“Truth and Power” is actually an interview of French philosopher and critic Michel

Foucault. The interview was done in 1977 by Fontana and Pasquino. The interview
develops an understanding of Foucault’s methods in fourteen questions. The essay or
the interview can be seen as a subtotal of all his concepts and ideas developed later. In
the interview, while answering these fourteen questions, Foucault throws light on his
various ideas and theories such as genealogical method, notion of power, knowledge,
discourse, role and position of intellectuals and their relation with the truth and power.

First, Foucault is asked to trace the route which led him from his work on madness in
the Classical age (the late 17th and 18th century) to the study of criminality.

Foucault says that during his studies in the 1950s he encountered problems regarding
the status of science in the political field and its ideology. He wrote Madness and
Civilization as he became interested in a new set of questions arising from Lysenko’s
rejection of the accepted scientific theories of Evolution and Mendelian inheritance.
He says those questions can be summed up in two words: ‘Power’ and ‘Knowledge’.
Lysenko was the director of Soviet Union. Lysenko’s business is referring to
centralized political control exercised over genetics and agriculture.
ucault is talking about the susceptibility of science and scientific statements to
pressures of power. He tells that he was more interested in the social and economic
implications of sciences because they were related with the various economic,
political and social institutions, like psychiatry or medicine. He focused on this in his
book ‘The Birth of Clinic’, but it was not given much importance and was called
“epistemologically vulgar”. Foucault says that the target audience rejected the
question addressed in his book because the Marxist intellectuals of France were then
busy in achieving recognition from academic institutions. Later, when they became an
established institution, they themselves addressed the same question. They did not see
psychiatry and medicine as worthy of given a serious thought. He also explains that in
the domains of psychiatry and medicine, there were no readymade concepts of
vocabulary to analyze and understand their role in politics.

The second question posed to Foucault is about the discontinuity found in his
theoretical line. For this, Foucault answers that certain forms of knowledge that
involve empiricism like biology, psychiatry and medicine, do not follow a smooth or
continuous line of development. He then tries to explain that in the process of
transformation, there are not just discoveries that take place, but a whole new
discourse and forms of knowledge are formulated. The thing to be considered is not
that there is discontinuity or there are abrupt changes, but the underlying thing of
which these sudden transformations are merely a sign. Foucault calls this thing as “a
modification in the rules of formation of statements which are accepted as
scientifically true”. So it is neither a change of content, nor the change of theory. The
problem is that of the political regime of the scientific discourse. The question is not
about the external power that tries to impose itself on science. The question is about
the internal regimes of power that constitute within the science and why and how
these regimes undergo modification at a specific time. In his book, The Order of
Things he tries to describe these regimes, without claiming to explain them.

The next question posed is regarding the concept of event- the opposition between the
event and structure. Foucault says that structuralism did try to remove the idea of
event from ethnology and other sciences. But one should not merge different levels of
events. One has to differentiate between the events and the levels to which they
belong and focus on the points of their connection. He refuses the idea of analyzing in
terms of signifying structure, since one is concerned with events and events do not
have or follow any structure. He explains through the example of history. History is
coherent and intelligible. It is not absurd or meaningless. However, the intelligibility
lies not in the relations of meaning (language) but in the relations of power as
depicted in struggles, wars and strategies. Foucault refuses to recognize either
dialectic or semiotics as responsible for the intelligibility of conflicts.

The next question posed to him is on the relationship of power with discourse as the
interviewer claims that Foucault was the first person to pose such a question. Foucault
had said that one does not need any supplementary ideas or interpretation to
understand a particular text. Texts give their meaning clearly when read in a “certain
way”. But Foucault replies that he is not the first person to pose this question.
Foucault talked about power earlier also while writing Madness of Civilization and
The Birth of Clinic but didn’t often make use the word ‘power’ in his discourse.
Foucault comments that the political critics viewed power either in the form of
judiciary representing constitution, punishment, sovereignty, etc or in terms of state
apparatus. Marxists denounced power in Western Capitalism as class domination.
They viewed power in terms of economy and distribution of capital among various
classes. They never tried to analyze and study the ways in which power is exercised
and extended with all its tricks and technicalities. But power, according to Foucault, is
more complex and intricate. He says that penal institutions and psychiatric internment
are economically not so important but they are essential to the complex power
mechanism.
The NEXT question is again related to Foucault’s viewpoint on Marxism. He is asked
whether he considers Marxism and a CERTAIN kind of phenomenology an obstacle
to the formulation of this problematic.

