Stealing students’ ideas. It’s a noble tradition.

Holy- I searched up Foucault vs Agamben in your podcast discography last night hoping for a comparative video. This is so helpful I’m reading Homo Sacre rn!

Thank you, David. For whatever reason, I missed the notification for this!

Years ago, before grad school, I did a piece on Nikolas Rose's Governing the Soul (1999), a complex but rich examination of the nexus between governmentality and how power wielding apparatus' govern not only the person, but the psychology/soul, connoting this idea about layered identities of a person/life and how power impacts and shapes one in a multi-faceted way. It was a long time ago, but that is how I recall it. The point is these arguments are quite reminiscent to the tropes of (obviously) Foucault, as well as Agamben.

very lucid explanation prof. Wish my teachers could do this. subscribed! Keep up the good work. love from India!

Thank you for helping me clearly understand the differences between Foucault and Agamben. Foucault registeres life within the framework, while Agamben illustrates how sovereignty expels and justifies the removal of life . Rather than choosing between Foucault and Agamben, it seems Agamben interprets aspects overlooked by Foucault. While Foucault perceived sovereignty as encompassing life within a framework, Agamben's originally explains how sovereignty removes life. Agamben suggests that sovereignty doesn't merely wield power to kill but rather justifies the act of killing by redefining life killed different from life within society

Thank you so much! Could you please do a video comparing just Agamben and Mbembe?

Hi, Thanks for sharing all of your videos. I would love to hear you talk about the social construction of reality by Berger and Luckmann if you are willing to make a video. 🙂

@theboys9070

7 ай бұрын

Both Foucault and Agamben's thoughts, as you describe them,resonate with me.

Still learning, but I agree more with Agambem. The right to have rights, to participate in the world, reminds me of mimetic desire theory. I felt there was something missing with Foucault’s understanding of biopower that didn’t satisfy my understanding of it. In that theory of memetic desire, power holds over life in both senses-> who lives and dies, and who gets to participate. Whoever breaks away from the systematic materialization of memetic desires would be outcasted just because of the fear that if you can’t control the other person’s desire in life, then you are threatened to not get access or complete ownership over what you want. There is a constant threat of death, a constant grasping toward keeping power, but in an even lower common denominator is the constant desire for life. In an imaginary theoretical scenario, Hitler perhaps wants the entire world and not to share it. Perhaps Hitler wanting to purify the world in a way that cleansed it, were his deadly annoyances of the shortcomings of biopower. Aka, would biopower not be naturally 100% successful without needing someone “really good at the job” (sorry for this) to take over? It’s like Hitler would be annoyed he had to take time away from his one desire to own the world, to needing to implement a biopower fascist managerial position. Something he enjoyed so much (controlling and owning the world) he had to delegate down to people without the same (horrifying) ideologies and without the same (horrifying) skill (to murder innocent people). Weird, interesting, thank you for the video. I’m a newbie so if I got something wrong I’d love to be corrected ! Thanks for another awesome vid. :)

@sadiebEP

7 ай бұрын

Also to end it with, the biopower for Hitler really fell through as he had to delegate the tasks. Yes, the holocaust was one of the worst genocides in history, though it was not successful in erasure or “cleansing”. He failed. Biopower alone fails.

@scriabinismydog2439

7 ай бұрын

I'm guessing you're getting the mimetic desire from Girard. His framework is interesting but sadly due to its generality it has little explanatory power compared to Foucaultian analysis; mostly because Girard's "fundamental antropology" isn't really... an anthropology? I don't get why mimesis should be at the core of human interactions when we have other anthropologists saying - or better, empirically demonstrating - exactly the opposite (the first example that comes to mind is Graeber, but you can also apply it to Marx), that is, human "nature" cannot be deducted from a principle - but it also can't be deduced by strictly empirical data, but a combination of both. Girard's application of mimetic desire to literature is brilliant but I believe it has little relevance in politics... merely because you can't really do much with it.

@balsarmy

7 ай бұрын

​@@scriabinismydog2439Graeber didn't talk about enperism or any philisophical ideas, he was an antropologist first if all. Seems like you put your thoughts into his works

@scriabinismydog2439

7 ай бұрын

@@balsarmy I literally mention him as being an anthropologist? My point was referring mainly to his talks when he explains how direct democracy isn't actually difficult to organize collectively and that the centrality of government for the structuring of a society can be a mere preliminary stage as long as it doesn't try to enforce its power outside of its domain of action etc... These ideas to me go implicitly against Girard's more intrinsically pessimist vision of human nature. And just fyi Graeber was knowledgeable in 20th century Philosophy as he mentions how other contemporary anthropologists use to borrow terms from continental theorists such as Heidegger and Deleuze. He even critiques Foucault's analysis of the power-knowledge relationship suggesting that there exists a power-ignorance one every time authority arises (and functions).

