[In The History of Sexuality] Foucault has attempted to redefine completely the question of sexuality by removing it from the paradigm of repression. Instead, sexuality for him must be considered in terms of concepts of knowledge and power. In this manner Foucault places sex in relation to the emergence of the administered society of the twentieth century. He challenges both Marx and Freud by shifting the grounds of the debate: the concepts of labor and repression no longer serve in the critical comprehension of history; the privileged places in social theory and social life are no longer the factory and the unconscious. Foucault suggests nothing less than a basic reconceptualization of the logic of history, one that promises to revitalize critical theory.
Before analyzing The History of Sexuality I shall situate Foucault's thought by suggesting some principles of interpretation that apply to all his main works. Foucault is first a critic of Marxism. In The Order of Things he diminishes the stature of Marx's thought by placing it in the context of an earlier paradigm…. Foucault's accomplishments undercut the privileged place of labor as developed by Marx. Foucault's books analyze spaces outside of labor—asylums, clinics, prisons, schoolrooms, and the arenas of sexuality. In these social loci Foucault finds sources of radicality that are not theorized by Marx and Marxists. Implicit in Foucault's work is an attack on the centrality of labor to an emancipatory politics. His thought proceeds from the assumption that the working class, through its place in the process of production, is not the vanguard of social change. Foucault may take this as a fact of life in advanced capitalism, or more interestingly, he may be suggesting that the working class is, in its practice and through its organizations (the Party and the union), an accomplice of capitalism and not its contradiction. Radical change may come instead from those who are and have been excluded from the system—the insane, criminals, perverts, and women.
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