Professional Documents
Culture Documents
FOUCAULT
"Society Must Be
Defended"
L E C T U R E S AT T H E C O L L E G E
DE
FRANCE,
1975-76
TRANSLATED
BY D A V I D
PICADOR
NEW
YORK
MACEY
Picador
www.picadorusa.com
ISBN 0 - 3 1 2 - 2 0 3 1 8 - 7
First Edition: J a n u a r y 2 0 0 3
10
CONTENTS
Introduction:
one
Fontana
A r n o l d I. D a v i d s o n
7 JANUARY
1976
- Historical
two
knowledge
Clausewit^s
inverted.
14 J A N U A R Y
1976
and subjugation.
- Analytics of
Disciplinary
three
21 J A N U A R Y
1976
- War as
perpetual
VI
four
Contents
65
28JANUARY 1976
Historical discourse and its supporters. - The counterhistory of race
struggle.
five
Revolutionary
transformation.
87
4 FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6
Answer to a question on anti-Semitism.
sovereignty.
parliamentarians,
six
11 F E B R U A R Y
115
1976
seven
141
1 8 FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6
Nation and nations. - The Roman conquest. - Grandeur and
decadence of the Romans. - Boulainvilliers
on the freedom
three
eight
of the
- Church,
- Remarks on war.
167
2 5 FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6
Boulainvilliers
hislorico-political
Enlightenment
science. - Disciplining
knowledges.
Contents
nine
vii
3 M A R C H 1976
Tactical generalisation
Revolution,
189
of historical knowledge. -
Constitution,
ten
10
MARCH
- Reactivation
and the
of historical discourse
1976
215
e l e v e n 17 M A R C H 1 9 7 6
From the power of sovereignty
2?9
to power over life. - Make live and
- Of
- Articulations of
Course Summary
265
and
Mauro Bertani
273
Index
295
FOREWORD
1970.
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
or listeners.
Observateur,
Foreword
XI
Observatetir
Foreword
Xll
who
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 La
grange. 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
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
opportunity
Forewo
XIV
rd
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
first
XV)
Introduction;
Arnold
I.
Davidson
finally,
But,
absolutely, l i k e w h e n I took e x a m s ,
Ana
Introduction:
Arnold
I.
Davidson
xvn
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 . "
In
1 0
M a n y of F o u c a u l t ' s w r i t i n g s ,
Introduction:
XVI1]
Arnold
I.
Davidson
"Society
Must Be Defended"
12
these
unbalanced,
heterogeneous,
unstable, tense
force-
relations. '
As
Introduction:
Arnold
1.
Davidson
xix
savoir.
15
Arrange
analystes
Introduction:
XX
Arnold
I.
Davidson
functioning."
17
18
Must Be Defended,"
of confrontation,
"a
20
reproduce
t h e m ) , w o r d s t h a t the
21
22
In La Volonte
de
savoir,
25
In
Introduction:
Arnold
I.
Davidson
xxi
Must Be
Defended"
25
On the
in
modern
26
Introduction:
XXI!
"Society
Must
Be
Defended"
Arnold
I.
Davidson
participates
fully
in
this
histonco-
Introduction:
Arnold
I.
Davidson
xxi n
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 Phi
losophy 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 .
"Society
Must Be
Defended"
one
7 JANUARY 1 9 7 6
What is a lecture?
knowledge
discourse.
- Subjugated
of struggles,
knowledges.
genealogies,
- Historical
and scientific
and economic
power
conceptions
of power.
as war. - Clausewit^s
- Power as repression
aphorism
inverted.
J
S
Juridical
and
:[
>
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
7 January
79 7 6
afterwardsometimes
the
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
7 January
1976
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
2
more
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
the
7 January
J 9 76
knowl
to
functional
as
different.
nonconceptual
the
SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
and
the
disqualified k n o w l e d g e
people
have
contained
the
7 January
1976
the
10
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
something
7 January
J976
11
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
12
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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 iden
tify 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
power-
and
7 January
1976
13
question
is
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
always
7 January
1976
15
16
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED
7 January
/976
17
Power-
and
the
war-repression
or
domination-repression
that
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
18
SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
at least
10
7 January
7976
19
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.
20
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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 trans
lation 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 trans
lation: 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 (Co
penhagen, 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 [Min
neapolis: 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
7 January
1976
21
transversalite,
Essai d'analyse institutionnelle (Pans: Maspero, 1972). Its logic is that of "be
coming" 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
- Philosophy
subjugation.
i t ...
- Analytics
of sovereignty.
of power:
- Disciplinary
questions
power.
- Law
%
f
and
of method.
- Theory
\
I
24
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
14 January
1 976
25
After
26
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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
1976
27
is self-evidentbut also
precautions. Our
object
is not to a n a l y z e r u l e -
28
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
D E f E N D t D "
U l t i m a t e l y , I t h i n k that all
J 4 January
197 6
29
In this schema,
i s sovereignty, w h i c h
first
JO
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
level of methodological
precautions:
or
and,
14 January
1976
31
fully
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
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
14 January
1976
other
economico-
into
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
74 January
1976
15
aires?
the
36
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
appropriation
and
14 January
7 9 76
37
38
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
14 January
1970
39
of m e d i c i n e that w e a r e seeingI
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
40
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
14 January
7976
41
three
21 J A N U A R Y 1 9 7 6
Theory
of sovereignty
analyzer
|
society.
and operators
of power
relations.
