Foucault’s real subject was power, not torture

Evidence

But this belief arises from a misreading of Foucault, whose central concern was not with “torture” but with “power,” and consequently with a contrast between sovereign power (which exhibits itself through theatrical displays of tortured bodies) and disciplinary power (which works through the normalization of bodies in everyday behavior). — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 505 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Nor, strictly speaking, is the term “power” adequate as an account of the Foucauldian diagnosis of modern systems of control and management, for while it accurately reflects the modalities and dynamics of these systems, it falls short in delineating the sources from which this type of power ensues. Again, and as happened with the short supply of theory regarding the author, Foucault’s characteristic work was more often than not preoccupied with the modalities and operations of modern power as it has yielded certain performative effects, but the sources of this power remain understood only by implication. Yet, Foucault made it clear enough that this power does not have any particular logic, that its logic is not linear, consistent, or predictable, and that it is not governed by any fixed rules that control its operations. From this plausible diagnosis, one can infer that power begins from no predetermined point or source, and that, lacking dictates from any other source or authority, it is sovereign in both its origins and its modalities of operation. … Just as there is political sovereignty, so is there epistemic sovereignty, a parent of all other forms of sovereignty. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 194 (#complicates, via linked claim)

In accounting for a penal system involving so much torture, these are general and in a sense external reasons; they explain not only the possibility and the long survival of physical punishments, but also the weakness and the rather sporadic nature of the opposition to them. Against this general background we must bring out their precise function. If torture was so strongly embedded in legal practice, it was because it revealed truth and showed the operation of power. It assured the articulation of the written on the oral, the secret on the public, the procedure of investigation on the operation of the confession; it made it possible to reproduce the crime on the visible body of the criminal; in the same horror, the crime had to be manifested and annulled. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 110 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Foucault’s interest was power, not torture, contrasting sovereign and disciplinary power — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 505; Foucault’s power is sovereign because it originates from no external source — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 194; Foucault sought to break thought free of the sovereign-model of power — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 250 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Foucault’s interest was power, not torture, contrasting sovereign and disciplinary power #corroborates (0.98) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 505
• Foucault’s power is sovereign because it originates from no external source #complicates (0.78) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 194
• Torture persisted because it revealed truth and displayed power #complicates (0.76) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 110