@emadmazarawi5368

6 ай бұрын

First of all, I would like to thank you for what you did. Secondly, I wish you explan idea of power knowledge and epestme. And please take this in mind that English is not my first language and I'm still not in advance level. Thanks again

18:15 Their *land* precisely means a lot, and that is exactly the goal for settlers, exclusion, expansion etc.

Hey since you like doing these versus videoes where philosophers are debating you should do a video on Judith Butler Vs Axel Honneth through the first 4 chapters of the Recognition and Ambivalence, which tracks their debate about the role of recognition

An excellent summary of key ideas. In my opinion Foucault makes a lot more of the role of civil war in the emergence of biopolitics, particularly related to racism (in SMBD). Have subscribed.

I would love to know more about both the classical and modern concept of the homo sacer, sometimes I struggle to understand the Roman context and the sizigyias and dialectics of agamben, texts, also would love to learn about this profanations and history of the pledge

Have you heard Todd McGowan’s take on the notion of Biopower? I’m curious to hear your opinion. He has a video about it on his channel.

Please do more videos on post Foucaldian theorists like how Esposito or Butler critiqued Agamben and Mbembe's notion of Necropower that can be used better than Biopower to explain certain contemporary political issues like Israel's occupation of Palestine.

I would like to see (hear) you do a podcast on: “one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter” ― George Galloway

I side more with Foucault. Although, as I understand Agamben, the issue is the ‘state of emergency’ that proclaims that the murder of certain people, e.g. Jews and other categories during the Holocaust, blacks in the US, “witches” in Europe and the US in the 17th and 18th centuries, would not be criminalized by the sovereign or the state. It was the state of emergency that facilitated the numerous genocides of the 20th century and now the 21st. Critical resistance in Foucault’s sense of the counterpoint to power unfortunately only follows these episodes of genocides, of the state of emergency. It is not obvious that the buildup of resentment has much impact at the scene or immediately. What potential resistance is there against the extremists during a genocide? Foucault observed the transformations of power from the peasant wars and then the 30 Years War followed by the 3 main democratic revolutions but slavery and colonialism encountered scant resistance. Hitler, like Napoleon, ran roughshod over Europe without and resistance until each ventured into Asia! We need to acknowledge that power still takes the sovereign form and the disciplinary form in the higher level bio power form. The state of emergency as the nonenforcement of laws regarding the rights of certain social categories is part of the power complex. The forms of resistance should be enumerated, namely, by intensification.

19:32 But Agamben's point is to have an ethics that concerns itself with "bare life"; that is also a rather ironic point concerning the statement on abortion. It is relevant one supposes, to make it so there is nothing that "reduction to bare life" can stop one from considering someone; here the notion of reduction to bare life is a reduction to being purely an external, 'mute' object reality instead. The fear is the possibility of excluding someone based on their 'bios' response, their "lack of responding", lack of "corresponding" or participating in a discourse, a situation such as this, I suppose. I don't think the category of "bare life" is the issue as such in that, but I think it is relvant what he tries to say- in the danger of arbitrary additional standards that are eppalead to and their alienation from the reality, I don't necessarily think that is the best way to express it.

I'd say whereas Focault stopped at the idea of Zoe, Agamben's theory could be regarded as an expansion in the form of Bios. So in that sense is it not that there is some sort of build up as oppose to pure opposition between those two ideas?

sovereign power trumps bodily autonomy and people accept that. Well obviously. A simple utilitarian arguement makes it reasonable most of the time. You could argue that Palestinians and Mizrahi jews are 2 groups of arabs in a class conflict. The working class versus the lumpen proles. Foucault makes the point that the underclass (lumpen) are carefully divided out and divided up as a threat against the disunity of the working class. And thats why the Mizrahi switched from black panther socialism to Likud. And why the working class in the US switched to Trump. Proving you are "deserving poor" is instinctual. The bottom of the pecking order become scapegoats who are thrown to the wolves - biopolitics without the deontological self sovereign rationalisation. Homo succor self sovereign rights help us maintain locally enforcable standards. But rights enforcement has selective funding entrenched. The thumb on the scales is balancing the costs of anomie.

