spheres in society, the ones who carry out power are also vast and varied. They are the scientists, technicians, and other occupations that exercise scientific knowledge, and in its very process, normalize it (11). Furthermore, because punishment is based on deviation from the norm, the target of punishment has changed from the body to the soul (16). It is only through targeting the soul (and not the body) that disciplinary power can use corrective and curative measures to “normalize” individuals back into society.

    Historically, many Queer-rights organizations were created because of the aftermath of the Stonewall riot in 1969. Just as Foucault theorizes, police intervention with physical bodily harm incited many Queer identified people to revolt against them. It is because of the historic oppression and violence against Queer people that ignited many of them to form groups and organization, including the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).

    Just as the HRC was a product of sovereign power, it is also a product of disciplinary power. It would not exist if society did not have a “micro-physics of power” that worked in a way that vigorously propelled and defended hetero-normativity. For instance, only one State currently recognizes same-sex marriage in its constitution, and marriage equality law amendments repeatedly fail in many state elections. The Christian fellowship continuously advertises media that centralize the family as a key American value and symbol and positions the Queer identity to be its antithesis. Therefore, to be Queer is to be not heterosexual and not within the value of the family, marking those individuals as deviations from the norm.

    Interestingly enough, just as Foucault argues that changes to normativity require changes within the micro-physics of power, the HRC is trying to change the knowledge in the various spheres in society in a way that “normalizes” the Queer identity. During the Proposition 8 campaign in California, the HRC pushed its own team of scientists and “technicians” to challenge the “knowledge” that Queerness was anti-family and tried to re-affirm itself through other societally important values such as freedom (of choice). However, the HRC does not seek to just pose rebuttal arguments to the existing norm; it also wants to make society aware that heterosexuality is also just as much socially constructed and validated as much as Queerness has been constructed and de-validated. The HRC aims to one day be able help produce a knowledge and discourse that would normalize the spectrum of sexuality so that it would no longer need to exist since the knowledge and discourse for its existence would no longer be relevant.

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  2. pwinickiMarch 15, 2009 at 6:57 PM

    Hey Anthony, I think you picked a very interesting example. I wonder if it is possible to elaborate alternative form of knowledge that challenges what has been establish as the norm without creating a new micro-physics of power?

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  3. wafa hazemMarch 15, 2009 at 8:45 PM

    Anthony:

    you did a good job applying Foucault's forms of power to the Human's rights campaign. I liked how you applied Foucault's concept of normalization to the HRC, because I think it plays a huge role. As you have mentioned that the HRC is trying to produce knowledge in society to normalize the queer identity... You Also mentioned the example of prop 8, which I think plays a role in normalization, because through the knowledge which was produced by the HRC, it worked on familiarizing heterosexuality, not as a "rebuttal argument to the existing norm" but just as an awareness of its existence.

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