- Historico-political
of domination.
- The binary
discourse,
- War as
structure
the discourse
of
J.
of perpetual
is..
struggle
and its
- The discourse
of race
transcriptions.
44
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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
SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
in the
through
21 January
7976
49
the
first
historico-political discourse
first,
on
En
"SOCIETY
50
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
or J o h n
And,
The same d i s
Au
y o u w i l l find it in the
fingers,
matter
what
21 January
1976
51
great
has been a r t i c u l a t e d w i t h a
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
some
52
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
who
21 January
19 76
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, ulti
mately, 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 rela
tionship of force. The fact that the truth is essentially part of a re
lationship of force, of dissymmetry, decentering, combat, and war, is
inscribed in this type of discourse. Ever since Greek
philosophy,
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 be
tween 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
54
"SOCIETY MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
the
permanent
21 January
1976
55
permanent
56
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED
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 cun
ning invaders, the theme of the w a r that is still going on in secret, of
21 January
1976
57
II
philosophico-
first
e x c l u s i v e l y historico-
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
"SOCIETY
58
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
forward
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 be
t 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 con
s 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
of fact, a
21 J anuary
a histonco-pohtical
often
1976
59
petit
60
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
Darwin
struggle
based
2 1 January
1976
61
against all the biological t h r e a t s posed b y the other race, the subrace,
62
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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 Decou
verte, 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
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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 transla
tion: 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: Har
vester Wheatsheaf, 1991 ]); "Omnes et Singulatim: Towards a Critique of Political Rea
son" (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
Historical
discourse
JANUARY 1976
race struggle.
history.
~ Revolutionary
racism.
- Race purity
- Roman history
discourse.
- The counterhistory
and
of
biblical
of
transformation.
^
'\
- -i
something
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
MUST
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: Har
vester Wheatsheaf, 1991 ]); "Omnes et Singulatim: Towards a Critique of Political Rea
son" ( 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
Historical
discourse
JANUARY 1976
race struggle.
history.
- Revolutionary
racism.
- Race purity
- The counterhistory
- Roman
history
discourse.
of
and biblical
w
of
-'i
\
.*
transformation.
something
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
66
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
28 January
1976
67
nature
finally,
also
narrated.
68
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
correspond
power
god
of
the
first
function
and
the
first
order
in
the
28 January
1976
69
in this n e w t y p e of d i s
70
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
probably
perpetuated
28 January
prudence
1976
71
of a long-established p o w e r , as to a sort of
prophetic
72
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
28 January
7 9 76
the
inscribed w i t h i n the
Indo-
figureswith
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
"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
28 January
that
flowed
1976
75
fifteenth
con
the
great, d a z z l i n g
Middle
76
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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, prac
tice, 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 to
gether 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
seventeenth-
28 January
1976
77
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 al
though the term " r a c e " appears at a very early stage, it is quite ob
v 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 differ
ences, 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
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removed a lot of obstacles, and that the fertile moments in the con
stitution 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 begin
ning of the eighteenth, the French nobility began to write its gene
alogy 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
28 January
(976
79
strand
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 prac
tices, 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
8o
SOCIETY
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understanding
28
January
1976
81
into
revolutionary
discourse,
racism
was
revolutionary
now
the
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"SOCIETY
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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 strat
egies 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,
28 January
1976
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"SOCIETY
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28 January
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85
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
sovereignty.
royalists,
- The discourse
parliamentarians,
and political
OVER
on anti-Semitism.
historicism.
- Hobbes
on the Conquest
and Leveller?.
- What Hobbes
on war and
in England:
- The binary
wanted
to
*
^
schema
eliminate.
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
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for
of the w a r b e t w e e n races
4 February
19 76
89
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
behind
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4 February
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91
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
who
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93
"SOCIETY
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representation.
by
acquisition,
it
seems
that
we
are
dealing
with
4 February
7 9 76
95
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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and w i t h o u t
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 de
pends 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 com
m o n w e a l t h ( a commonwealth of institution born of mutual a g r e e
ment, and a commonwealth
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 sover
eignty. 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
4 February
7 9 76
97
whether
problem
in Hobbes's
discourse, w h i c h
Hobbes
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which
4 February
7976
99
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 ser
v 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
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
100
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also
4 February
7976
101
specific measures to e x p e l
foreigners
15
England,
jundico-pohtical
discussions of
the
"SOCIETY
102
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
16
and, of
pro regibus.
W h a t he says i s very cu
4 February
W7b
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
not
104
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anti-Noimannicum,
w h i c h is represen
4 February
1976
105
Oath."
