Resistances do not derive from a few heterogeneous principles; but neither are they a lure or a promise that is of necessity betrayed. They are the odd term in relations of power; they are inscribed in the latter as an irreducible opposite.
Interpretation
Resistance is an inherent part of power dynamics and cannot simply be reduced to a set of external principles.
In this quote, Michel Foucault emphasizes that resistance is not merely a byproduct of diverse principles or an empty promise that often leads to disappointment. Instead, he posits that resistance is fundamentally linked to power relations and exists as an indispensable counterpart, highlighting the complexity and interdependence of power and opposition within societal structures.
In practice
In a discussion about social justice, this quote can illustrate the complexities of power relations.
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).
As long as quick numerical growth remains the primary indicator of church health, the truth will be compromised. Instead, churches must once again begin measuring success not in terms of numbers but in terms of fidelity to the Scriptures.
Rivers and mountains are beautiful and made heroes bow and compete to catch the girl- lovely earth. Yet the emperors Shih Huang and Wu Ti were barely able to write. The first emperors of the Tang and Sung dynasties were crude. Genghis Khan, man of his epoch and favored by heaven, knew only how to hunt the great eagle. They are all gone. Only today are we men of feeling.
Women, like men, ought to have their youth so glutted with freedom they hate the very idea of freedom.
I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.
Willingly no one chooses the yoke of slavery.
Never judge a philosophy by its abuse.
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