Answer to a Question on Anti-Semitism (pp. 87-89)
Foucault starts his lecture this week by responding to a question his students had about the role of the discourse of anti-semitism. He says that he hasn’t talked about anti-semitism because anti-semitism had little influence on history before the 19th c., but he says that he will be talking about this issue when he discusses politics and war in the 19th c.
Hobbes on War and Sovereignty (pp. 89-100)
Hobbes says we are always at war with each other. Permanent war exists under the surface of evey interaction. This occurs precisely because every man is equal, or close enough to being equal. A permanent state of war exists because “even the weak man knows – or at least thinks- that he is not far from being as strong as his neighbour. And so he does not abandon all thought of war. But the stronger man – or at least the man who is a little stronger than the others- knows, despite it all, that he may be weaker than the other … So the weak man will not abandon all thought of war and the other will … despite his strength, try to avoid it.” But in order to avoid it, the stronger man, must act like his is ready for war all the time, he must make a show of his strength in the hopes that the other man will abandon the thought of war. This forms a permanent backdrop which gives rise to the state, to sovereignty through the fear of death and will to life. In other words everyone accepts rule by a conqueror because they feel this choice is the only way to ensure they will survive. This idea is illustrated through the example of a mother-child relationship.
The Discourse on the Conquest in England: Royalists, Parliamentarians, and Levellers (pp. 100-109)
Here Foucault tells the story of William the Conqueror and the Norman rule over the Saxons during the time of his rule. This was bound up in discourses of race at the time. The Royalists adopted a colonialist discourse informed by the events happening in the Americas (this is a boomerang effect of colonial practices and mechanisms of power). The parliamentarians accepted that William was a legitimate king through his conquest but also adopted a racial dualism and a discourse that made Williams monarchy legitimate by restricting his power. The Magna Carta, the establishment of parliament and the revolution of the 17th century all worked as part of this discourse to establish a Saxon right despite or within Normal rule. However, the levelers opposed both the monarchy and the parliamentarians. They called for a revolution – saying that it is impossible to dissolve power from the inside. Under this discourse, rebellion “is a response to a war that the government never stops waging.” Any form of power leads to domination.
The Binary Schema and Political Historicism (pp. 109-110)
The discourse of the levelers represents a binary schema. This binary schema makes it possible to interpret a number of different institutions in terms of confrontations. It justifies rebellion as an absolute right – a historical necessity. “It is a response to a certain social order. The social order is a war, and a rebellion is the last episode that will put an end to it.
What Hobbes Wanted to Eliminate (pp. 110-111)
Hobbes wanted to eliminate war, because he wanted to eliminate the problem of the Conquest of England – he wanted to erase the infinitely dense and multiple dominations that make up a political historical analysis. Foucault says this is just the sort of analysis he wants to both trace the history of and praise.
