foucault, the present and history

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Foucault, the Present and History

Author(s): Mark PosterSource: Cultural Critique, No. 8 (Winter, 1987-1988), pp. 105-121Published by: University of Minnesota PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1354213

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MarkPoster

oucault'shistoricalwork initiatesa thematicof discontinuity.'That

much is well known. What is less well recognized is that his workalso implies a discontinuityin the present social formation, a discon-

tinuitythat resituatesthe historian'srelationto the past, that suggestsa

theoreticalreorientationof the historicaldiscipline, and that calls for a

reexamination of the appropriate topics of historical investigation.Foucault'swork enacts this second type of discontinuity,without fully

recognizing and conceptualizingits contours and significance.The

topicsFoucault

investigatesexemplifya

restructuringf historical

priorities. Insanity, language, medicine, punishment, sexuality-thesehavebeen marginal opicsfor historians.By placingthem atthe centerof

the historicalstage Foucaultreverses fundamental theoreticalassump-tions of the discipline,a reversal hatderivesits power not only from the

strengthof Foucault's extsbut also from a large-scalesocial transforma-

tion of the second halfof the twentiethcentury,one thathas led to whatIcall"themode of information."My essaywill explore this theme and as-

sess its value for the historicaldiscipline.

1. Allan Megill read this essay and provided me with many valuable comments.? 1988 by CulturalCritique.882-4371 (Winter 1987-88).All rightsreserved.

105



106 MarkPoster

One's estimate of the significanceof Foucault'swritingsfor the disci-

pline of history depends in every way on which of Foucault's texts

one takes to representhis position. It is possible of course to discoverafundamentalunityin his writings.Thatstrategygivesa centralrole to the

author,a position that Foucault himself rejected.A more fruitfulinter-

pretation begins with the recognition of a diversity of themes and

strategies n his texts, a diversity hat is suggested by the markeddiffer-ences in the many studies of his worksthat have appearedin Englishinrecent years. Books by Lemert and Gillan, Major-Poetzl,Dreyfus and

Rabinow, Smart, Cousins and Hussain, Rajckman,Racevskis,myself,and others present sharply contrasting interpretations of the natureand significanceof Foucault'swork.2

Myinterest n Foucaultderivesfrommy sense that Marxism no longer

provides a basis for critical social theory. I have become increasinglytroubled by the inability of historical materialism to present an ade-

quate account of the structuresof domination in modern society andthereforeby its deficienciesas a guide for the social criticand historian.

Yetcritiques

of Marxism often runaground

because(1) they

fail to

specifywith appropriatecomplexity a historicalfield (usuallythe polit-ical) that cannot be accounted for by the theory of the mode of pro-duction, and (2)they areunable to provide an epistemological positionthat would acknowledge the viability of Marxistanalyses within a re-

gional domain. In my view,DisciplinendPunishand associatedwritingsby Foucault from the 1970s go a long way towardovercoming the cus-

tomary limitations of the critiques of historical materialism on both

these counts.The great achievement of Discipline nd Punishis to theorize and

analyze historicallya structureof domination in modem societywhichis beyond the field of investigation opened by the traditionalMarxistnotion of the mode of production. After Discipline nd Punish t is no

2. CharlesLemertand GarthGillan,Michel oucault: ocialTheorys TransgressionNewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress,1982);PamelaMajorPoetzl,Michel oucault'sArchaeology

ofWestern ulture

(ChapelHill:

Universityof North Carolina

Press,1983);Hubert Dreyfusand Paul Rabinow,MichelFoucault:Beyond tructuralismndHermeneutics(Chicago:Uni-versity of Chicago Press, 1982); BarrySmart, Foucault,Marxismand Critique London:Routledge and KeganPaul, 1983);John Rajckman,MichelFoucault(New York:Colum-bia University Press, 1984); Mark Cousins and Althar Hussain, MichelFoucault(NewYork:St. Martin'sPress, 1984);and KarlRacevskis,MichelFoucault ndtheSubversionofIntellect(Ithaca:Cornell UniversityPress, 1983);MarkPoster,Foucault,Marxism ndHis-tory New York: Basil Blackwell, 1985).