2u
conqueror
Churchillthe
the
Normans,
"common
"SOCIETY
106
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
discovereda
23
of Justice,
and
25
20
4 February
1976
107
Deficiency
11
Corruption
The l a w s are t r a p s : t h e y do
28
T h e entire legal a p
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
108
''SOCIETY
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and
Lords of their
fellow Robbers, R o g u e s a n d
rela
4 February
1976
109
ob
power,
unending
between
perceptions
no
"SOCIETY
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DEFENDED"
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 his
tory. 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
are a d d r e s s e d to the op
4 February
I 976
111
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
encountered
philosophico-jundical
two
obstacles. In
discourse
was
the
the
seventeenth
obstacle
that
century,
tried
to
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
112
SOCIETY
Ml,'ST
BE
DEFENDED"
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 Uni
versity 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 ( 1115 ) 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. 2H5. 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
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 10 themselves; lor thev were
114
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
invented and established by the Normans, which were oi all nations the most quarrel
some 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
Stories
heredity.
FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6
about origins.
- "Franco-Gallia."
- Invasion,
- Boulainvilliers's
intendant,
"Etatde
history,
- The knowledge
la France."
of the aristocracy.
- History
- France's
and public
of the
\
<
~ A new subject
and constitution.
"
114
''SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
invented and established by the Normans, which were ot all nations the most quarrel
some 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
Stories
heredity.
right.
prince.
about origins.
- "Franco-Gallia."
- Invasion,
- National dualism.
- Boulainvilliers's
intendant,
&
FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6
of history.
history,
- The know/edge
"Etat de la France."
of the aristocracy.
- History
- France's
'I
and public
'
of the
and constitution.
subject
*
116
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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 con
trary, 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 ) van
ished, 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 through
out 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
7 7 February
1976
117
nonsubordi-
118
"SOCIETY
you
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
permanent
to, or the
importance:
11 February
7 9 76
119
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,"
or in
idea t h a t there
w a s a dualityof race, o r i g i n s , or
of conscience w a s
120
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
1 0
a political regime:
/ 7 February
7976
121
unity, Franco-Gaulish or
Franco-
122
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
I I February
19 76
123
Normans."
1(i>
the
*The manuscr.pt has -fifth and s.xth centuries," wh>ch corresponds to the actual date of the
conquest.
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
1 8
nationum
77 February
7976
125
fieldand
"history
to
126
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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 homoge
neity 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 re
flection or expression of either the civil or social wars, the religious
11 February
1976
127
maque,
not t a l k i n g about
Tele-
128
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
21
22
/ J February
unrestricted
(976
129
not
favor
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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
the
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 dispos
sessed 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
therefore
power
11 February
1976
131
in w h i c h the k i n g finds
of a whole series of i n i q u i t i e s ,
132
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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
not share
7 7 February
1976
133
bureau,
SOCIETY
134
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
11 February
1976
135
founded
Its
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 )
136
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
instruments
in the
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
important
11 February
1976
and
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
27
28
A t the time
138
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
1 1 February
1976
139
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.
''SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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/Am
sterdam, 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 Re
volution 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
Nation
and nations.
FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6
decadence
of the Romans.
- Boulainvilliers
Germans.
- The Soissons
vase. - Origins
- Grandeur
on the Jreedom
offeudalism.
of State. - Boulainvilliers:
of forces.
and
of the
Church,
three
Protestant
140
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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/Am
sterdam, 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 Re
volution 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
Nation
and nations.
FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6
decadence
of the Romans.
- Boulainvilliers
Germans.
- The Soissons
vase. - Origins
institutions
- Grandeur
on the freedom
offeudalism.
of State. - Boulainvilliers:
and
of the
Church,
three
of forces.
- Remarks on war.
Protestant
"SOCIETY
142
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
w h a t I w o u l d call a
through
nineteenth
Thierry,* Guizot,
centuryin,
s
a n d others.
for
instance,
the
work
of
Augustin
18 February
7976
had,
brought
the
" S O C I E T Y
M U S T
B E
D E F E N D E D "
forgotten
1 8 February
1976
145
Gaulish
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"
refutation
in
or
*"that was the military armature of Gaul" does not figure m the manuscript, which reads,
"a country ruined by absolutism."
18 February
1976
( l e g i t i m a t e or
10
a n d to w h i c h
I'm
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
or people who
they elect a
18 February
197b
12
unfavorable
Here w e h a v e
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
150
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
therefore
18 February
1976
151
of
what
Boulainvilliers dreamed
up:
feudalism
as
the
power.
152
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
of his
18 February
1976
153
transformed
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
the
(and
popular
historiographers)
of
parlementaire
seventeenth-
18 February
1976
155
phenomenon
1 5
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
of
that
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
18 February
1976
157
combination
158
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
something
weapons
18 February
1976
159
Frankish
160
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
18 February
1976
161
education,
the
162
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
andI
18 February
1976
163
*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
'SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
18 February
1976
165
the
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
166
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
eight
25
Boulainvilliers
continuum.
central
- Historicism.
administration
Enlightenment
- Philosophy
of a
- Tragedy
of history.
operations
effects.
FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6
of disciplinary
and science.
historico-political
and public
right.
- The problematic
of knowledges.
knowledge
and
- Disciplining
- The
of the
- The four
their
knowledges.
