That is precisely what power as a partial object implies. It is decentered. — Giorgi

Could you elaborate on that a little more?
If I were to define a gestalt , wherein the parts have no existence outside of their relation to the whole , and the whole is nothing outside of the parts which constitute it , and furthermore, a gestalt is only a local, contingent production, constantly changing in changing contexts of social relation, is this somewhat like a ‘partial-object’?
Or perhaps like a Deleuzian object?

As regards temporality , I want to get back to my previous question. i am putting the letter ‘p’ here. Look at it and count to 3 while you are looking at it. Now I am going to tell you that in those 3 seconds that you looked at the letter ‘p’ you enters three different worlds. Let me out that a different way. Everything in your past background and history changed each of those 3 moments. You can back to yourself differently each time. It was as though there were three different selves. Now what about those institutionalized powers that are incorporated into the very essence of ‘self’? Well, they changed completely and totally each of those three seconds. Now this may seem ludicrous. I should add that this complete and total transformation of the meaning of ‘self’ and its history that took place , and continues to take place , every moment of time, is so subtle as to go unnoticed. This subtle it total shift in sense is what Derrida means by difference of force. The change from moment to moment (iterability) is a difference in force.

The iterability of an element divides its own identity a priori, even without taking into account that this identity can only determine or delimit itself through differential relations to other elements and hence that it bears the mark of this difference. It is because this iterability is differential, within each individual "element" as well as between "elements", because it splits each element while constituting it, because it marks it with an articulatory break, that the remainder, although indispensable, is never that of a full or fulfilling presence; it is a differential structure escaping the logic of presence..(LI53)."

Iterability makes possible idealization-and thus, a certain identity in repetition that is independent of the multiplicity of factual events- while at the same time limiting the idealization it makes possible:broaching and breaching it at once...the possibility of its being repeated another time-breaches, divides, expropriates the "ideal" plenitude or self-presence of intention,...of all adequation between meaning and saying. Iterability alters...leaves us no room but to mean (to say) something that is (already, always, also) other than what we mean (to say) (Limited, Inc,p.61)... It is not necessary to imagine the death of the sender or of the receiver, to put the shopping list in one's pocket, or even to raise the pen above the paper in order to interrupt oneself for a moment. The break intervenes from the moment that there is a mark, at once. It is iterability itself, ..passing between the re- of the repeated and the re- of the repeating, traversing and transforming repetition.”

Power constitutes the subject, while at the same time testifying to the fleeting nature of subjectivity (a non-subjectivity of sorts), since power itself is not an essence, a structure or a ground for anything. It is very much like the Deleuzian rhizome, which has no center and depends on other points of intersection in order to "constitute" itself. To be honest, I always had problems with the notion of gestalt, so I cannot use it as an analogy. But I think the Rhizome exhibits precisely the same "structure" as a set of power-relations.

It is very much like the Deleuzian rhizome, which has no center and depends on other points of intersection in order to "constitute" itself. — Giorgi

Ahh, but it does have a center. Deleuze’s corpus is loaded with forms, concepts, algorithms, which relate to other forms and patterns. Just because their identity depends on this relation to other forms and patterns does not mean that they are not centered. Center just means that at any point in time a series of elements are related in a certain way, as a certain structure.


As regards temporality , I want to get back to my previous question. i am putting the letter ‘p’ here. Look at it and count to 3 while you are looking at it. Now I am going to tell you that in those 3 seconds that you looked at the letter ‘p’ you enters three different worlds. Let me out that a different way. Everything in your past background and history changed each of those 3 moments. You can back to yourself differently each time. It was as though there were three different selves. Now what about those institutionalized powers that are incorporated into the very essence of ‘self’? Well, they changed completely and totally each of those three seconds. Now this may seem ludicrous. I should add that this complete and total transformation of the meaning of ‘self’ and its history that took place , and continues to take place , every moment of time, is so subtle as to go unnoticed. This subtle it total shift in sense is what Derrida means by difference of force. The change from moment to moment (iterability) is a difference in force.