longer possible for Marxist historians to maintain that they alone are

able to present a critique of liberal institutions, one that reveals both

theirstructuresof domination and their historicalspecificity.Foucault's

historyof prisons undermines the liberal view that prisons constituted

a humane advanceover earliersystemsof punishment and the Marxist

view that they are no more than a secondary elaboration of the mode

of production. Disciplinend Punishunveils a specificdiscourse-practiceof domination in modem prisons, one Foucault terms a "technologyof power," a structure of domination that is invisible when modem

history is read through the categories of the mode of production.The Panopticon, as Foucaultcalls the system of domination specific

to prisons, cannot be analyzed from the Marxist historicalstandpointbecause the Marxistcategories of alienation and exploitation address

only those featuresof domination that concern the act of labor. Other

forms of domination are recognized by Marxist discourse only to the

extent that they are rooted in the domination of labor. This limitation

of Marxisthistoryis not necessarilya fataldeficiency since it is charac-

teristicof all theoretical

perspectivesto

open up only particularfields

for exploration. There may be problems with the manner in which

Marxist theory addresses labor practices (such as the theory of the

"false consciousness" of workers who fail to recognize their class inter-

ests), but these problems can be correctedby revisingthe theory; theydo not undermine its heuristic value.

The more troublingdifficultieswith historicalmaterialismderivenot

so much from the particularcategoriesit generatesto enable a critique

of the capitalistorganizationof labor, but from the way Marxisttheoryattemptsto monopolize the historicalfield. When Marxproclaimsthat

the sufferingsof the workingclass areuniversal,and when he contends

that domains of practice other than that of labor are superstructural,he is totalizing the historicalfield, improperly excluding other critical

perspectives. In short, he flagrantlyreduces all domination to the level

of labor. By totalizing the historicalfield, Marxisthistory introduces a

form of domination at the level of theoryand worksagainstthe veryin-

terests of emancipation it claims to promote.How is it possible that a theorist who formulated the principle that

theory is rooted in the social world, situatedin the finitude of practice,could go on to cancel this advance in self-reflexivenessand pretend to

elevate his position to that of a universal science? Marx maintains at

107



108 Mark oster

once that his theory is rooted in the standpoint of the working class

and that the position derived from that standpoint is universalin char-

acter.Marx's failure to sustain the conditioned, particular,and limitedcharacterof the knowledge generated by historical materialism is the

source of a theoretical slide back into what Derrida terms the

"logocentrism"of the Westernphilosophical tradition,3 he theoretical

cause of its regressionback to claims of certain truthor, put differently,its appropriation of the surplus value of reason. The implications of

this regression are vast for criticaltheory, Marxisthistoriography,and

much of socialistpractice.The emancipatory interests promoted by historical materialism are

sustained only with a detotalized theoretical stance such as that pro-

posed by Foucault, a theoretical asceticism that severely restricts the

truth claims of texts. There are two constraints that are of particular

importance:(1)thatthe historianacknowledgehis or her politicalorien-

tation, and (2) that the historian's text does not claim to exhaust the

meaning of the field to be investigated.DisciplinendPunishexemplifies

both of these self-limitingprinciples,though it does better with the sec-ond than the first,and even regarding he second there arepointswherethe text flirtswith totalization.

In Foucault,Marxism ndHistory demonstratedin detailhow DisciplineandPunishdetotalizesthe historicalfield in relation to these self-limitingprinciples.4Here I shall discuss another work, the essay by Foucault,"What Is Enlightenment?"I shall then return to a featureof Foucault'sworkthatconcerns a restructuring f the historical ieldin relationto lan-

guage. I shall do this by contrastingFoucault'sposition with that ofMarx.

Foucault's short essay "What Is Enlightenment?"is a remarkablydense statementof position. It outlines nothing less than a new critical

theory (reluctantas Foucault was "to theorize"), one that attempts to

go beyond the limits of existing positions such as that of the Frankfurt

School. The returnto Kant,particularlyhis "Wasist Aufklirung?" sig-nals by itself a reexamination of the fundamental premises of critical

3. SeeJacques Derrida, OfGrammatology,rans. GayatriC. Spivak(Baltimore:Johns

Hopkins University Press, 1976).4. My book, Foucault,Marxismand History,devotes considerable attention to this

question. See Chapter 4.




theory and points specificallyto an effort by Foucault to differentiate

his stance from that of Jiirgen Habermas. Perhapsmost surprisingof

all to followers of recent French theory is Foucault's willingness, in"WhatIs Enlightenment?"to arguefor the value to contemporarythe-

ory of certain Enlightenment strategiesof thought.The returnto Kant,and thereforeto the Enlightenment, is also asso-

ciated with the recent work of Jean-Francois Lyotard.5 Lyotard, like

Foucault,examines one of Kant's"minor" historicalessays,but in this

case it is "The Dispute of the Faculties."6Lyotardseeksa logicalbasis of

support

for epistemologicalmultiplicity,for the positive value of non-

totalizing argument. Lyotard'sterms "phrase"and later "le diffrand"mark the boundaries between discourses that are unbridgeable by the

ambitions of a total theory. While Foucault'sproject is similar to Lyo-tard's, it is at once broader in scope and more politicallyrooted than

his. A detailed comparison of the recent workof Foucault and Lyotardreveals interesting similaritiesand contrasts.