166
SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
eight
25
Boulainvilliers
continuum.
central
~ Historicism.
administration
Enlightenment
- Tragedy
of history.
operations
effects.
FEBRUARY 1 9 7 6
~ Philosophy
of disciplinary
and science.
of a
historico-politkal
and public
right. - The
~ The problematic
of knowledges.
knowledge
and
- Disciplining
of the
- The
four
their
knowledges.
168
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
of p o w e r not in
2 5 February
1976
169
only in p r e s c r i p t i v e strategic
B u t for M a c h i a v e l h , h i s t o r y is not
con
170
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
urban
25 February
t o r y t h a t establishes t h e
histonco-pohtical
1976
continuum.
171
And
that
of history, r e c o u n t i n g a history, is
current
172
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED
2 5 February
1976
173
the w a r it is w a g i n g or that is b e i n g
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
17-1
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
on the w o u n d , on 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.
2 5 February
1976
175
176
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
25 February
1976
177
a s well as the
178
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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 histori
o 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
firstbefore
it does
2 5 February
1976
179
differencesdiffer
technological k n o w l e d g e
functioned
180
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
that
subordinated
Encyclopedic
25 February
1976
181
it is at once political a n d
could
10
The e i g h
182
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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 sin
g 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. Philoso
phy no longer has any real role to play w i t h i n science and the pro
cesses 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
for
of
project
of p o l y m o r p h o u s
and heterogeneous
knowledgeswe
2 5 February
7976
183
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 con
trols, 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
184
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
fitted
11
taken
2 5 February
1976
185
form
became an instrument
the
186
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
25 February
7976
187
nine
Tactical generalisation
Revolution,
barbarian.
historical
field
MARCH
1976
of historical
knowledge.
and cyclical
- Three ways
discourse.
discourse
barbarism:
of method:
the
of the bourgeoisie.
- The savage
of filtering
- Questions
historical
history.
Constitution,
and the
tactics of
epistemological
- Reactivation
- Feudalism
of
and the
novel.
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
190
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
3 March
1976
191
confron
ethical
and
192
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
in
i n e q u a l i t y . When
eighteenth-
3 March
1976
193
literature,
parlementaires,
which
had
essentially been
written
by
the
194
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
point
3 March
1976
195
the
u n l i k e the
savage, the b a r b a r i a n
is not
a vector
for
196
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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-
and
3 March
acceptable.'
1976
197
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."
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
defineboth
t e n d e n c i e s w i t h i n the
198
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
Revolution
found
3 March
1976
199
Westerners.
that
200
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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
ap-
i March
1976
201
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 . "
D u b o s rediscovers e l e m e n t s
he
feudal lords.
In the discourse of Dubos, M o r e a u , and all the monarchist histo
r 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
202
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
from
freedom,
to
the b a r b a r i a n s and
10
and
17
3 March
T976
203
204
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
19
18
Chap-
there
3 March
1976
205
in the
fifteenth
and s i x t e e n t h
centuries.
So you see, this time we have a thesis w h i c h , much more
than
206
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED
3 March
1976
207
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 net
w 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
"SOCIETY
208
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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 pos
sible 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 reg
u 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 em
phasized that the different discursive tactics are distributed across a
historico-political field that is coherent,
woven.
21
5 March
(976
209
histoncism
210
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
references that had been made to the capitulars, to the Edict of Piste,
22
freedoms
who
de Mars. Charlemagne as
3 March
1976
211
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.
23
24
25
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?"
26
And in either 1 7 9 5 or 1 7 9 6 1
27
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
"SOCIETY
212
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DEFENDED"
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 sov
ereigns, pitiless and bloodthirsty seigneurs, arrogant priests, and so
on. The gothic novel is both science fiction a n d politics fiction: politics
fiction
first
finally
3 March
1976
21}
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"
ten
10
it
The political
Revolution:
f
I
historical
reworking
Sieyes.
discourse.
domination
MARCH
1976
- Theoretical
implications
and totalization.
Thierry.
grids of
- Montlosier
- Birth of the
and effects on
and
intelligibility:
Augustin
dialectic.
e l i m i n a t e d from
the
discourse of
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
de la monarchic franqaise
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 inhab
itants 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
The political
Revolution:
historical
!
^
reworking
Sieyes.
discourse.
domination
MARCH
- Theoretical
implications
and totalisation.
Thierry.
1976
- Montlosier
- Birth of the
and effects on
grids of
and
intelligibility:
Augustin
dialectic.
the discourse of
216
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
w a s something
like
an internal
dialecticalization, a self-
70
March
7976
217
order."
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."
218
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
domination
between
those
we can s p e a k of a
TO March
J9V6
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 precondi
tions. 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 ,
5
and
220
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
for
been
possible
for
a group
of i n d i v i d u a l s to
have
the
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
10 March
1976
221
nationhood:
222
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
exhausted
it
in its singularity. A n d
now,
will no longer be
7 0 March
7976
22}
power.
Not
domination,
but
State
control.
The
nation
is
"SOCIETY
224
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
the
1 0 March
7976
225
"SOCIETY
226
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
TO March
7976
227
moment
of
force.
