Civil society may be structured by perpetual war between forces

Evidence

I would like to try to see the extent to which the binary schema of war and struggle, of the clash between forces, can really be identified as the basis of civil society, as both the principle and motor of the exercise of political power. Are we really talking about war when we analyze the workings of power? Are the notions of “tactics,” 46 “strategy,” and “relations of force” valid? To what extent are they valid? Is power quite simply a continuation of war by means other than weapons and battles? Does what has now become the commonplace theme, though it is a relatively recent theme, that power is responsible for defending civil society imply, yes or no, that the political structure of society 1s so organized that some can defend themselves against others, or can defend their domination against the rebellion of others, or quite simply defend their victory and perpetuate it by subjugating others? — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 37

Categorization

• XREF: Directly feeds the race/class-struggle genealogy that grounds later Islamophobia readings on racial binarism as political analysis. — connects to: War of position targets civil society’s institutions rather than a single decisive breach.; Hobbes’s social contract theory suppressed a discourse of permanent civil war — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 115; Irreconcilable conflict gives society its texture, durability, and resilience — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 93 (+4 more)
• QUESTION: Watch how Foucault resolves whether ‘war in civil society’ is literal or a schema for analyzing power relations.

Related

• War of position targets civil society’s institutions rather than a single decisive breach. (similarity 0.88)
• War is the permanent underpinning of social institutions; this is Hobbes’s great adversary. (similarity 0.83)
• Society is configured as a permanent binary war, not a pyramid or organism (similarity 0.83)
• Hobbes’s social contract theory suppressed a discourse of permanent civil war (similarity 0.82)
• War drives the regular mechanisms of power beneath the law (similarity 0.81)
• A binary war-between-two-groups model of society replaces the pyramid and three-orders images (similarity 0.80)
• Foucault proposed war as the model for understanding political power (similarity 0.80)
• War and politics are two codings of the same force relations (similarity 0.80)
• Individual defensive resistance without shared institutions collapses into near-permanent civil war. (similarity 0.79)
• The overall balance of forces imposes the form of war (similarity 0.79)
• War-like aristocratic tension is necessary for any society to persist (similarity 0.79)
• War is the continuation of politics, not its own autonomous sphere. (similarity 0.79)
• Irreconcilable conflict gives society its texture, durability, and resilience (similarity 0.78)
• Hobbes denies war any role in founding sovereignty (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• War and politics are two codings of the same force relations #corroborates (0.88) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 296
• Conflict destructive at one level can integrate the larger group #expands (0.85) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 280
• Irreconcilable conflict gives society its texture, durability, and resilience #expands (0.82) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 93
• War drives the regular mechanisms of power beneath the law #expands (0.82)