The Razor's Edge

            In Part Five of The History of Sexuality, entitled “Right of Death and Power of Life,” Michel Foucault discusses the history of sexuality through by focusing on the change in the worth of life relative to the position of “the sovereign.”  He describes how society began to change its views on the values of life and death (or the control of these by the state), as well as the legal and moral ramifications of this shift in viewpoint.

            While I will refrain from talking about his discussion of sexuality, I would like to mention his comments concerning the evolution of war in modern society. Foucault says that in the modern war “massacres… become vital” (page 137).  He further elaborates that “the principle underlying the tactics of battle – that one has to be capable of killing in order to go on living – has become the principle that defines the strategy of states” (page 137).  Thus, it is the loss of life on the grand scale, such as that caused by nuclear warfare, which serves to preserve life in the modern world.  In essence, this is the Prisoner’s Dilemma of massive proportions, being fought between states.  What is necessary to survive is power.  In the modern world, or Foucault’s western civilizations, force is not needed in the context of society’s new value of life, but merely the threat of force.

            While reading this, I could not help but remember Gusterson’s “Becoming a Weapons Scientists.”  According to the weapons scientists he interviewed, creating such fearsome means of destruction served to prevent death.  The logic Foucault is using is very much the same logic that a scientist would use.  Such a way of thinking is very much the result of the Cold War.  It also seems to suggest that humans constantly need to walk the razor’s edge of destruction to prevent themselves from falling into doom.