For
eighteenth-century
history,
the
present
was
228
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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 totaliza
tiona 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 aris
tocratic history w h i c h is, up
to a point,
a direct descendant of
10
March
1976
229
famous
without
10
"SOCIETY
230
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
12
10 March
1976
251
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
5
strength
thanks
to
a circular
process,
every royal
act
of
rebellions.
rebellion w o r k e d h a n d in glove. A n d
the
232
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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 no
b 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' legit
imate 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
TO March
J976
233
model.
the
than
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
thirteen hundred years, and that it was a struggle between the victors
and the vanquished.'
7 0 March
7976
235
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 organi
zation came into being. And the reason urban society eventually tri
umphed 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 admin
istrative 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 reac
tivated 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-
236
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
ance of the three-order system, and the violent shocks of the Revo
lution, 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 automat
ically 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
dualities, nations, and even classes cease to exist. "An immense evo
lution," said Thierrv, " w h i c h causes all violent or i l l e g i t i m a t e in
e 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 0 March
7976
237
238
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
eleven
17
MARCH 1 9 7 6
of sovereignty
to power
- Biopower's
fields
of application.
- Population.
of discipline
and regulation:
norm. - Biopower
domains.
workers'
and racism.
housing,
- Nazism. -
- Of
Articulations
sexuality,
- Racism: functions
live
the birth of
and the
and
Socialism.
*In the manuscript, the sentence continues: "at the time of the Revolution."
238
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
eleven
17
MARCH
of sovereignty
1976
to power
- Biopower's
of discipline
domains.
of application.
of Franco
and regulation:
norm. - Biopower
*
fields
workers'
and racism.
Articulations
housing,
sexuality,
- Racism:
functions
~ Nazism. -
- Of
- Population.
in particular.
live
the birth of
and the
and
Socialism.
*In the manuscript, the sentence continues: "at the time of the Revolution."
2^0
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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 relation
ship 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
17 March
1976
2V
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-
242
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
7 7 March
1976
243
w i t h a w h o l e series of r e l a t e d economic a n d
"SOCIETY
244
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
deaths, but as
permanent
the
and
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 nor
m 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 re
production, 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
77 March
7976
245
first
246
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
finally,
pointthis
17 March
1976
247
contrast,
w h o l e of society took
parthas
become, in
contrast,
w a s the moment
another.
one
of the
248
SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
17 March
1976
249
explosion and i n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n . So
250
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
17 March
1976
251
nineteenth
pensions;
rules
on
hygiene
that
guarantee
the
optimal
procreation;
nineteenth
point
252
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
17 March
1976
25}
one w i s h e s to
r e g u l a r i z e . The
normalizing society is
254
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
17 March
biological c o n t i n u u m
of the h u m a n
1976
255
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 infe
rior: 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 do
main. 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 re
lationship 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
t h a n i n d i v i d u a l c a n live, the
256
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
1 7 March
1976
257
I confrontation,
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
258
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
death-function
toward
of life and
death
functions
i m p l i e s the
17 March
1976
259
the
the
260
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
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
17 March
1976
261
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
or the anarchists at the end of it, you will a l w a y s find a racist com
ponent 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
262
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
7 7 March
1976
263
264
"SOCIETY
MUST
BE
DEFENDED"
5- As early as 19 March, Hitler had drawn up plans to destroy Germany's logistic infra
structure 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 [Lon
don: 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
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 .
266
Course
Summary
Course
Summary
267
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, insti
tutions, 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?
268
Course
Summary
that
Course
Summary
269
government,
past of real
struggles, concealed defeats and victories, and the blood that has d r i e d
Course
270
Summary
This year's course was devoted to the emergence of this form of anal
ysis: how has war ( a n d its different aspects: invasions, battles, con
quests,
relations
between
victors
and
vanquished,
pillage and
Course
Summary
271
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 nine
teenth century: one will be articulated with the class struggle, and
the other with a biological confrontation.
THESE
LECTURES
WERE
DELIVERED
between
7 January
and
17
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 nine
teenth century: one will be articulated with the class struggle, and
the other with a biological confrontation.
THESE
LECTURES
WERE
DELIVERED
between
7 January
and
17
Situating
274
the
Lectures
Sexuality
Situating
the
Lectures
275
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 prob
lematic 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 sub
jugation 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 totali
tarian societv and a democratic society? What are the similarities and
differences between their political rationalities, and the use they make
276
Situating
the
Lectures
A transfer and
Situating
the
Lectures
277
278
Situating
the Lectures
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 sexu
ality was simply denied, repressed, or suppressed; on the contrary,
according to Foucault, it gave rise to a whole proliferation of emi
nently 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 bod
ily disciplines and that of the government of the populationare thus
Situating
the
Lectures
279
Foucault writes:
10
280
Situating
the
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 every
where. . . . 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 anal
yses 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: His
tory 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
Situating
ike
28)
Lectures
Situating
282
the
Lectures
21
Guevara,
Luxemburg,
and
C l a u s e w i t z in 1 9 6 7
and
22
In a l e t t e r
23
A n d in
how
(July-December
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 tech
n 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 ?
form
2 6
27
English
Situating
the
Lectures
283
des Historismus.
