Ta Meta Ta Politika

INTRODUCTION

There is the study of the political reality, i.e. political science, and there is the more removed inquiry into the domain of the political itself. “Ta meta ta physica”, a Greek term used by Aristotle to refer to metaphysics as the ‘things beyond the physics’, describes a philosophical inquiry into the fundamental nature of physics itself; rather than that which is within the domain of physics. “Ta meta ta politika”, referring to the ‘things beyond the politics’, then, must be the political inquiry into politics itself. Essential to this inquiry is defining the domain of the ‘political’. In the 1978 interview The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault defines ‘politics’ in terms of “power acting on power relations” (Sluga). My aim here is to expand on this definition of the ‘political’ in the context of power and power relations. Moreover, in illustrating Foucault’s position, I hope to distinguish political hegemony as a force to be reckoned with in today’s socio-political landscape.

POWER

Simply put, ‘power’ is the ability for one individual to alter the behavior of another. If I can cause you to act in a particular way, then I have power over you. Moreover, power always entails a set of actions performed upon another person's actions and reactions. That is, my acting upon you is not enough for power to be established. Rather, ‘power’ is my acting upon you in a way that affects the choices you make.

This definition makes power seem ubiquitous, as such power can exist anywhere. In fact, Foucault asserts that this description not only asserts that power is everywhere, but that we are all imposing power on one another at all times. This is what Foucault is saying when he claims that there are power relations between all points of the social body. Meaning that, within any and all human interactions, there is an inherent quality of power. The power you, a reader, have over me, a writer, will be relative to our social positions. Nonetheless, there necessarily exists some relationship of power between us. Whether we acknowledge it, or not: Whether we like it, or not. In essence, power is unavoidable.

While this description of power is often attributed to violence, it cannot be reduced to the use, or threat of violence. Although violence may be a part of some power relationships, "In itself, the exercise of power is not violence" (Foucault). Moreover, this sense of the word ‘power’ is not strictly a negative one. Your grandparents might have the power to make you want to visit them more often, by cooking your favorite dish every time you are there. Note that violence is in no way related to the exercise of power in this case.

POLITIKA

Foucault considers this description of power as a contender for defining the domain of the ‘political’. Ultimately, however, he rejects it—and for good reasons. If the word ‘political’ were as ubiquitous as Foucault's description of power, it would lose its meaning. In characterizing all human interactions, this definition would include things we might not want to think of as being political; such as in the example of your grandparents cooking for you. Yes, their incentivizing your return with baked goods is a clear use of power, as they are affecting your behavior. But there is something missing in trying to consider that relation political.

For Foucault, this missing component that distinguished the political from other power relations is a feature of interconnectedness between the power relations themselves. That is, when power acts on power relations, the given situation becomes political. To illustrate this point further, please consider a hypothetical society represented in the following diagrams. In Figure 1, with (A) representing a seller and (B) representing a consumer, there can be several relations of power between (A) and (B); namely, there is an economic relation between the two. This interaction between them establishes this power relation, but it is far too simple to be considered ‘political’. Now consider Figure 2, with (C) being an institutional defender of consumer rights. If (A) sells (B) a faulty product, (C) can intervene and act on the power relation between the two. This, according to Foucault, is a political relation.

Furthermore, Foucault defines politics in terms of the systems of power it produces. So the ‘political’, then, is the web of political relations connecting and dividing points of the social body. Imagine in Figure 3 that (F) represents the California Supreme Court, and (E) represents the Federal Department of Justice. (F) has the power to alter the way in which (C) can intervene in the economic relation between (A) and (B). If a majority of the justices in (F) had a ‘pro-business’ view, then (A), the seller, has a newfound political power over (B), the consumer. Now, let us imagine that the presidential election is a month away, and the candidate most likely to win is consumer rights activist Ralph Nader (D). His victory in the election would give him the authority to appoint the head of (E), the Department of Justice. (E) might not have direct power over the justices of (F), but it might be able to change the rules by which (F) has authority over (C). As new power relations emerge, the system of politics revolving around a rather simple interaction between a consumer and a seller gets ever more complicated.