Foucault is most sensitive, in "What Is Enlightenment?" to the

problem of rooting his own project in the Enlightenment. He findssomething of interestthere, but he does not want his work to be associ-

ated too intimatelywith thinkers of the eighteenth century.Too many

people, he complains, put things in the black and white terms of proand contra. He sharplyattacks the "blackmailers"who do so because

they limit discourse to "a simplistic and authoritarian alternative."7

Foucault's touchiness on this issue derives from an unresolved issue

that is at the heart of his essay. The point at stake has to do with his

strategyof rooting theory in the present, both in ethical and politicalterms, without, however, adequately determining the relation of the

present to the past.Foucaultextractsfrom the Enlightenment,and from Kantin particu-

lar, the problematicof the constitution of the self, relatingthis to Kant's

"dareto know." He contends that Kant introduced into philosophy the

5. Seeespecially

LeDiffrand(Paris:Les Editions de minuit, 1983).6. See "Judiciousness in Dispute or, Kant after Marx," published in French as

"Judicieuxdans le differand," in Jacques Derrida, et al., LaFaculte ejuger(Paris:Les

Editionsde minuit, 1985).See also "Philosophyof Phrases,"unpublished manuscript.7. Michel Foucault, "What Is Enlightenment?" trans. Catherine Porter, in The

Foucault eader, d. PaulRabinow (New York:Pantheon, 1984), 43. Hereafter cited par-

entheticallyas "Enlightenment."

109



110 Mark Poster

novelty of connecting the issue of the "public" freedom to know with"a reflection on history and a particularanalysis of the specific mo-

ment at which he is writingand because of which he is writing"("En-

lightenment," 38). In other words, the ability to constitute oneself asthe subjectof knowledge is relatedto one's interventionin the presentas well as one's estimate of the relation of the present to the past. Inthis formulation rests the achievement of Kant that Foucault wouldemulate. (In light of Foucault'sunfortunately nterrupted historyof theconstitution of the self, it is especially important to analyze Kant'sfor-mulation of the

problem

in relation to thehistory

ofmodernity.)Foucaultcarefullydelimits his debt to Kant to a particularproposition,

a proposition moreover that is not characteristic of Kant's majorworks. The charge that Foucault had become a Kantian,much less a

philosophe, ould appear to be remote. Then why all the fuss about"blackmail"?

Forone thing, Foucault is somewhatuncomfortablein thephilosophe'sgarb. He had afterall devoted many of his earlyworks to a critique of

humanist rationalism. From Madnessand Civilization o The OrderofThings,he participatedin an intellectual currentthat was animated bythe rejection of the Enlightenment. In "What Is Enlightenment?"Foucaultdistinguishes humanism from the Enlightenment-a distinc-tion not everyone would agree to-reserving his criticismfor the for-mer.

Humanism.. canbe opposedbytheprinciple fa critique nd a

permanent reationof ourselvesn ourautonomy:hat s, a prin-ciplethat s attheheartof thehistoricalonsciousnesshat heEn-

lightenmenthas of itself.Fromthis standpoint, am inclinedtoseeEnlightenmentndhumanism n a stateof tensionratherhan

identity. 44)

Such a definition of the Enlightenment, while arguable, is not widelyaccepted.

Another issue thatdisrupts

aneasy appropriation

of theEnlighten-ment by Foucault concerns his relation to Habermas. In such recent

works as TheTheoryf Communicativection,8 "Modernityversus Post-

8. Jurgen Habermas, TheTheoryf Communicativection, rans. Thomas McCarthy(Boston: Beacon Press, 1984).




modernity,"9and "The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment,"'lHabermas defends the Enlightenment against thinkers like Foucault,

precisely on the issue of rationalism. The project of an emancipatedsociety, for Habermas, is impossible without the extension of Enlight-enment rationalitythroughout the space of politics and everydaylife.