Foucault thinks that this may be the CASE. In his early days, people were brought up
either in terms of the constituent subject or in terms of the economic and the play of
infrastructure and superstructure.

Foucault is then asked about his stand on the genealogical approach in this
methodological context. For this, Foucault gives his definition of genealogy. He
defines genealogy as category of history that gives an ACCOUNT of the constitution
of knowledge, discourse etc without referring to a subject.

The interviewer then mentions the two concepts of ideology and repression, as used
by Marx and Freud respectively. He then wishes Foucault to explain why he has
CALLED these concepts negative ‘psychological’ and ‘insufficiently analytical’.

Foucault says that his PROBLEM with the concept of ideology is that it always stands
in opposition to something which is considered as the truth. The effects of truth are
historically produced within discourse which is neither true nor false.

Next he addresses the question of repression and links it with the idea of power. He
finds the concept of repression problematic because it tends to present power in a
negative light, as some kind of brutal force or unfair machinery. It connects power
simply to the law system of a state or the judiciary which are always constraining and
hindering the freedom of individuals. But Foucault believes that power has a positive
aspect also. Also, it is not concentrated only in the hands of few. Foucault’s answer to
the next question will elaborate this point better.

The NEXT question is regarding Foucault’s notion of repression in relation to

sexuality. The interviewer says that the bourgeois society represses sexuality and
criticizes sexual desires. There was even a campaign launched against masturbation in
the 18th century. Homosexuality was denounced and there were many discourses on
sexuality in general. Sexuality indeed has been seen as a negative and abhorred
subject. But it has also been observed that the discourse of this nature on sexuality has
led to positive intervention with an appearance of repression.

Foucault agrees to this point. The bourgeois society has always repressed infantile
sexuality. It has claimed that infantile sexuality should not and does not exist. Freud
took this issue and argued that children do have sexuality. He openly talked about
infantile sexuality when it was considered a taboo. He was vigorously criticized for
this and many people STARTEDtalking and writing about it to denounce it. Almost all
books of pedagogy and child medicine of 18th century included writings on children’s
sexuality and the need for its suppression. The result was that, in the process of
repressing it, it further became prominent and a widely discussed topic. It no longer
stayed a taboo in that sense. Both adults and children became aware of it. It promoted
sexual excitement of children’s body and drew attention of parents towards their
child’s sexuality. The entire familial domain became sexualized. So in the process of
trying to make it invisible or marginalize it, they made its presence felt or visible. This
is how knowledge is produced as a result of imbalances of power. Foucault says that
such positive aspects of power should not be ignored. It is incorrect to deem power as
totally a negative thing.

The interviewer then points out that this is PERHAPS because there is a huge gap
between those who exercise power and those on whom power is exercised.

Foucault says it is linked to the institution of monarchy. The monarchy, in feudal

times, presented itself as a power capable of fighting and ending violence, wars,
pillage and all kinds of private or social struggles. It made itself sovereign by
assigning itself a juridical and negative function. Foucault says that we need a new
political philosophy which does not make a single INDIVIDUAL as the centre of
power. The belief that there is someone at the centre of power needs to be destroyed.
Power is not possessed or constrained. It is not episodic or centric. It is not
concentrated in the hands of few. It is diffused in the hands of everyone and it is
everywhere. Therefore, “we need to cut off the king’s head”. “King” here refers to the
centre of power or a single entity possessing power.

The NEXT QUESTION is about the IDEA of discipline- the system developed in the
17th century, first to conduct surveillance and control and later turned into
punishment, education etc.