9:54 "bodily" autonomy? Just autonomy. The implication that it is not also just a question of life, and "bodily autonomy" vs "bodily autonomy" as another (being deprived of life by someone else and "bodily autonomy" is preserved, etc.?) It is "bodily autonomy" vs "bodily autonomy", it is somebody else's will over a body, "biological control" to exert an abortion also just as banning abortion is. The issue is whether there is a question of bodily autonomy in this or that case conflicting, at least potentially. The idea is "whose" life, "whose" bodily autonomy; Either you actually adress the points people are making or there is no reason to engage at all. That is a basic responsibility.

I think that they say pretty much the same social thing, but the subject is another. While Freud’s subject is family (patriarchic figure&parents in general), Foucault’s subject is the different types of sexual identities that are being categorised. While Freud says that we are repressed to change our sexual needs to fit social norms on the aspect of mother and father figures, Foucault says that we need to fit in social norms that are already established, and not other who may not, because we can’t really develop words for every single different one sexual identity of each person just as he said about categorisation and pleasure missing. And from those sexual orientations that are in existence, still we are repressed to be some of those because there are some being encouraged while others should be hidden.

Did your hair change?

8:11 but they were already segregated and split apart as they were found, in an ethnically "stratified" hierarchical society, wrt. nobility vs peasantry, to the pleasure of the colonizers who have seen it, it was actually that many places there are things like these; agricultural and others- those were rather relevant historical dynamics, it wasn't something with no "history" of it's own

9:50 what's so good about being "human"? Humanism, in this cultural context? Seemingly another, maybe third big example of "grand enfant" style discourse. "Bodily" autonomy again- as opposed to autonomy- it is self-referentially, to the extent anything is, most important, not any less or more "bodily" in itself; whatever is most important is whatever is most important, ie. those actual considerations

The major shift in power was the American Revolution. It can't be understated how singular America was and still is. America marked the end of thousands of years of uninterrupted feudalism. England had to invent capitalism to understand and manage the power structure post revolution. Since then, they have refined the invisible hand of exercing control through self interest and ignorance.

@balsarmy

7 ай бұрын

It wasn't just America. You are missing human factor

@johndiss

7 ай бұрын

@@balsarmy what do you mean by human factor?

From what I understand Agamben is missing a lot, the whole "positive"/"creative" aspects of biopower (hospitals, psychiatry, laboratories, ... and especially sexuality, which was for Foucault the most important part of biopower). To say that these "positive" effects only apply to the higher classes is wrong in my opinion. Also Agamben's power seems to be universal and almost timeless, he follows one big idea and is fixated on death (which is ironic since to my knowledge Foucault was known for his personal obsession with death). All in all it looks like a mystification of sovereignty. I may be biased here since I know Foucault's writings much better than Agamben's but I think Foucault's concept is much more flexible and versatile. Your remarks about promotions at the beginning of the video made me think of the "Peter principle":)

"to purge the world of impurities in a very systematic way..." (9:24). Sounds like something a very big US supported power is doing to a People in the middle-east Not going to mention any names.

💝

Foucault for all of his brilliance failed to make the connection between bio power and the state of exception. Therefore, Agmeben presents a more coherent narrative in my opinion.

people in gaza = bare life

How do you explain Foucault’s letter to a French president where he defended the right of under aged children to give consent to have sex with adults?

@TheoryPhilosophy

7 ай бұрын

I don't know. Why are you looking for ways to defend that? Pretty weird

@vukjovanovic5708

5 ай бұрын

Foucault did. Which makes him highly suspicious of paedophilia. And that is no small matter, for someone talking about biopolitics and power.

@tatjanakane503

4 ай бұрын

@@TheoryPhilosophy I am definitely not defending such letter. Foucault wrote that letter with few other philosophers, and in my opinion, all of them were either paedophiles or utterly stupid.

I think im on the side of agamben, considering cases like syria, palestine.. agamben theory works better for them

9:10 No, not "white person", that is a ridiculously American point of view. And it was not some vague "Europe", ignoring Germany, German ideology and occupation is bizarre; if you want to use ideological terms, they used "Aryan" as their ideological term for those not subject to Nuremberg Laws (in principle at least; arguably porous language boundary the other way). They also used German, as the Volk, they considered Germanic/"Nordic" people superior specifically, not "standard white". This is such an extremely common American thing, to speak about a vague "Europe" and project specifically American cultural divisions and categories as somehow applying universally, all the while talking about relativeness of other categories. Within that, as an addition, they were racist against Africans present also, as in the updated Nuremberg Laws. But their focus was not conceptualized as "white" vs "non-white" as the opposition; Americans for some reason (while at the same time talking about it being socially conditioned?) seem to imagine "white" as an universal category as opposed to their views being characteristic of the specific history of personal identity where they live, based on groupings and contrasts, which isn't the same everywhere else.

A lot of nonsense in this video, but the ideas of Agamben and Foucault remain interesting and potentially insightful.