In "Modernity versus Postmodernity" he defends modernity, based

on the Enlightenment, against postmodernity which, he claims, leads

to conservatism. In "The Entwinement of Myth and Enlightenment"he rejectsas superficialany similaritybetween the critique of the En-

lightenment in Derrida and Foucault, on the one hand, with that of

Horkheimer and Adorno," on the other, contending that the pessi-mism of the latter thinkers is recuperable while that of the former is

not.

An importantchange occurred in Habermas'sposition on this issue

with TheTheoryf Communicativection.Habermas now recognizes that

the defense of the Enlightenmentwould have to be modified: no longercould it be based on reason as an attribute of consciousness. Instead,

Enlightenmentrationalitymust be defended

by translatingt into a lin-

guistic model. Habermas defines rationalityas a capacityfor speech in

a certain linguistic-social setting. This "ideal speech situation"is con-

ceptualizedas a stagein human evolution.Mankind,or at leastWestern

society, is now capable of making a project of constituting the "ideal

speech situation,"and therefore of constructingan emancipated socie-

ty.'2The more recent work elaboratesmore fully the linguistic charac-

ter of the concept of reason.

One can plausibly read TheTheoryf Communicativection n a waythat suggests that Habermas is closer to the positions of Lyotardand

Foucault than might at first be apparent. Although communicative

rationalitypresumes a goal of consensus, a goal with which neither

Lyotardnor Foucaulthave much sympathy, t includes a moment of dif-

ference as well. The speakerin Habermas's discourse must be able to

contest the propositionof anotherin order for rationality o be effective

in a communication. Supportfor this readingof TheTheoryfCommunica-

9. Habermas, New GermanCritique, o. 22 (Winter 1981): 3-18.

10. Habermas, New GermanCritique, o. 26 (Spring/Summer 1982): 13-30.11. See Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adomo, Dialecticof Enlightenment,rans.

John Cumming (New York:Seabury, 1972).12. This theme was developed as early as Communicationnd theEvolutionof Society

(Boston: Beacon Press, 1979). The German texts were published in 1976.

111



112 MarkPoster

tiveAction omes in a recent interviewof Habermas by PerryAnderson.

Here Habermas denies that his defense of rationalityon the basis of

linguisticconsensus leads to "a fully transparentsociety." On the con-trary,he claims thatconsensus is attained"by means of the criticismof

validity-claims [and] does not conflict therefore with the pluralism of

life-forms and interest."13Habermas's emphasis on criticism in com-

munication puts him close to Lyotard'snotion of le differandnd to

Foucault's notion of oppositional self-constitution, even as it is bor-

rowed from Kant.Foucault's notion of "the constitution of the self as

an autonomous subject"("Enlightenment,"42) bears considerable re-

semblance to Habermas's notion of communicative rationality as acriticalspeech act. An additional similarityin the thought of Foucault

and Habermas is that they both develop their ideas in relation to the

project of emancipation.The crucialdivergencein their ideas, however,concerns the problem

of historicalframing.Habermas,the dialectician, ets the notion of com-

municativerationalitywithin the context of the total evolution of man-

kind. His is, in short, ateleological position.

Foucault,thegenealogist,roots his position in a detotalized confrontation with the present. On

the question of historical framing, Habermas retreats to an assump-tion of epistemological certainty:the critical theorist must be able to

reconstruct the entire past. Foucault'sposition requires a much more

modest claim for the critic:that he or she can dare to know and consti-

tute him or herself in political opposition to present structuresof dom-

ination. Foucault'sposition thereforegoes further than Habermas's in

abandoning the traditional,essentialist view of the subject as centeredin knowledge.The main theoretical problem at stake in the appropriation of the

Enlightenment, however, is the issue of how to change the present.Foucault argues very powerfully for a new kind of criticism, one he

calls "a limit attitude." The new criticismwill seek to determine what is

and what is not possible. Foucault'sproposal is, in many ways, closer

to Marx than to Kant.Kantdefined what reason could notdo, thereby

rejecting earlier forms of metaphysical discourse. The powers of ra-tionalitythat remained after Kant'sphilosophical house-cleaningwere

determined through the strategyof transcendentaldeduction, which

13. "Jiirgen Habermas: A Philosophico-PoliticalProfile,"New LeftReview,no. 151

(May-June1985): 94.



Foucault,he Presentand History

rooted pure reasonin universality.By contrast,both Marx and Foucault

place temporal limits on reason, restricting it by its contingency, its

presentness. The limits of reason are determined by the finitude of thethinker, by his or her situation.

