English subtitles for clip: File:Ikusgela - Michel Foucault.webm

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Madness, illness,
death, perversion,

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prison, sexuality, abnormality.

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Who said that philosophy
cannot address these issues?

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Well, until Foucault appeared,
most had not been addressed.

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Not, at least, with
the depth that he did.

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Therefore, because he
walked off the beaten paths,

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we should highlight the contribution
of this twentieth-century philosopher.

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But who was Michel Foucault?

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He was born on October
15, 1926 in Poitiers, France.

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He was a good student, but
he frustrated his family when

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he informed them that he would
not study medicine like his father.

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He had an unstable childhood,
among other things because

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in 1940 the French territory remained
in the hands of the German Nazis.

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Foucault left Poitiers in
1946, at the age of 19,

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when he was accepted into the famous
École Normal Supérieure, near Paris.

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Those were dark times.

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He was homosexual, which
brought him painful internal conflicts,

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since post-war France was
puritanical and moralistic.

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He attempted suicide and was later
treated by psychologists and psychiatrists.

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This aroused curiosity in
him, both about psychology

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as for all kinds of drugs.

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With the end of the World War, the American
way of life caused fascination in France,

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while the Communist Party
attracted the majority of thinkers.

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In 1950 he became a member
of the Communist Party.

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He did not serve even two
years as a militant, since he left

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as soon as he learned of the
abuse of authority in Moscow.

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From there he
continually tried to invent

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a new anti-authoritarian left.

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In May 1968, the students
revolutionized France.

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Foucault's reflection
would focus on power

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and he was very effective in
organizing protests and revolts.

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In 1973 he created the
left-wing newspaper Libération,

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together with Sartre
and other friends.

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He was a professor at different
universities in several countries:

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In Sweden, in Tunisia...
And he never stopped writing.

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He died in Paris in June 1984.

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Due to an AIDS-related illness.

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In France, in the
1950s and 1960s,

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Marxism and existentialism
dominated Philosophy.

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Humanism based on the free subject,
led by the thinker Jean-Paul Sartre.

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According to them,
humans freely create History,

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free from the economy or
genes-determined present.

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The so-called “structuralists”
rose up against this point of view:

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Lévi-Strauss, Althusser, Lacan,
Barthes and Foucault, among others.

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Although Foucault
rejected that label.

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They considered that people
are trapped, imprisoned and blind,

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in the networks of uncontrollable
unconscious structures.

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Starting from this basis,
the philosophical trajectory

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and Foucault's academic
work is divided into three stages.

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1-Archaeology of knowledge.

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In this first era, Foucault
attempted to investigate knowledge.

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This knowledge is for Foucalt an
unconscious thought that underlies

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what is done and said in a
culture and at a given time.

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It is also known as
the archaeological era.

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In fact, as in archaeology,
it is necessary

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to reach the lower layers to
know about this knowledge.

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Foucault also calls
knowledge "episteme".

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According to him, everything
that is said and done is derived

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of that unconscious
knowledge system.

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In other words:
we all think with

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the unconscious thought
of a time and a language.

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Therefore, to be free it is
necessary, first of all, to be aware

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of that unconscious knowledge
that leads us to think what we think.

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2-Genealogy of power.

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In this second stage, Foucault
studies the penal mechanisms of power.

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Among them,
penitentiary centers.

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According to him, our era is based on
closure, sequestration and discipline.

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Power has people in places

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closed, sequestered
on strict schedules:

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in the hospital,
in the asylum, in

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school, in prison
or in the factory.

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Our society is a
penitentiary archipelago

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formed by all of them.

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Foucalt tries to
break all the locks

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and free the bodies.

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For Pythagoras and Plato, the
body was the prison of the soul.

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Foucault argues that it
is the other way around:

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according to him, the penitentiary
archipelago projected by the reason

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projected by the reason is the one
that punishes and disciplines bodies.

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Therefore, power
controls souls and

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gets the body
also under control.

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In the midst of this
genealogical stage,

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Foucault begins to show
a new conception of power:

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the essence of power is
not prohibition, oppression

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and punishment; the ultimate
goal is to create normality.

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That is, the entry of a
person who is considered

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crazy in a madhouse
is an unusual custom.

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For this strange behavior to be
considered natural or reasonable,

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the power has had to ensure
that this is considered normal.

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Foucault invents the concept of
“biopolitics” in the genealogical era.

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Between the end of the 18th
century and the beginning

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of the 19th century,
power was distorted:

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until then it ruled
over individuals

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through discipline, and from

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that moment it
rules all humanity,

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entering the
population category.

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The power will be in charge
of managing health, hygiene,

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food, sexuality,
birth and migration.

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It will govern life through multiple
technologies, strategies and tools.

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This is what Foucault
calls Biopolitics.

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3-Technologies of the self.

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This third era has
also been called

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the “Age of
subjectivation techniques”.

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In the second part of

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the 1970s,

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Foucault's journey took
an unexpected direction.

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He stepped away from
political investigations

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dominant until then
and approached ethics.

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For Foucault, self-care
techniques constitute

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one of the most
important aspects of ethics.

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Through these techniques
we can produce changes in

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our thoughts, behaviors
and ways of being.

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The inventors and
devote users of these

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techniques promise
us that thanks to that

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responsibility on
ourselves we can change

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and thus achieve some happiness.

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Among these technologies of the
self are those that have been promoted

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in different philosophical currents:
analyzing consciousness before

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falling asleep, spiritual
retreat, meditating every day,

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reflect on death, write everyday
things, memorize texts from wise men...

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Foucault makes these currents his
own and uses them to fight against power.

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Biopowers drive lifestyles
and ways of being for

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creating controllable “normal”
individuals and automatic children.

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Foucault himself will try
to promote new life styles

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and new, different,
strange characters.

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According to him, with the
technology of the self, each one can

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create themself as a beautiful

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work of art, even
if it is not suitable

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and nice for the
normality that we have.

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Foucault's philosophy
focuses on the search

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and production of new
freedoms, an attempt to

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overcome the limitations
that our time imposes on us,

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both in thought and in life.

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A good support point

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to look at ourselves
at any time.