[lbo-talk] Power (Waiting for Foucault)

[Miles Jackson]

Charles Brown wrote:
>
> Umm--that's exactly Foucault's point.  Power is an emergent property of
>
> social interactions.
>
> Miles
>
> ^^^
> CB: Some - like Sahlins in _Waiting for Foucault_ - seem to think he
> reduces social relations to a power/violence instinct; like every
> individual has an instinctive will-to-power.
>   
That's a pretty strange reading of Foucault.  For Foucault, appeals to 
instinct are discourse to be analyzed, not the cause of social 
relations.  He's a careful enough historian not to make that gross 
category error.

Miles