In addition, both Marx and Foucaultorient, however differently,the

taskof criticismto the "positive"goal of transgression.Foucaultis nev-

er more clear on this issue than in "What s Enlightenment?"The pro-

ject of criticism is associated with the labor of freedom: reason

unmasks pretensions to universality,reveals the boundaries of social

and cultural forms, and points to the possibility of alternativeforms

that are not yet associated with domination. Where Foucault goes

considerably beyond Marxis in the connection he makes between the

transgressive critique of the present and the constitution of the self.

Much more cearly than Marx, Foucaultinsists that historicalwritingis

a form of self-determinationas well as a practiceof social critique. In

Foucault'swords,

I meanthatthisworkdoneat the limitsof ourselvesmust,

on theone hand,open up a realmof historicalnquiryand,on theother,

put itselfto the test of reality,of contemporary eality,both to

graspthe pointswherechangeis possibleand desirable,and todetermine heprecise orm thischangeshouldtake. ("Enlighten-ment,"46)

Marx,in many waysa son of the Enlightenment,never saw thatthe cri-

tique of the present is authorized by the contingency of the consti-

tution of the self of the critic.Instead, Marxpresumed the universal va-

lidity of the dialectic, which is a variation on the theme of essentialist

rationalism.

"What Is Enlightenment?"synthesizestwo strains n Foucault'sworksince the early 1970s.DisciplinendPunishand TheHistoryfSexuality,ol-ume 1 presentcritiquesof dominationby providingdetotalizedhistoriesof particulardiscourse/practices.Subsequently,Foucaultworkedon the

problemof the constitutionof the

self, exploringthattheme in volumes

2 and 3 of TheHistoryf Sexuality. ut the connection between these twolines of research was not drawn out until "What Is Enlightenment?"The enigmatic proclamationin Disciplinend Punish hat Foucault'shis-

tory is a history of the present now becomes clear. Criticism,of whichhistoricalwriting is one form, begins with the critic's self-constitution

113



114 MarkPoster

which occurs through the recognition of one's contingency and, at the

same time, through the recognition that social domination is contin-

gent. Foucault'sformulation is worth repeating:

I shall hus characterizehephilosophicalthosappropriateo thecriticalontologyof ourselves s a historico-practicalestof thelim-its thatwe may go beyond,and thusas workcarriedout by our-selvesupon ourselvesas freebeings.("Enlightenment,"7)

The weakpoint of Foucault'snew historyrestswiththe problem of the

generalityof the historian'swork, a problem that Foucaultrecognizesand addresses but does not completely resolve. The historian's work

begins with his or her recognition of contingency and subsequent con-

stitution of self as historian. The historian's work is ultimately one of

self-examination.With an interior focus having priorityover the labor

of reconstructingthe past, the historian is subject to the blind spot of

social determination. Historicalwritingis rooted in the inward investi-

gation of limits; its strategyof outward investigationof social domina-

tion may therefore lack systematicity, ack a grasp of the general struc-tures that work to determine the contingency of the individual.

Foucault grapples with this problem by outlining what he regards as

the "generality"of his problematic:

Thisphilosophical ttitudehas to be translatednto the laborofdiversenquiries... [which] avetheir heoretical oherencen thedefinitionof the historically nique forms in which the gener-

alitiesof ourrelations o things, o others, o ourselves,havebeenproblematized."Enlightenment,"0)

Foucault here maintains that historical writing, however "mono-

graphic"or limited in scope, implicates large theoretical issues. These

issues ("relationsto things, to others, to ourselves") are definitions of

general questions. The problem with Foucault's position is that he

privileges the historian'srelations to others and things in comparison

to the historian's relation to him or herself.Partof the contingent situation of the historian is the world in which

he or she attemptsthe constitution of self. Yetin Foucault'sessay thereis no attempt to characterize the general patterns of this world, or



Foucault, the Presentand History

better no attempt to determine the particularityof the social world

which gives force to the investigationsof the historian.What the reader

confronts in Foucault'stext is a world in which there are diverseformsof domination and diverse forms of resistance to domination. One

finds no recognition of a special characterof the contingent presentthatmakespertinenta form of historiographysuch as the one Foucault

develops.It is my conviction that there have emerged in the recent past new

language experiences, which I call the mode of information, and that

these language experiences work to detotalize the socialworld, provid-

ing the impetus for a decentered form of historiography such asFoucault's. It is also my conviction that an explicit recognition and

