Foucault vs. Arendt

            Though contemporary sociologists Michel Foucault and Hannah Arendt came from polarizing environments, the two theorists provided significant contributions to the world of academia through their investigations of imprisonment in the modern social world. In order to fully comprehend each author’s works, one must first examine their past upbringings to further contextualize their writings. Michel Foucault, born 1926, was a French philosopher, sociologist and historian who supplied the school of structuralism (and post-structuralism) with significant ideological perspectives on power relations, and particularly in the genre of sexuality. In this essay, I will discuss one of his most prominent works, The History of Sexuality (1976), a three-part examination of its namesake – as Foucault himself was a homosexual man and huge proponent of radical politicism and thus early queer theory. Unfortunately, the world lost this great writer to AIDS in 1984, but his works still poignantly uphold in academia today. On the other hand, sociologist Hannah Arendt was born in 1906 to a German-Jewish family, and was forced to flee her home country for asylum in Paris, France, and then later in the US due to the dangers of her religious identity during World War II. Her works delved into the social psyche of totalitarian regimes and the Holocaust, but I will primarily be discussing her pertinent writing of The Human Condition (1958)–an investigative response to the power struggle for agency (personally and socially) that faced the world at the time. Arendt worked closely with infamous theorists Heidegger, Husserl, Jaspers, as well as the New School for Social Research in New York City, before passing away in 1975 of old age. While Arendt and Foucault occupied differing life experiences in time and space, they similarly illuminate how the state interacts authoritatively with the individual by means of confinement and punishment; this essay will explore the differing nuances of each author’s argument.

            Arendt and Foucault separately begin their writings by discussing a private versus a public social experience. Particularly, Arendt distinguishes definitions for the social, the private, and the public realms in The Human Condition. Per Arendt, free speech was promoted in the private sphere because all economic life revolved around the family’s economic doings from its most central point: the home, due to the family’s more limited sphere of necessity. Social freedom per means of the polis (a central point in a community forum for market exchange and open discussion with others outside of the immediate family) forced families to distinguish themselves between their private and public lives (Arendt 30-72). The oikos–the root word for economics–stems from this ideology; moreover, the shifting dynamic of exchange moves from the private to the public realm creating a wider sphere of necessity for each household (Arendt 33). As a result of mercantilism and the division of labor, the polis allowed all treatment with equality, whereas patriarchal households of the past encompassed strict inequality. Thus, Arendt considers freedom as “both not to be subject to the necessity of life or to the command of another and not to be in command oneself” (32). So, in the public realm, a person sheds their identity and enters as a citizen in discussion of political welfare. Meanwhile, Foucault delves more into this notion of subjectivity in his own work, attributing the privatization of public speech–particularly about sexuality­–to social stratification of upper class Victorian era families. Prior to repressive institutional forces, such as the Catholic Church, people openly discussed sexuality (21). Thus, Foucault begs the question: Is sex now actually free (9)? According to his rejection of the “Repressive Hypothesis,” Foucault attributes sexual repression to a power-knowledge dynamic: it is a “network of pleasures and powers linked together at multiple points and per transformable relationships” and rooted in institutional forces. (46). It must be noted that this author does not think sex itself has changed, but that the way in which the public discusses it has altered. This change occurred through the popularization of the scientific medical field and its study of sexuality (Foucault 48). Although Arendt discusses an awakening of political discourse (in ancient Roman times) due to capitalistic forces, Foucault views a return of repression in modern society as power dynamics continue to shift. Both authors are justifiably critical of the capitalistic modern age and its democratic repercussions.

            By these previous definitions, it is important to note each author’s differing distinction of statehood. Arendt tends to see the state as a form of citizenry; in that one becomes a citizen in the public realm through the polis. As a citizen, a person actively votes on issues of their state’s welfare, administers the law, and performs civic duties for the state of their community. To Arendt, a dialogue between one’s conscious and subconscious arises solely in the private realm, and thus subjectivity is limited to that space. However, Foucault fundamentally disagrees with this notion. Foucault believes one’s subjectivity is rooted on a broader spectrum of power structures, as exhibited by repressive forces in society. Individuals are merely “cogs in a machine” (the machine being hierarchical power-infused institutions, such as bureaucratic agencies). Regarding Arendt’s public vs. private realm categories, the more objectively you see the world, the more political (and thus equal) you become, while Foucault exhibits subjectivity and feigned equality in a public world. I am critical of Arendt’s strict categorization of these realms, as categorization can lead to stagnation and passivity in one’s argument as time and space tend to not be interdependent given this case. Though people operate in a dynamic network of communities, Foucauldian theory examines how this equality is truly not existent, but is furthering of repression by creating a “norm”; the more people adhere to said norms, the easier it is for hierarchical powers to identify and punish individuality, creating a more homogenous state. However, Arendt’s notion of homo faber–man as a “maker and fabricator,” whose sovereignty deems all as personally and dynamically utilitarian in nature–seems quite pertinent to Foucault’s arguments on subjectivity (305). Thus, despite each author’s differing subjects at hand (sexuality vs. humanity itself), both authors examine subjectivity in regards to a historic-political perspective, which is necessary and commendable in open discussions of ‘how the world came to be’ today; space and time are relevant and essential to each author’s arguments, signaling geo-temporal tendencies and redundancies in human nature.

            Finally, Foucault and Arendt both explore what it means to be truly imprisoned by one’s society. The former’s perspective of panopticism depicts his somewhat pessimistic view of social power structures in relation to the individual. Panopticism is based on the idea of a panopticon: a circular, openly-lit prison, in which a singular guard tower stands in the center, so it can see every single jail cell wrapped around it. Complete visibility of each prisoner gives the panopticon’s main purpose: prisoner self-regulation; the prisoner has no idea whether the guard in the center is overseeing the prisoner or not. Thus, Foucault relates panopticism to the individual in terms of self-regulation in society. While he does not explicitly describe this phenomenon in The History of Sexuality, he does so in his famous work Discipline and Punish. On the other hand, Arendt’s intense examination of the causes and happenings of the Holocaust leads her to illustrate freedom and confinement in terms of necessity. “Because all human beings are subject to necessity, they are entitled to violence toward others; violence is the pre-political act of liberating oneself from the necessity of life for the freedom of world” (Arendt 31). Her criticism of violence is a note to her pride in her identity as a Holocaust refugee. Overall, Foucault and Arendt’s depictions of punishment stem from each of their perspectives on subjectivity.

            In sum, personal imprisonment due to political subjection of the individual is in part related to Foucault and Arendt’s personal historicity with sexuality and humanism, respectively. Each author’s upbringing furthers their discussion of each subject. Moreover, each author’s vision of confinement is relative to their perspective on subjection in the modern world. They both use historic-political terms to contextualize their arguments, but each author has a unique view of how power interactions occur in public and private spaces