The Co-existence of the Theory of Man as Subject and the Theory of the Police State

By Sebastian Serrano

The entire history of man has been marked by various social conflicts with the shared characteristic of confrontation between rival groups. However, throughout history these actors have been changing the ways in which they act and interact. It is in this that Michel Foucault fundamentally reviews the exercise and dynamics between subjects and those of the state. Our modern society is based upon historical, classical conceptions of democracy and the state, born in Greek-Roman culture, which are currently threatened by new forms of political exercise. A precise analysis of the relationships between subject and state, for example in Foucault’s text “Subject and Power”, tells the story of an evolution of the dynamics and how, little by little, the conflicts become more complex and the mechanisms of action advance towards a sophistication of the exercises. This does not necessarily translate in the resolution of these conflicts but rather in an attempt to make each one of the actors as diffuse as possible.

During the last few decades and since the massification of the Internet, new spaces have formed where individuals can exercise their right to freedom, often generating movements on a grand scale that evolve in real time and with a level of immediacy never before seen. The process of globalization has given way to global individuals, but at the same time the mechanisms of control and repression have managed to break the geographical barriers to create an international and virtual battlefield. While these spaces now exist, others that have been legitimately used by people to exercise their freedoms today have become battlefields where one of the key features is not only the transfer of repression by the state towards individuals, but also the violence of the police towards individuals. The militarization of law enforcement agencies transform the police on the ground into a lethal tool rather than a form of violence control, which is evident today in places like Chile and the United States.

Biopolitics have evolved and currently the social conflict is not the state trying to limit the liberties of the groups that threaten it without losing their participation or sympathy- on the contrary, it is now a complex, systematic process that faces against anything that presents a degree of resistance against the status quo. The radicalization of some translates to a desperation of others to maintain their spaces, where the state acts as a spectator and not as the protagonist of the conflict, which turns the dynamic into a confusing dissolution rather than resolution. At the same time, there exists evidence of greater forces of state agencies to generate an unquestionable truth. Various mechanisms are used by which this construction of reality goes from the union of education and information agencies (teaching), through laws (reinforcing) and ultimately the actions of the law enforcement (proofing).

All this demands a study of the overall dynamics. If the spaces of action and freedom, say the use of the streets and the right to protest, become increasingly scarce and the efforts of states and police frequently coordinated with their international counterparts against the new, but distant, enemy, where will the subject find free spaces? Where will he be able to exercise his freedom without his individuality exposing his vulnerability? Dissidence does not always seek to delegitimize the authority of the agencies of control but aims to question their methods. As an example, the Snowden case in the United States shows that questioning of the methods of the state results in a lynching campaign against that subject who immediately receives the status of traitor, closing the space for debate and installing a totalitarianism over the individual. It is difficult to conceptualize the relationship between the state and the subject when the one who physically operates the mechanism of control (repression) is a police agency far removed from the original idea of a body whose purpose is to keep peace among people and protect them from possible dangers. Foucault’s theory analyzes the physical and psychological aspects of the phenomenon of the police state and control policies but it is Naomi Klein in her “Shock Doctrine” who puts an eye in the pragmatic details of this. She also connects facts from around the world that prove that these are not simply isolated episodes but are a deliberate transnational mass control plan.

It is necessary that we analyze the depth of the current relationships among the different social actors, not only their status within the current context, but additionally the observation of the evolution of their position over time. Foucault achieved a great deal in the field of biopolitics, but this field itself has evolved since then. It is important to indicate and deconstruct the process by which at least one of the actors, the state, has been able to separate from the conflict, becoming invisible and exercising its force, as said by Foucault, from the complex actions of its different institutions, whether they be schools, prisons or psychiatric hospitals.

Reinventing philosophy creates new tools that provide a genuine stability for our freedom. To re-build our conceptions and principles in order to regain autonomy is to keep the Nietzschean exercise of questioning our morality and reality. With this text I plan to prove the urgent necessity to analyze new relationships of power between the state and the subject and how these relationships demarcate our way of life. It is important to develop a philosophical clarity that allows us to critically analyze the conscious and unconscious dynamics and their repercussions and also includes the new spaces, especially the Internet which intersects borders and internationalizes struggles while at the same time expands liberties. Currently, there is a deliberate intention to co-opt the social dialogue and keep it unresolved, confusing, dark, therefore our task is to illuminate the dialogue.