PHILOSOPHY

The Body in Political Theory



The Body in Political Theory

Introduction

Body Politics are actually the practices and policies which aid the powers of society control the human body, along with fighting over the individual and communal control of the body. The powers which are active in body politics encompass institutional control and power that had been put forth in government and laws while disciplinary power was just like in economic production, flexible power worked out during consumption, while individual power discussed more in close relations. Individuals and movements who were not employed in body politics seek to improve the oppressive effects of organizational and personal power on those whose bodies are noticeable as low-graded or who have been rejected the rights to be in command of their own bodies.

Discussion

How The Body Is Employed By Different Political Theorists

In the classic Hobbesian formulation, Marck was of the justification for political power saying that the state exists to overcome the collective actor problem. The flaw with this supposed solution is that there is little to prevent the state from becoming a predator in its own right whereby, to use Locke's words, polecats and foxes are replaced by a lion. Thus the attempt to act in concert becomes subverted as domination. However, in Rational Choice Approaches Dowding suggests an interesting way in which such a predatory state might wish to keep itself in check without presupposing altruism.

A predatory state that solely exploits others will have little legitimacy and will also be impoverished. If the relatively powerless know that the state will randomly steal from them then they have little incentive to produce and if they regard the state as the enemy, which they would in such a relationship of exploitation, all tribute to the state would need to be extracted by coercion. Consequently, the optimal solution for the rational predatory state is to provide goods and services thus maximising legitimacy. n Ernest Gellner's Plough, Sword and Book he argues precisely that it was this kind of perception on the part of the predators, the specialists in violence or the sword, which allowed production to replace predation as a central theme and value of life. What interests me about this is the way in which negative power and positive power are intertwined. While it can be argued that the modern state is more effective at domination than any previous state in human history, part of its facility in this regard is premised upon the fact that it also does something other than predation. When social theorists criticize modernity there is a tendency to forget that successful domination only works because it is fused with legitimacy and the latter is not necessarily based upon misperception false consciousness, subjection to dominant discourses, symbolic violence, hegemony and so on (Morriss , 2002, pp95-102).

A further interesting idea follows, even if it is the case that miscognitions are present in modern relations of domination, this phenomenon is possible only because legitimacy sometimes is based upon well-informed ...