Foucault says that if we associate power solely with the State apparatus, we tend to
view it as repressive. He makes it clear that he does not CONSIDER State as
insignificant in the exercise of power. But he believes that the analysis of power
exceeds the limits of the state. State is not capable of exercising power everywhere
and capturing the entire field of power relations, no matter how powerful its
machinery is. Even when the State functions, it exercises its power after inheriting it
from the already existing power relations. Thus Foucault sees power in a system of
relations. He insists at studying power in terms of the relations between different
groups, sections and individuals. Foucault finds power in a system of relationships
between everyday simple things and human beings.

The next question is regarding Foucault’s theory which he gave ONCE that the
politics is the extension of war. He differs with the Clausewitz’s formula that war is an
extension politics. The interviewer asks whether the model of military is most suitable
to describe power.

Foucault says that power has been conventionally and theoretically confined to the
law. As soon as one frees it from the constraints of law, one is compelled to wonder
whether power is simply a FORM of warlike domination. He asks whether power is a
sort of generalized war. If it is, then one may say that this war sometimes assumes the
form of peace and so it would not be wrong to think that peace is also a form of war
and the state a means of it. Foucault says that such a theory raises further questions
such as, who begins a war; Who fights against whom; What is the mode of
transformation of power relations; and so on. All these questions need exploration.

The last question is concerned with the role of the intellectual and the position of the
intellectual in the world.

Foucault says that for a long period, the intellectual was deemed as one who
possessed all the consciousness. He was seen as the representative of the universal
consciousness. But the idea of an intellectual has undergone a change now. The
intellectual is no more seen as someone in possession of universal consciousness
because his role is now limited to specific sectors and fields. He has specific functions
to perform and real issues to deal with. His opponents are now police or the
multinational companies. This has allowed the intellectuals to focus on the immediate
struggles in the society, which are specific and not universal. They have, in this
process, come closer to the Proletariat or the masses. Foucault calls them specific
intellectuals as opposed to the universal intellectuals.

Foucault says that this change in the nature of intellectuals has political significance
too. Foucault believes that every individual’s activity is a basis for politicization. Now
magistrates, doctors, SOCIAL WORKERS etc not only work within their own fields
but also participate in a global process of politicization of intellectuals through mutual
exchange and support. Foucault dates the birth of the idea of specific intellectual back
to the period after the Second World War. The atomic scientist needed knowledge and
means for his nuclear inventions. But the kind of knowledge he looked for also
became the concern of the entire world due to the danger present in his project. This
way, his discourse also became the discourse of the universal. At this level, the
scientist- intellectual appeared a political threat. This was a point of transition
between the two kinds of intellectuals. Foucault also gives credit to biology and
physics for the formation of specific intellectual. He came to be seen as someone
possessing the power of both making and destroying lives. Foucault believes that it is
important to reconsider and redefine the function and role of the specific intellectual
with respect to political responsibilities. He says that the political problems of
intellectuals should be analyzed in terms of ‘truth’ and ‘power’ and not in terms of
science and ideology.

Foucault then talks about his idea of ‘truth’, cautioning that his statements are
hypothesis subject to further investigation. Foucault does not view truth as an outside
power. Truth, like knowledge, is not an abstract entity. He says that it lies within the
world and every society has its own regime of truth. Regime of truth means the
discourse or ideas that a society presents as the truth. Truth is produced under a
controlled environment by social, political and economic forces such as a political
party, army, university, media etc. It depends both on the scientific discourse as well
as on the institution which seeks to produce and promote it. Certain ideas and
statements are inculcated in society as truth and that which remains is branded as false
or a lie. For EXAMPLE, Patriarchy as an institution presents homosexuality as an
unnatural thing, a lie. Truth is inculcated in society through books, curriculum etc. A
certain code is prescribed for the society on the basis of this preached truth. But the
truth is that nothing is essentially truth and nothing is essentially false. Foucault,
clearly, means to say that in the process of establishing facts and truths, a process of
inclusion and exclusion has happened of which we are not aware of.

NIMISHA