Withdraw allegiance from the old categories of the Negative (law, limit, castration, lack, lacuna), which the Western thought has so long held sacred as a form of power and an access to reality. Prefer what is positive and multiple, difference over uniformity, flows over unities, mobile arrangements over systems. Believe that what is productive is not sedentary but nomadic.
Interpretation
The quote advocates for embracing positive diversity and dynamic change over traditional limiting categories and structures.
Michel Foucault urges us to reject the old, limiting categories of thought that have historically been upheld in Western philosophy. Instead of adhering to rigid laws and uniform systems, he encourages a focus on positivity, multiplicity, and fluidity, suggesting that true productivity lies in being adaptable and open to change rather than remaining stagnant.
In practice
In a discussion about modern art's ability to challenge traditional forms, this quote can be used to validate the emphasis on creative freedom.
A real subjection is born mechanically from a fictitious relation [...] He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribed in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.
Matthey, a Geneva physician very close to Rousseau's influence, formulates the prospect for all men of reason: 'Do not glory in your state, if you are wise and civilized men; an instant suffices to disturb and annihilate that supposed wisdom of which you are so proud; an unexpected event, a sharp and sudden emotion of the soul will abruptly change the most reasonable and intelligent man into a raving idiot.
But the guilty person is only one of the targets of punishment. For punishment is directed above all at others, at all the potentially guilty.
I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for love relationships is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don’t know what will be the end.
You may have killed God beneath the weight of all that you have said; but don't imagine that, with all that you are saying, you will make a man that will live longer than he.
The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political will of others; it is, through the analyses that he does in his own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways of working and thinking, to dissipate conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules and institutions and to participate in the formation of a political will (where he has his role as citizen to play).
No consensus of men can make an error erroneous. We can only find or commit an error, not create it. When we commit an error, we say what was an error already.
To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instinct to revolt.
Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman, and New York a well-adjusted transsexual.
Misguided people sometimes create misguided ideas. Some of my ancestors were Oromo. How can I colonize myself?
The machine will grind you down, but the machine is not bigger than the imagination. Rome fell in a day. We know this.
We need language to tell us who we are, how we feel, what we're capable of- to explain the pains and glory of our existence.
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