FOUCAULT FOR OUR TIMES

Philosophers are always asking, “What is knowledge?” or “What is truth?” However, Foucault further asserts that “since Nietzsche the question of truth” is no longer “‘What is the surest path to Truth?’ but ‘What is the hazardous career that Truth has followed?’… What is the history of this ‘will to truth’? ‘What are its effects?’‘How is this all interwoven with relations of power?’”  He asks, “How is it that, in our societies, ‘the truth’ has been given this value, thus placing us absolutely under its thrall?”  In other words, by identifying with Nietzsche, Foucault claims that the problem of truth and knowledge is how actors use truth claims.

When we start describing ourselves as part of a group of people united in a “we”, while other people are constructed as fundamentally different, united in a “they”, we are using a powerful weapon that might serve to delegitimize others. 

According to Michel Foucault, othering is strongly connected with power and knowledge. When we “other” another group, we point out their perceived weaknesses to make ourselves look stronger or better. 

It’s hard to imagine a society in which we divide people into “us” and “them” without putting “us” above “them”. Simultaneously, it’s difficult to defend an idea of absolutely all groups thinking as solely negative, because a completely individual mode of thinking makes it almost impossible to address discrimination and the collective aspect of power and power abuse.

We cannot get away from the concept of the other, as it is too crucial for an understanding of the self. What we can do, though, is to limit the ways in which we group people up and construct them as something entirely different from an imagined “us”. The power of definition is a strong one, and when used in the context of othering, it continues to reinforce discrimination.

Importantly, Foucault did not view otherness purely as a state of passive victimhood. Because he believed that "where there is power, there is resistance," the margins inhabited by the Other also serve as creative sites for subversion and transformation.

By embracing alternative ways of being, the "Other" can challenge dominant cultural norms and escape fixed identities!  Making way for authentic living and true self realisation.  Stepping into a true self without fear of judgment, the person that was made "the other" over many years, can challenge the dominant group and this challenge will shake off the power of the dominant group over them! They can refuse the discrimination by simply saying: "STOP!  you have NO power over me!"