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.
Interpretation
This quote illustrates how individuals internalize societal power dynamics, leading to self-imposed constraints.
Michel Foucault's quote explores the concept of how individuals participate in their own subjugation by acknowledging and accepting the power relations within society. When people become aware of the societal structures that govern their behavior, they not only recognize these constraints but also take on the responsibility for them. This creates a cycle where individuals exercise control over themselves and perpetuate the power dynamics imposed on them, ultimately becoming the agents of their own limitation.
In practice
In a discussion about personal responsibility in societal roles, this quote can highlight Foucault's concept of self-subjugation.
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).
There is object proof that homosexuality is more interesting than heterosexuality. It's that one knows a considerable number of heterosexuals who would wish to become homosexuals, whereas one knows very few homosexuals who would really like to become heterosexuals.
I tell people, and it's the truth, I could sit in my garage for a week and it won't make me a car. And you can sit in church till your bottom is flat and that won't make you a servant of Christ.
Marijuana gives rise to insanity -- not in its users but in the policies directed against it. A nation that sentences the possessor of a single joint to life imprisonment without parole but sets a murderer free after perhaps six years is in the grips of a deep psychosis.
...in respect of riches, no citizen shall ever be wealthy enough to buy another, and none poor enough to be forced to sell himself.
That freedom can never be attained by a nation without suffering and sacrifice has been amply borne out by the recent tragic happenings in this subcontinent.
Reason wishes that the judgement it gives be just; anger wishes that the judgement it has given seem to be just.
The iron bolt...mysteriously fastens the door of hope and holds our spirits in a gloomy prison.
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