T h i s i s a discourse of
Must Be
Defended."
29
28-1
Situating
the
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
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,
Situating
the
Lectures
285
Situating
286
the Lectures
Must Be Defended"
Situating
"Society
Must Be Defended."
the
Lectures
287
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
7
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
8
of Knowledge,
he said:
" I do not have a methodology that I apply in the same way to different
288
Situating
the
Lectures
5 9
Situating
the
Lectures
289
The "Trojan
Myth"
T. S i m a r , Etude critique
of Races
sur laJortnation
de la doctrine
des races ( B r u s s e l s :
History;
Historical
1 9 4 0 - 1 9 4 5 ; G. H u p p e r t ,
Erudition
1 9 6 8 ) a n d Le Mythe
et Gaulois
fran^ais
( Paris: C a l m a n n - L e v y ,
au XVIe siecle.
Le Deve/oppement
de I'Ancien Regime,
d'un mythe
Les Prejuges
1560-1720
Philosophy
and Historical
toire de I'anti-semitisme,
Celtes
de synthese,
de race che^
( Brussels: Editions
dc race en France
thesis defended
litteraire
au XVIe
in J u n e 1975 at the
Situating
290
the Lectures
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
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
desJrdnkischen
Trojanersagen
Tro-
Darstellung
Diggers
ed. C.
Origins
Renaissance
(London
[Paris: Boivin,
1989]).
On
Boulainvilliers
astrologue
Dispute between
Historiography,
L Carcassonne, Montesquieu
XVllle
"Romanists"
and
et le probleme
and
"Gcimanists"
"Constitution"
de la constutition franqaise au
Situating
the
Lectures
291
L. Althusser, Montesquieu:
[London:
and
Monarchy
of the Historical
Thought of Augustin
Writings
romantiquefrancaise
(18T>-1830)
Uses of History
(Editions de Moscou,
in the French
Restoration
History
in the Evolution
of Historical
Method
Social
(Geneva:
Droz, 1972).
"Anti-Semitism"
Century
Editions
I'antisemitisme,
de
Minuit,
1962);
L.
Poliakov,
judaismefrancais
Histoire
de
^ur Judenfrage
Zosa Szajikowski, Jews and the French Revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848
(New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1970, reprinted 1972).
Clausewit^was
292
Situating
the
Lectures
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 fou
cault, 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
INDEX
administrative knowledge, 1 3 0 - 3 3
Athens, 1 0 6
A d o r n o , T. W . , 2 8 7
atom b o m b , 253
Africa, modern, 2 8 5
Alexander the G r e a t , 57
Augustus, 175
Algerian w a r , 275
Allende, Salvador, 2 8 5
autodialecticalization, of historico-
amateur scholarship, 1 8 3
anarchism, 5, 2 6 2
anatamo-pohtics, 2 4 0
annals a n d chronicles, 6 7
B a b y l o n / R o m e , 71, 74
antihistoricism, 172, 2 0 8 - 9
antipsychiatry, 5, 12
barbarians
anti-Semitism, 8 7 - 8 9
State-supported, in 1 9 t h century, 8 9
Antraigues, E. L. H. L., comte d\ 211
195-96
compared to savages, 1 9 6
Arab-Israeli conflict, 2 8 5
freedom of, 1 9 6 , 2 0 2
archers, 1 5 9
A r e n d t , Hannah, 2 8 7
Argentina, 2 8 5
development), 1 9 7 - 2 0 6
Battle of Hastings, 1 0 3 - 4
Argumentum Anti-Normannicum, 1 0 4
aristocracy
Benedictines, 167
A r t h u r i a n legend, 1 0 0
256-57
Index
296
biopolitics, 243-45, 2 7 6
biopower, 24), 2 5 3 - 6 3
limits and excesses of, 253-54
Caligula, 145
Cambodia, 2 8 5
24)
birth rate, 2 4 )
Canguilhem, Georges, 2 8 4
Black Panthers, 2 8 2
Capetians, 2 0 1 , 2 0 2 , 2 0 3 , 2 0 6
Blackwood, Sir W i l l i a m , 1 0 2 - )
capitalism, 3 1 , 277-78
Blanquism, 2 6 2
Carolingian period, 2 0 1
body
Cassirer, Ernst, 2 8 7
35)6
disciplinary control of, 1 8 5 , 242, 2 4 9 -
freedoms of, 2 0 4 - 6
C h a m p de M a r s and M a y assemblies,
50
surveillance of, ) 6 , 242, 2 5 1
1 2 0 , 125, 203, 2 1 0
Chapsal, J . - F . , 2 0 4 , 2 0 6
Bonneville, N. d e , 1 9 7 , 2 0 2
Charlemagne, 57, 1 2 5 , 2 0 3 , 2 0 6
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
Charles V , Emperor, 1 0 2
bourgeoisie
children
masturbation in, 251, 278
sovereignty of parents over, 9 5 - 9 6
17
interest of the, and repression, ) 1 - 3 )
Chile, 2 8 5
as nation, 217-22
C h u r c h , t h e , 153-54, 161
English historian), 1 0 5
Boutillier, J . , 1 1 6
Brazil, 2 8 5
Brequigny, L. G . O. F. de, 2 0 4 , 2 0 6
of,
195-96
Bretons, 1 0 0
Brittany, 1 0 0
class justice, 5
class struggle
132-33
knowledge of, 1 6 9 - 7 0
economics and, 14
French Revolution as, 2 3 3 - 3 6
idea of, derived from race w a r , 7 9 ,
80
Index
M a r x i s t use of t e r m , 281
Darwin, Charles, 6 0 , 2 5 6
death
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
297
5,
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
political, 1 9 2 - 9 )
original, finding and reviving, 121-22,
191-95
See also France: original constitution
of
