An author produced by power need not obey power’s logic in their work

Evidence

The fact that Foucault’s well-known disinterest in colonialism and coloniality opened a gap not only for Said’s project but also for a host of fields with such labels as “postmodernism” and “postcoloniality” is testimonial to the predominance of departures and differences over analogies in his work as a founder of discursivity. It is then reasonable to argue that only the Austinian conditions of felicity residing within and dominating central domains make Foucault’s ideological author possible. This view of conditions does not bank on a particular logic of power or a predictable outcome of power’s constructions, but can include even chance as a possible factor. Thus, it is not as reasonable to argue that, because such authors are the product of the central domain and its conditions of felicity, their work, their discursivity, must obey the logic of power within either the domain or the discursive formation. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 94 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The new mode of writing and communication made the re-presenting of an author’s meaning appear an essentially unproblematic mechanical process. The unproblematic presence of an author in writing would now correspond, in all the other realms of ordering that characterise the world-as-exhibition, to the production of an essentially unproblematic and mechanical presence of authority in political life. … This political authority, produced in the modern state the way a modern text produces the unambiguous effect of an author, would appear continuously and mechanically present. At the same time, like an author’s meaning, this authority would somehow stand mysteriously apart. Just as meaning does not exist in the ‘material’ of the words themselves, but seems to belong to a separate mental or conceptual realm that words only ever re-present, political authority would now exist apart as something metaphysical, which in the material world is only ever re-presented. Authority would become something both mechanical and mysterious: as certain and straightforward as the process of meaning, and equally metaphysical. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 482 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: An author can cite a critic of poverty as its champion; An author’s absorbed influences differ from their own original philosophy; Modern political authority mirrors the unproblematic, mechanical presence of an author in written texts. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 482 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Founders of discursivity are produced by power but not bound to obey its logic. #corroborates (0.98) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 94
• Modern political authority mirrors the unproblematic, mechanical presence of an author in written texts. #complicates (0.80) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 482