...it's my hypothesis that the individual is not a pre-given entity which is seized on by the exercise of power. The individual, with his identity and characteristics, is the product of a relation of power exercised over bodies, multiplicities, movements, desires, forces.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that an individual's identity is shaped by interactions with power rather than pre-existing in isolation.
Michel Foucault's quote emphasizes the idea that individuals are not fixed entities but rather are shaped by their relationships with power dynamics in society. He argues that identity, characteristics, and desires arise from the complex interplay of various forces and influences, suggesting that our sense of self is constructed through social interactions and power relations rather than being an innate or given quality.
In practice
In a discussion about social identity and power dynamics during a philosophy class.
A real subjection is born mechanically from a fictitious relation [...] He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribed in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.
Matthey, a Geneva physician very close to Rousseau's influence, formulates the prospect for all men of reason: 'Do not glory in your state, if you are wise and civilized men; an instant suffices to disturb and annihilate that supposed wisdom of which you are so proud; an unexpected event, a sharp and sudden emotion of the soul will abruptly change the most reasonable and intelligent man into a raving idiot.
But the guilty person is only one of the targets of punishment. For punishment is directed above all at others, at all the potentially guilty.
I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for love relationships is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don’t know what will be the end.
You may have killed God beneath the weight of all that you have said; but don't imagine that, with all that you are saying, you will make a man that will live longer than he.
The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political will of others; it is, through the analyses that he does in his own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways of working and thinking, to dissipate conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules and institutions and to participate in the formation of a political will (where he has his role as citizen to play).
The child is father of the man: And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.
The difference between magic and miracles is this. Magic is when you use your mind to tell the Universe what you want. _x000D_ _x000D_ Miracles is when you ask the Universe what it wants and how you can serve it'
Sometimes he could almost forget that it was there, the way you forget about the sky or the earth underfoot, but there were other times when it seemed as if there was nothing else in the world.
I have seen firsthand how injustice gets overlooked when the victims are powerless or vulnerable, when they have no one to speak up for them and no means of representing themselves to a higher authority. Animals are in precisely that position. Unless we are mindful of their interests and speak out loudly on their behalf, abuse and cruelty go unchallenged.
The Son of God became incarnate in the souls of men to instill the feeling of brotherhood. All are brothers and all children of God.
I think it is obscene that we should believe that we are entitled to end somebody's life, no matter what that person has supposedly done or not done.
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