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
counterhistory, 6 6 - 7 6
normalization and, 2 5 )
Statist, 2 5 0 - 5 1
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
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
298
Index
disciplining {continued)
modern, 2 8 5
of criminals, 258, 2 6 2 , 2 8 5
of sexuality, 251-52, 2 7 8 - 7 9
divine right, 1 0 2
domination
80
sovereignty, 37-38
distinguished from sovereignty, 27, 45
epidemics, 243-44
equality, 9 0 - 9 3 , 1 5 7 - 5 8
27
Dreyfus affair, 2 6 3
evolution theory, 6 0 , 2 5 6 - 5 7
D u b o s , J . N . , 199, 2 0 1 - 2 , 2 0 6
du Tillet, J e a n , 121
179
fascism
feudalism
execration of, in French Revolution,
egalitarianism
211
eighteenth century
149-52, 2 0 3
emigres, 211, 2 2 9
Final Solution ( N a z i ) , 2 6 0
endemics, 243-44
force
as political technique for use by the
Engels, Friednch, 7 9
sovereign ( Machiavelh), 1 6 4
England
historical discourse in, 78, I60,
206
Index
forensic medicine, 264n.4
Foucault, Michel
91
childhood memories, 2 8 6
limited p o w e r of kings, 1 4 9 - 5 0
origin m y t h of, 1 1 5 - 1 8
287
lectures. See lectures, the present
299
rule of, 1 5 0 - 5 1
Frederick I Barbarossa, Emperor, 57
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
232
as culmination of class struggle, 23336
historical discourse a t time of, 1 8 9 212
as race w a r , 6 0
racial d u a l i t y in, 1 2 6 , 2 2 9 - 3 6
Freret, N., 5 0 , 1 4 9
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
Index
300
dialectic of, 5 8
Henry III of France, 121
Henry I V of France, 121
161-62
subjugation u n d e r Roman rule, 1 2 0 21, 144-47, 2 0 0 ,
Harold, King, 1 0 0 , 1 0 3 - 4
Hegel, G. W. F., 15
229
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
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
t r u t h matrix of, 1 6 5
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
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
governmentahty, 284
Greece, 285
superceded by historico-political
G r e e k tragedy, 175
greffiers, 130-32
Gregory of Tours, 125, 1 5 0
grid pattern of towns, 251
discourse, 141-43
historical mvths
of conquerors and the conquered,
100-109
of r e t u r n of defeated ancestors, 5 6 - 5 7 ,
82
historicism, 111, 172-74, 283
attempt to discredit, 111
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
301
Horkheimer, M a x , 287
Hotman, Francois, Franco-Ga/lia, 118-22
Hugh Capet, 2 0 3
hygiene, 244-45, 252
143-44
as continuation of the struggles of
history, 171-72
power, 33-34
illness, affecting labor, 243-45
individuals
dialectic applied t o , 5 8 - 5 9 , 2 8 3
167
power by, 2 9 - 3 0
in social contract theory, 245
Indo-European system, of representing
power, 6 8 , 73-74
industrialization, 244, 277-78
infantile sexuality, repression of, in
57-58, 9 8 - 9 9
reactionary-aristocratic vs. liberal-
71
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
Jacobins, 210
James I of England. 1 0 2
Jerusalem, vs. B a b y l o n / R o m e , 71, 74
on birth of the S t a t e , 9 3 - 9 9
J e w i s h history, 71
Leviathan, 2 8 - 2 9 , 110-11
Jews
on society as-body, 51
on w a r of every man against every
man, 8 9 - 9 3
Ind ex
302
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
escaped f r o m r o y a l control, 2 6
secret, technical, 1 7 9 - 8 0
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
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
land
c o n t r o l of, economics and politics
based on, 3 6
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
Index
legitimacy, of power, 2 6 , 44-46, 171
man-as-species,
Leute or leudes
M a r a t , J e a n Paul, 1 9 7 , 2 0 2
( G e r m a n ) , 148
242-43
Leveille, J . , 285
Marcuse, Herbert, 5
Levellers, 5 9 , 1 0 2 , 1 0 7 - 9
Marxism
Levi-Strauss, Claude, xv
and psychiatry, 5
libraries
303
as theory, 6, 9 - 1 0
masturbation, 2 5 1 , 278
mat he sis, 1 8 2
medicahzation,
medicine
)9
Livy, 6 8
Meinecke, F n e d n c h ,
longevity, 243
mentally ill, 2 6 2
Louis X I V of France
mercenaries, 146, 1 5 2 , 1 5 9
28)
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
Mably, G. B. de, 1 9 6 - 9 7 , 2 0 2 , 2 0 6
The Mirrors
Machiavelli, Niccolo, 1 8 , 5 9 , 1 6 4 , 1 6 9
monarchists, ) 5
The Prince,
169
of Justice,
106
monarchy
absolute, 1 2 0 - 2 2 , 1 2 8 - 2 9 , 1 ) 6 , 152-54,
170, 2 0 0 ,
20)
constitutional, 1 2 1 , 2 0 9
Index
304
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
Nero, 1 7 5
increase in p o w e r of, 1 5 1 - 5 4
on barbarians, 149
on p o w e r , 1 6
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
nineteenth century
concern with matters of life and
death in, 239, 253
historical discourse in, 84
nationalism in, 134
nobility, French
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 ,