The iterability of an element divides its own identity a priori, even without taking into account that this identity can only determine or delimit itself through differential relations to other elements and hence that it bears the mark of this difference. It is because this iterability is differential, within each individual "element" as well as between "elements", because it splits each element while constituting it, because it marks it with an articulatory break, that the remainder, although indispensable, is never that of a full or fulfilling presence; it is a differential structure escaping the logic of presence..(LI53)."

Iterability makes possible idealization-and thus, a certain identity in repetition that is independent of the multiplicity of factual events- while at the same time limiting the idealization it makes possible:broaching and breaching it at once...the possibility of its being repeated another time-breaches, divides, expropriates the "ideal" plenitude or self-presence of intention,...of all adequation between meaning and saying. Iterability alters...leaves us no room but to mean (to say) something that is (already, always, also) other than what we mean (to say) (Limited, Inc,p.61)... It is not necessary to imagine the death of the sender or of the receiver, to put the shopping list in one's pocket, or even to raise the pen above the paper in order to interrupt oneself for a moment. The break intervenes from the moment that there is a mark, at once. It is iterability itself, ..passing between the re- of the repeated and the re- of the repeating, traversing and transforming repetition.”

Exactly where I'm planning to go to college! Beautiful place.

Power does NOT require a foundation. It operates effectively without a ground or an essence. It is not based on anything. — Giorgi

In terms of Deleuze, I see a possible reconciliation. If we speak of "unconventional libidinal investments" as things that can occur either spontaneously or consciously we could say that in the first case we have resistance (unconscious deterritorializations) and in the second a determined struggle or movement. — Giorgi

We live in a punitive and disciplinary society, — Giorgi

I do not think that there was a reconciliation between Foucault and Deleuze. As well known,
Deleuse declared in “Postscript on Control Societies” that we no longer live in a punitive and disciplinary society. When Foucault stopped writing on power, he probably felt a necessity to reformulate and redefine his conceptual framework. Our agency
and subjectivity are not anymore based primarily on panoptical, disciplinary, or biopower normalizing mechanisms. Foucault’s power is power-knowledge; there are two unseparated sides of Foucault’s power: bodily behaviour patterns and discursive formations. In any social interactions, there are no force-force relations without expressive reinforcements and fixations. (I think that you systematically omit the discursive dimension of Foucault’s power). In “Discipline and Punish,” Foucault could not successfully show how panoptical – surveying disciplinary apparatuses are related to legal, juridical discourses of that time. Deleuze completed this task: “The abstract formula of Panopticism is no longer ‘to see without being seen but to impose particular conduct on a specific human multiplicity… a new informal dimension links the two variables of unorganized matter and unformalized functions… It is a diagram, a map, a cartography that is coextensive with the whole social field. It is an abstract machine”.
(Deleuze, ‘Foucault’) There is no single, isolated exercise of power, it appears and acquires its effects and regularity in the field of strategic social unfolding, it belongs to dispositif. Foucault ‘s dispositif has three dimensions: force, subjective and discursive. There are interrelated, accumulating mutual effects and reinforcing each other. Deleuze’s diagram, an abstract machine, functions similarly to Foucault’s dispositif. Also, it shows how knowledge-power is immanent to the open whole of the unfolding social body. It strategically shapes societies and manages the field of social interactions independently from individual social actors. This conceptual framework allowed Deleuze to move to propose the existence of post-disciplinary societies of control.

Precisely because power is everywhere, there are infinite forms of resistance and ways to obtain freedom. — Giorgi

It is the well known argument of Foucauldians. Yet, there are the unanswered questions regarding contemporary forms of resistance:
what makes it possible for neoliberalism to appropriate progressive leftist and liberal
discourses? Have big tech companies, mainstream media, and multicultural corporations become champions of the noblest and humanistic programs and goals? In fact, they primarily shape and manage the most
robust movements of resistance today. (“ Me too”, environmental, gender, and anti-racist
movements) Can Foucault's conceptual framework of power and resistance help to answer these questions?