analysis of the mode of information provide supplementary force to

the main line of Foucault's work, giving it a power that it otherwise

lacks. His position, as it stands, remains subject to the charge that it

generates projects that are arbitrary; hat its problematic is unable to

argue for the general value and applicabilityof its conclusions.The additional force that

mightbe added to Foucault's

position byincorporatingthe perspectiveof the mode of information can be brief-

ly sketched in a few remarks.The problematic of the constitution ofthe self in contemporary social space must take account of electron-

ically mediated communications. These are increasinglybeing substi-tuted for both face to face and writtencommunications. Today televi-sion takes over the role of the confessional and the therapysession ofearlier times. In the act of viewing, television "discourses" are pre-

sented which operate to "constitute the self' of the viewer. Televisionis a complex phenomenon in which network serials and news, ads,and tapes of movies played on VCRshave very differenteffects on the

question of the subject. In the case of ads, the viewer is fashioned intoa consumer-subject by the visual and aural rhetoric, with floatingsignifiersattachedto commodities not by any intrinsicrelation to thembut by the logic of unfulfilled desire that is at once imprinted in the

subject's fantasyand alreadythere through the limits of the social or-

der.In the case of computer mail and teleconferencing,14 emporal and

spatial distance structuresthe subject continuously to constitute him

14. I am indebted to Andrew Feenberg and Rob Kling for stimulating this line of

thought.

115



116 MarkPoster

or herself in the discourse. Electronic mediation heightens the "arti-

fidality"of communication, extending to the ultimate degree the diffe-

ranceof writing.Self-constitutionis built into the structureof the com-munication. With the mode of information, the question of the subjectis no longer limited to the opposition consciousness/structure. nstead,the subject becomes a multiplicityof self-constitutions,with one iden-

tityas the receiverof television ads, another as operatorof an automat-

ic teller, another as a reader of novels, and so forth. Foucault'sprob-lematic of self-constitution is the appropriate strategyfor the mode of

information, finding its most extensive field in that context.

Foucault's reluctance to problematize the character of the socialworld stems no doubt from the failures of the characterizationprovid-ed by Marxistsand the epistemological implications of that failure.15

But the impasses at all levels of the theory of the mode of productionand the dangersof totalizationinherent in the projectof characterizingthe social world are not adequate excuses. A detotalized analysisof thesocial world, one that defines emergent structuresin our social space,remains both

possibleand

necessary.For without such an

analysisFoucaultremains unable to distinguish the difference in the respectivesituations of Kant and himself, and therefore remains uneasy in re-

turningto Kantbecause of the danger in which an identityof positionsmight appear to result. Yet if Foucault had defined his present in itsdifference from Kant's (post-modern vs. modem; mode of informa-tion vs. mode of production) the danger of the confusion of positionswould disappear and the return would become a graceful exchange,

one not subject to "blackmail"of any sort.It is necessary to theorize, therefore, as one moment in the consti-tution of the historian's subjectivityand discourse a characterization,howeverprovisional, of the historian'ssocial world.To summarize, thebenefits of this endeavor are two: to provide specificityand differenceto the historian's situation, and to give generality to his or her trans-

gressiveinvestigations.I will now illustratethese themes by comparingMarx to Foucault and indicatinghow a theoryof the mode of informa-

tion enhances both of their historical perspectives.Marxconstitutes the historicalfield as one predominantly of action,

15. That is, the revolutionarysubjectand the subject of revolutionarytheory cannotbe the basis of a project of universal emancipation.




specificallylaboring action. In contrast, Foucault gives priorityto dis-

course, a form of language, without severing the relation of discourse

to practice. Foucault carried out this paradigmaticshift in the contextof the strong currentof structuralism n France. Structuralistsnot only

privilege linguistic phenomena, they also tend to reduce the entire

field of the human sciences to language. Foucault rejects the struc-

turalisttotalization of language with his insistence on the couplet dis-

course/practice,thereby avoiding the danger of formalism. The prob-lem, however, is that he accepts the paradigm shift toward languagewithout questioning the social factors (such as the mode of informa-

tion) that give urgency to the move.Marxshifts the field from politics to labor, arguingnot only that la-

bor had not yet been adequatelytheorized, but that the currentsocial

formation drawsattention o laboras a problemn that capitalism trans-forms the labor process. Foucault shifts the field from labor to dis-

course without rigorousxaminationf the ways the contemporaryfield

problematizes anguage.He contextualizesthe shift to languagepartiallyin that he draws attention to the

new role of the human sciences instructures of domination, a Nietzschean theme that he renews with

