What is the concept of liberalism?

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law. Liberalism started to spread rapidly especially after the French Revolution.

What was Foucault’s politics?

Foucault advocated resistance to the political status quo and the power of established institutions. But he was skeptical of any attempt to argue that one political regime or set of practices is morally superior to another.

What did Foucault believe?

Foucault was interested in power and social change. In particular, he studied how these played out as France shifted from a monarchy to democracy via the French revolution. He believed that we have tended to oversimplify this transition by viewing it as an ongoing and inevitable attainment of “freedom” and “reason”.

What does Foucault mean by power is everywhere?

Foucault challenges the idea that power is wielded by people or groups by way of ‘episodic’ or ‘sovereign’ acts of domination or coercion, seeing it instead as dispersed and pervasive. ‘Power is everywhere’ and ‘comes from everywhere’ so in this sense is neither an agency nor a structure (Foucault 1998: 63).

Is Foucault post-structuralist?

Writers whose works are often characterised as post-structuralist include: Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler, Jean Baudrillard and Julia Kristeva, although many theorists who have been called “post-structuralist” have rejected the label.

What are the examples of post-structuralism?

In the post-structuralist world, theory necessarily has an effect, a complex, ripple-like effect on EVERYTHING. The movie, Memento, is an interesting example of cinematic post-structuralism.

How does Michel Foucault relate to political liberalism?

Yet the latter does not interest Foucault, who concentrates exclusively and sometimes almost obsessively on governmental self-limitation alone. In political liberalism, power finds the principles of limitation only outside of itself.

Who are the critics of Michel Foucault?

Critics dispute not so much the novelty of his views as their coherence. Some critics see Foucault as effectively belonging to the political right because of his rejection of traditional left-liberal conceptions of freedom and justice. Some of his defenders, by contrast, argue for compatibility between Foucault and liberalism.

How does Michel Foucault’s theory relate to society?

Foucault’s theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions.

What did Michel Foucault say about disciplinary power?

Foucault says that disciplinary power is primarily not an oppressing form of power, but rather so a productive form of power. Disciplinary power doesn’t oppress interests or desires, but instead subjects bodies to reconstructed patterns of behavior to reconstruct their thoughts, desires and interests.