concise, convincing, eye-opening -- perhaps scattershot in some brief snippets, otherwise a lil repetitive & regurgitating similar ideas repeatedly ... so depending on your experience in subject matter yo mileage may vary? engaging experience tho, felt a lot of Foucault's models he invoked to present a timeline of developing attitudes (i.e. scientia sexualis / ars erotica, deployment / alliance of sexuality) were decently evaluated. also appreciated the minor detour discussing his theory of power, felt surprisingly welcoming as a newcomer to his work. seemed to appropriate ideas across his work which entices me to read further. warmed up to Foucault's oblique style, felt his flair enhanced my enjoyment, also his structuring of proposing arguments & addressing criticisms directly helped process his views. cool cool ( )

After enjoying [b:The Seventh Function of Language|36031246|The Seventh Function of Language|Laurent Binet|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1511583633s/36031246.jpg|46079991] so much, it seemed like the right time to read some more Foucault. I radically underestimated how long ‘The Will to Knowledge’ would take me, having previously only read [b:Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-1976|771816|Society Must Be Defended Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-1976|Michel Foucault|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1316130657s/771816.jpg|3308111]. Being based on a lecture series, the latter is presumably as a consequence rather less dense. The paragraphs in ‘The Will to Knowledge’ are unnecessarily long. Nonetheless, I got into it eventually and found some particularly thought-provoking material in the latter half. The first half used a somewhat excessive number of words on the concept of sexuality being turned into discourse, rather than repressed as such. This became more interesting when discussing confession and how this evolved from religious into secular, medicalised forms. Foucault’s famous bio-power concept is also considered, largely in the wider context of what constitutes power. His propositions regarding power more generally seem to elide the presence of institutions rather, although they are perhaps more helpful when considering power relationships at the level of micropolitics. Nonetheless, I liked this point:

Despite the difference in epochs and objectives, the representation of power has remained under the spell of monarchy. In political thought and analysis, we still have not cut off the head of the king. Hence the importance that the theory of power gives to the problem of right and violence, law and illegality, freedom and will, and especially the state and sovereignty (even if the latter is questioned insofar as it is personified in a collective being and no longer a sovereign individual). To conceive of power on the basis on these problems is to conceive of it in terms of a historical form that is characteristic of our societies: the juridical monarchy. Characteristic yet transitory.

For a short book about sexuality, ‘The Will to Knowledge’ has a remarkable reluctance to focus on the topic. Rather amusingly, near the end of the book Foucault evokes a straw man asking him (I paraphrase), “How come you’ve written a book about sexuality that doesn’t talk about sex, man?” It’s the first volume, of course, and Foucault is making the point that sexuality is created and manipulated by society. I found that argument convincing, especially the links he draws between Victorian discourse around sexuality and the rise of racism and eugenics. Also notable was the inclusion of class dynamics:

The most rigorous techniques were formed and, more particularly, applied first, with the greatest intensity, in the economically privileged and politically dominant classes. The direction of consciences, self-examination, the entire long elaboration of transgressions of the flesh, and the scrupulous detection of concupiscence were all subtle procedures that could only have been accessible to small groups of people.
[...]
The same can be said of the family as an agency of control and a point of sexual saturation: it was in the ‘bourgeois’ or ‘aristocratic’ family that the sexuality of children was adolescents was first problematised, and feminine sexuality medicalised; it was the first to be alerted to the potential pathology of sex, the urgent need to keep it under close watch and to devise a rational technology of correction.

Foucault is much more inclined to weave theories than systematically support them with references or other evidence. I can understand why his approach to sexuality has been so influential, though, as it effectively counters the simplistic and insidious idea that in the past sexuality was repressed and now it’s not because we understand biology. The fact that society provides our understanding of sexuality is still generally ignored in popular culture; current terms and concepts are projected back into history as if universally applicable. One of this book’s key points, which has been elaborated on by subsequent writers, is that the sorting of people into sexual categories (legal/illegal, straight/gay, healthy/pathological, etc) was a Victorian innovation. As I was already familiar with this idea, one of the most memorable passages for me concerned the pre-Modern era:

A society of blood - I was tempted to say, of ‘sanguinity’ - where power spoke through blood: the honour of war, the fear of famine, the triumph of death, the sovereign with a sword, executioners, and tortures; blood was reality with a symbolic function.

Echoes of [b:Bread of Dreams: Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Europe|460373|Bread of Dreams Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Europe|Piero Camporesi|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1174949801s/460373.jpg|448837] there. Overall, if you make the effort to dig, there are some fascinating ideas in ‘The Will to Knowledge’. I expect I’ll read the subsequent volumes in the History of Sexuality at some point. ( )

Sex = power. Well, I knew that. ( )

My second Foucault. While he makes some interesting general ideas, most of what he writes is unsourced, unconvincing, and nonsensical. I approached this text with an appreciative eye and I still got very little out of it, at best an appreciation for the historical trend of sexual discourse Foucault identifies. Had I been more sceptical a reader I would have put the book down long before I finished it. ( )

Just when I thought it wasn't possible for Foucault to broaden the scope of his argument any more, he did just that. The beginning of the final chapter of this work contextualizes his entire argument theretofore. What was already a discussion that dealt in very broad terms-- covering huge expanses of time, encompassing the most elemental aspects of political society-- became but one part of a larger discourse on Power. I sense that this section of the book has the most continuity with Foucault's other works. It is probably the common feature of all his life's work.

Such a generalized discussion did result in some passages that would make Strunk and White shudder in disgust. One sentence stood out:

"It is to the political credit of psychoanalysis--or at least, of what was most coherent in it--that it regarded with suspicion (and this from its inception, that is, from the moment it broke away from the neuropsychiatry of degenerescence) the irrevocably proliferating aspects which might be contained in these power mechanisms aimed at controlling and administering the everyday life of sexuality: whence the Freudian endeavor (out of reaction no doubt to the great surge of racism that was contemporary with it) to ground sexuality in the law-- the law of alliance, tabooed consanguinity, and the Sovereign-Father, in short, to surround desire with all the trappings of the old order of power."

-Pp. 150

Oy.

As common as such near-incomprehensible ramblings were unmistakably original and unique insights. In these, Foucault elicited in me a level of understanding of the macroscopic, often invisible forces that have come to shape life that I have rarely touched. It was a gift.




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