Race-struggle discourse replaces sovereign unity with a principle of heterogeneity

Evidence

Historical discourse was no longer the discourse of sovereignty, or even race, but a discourse about races, about a confrontation between races, about the race struggle that goes on within nations and within laws. To that extent it 1s, I think, a history that is the complete antithesis of the history of sovereignty, as constituted up to that time. This is the first non-Roman or anti-Roman history that the West had ever known. Why ts it antiRoman and why is it a counterhistory, compared to the ritual of sovereignty I was telling you about a moment ago? For a number of reasons which we can easily identify. First, because in this history of races and of the permanent confrontation that goes on between races, beneath and through laws, we see the appearance, or rather the disappearance, of the implicit identification of people with monarch, and nation with sovereign, that the history of sovereignty—and sovereigns—had made apparent. Henceforth, in this new type of dis~ course and historical practice, sovereignty no longer binds everything together into a unity—which is of course the unity of the city, the nation, or the State. Sovereignty has a specific function. It does not bind; it enslaves. The postulate that the history of great men contains, a fortiori, the history of lesser men, or that the history of the strong is also the history of the weak, is replaced by a principle of heterogeneity: The history of some is not the history of others. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 86

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core definition of counterhistory: the anti-Roman, non-sovereign form of historical discourse built on race struggle.
• XREF: This counterhistory concept feeds directly into Orientalism’s notion of a discourse from the position of the subjugated — carries into the Islamophobia readings that build on Foucault. — connects to: Diversity’s conflicts are the raw material for forging a universal citizenship — A. Hussain, N. Meer, Framing Muslim Integration, 688; Sovereignty annexes the race-war weapon by shifting from law to norm — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 98; Class struggle derives historically from the earlier discourse of race struggle — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 96 (+6 more)

Related

• The dialectic neutralized a prior historical discourse of race struggle (similarity 0.82)
• Class struggle derives historically from the earlier discourse of race struggle (similarity 0.82)
• The perception of war between races predates class struggle and religious racism (similarity 0.81)
• Sovereignty annexes the race-war weapon by shifting from law to norm (similarity 0.80)
• Abandoning humanity’s common origin makes natural war between races plausible (similarity 0.79)
• Race is counter-historical in displacing theological modes of rationality and sociality (similarity 0.79)
• Historical discourse functioned as an instrument forged in struggles over power. (similarity 0.79)
• Race-thinking preceded and differs from racism as a full ideology (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Theoretical disputes over race dictate divergent political strategies for transformation #expands (0.85)
• Racial difference can be constructed as antagonism within a single exploited class #exemplifies (0.82)
• Racial identity as a sign must give way to positional, political subjectivities #expands (0.75)