A lot could be said in regarding your last comment, but I'll probe it at just one point. You say it's the Israelis/Jews/American government/world media that only treat the Palestinian death as mere statistics, but you are the one claiming that the death toll is relevant. When the Nazis exterminated LGBTQ+ people or people with disabilities, was the fact that this was done in lesser numbers somehow mitigate the seriousness of the moral offence? Isn't refusing to treat death as a statistics call to examine the proportionality of Israel's response not by the amount of dead bodies but the justification of their actions according to international law (that is, accept the Israeli right to go on a defensive war but criticize unnecessary application of power on a case-to-case basis)? You also made a lot of assumptions about how Israelis conceive of the situation. In a way it's funny how quick deconstruction goes out the window when a postmodernist feels it's time to move from theory to praxis.

@recoxu8003

6 ай бұрын

lmao what is the point of this comment.

@larss4119

3 ай бұрын

This comment makes no sense. One can say that treating them as “mere” statistics is inappropriate while also stating that the death toll is relevant. It’s not overdetermined. Did you miss that obvious point?

Agamben continues much of Foucault's work. So why the v.? There is no side to pick idiot. This kind of nonsense is what's wrong with so called philosophy.

I'm on Baudrillard's side because I believe none of it is actually taking place

I feel deceived when I start watching something for its interesting content and suddenly I find myself trapped into some resented and biased political discourse.

@StevensBorowsky

7 ай бұрын

In the logic of critical theory, literally everything becomes politics because there are no provable axiomatic first principles and thus all narratives come down to power dynamics, and thus every issue cannot be separated from politics. Of course this destroys all aesthetics because art becomes didactic statements about politics, negative epistemology, etc. This is why the postmodern aesthetic is what it is

@balsarmy

7 ай бұрын

It is because the politucal narrative is there. Yes, politics really is connected to philosophy in many ways, but you react to a certain narrative.

@Ezratal

7 ай бұрын

Generally his content is good, but here there was a lot of really unnuanced, ideological rambling. The most cost-effective possible form of black sterilization in the modern world is abortion. A conversation about biopolitics wrt abortion limited to 'herpaderp women's autonomy is really lame, and anti-Foucauldian really.

Bodily autonomy is not the most important thing. If people have freedom to choose what to do with their bodies, the question arises as to which choice is the right one. Certain choices are marked as normal, others as not. Biopolitics is established. Freedom is slavery.

"To have bodily autonomy is the most important thing on earth...." 9:44 - Now there's an blatantly unexamined assumption fraught with dubious axiological problems.

I am on the side of the Jews! you asked which side of your take on middle east. It's really messed up that you blame the Holocaust survivors in the intro to the lecture. ( and those trying to free those gramma's from Hamas' grip) and the rest of your lecture defends theoritical Holocaust victims. I listen to you partly to get away from the garbage in the news, and your snide anti-semetic comment in the beginning made it impossible for me to concentrate on the rest. I doubt that I will listen to you again.

@nicolamercuriali2922

7 ай бұрын

It's absurd how whenever people point out the crystal clear violence of the state of Israel against civilians it's always framed as antisemitism. Are the actions of a single nation state (created, as one of the reasons, to maintain western interest in the middle east region) ontologically reflecting the will of every human being of jewish origin? The defence of the existence and cultural heritage of jews have nothing to do with this war, disapproving the bombardments of hospitals and the killing of innocents is not an attack towards a specific ethnicity. Grow up

@stevebaryakovgindi

7 ай бұрын

It's ok I have unsubscribed to David's now official antisemetic chanel. You can rant about how horrible it was to killl the Jews in the holocaust and that's why Israel sucks. This was a clear message half way through the lecture. Keep your echo chamber alive!!!!@@nicolamercuriali2922

@moshebuchachevsky5650

7 ай бұрын

​@nicolamercuriali2922 Somehow, it's not acceptable when jews are defending themselves. Did you forget the October 7th massacre that started this war ? Also , if the HAMAS terrorist organization uses Hospitals as military facilities, it is ok by the Geneva convention to attack.. And if you are referring to the Al-Ahli Ma'madani Hospital that "was bomb by IDF" as Hamas claimed, it was proven as a lie , there were no 500 killed , the hospital was not hit , and mainly it was Islamic Jihad malfunction rocket sent to Israel .

@TheoryPhilosophy

7 ай бұрын

Bye Steve!

@punchgod

7 ай бұрын

The only disgraceful and antisemitic opinion I see here is your equivocation of the brutal colonialist movement of Zionism with Jews and Holocaust survivors as such. Bye Steve!!!