On the Government of the Living part I. Last seminary by POBICS

Yesterday, in POBICS we held a new seminary. In this case, as we have noticed last week, we read the last book published in Spanish written by Foucault: "Del Gobierno de los Vivos" (On the Government of the Living in English). In this post, we will offer some thoughts, notes and comments about the first part of the book (the second part will take place next wednesday, at 11:00 on Social Psychology Faculty of the UAB, Barcelona. Open and free for you!)

Here the comments:

Government truth = governmentality.

Idea of ​​aleturgia = reflection incorporated about the truth in the notion of ritual. The truth is not only a matter of knowledge, but also it must be complemented by other elements: the ritual of truth.

The proposal of truth is in the complete work of Foucault, and it was very important, but Deleuze not collected it in his course about Foucault.

The truth today has to do with knowledge neither with the ritual of the procedure to reach the truth. Here, there is an epistemic change: now the ritual is assumed to reach the objective knowledge.

The discovery as a way to find the truth in Oedipus, is an interweaving of medicine and law. It is a judicially aleturgia with an a medical (p. 78)

The question of power through demonstrations of the subject for the truth. Deleuze will question us: How subjects are created?

Foucault, here: How really regimes (not true  itself) of true  are created ?, that is, the types of relationships that link the manifestations of truth with its procedures (how they work); and subjects that are its operators, his witnesses and eventually his subjects. The person is not only the subject of truth, but also their witness and their operators (truth not only create subjects, but also has other roles). Normally the emphais is put on the paper that Foucault gives to subjectivity; but what he really wants to do is a story of the power of truth: how truth becomes something that has power, the power of truth. The main mechanism by which the truth is maintained and operates is subjectivity.

Are there truth processes without subjectivity?

 In Christianity, so to speak, we use the truth. In Oedipus (an older historical formation), I do not need to understand the truth (it is owned by the gods who are those who have the truth). Act of truth: the part that touches the subject in aleturgia processes, defined by the role of the subject as a spectator, as operator and as object.

 From Christianity, and especially from the liberalism version of the XX Century, the object of the persnon in the act of truth is more dominant than the other two (witness and subject). It is possible a new truth or way to present the truth in our work? It would not have to do with the classical risk calculation, but it is focuses on the present. We do a role-playing and present a hypothetical future, projected into the future (what we called scenarios).

 And what now...? Are scenario concept out of phase? We want to propose the ecologies of security.

Photo Credit: Stefan Perneborg