great success. But he never examines thoroughly the drastic transfor-mations of linguistic experience in the contemporaryfield. The resultis that his texts do not reveal as fully as they might the powerful socialforces thatjustify the emphasis on language as a focus of historical in-

vestigation.I have been developing the concept of "the mode of information"to

accomplish just that purpose. I use the term not to designate a newperiod of history,such as "the age of information."Conceptualized inthat way, the mode of information would totalize the field, reintro-

ducing the problem that plagues Marx'sconcept of the mode of pro-duction. I employ the concept of the mode of information to designatethe field of linguistic experience, a field whose basic structuralrela-tions change from period to period just as those of the mode of pro-duction do. But Marx's concept of the mode of production tends to

slide in its usage from one that stipulatesthatthere are different modesof production at different times to one that posits the modern epoch(capitalism)as a social system dominated by the forces and relationsof

production.The simple theoreticalobservationthatall societiesincludestructures through which human beings produce objects to satisfy

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118 MarkPoster

theirneeds is transformednto a reductive otalization hatcenters hehistorical ield in the systemof production.This theoretical lippage

must be avoided n thedevelopmentof theconceptof the mode of in-formation.Thecategorymust notbe theorized n suchawaythat tap-pearsthatthe currentperiodsubstitutes mode of informationoramode of production.

The need to developa historicalield of investigationonstituted ythe mode of information erivesboth fromthefailureof historicalma-terialismaswellas otherpositionssuchasMaxWeber's)o elaborate

theoryof languageand from fundamentalchanges n linguistic xper-ience that have occurred n the twentiethcentury.Due to the limi-tationsof thisessayI willfocusonlyon the secondissue.An adequatetheoryof the mode of information rucially ependsuponthewaythecontextof languages envisioned. tis true thatthe humansciences nthe twentiethcenturyhavebecome associatedwith systemsof socialcontrol.It is truethatthemode of productionhas beensignificantlyl-tered n recentyearsbytheintroduction f informationprocessing ys-tems. Butneitherof these contextual

changess an

adequatestartingpointfor developinga conceptof the mode of information,because

theyfail to come to termswiththe generalproblemof the positionof

languagen socialrelations:theyfailin shortto formulatea theoryofthe relationof language o action.

The theoryof the mode of informationmusttake nto account he

critiquesof the representationality,ntentionality, nd univocalityof

language hat havedeveloped n so manyvarieties n recentdecades.

The structuralistserivemeaningnot from the consciousnessof thelanguage peakerbutfromthesystemofbinaryoppositesat a synchro-nous levelof analysis.16emiologistsdemonstratehatmeaningscan"float" n socialspaceand be attached o objects n a mannerout of

phasewith their"utility"or referentiality.17econstructionistsrgueforthe"textuality"f spoken anguage, hesystematic apbetween n-tentionanddiscourse.18Speechact theoristsnsiston theperformativecomponentof utterances, enying hatstatements re reducible o the

16. Perhapsthe most interestingtext to consult for this position is Roland Barthes,TheFashionSystem, rans. M. Ward and Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang,1983).

17. SeeJean Baudrillard,TheMirrorofProduction,rans.Mark Poster (St.Louis: TelosPress, 1975).

18. See Derrida, Of Grammatology.




function of truth.19Bakhtinuncovers a dialogic dimension of languagein which polyvocalityand polysemy disruptthe illusion of semantic sta-

bility.20Each of these positions contains impressive arguments against

positivism and formalism.

However valuable these "post-rationalist" heories of language maybe, they do not offer the historianthe principles of structuralvariation

that constitute a linguistic field at thetemporalvel.21 While many of the

above positions incude suggestiveanalyticperspectiveson the questionof context, they do not elaborate ts internalcomplexityand differences.

I mean by this thattheydo not specifythe uniquenessof linguisticexpe-rience in the present conjuncture.Their categoriestend to capturelan-

guage in a way that presents it as a structurallyunchanging phenome-non. What is required for a theory of the mode of information is a set

of categories that prepares for the analysis of historicaldifference.

This large theoretical task cannot be approached in the context of a

short article.But I do want to indicate the kinds of linguistic phenome-na thatappearto have arisenrecentlyand thatrequiretheoreticalelab-

oration and historical analysis. If, beginning in the sixteenth century,the printing press transformedlinguistic experience, so in the twenti-

eth centuryhave electronic forms of informationstorageand transmis-

sion. A greatbody of linguisticinteraction now occurs at tremendously

expanded space and time distances. The telephone, radio, television,and the computer all encourage a dispersalof communicating groups.