In this sense, it is the complexity of political relations that defines the domain of the ‘political’. In a Foucauldian framework, politics must be understood as a process that reproduces itself at ever higher levels of coordination (Sluga). This ever-increasing complexity of a political situation develops itself into a larger system of social networks. Moreover, as power relations group into certain ideas or practices, they ‘crystalize’ into institutions. For example, the defender of consumer rights in Figure 2 and 3 might have come about as a reaction to an abundance of unfair business practices. As community members, activists, lawyers, and politicians assembled their collective power into a single practice, this institution of consumer rights defense slowly solidifies into the socio-political landscape. Over time, the more people that rely on it, the more points of the social body are willing to fight to preserve it. As institutions impose power on other institutions, new systems of governing that power might emerge, creating a vastly complicated political system.

HEGEMONY

If the crystallization of power relations results in institutions, then the convergence of crystalized power relations of the same ideology result in hegemonies. Generally speaking, ‘hegemony’ is a monopoly of power or a status quo. It is the expansive force of an ideology to alter the political landscape. Hegemonies, similarly to institutions, assert political control in the name of self-preservation.

To illustrate how hegemonies occur, let us briefly return to Figure 3. Imagine that Mark Cuban beats Ralph Nader in the presidential election I mentioned earlier. As a ‘pro-business’ person himself, Cuban is not likely to interfere in the California Supreme Court’s original decision, as Nader did. In fact, he is more likely to appoint as many ‘pro-business’ people to as many political positions as he can. As Cuban’s role in the political landscape becomes that of replacing consumer rights advocates with big business proponents, Cuban shifts the dynamics of power in the same direction. Business, however, can include a whole array of political topics other than consumer rights, such as workers rights, corporate regulation, international politics, and so on. In horizontally spreading Cuban’s ideology of business into all of these political fields, he would be creating a ‘hegemony’.

In this sense, Foucault might want to say that hegemonies are ‘hyper-crystalized’, as their very nature becomes unquestionable the larger they get. By this, I mean that if you find a political ideal that is not to be questioned, because to challenge it is to challenge all that depend on it, you have probably found a hegemony. This is because, over time, a wide-spread dependency on the political system forces the continual perpetuation of self-preservation, regardless of the systems practical or moral value. This becomes problematic when considering the hegemonies that fail to meet the goals they set out to do.

Consider neoliberalism, a topic Foucault had a great interest in. After the so-called end of history (i.e. the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the global competition between communist and capitalist values), Neoliberalism reigned as the supreme economic view across the globe. Institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, then, perpetuated its ideals in political systems everywhere, specifically in developing nations. The idea that the welfare state was dead was put forward to each one of these nations, and the response was the retraction of the state from public benefits. The idea was that, by retracting state support, businesses can occupy the roles of supplying what the state used provided to those in need.

Thirty years after the end of history, it is clear that these practices failed to do what they set out to accomplish; the consequence of which is a matter of political science. The philosophical issue that arises from this failure, at least the issue I wish to emphasize, is that neoliberalism remains untouched. As such, the practices of assisting those in need by capitalist means remains the ‘gold standard’ for global development, despite their evident failures. In American politics, you cannot even bring up the idea of a new public good without being labeled a socialist. Not that there is anything wrong with being labeled as such, other than the massive political force you now must fight to defend such ideas. A force of political thought that is taken for granted by a large majority of media outlets and outspoken politicians, a force of unquestionable magnitude. If such hegemony is unwilling to be questioned, challenged, and worked on, then any idea of progress that deviates from it is unpromising.

WORK CITED

Foucault, Michel. “ ‘The History of Sexuality,’ in Power/Knowledge. Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977.” Pantheon Books New York 1980, p. 187, Edited by Colin Gordon.

Sluga, Hans. “Michel Foucault as a Political Philosopher.” Truth and Power, www.truthandpower.com/michel-foucault-as-a-political-philosopher/.