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
201
Morel, B. A., 2 6 4 n . 4
aristocracies, 2 2 9 - 3 0
as nation, 142-43
Moses, l a w s of, 1 0 6
and peasants, 1 5 1
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
Petrarch, 74, 8 3
Philip II Augustus of France, 1 5 9
philosophers/philosophy
disinterested search f o r truth by,
305
237
relations w i t h science, 1 8 2
onanism, 251, 2 7 8
order, social, history as guarantor of,
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,
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
Plato, 173
police, 2 5 0
political theory discourse, 34> 35, 5 0 ,
121, 215
politics
biological theory applied to, 256-57
historical study of. See historicopolitical discourse
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
Index
306
psychiatry
attacks on, in recent period, 5, 12
18
exercise of, through b o t h right and
connection to racism, 2 8 6
limited usefulness of theory, 6
disciplines, 3 6 - 4 0
as a force, 1 6 8 - 6 9
ca. 1 6 0 0 o n w a r d , 4 9 - 6 2
inequality in distribution of, 3 0 - 3 1
Pyrrhus, 175
knowledge and, 2 7 9
legitimacy of, 2 6 , 4 4 - 4 6 , 171
mechanisms of, economic utility of, 3233
of, 2 7 - 2 8
relationship of right and t r u t h w i t h ,
24-27
theory of, 6 0
and resistance, 2 8 0 - 8 1
precautions
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
subrace, 6 1 - 6 2 , 7 0 - 7 4
defined by biology, 8 0 - 8 2
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
307
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
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
R e i c h , R e i m u t , 31
R o m a n a n n a l i s t s , 6 6 - 6 9 , 71-72
R e i c h , W i l h e l m , 5, 15
Roman Empire
r e power, 16
re s e x u a l i t y , 31
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
m e c h a n i s m s of, at t h e l o w e s t level,
R o m a n l a w , 153
r e s e a r c h on, 32-33
r e a c t i v a t i o n of, 34, 35
p o w e r a s , 17-18, 44
R o m a n R e p u b l i c , 145
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
as B a b y l o n , 71, 74
R e s t o r a t i o n p e r i o d , 232
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
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
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
as h i s t o r i c a l subject, 8 3 - 8 4
j u d i c i a l s y s t e m as benefiting, 2 5 - 2 6
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 o v e r e i g n t y t h e o r y as benefiting, 34-
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
35, 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
Index
508
society
SA, 2 5 9
8 0 , 8 8 , 1 0 9 - 1 0 , 117-18, 134-35
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
of,
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
39-40
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 -
2 9 , 34, 9 3 - 9 9
on nations, 218-22
representative, 93-94
on T h i r d Estate, 217, 2 2 0 - 2 2
Slavs, 8 2
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,
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
309
Sparta, 1 0 6
SS, 2 5 9
Stalinism
analysis of, 275
Tacitus, 124
r e t r e a t of, 13
taxation, 1 4 6 , 151
Telegram 71, 2 6 0 , 2 6 4 n . 5
theoretical systems (global, totalitarian)
inhibiting effect of, 6 - 1 2
struggle against, of localized
knowledge, 12
Thierry, Amedee, 6 0
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 ,
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 ,
88
235
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
Index
310
t r u t h (continued)
p e r p e t u a l , to r e v e n g e old w r o n g s ,
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}
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 ,
o n e - s i d e d , of p h i l o s o p h i c a l
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
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
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 ,
Tudor dynasty, 1 0 0
215-16
T u r k e y , 75
p r i v a t e , a b o l i t i o n of, 4 8 - 4 9
institutions
d u r i n g , 5-6
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
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
V a u b a n , Sebastien le P r e s t r e d e , 1 7 0
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,
v i r u s e s , a r t i f i c i a l , 254
160-61
V u i l l e m i n , J u l e s , ix
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),
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,
89-93
internal, 216
103-5, 108
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
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
w o r k e r s h o u s i n g , 251
groups
(Bougainvilliers), 162-63
p e r p e t u a l , of H o b b e s , 8 9 - 9 3 , 162