Although this process began with printing, it may be asked if the new

media institute a qualitativetransformationof social interactionby ex-

tending so vastly the distancing process. I would argue that subjectsare constituted differentlywhen a good part of their communicative

experience is mediated by electronic discourse/practice. In his last

years Foucault worked on the question of the constitution of the sub-

ject; his projectmust be extended to include the mode of information.

One structuralfeature of the electronic media that make them dif-

ferent from printing is their complex multidirectionality.Print sends

19. See J. L. Austin, How to Do ThingswithWords(Cambridge:Harvard UniversityPress, 1962).

20. M. M. Bakhtin,TheDialogicmagination,rans.Michael Holquist (Austin:Univer-

sity of Texas Press, 1981).21. For a differentopinion, see Dominick LaCapra,Rethinkingntellectual istory Ith-

aca: Cornell UniversityPress, 1983).

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120 MarkPoster

signifiersout from a source; the computer collectssignifiersfrom every-where. Print extends the "influence" of a communicating subject or

text;the computer allowsthe receiverof signifiersto monitor the trans-mitter. Centers of power become panopticaladdressees whose "mem-

ory" is a new structure of domination. For example, a landlord in Los

Angeles entered into his computer information about the behavior of

his tenants and made that available to other landlords, at a price.22Communicational experience has been altered: the electronic media

encourage the dispersal of the community, but at the same time facili-

tate its surveillance.

The market is also transformed. Semiologists like Baudrillard have

analyzed the structureof significationin advertising, stressingthe sepa-ration of the signifier and its subsequent recoding of commodities.

The electronic media promote this process. Anything can be asso-

ciated with anythingelse for a viewing subjectwho is structuredby the

rhetoric of the commercial. President Reagan, a media person par ex-

cellence, attemptedto associate a visit to SSgraveswith U.S.-WestGer-

man alliance. He wassurprised

thatmany groups

held ontosignifiersabout the gravesthat contradicted the move of reconciliation. What is

germane here is not only the resistanceof communicational commu-

nities whose "datastorage"reads out SS=murderers,but also Reagan's

re-enacting the new structure of the mode of information in which

meaningsaremanipulatedby transmitters. t is necessaryalso to analyzelabor and leisure in terms of the new mode of information.

The relation between the computer and its user requires study. The

computer is not writtenupon like a blank sheet of paper. First,the pat-terned, lighted pixels on the screen are not like marksof ink or graph-ite. They are "immaterials,"23not inertial traces. The user's mind is

confronted not by the resistanceof matter but by a screen with a new

ontologicalstatus:half-matter,half-idea.The text on a computer screenis as evanescent as a speaker'swords, instantaneouslyavailable for cor-rection or change. So an individual creates texts in a computer by in-

teractingwith an "object" that is more like the writer's brain than a

piece of paper.Next, the computer can be the brain, that is, it can access data bases

22. GaryMarx,"The New Surveillance,"Technologyeview(May-June 1985):43-48.23. This term was coined by Jean-Francois Lyotard for his Beauborg exhibit in

1985.




that resemble memory but vastly extend some of its capabilities.The

computer can make available, in principle, the corpus of the world's

texts, transforming in practice the user's memory. In addition, thecomputer can substitutefor the speakerin a conversation. Besides reg-

ulatingmachines, it can act communicationally in place of people. The

traditional, Cartesianview of the human subject as speaker who acts

on the world of nature must be modified to account for these new

"agents."The electronicmeans of communicationexplode the space-time imits

of messages, permit the surveillance of messages and actions, completethe process of the automation of production, despatialize certainkindsof work, enable signifiers to float in relation to referents, become a

substitute for certainforms of social relations, provide a new relation

between authorand text, expand infinitelyhuman memory, and under-

mine the Cartesianontology of subjectand object. In these ways "real-

ity" is constituted in the "unreal" dimension of the media. In this do-

main, there are no longer pure acts, only linguistically transformed

representations,which are "acts" themselves.

These features of the new mode of information are suggested as a

tentativeoutline, nothing more. Even in this preliminaryform they de-

pict a drasticallynew characterof linguisticexperience, one with inesti-

mable significancefor the reconstitution of the social world, including

entirely new structures of domination. Historians committed to the

projectof emancipation in its liberal, Marxist,or any other form need

to concern themselves with the analysisof the mode of information, a

project in which the theory of the mode of production will be of mini-mal assistance.

121

foucault, the present and history

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