How Power Shapes Our Lives Without Us Noticing

✍️ Radhakrishnan Dutta 

   

     How do we experience power in our lives ? For the majority of people, power is symbolised in governments, rule of law, administrative mechanism, bureaucracy and so on that shape the national system. In human history, some sort of organisation has always prevailed over our social existence, defining code of living, laws and social rules, positions and responsibilities for the individuals. In ancient social organisation, this structure was replicated in kingship, tribal chieftaincy, priesthood etc., around whom a visible system of rules, responsibilities materialised. Following the enlightenment in Europe in the 18th century, modern political states, gradually, replaced the ancient structure of visible power. Government, modern statecraft, the state system came into light as the new symbols of power to the common person. These apparatuses set regulations, run the system, prescribe what should or should not be done, what should be learnt etc., for the person in his/her day to day existence. 

 

    In the modern technological-industrial world, however, the symbols of power have extended to subtle management of life from mere visible regulation of it. Modern governance in a welfare state ostensibly looks to improvise the living conditions of its citizens through welfare measures. It is based on the principle of improving life by providing education, health, infrastructure, freedom of choice etc. It supposedly aims to encompass all necessary terms and conditions to ensure healthy living conditions. For instance, the UN’s development program defines human development index (HDI) as the availability of all those conditions in a nation necessary for the growth of the full potential of a person; that is to equip the citizenry with all those facilities that they need to realise the finer potential innate in them. This is how the modern welfare state’s reigning power differs from those seen in the past. 

    Michel Foucault’s interpretation of power is relevant in this context. In Foucault’s works like The History of Sexuality, The Birth of Biopolitics, he shows that modern power also exerts its influence by the means of these soft, invisible and decentralised measures aimed at bettering lives. Hospitals, schools, universities, media etc. – The essentials of modern life can also act as the spaces where modern power functions. How does it work? It works by the control of these institutions and structures by the reigning power hierarchy. For instance, educational curriculum sets standards for qualification, accepted behaviours, code of conduct for individuals based on which their positions in society are determined. These standards decide a person’s occupation, status, economic abilities etc. in society. A deviation from the set benchmark is marked as failure. Thus, the person’s life is shaped, controlled and regulated by the reigning power through these benchmarks. Similarly, health matrices regulate lives. The flow of life; in its undefined, undivided universality in the living person is quantified in units in the forms of healthy–unhealthy, suitable-unsuitable, sane-insane etc. by the very health institutions. In both these instances, one can see how individuals’ lives are regulated and moulded into certain forms by the reigning power. This is the function of what Foucault called as biopower - the regulation of organic lives and bodies by the reigning power. This is the preserve of modern power systems which subtly regulate individuals instead of the harsh and visible enforcement of power seen in prior periods. Modern power is, henceforth, diffused to multiple layers that cover human lives. It doesn’t impose harsh punishment and disciplinary regimes but relies on giving the individual person a pre-defined understanding of reality. The person is groomed by the diffused branches of power to understand the world in a particularly destined manner. Heidegger’s concept of Enframing or Ge-stell highlights how an overarching system like modern technology manipulates our understanding of reality (an in-depth analysis of the concept can be found in a previous blog Technology, AI and the Alienation of the Self: Heidegger’s Warning in the Digital Age

posted here). Modern power also works in a similar fashion – it also gives an already determined or an altogether new lens to the person to perceive the world. This process is reflected in every aspect of life. To give an instance, the quantified individuals under a measure based education system inevitably end up believing the indispensability of the benchmarks set by the system. He is convinced by the power system that he is successful when he meets the benchmark and a failure in the reverse case. In this manner, the modern power mechanism propagates itself by gaining consent from the ruled, by making him believe that his life is decided by the standards set by the reigning system. 

    The implication of this manipulation of power is evident in daily lives. When a particular education system becomes the symbol of success, everyone invests in it - to master the curriculum, lessons and thus to meet the set standard. A university degree becomes the goal which would uplift the life of a person or hitting the gym daily becomes the vogue to appear as healthy or “fit”. The particular numbers of steps or heartbeats recorded on the mobile device which must be met during a walking exercise appear as the real organic bar for an individual body to be counted as healthy. Such instances of the inner workings of modern power highlight the creation of an altogether new reality for individuals by it. The body is defined by an artificial or alien apparatus and system. It appears as if the body and persona can’t be perceived without the presence of these alien apparatuses and standards. In this new reality, the uniqueness of an individual being is gradually rendered subservient to the power mechanism. 

    The question appears how this manipulation serves the status quo ? It, in a way subdues the full and unexplored potential of the organic body and persona by fitting it into a box. The unquantifiable in the individual is quantified and curtailed. Henceforth, the fear of the emergence of something novel from the person is resisted by filtering out the undesired elements. The status quo of power is further strengthened by its creation of willing collaborators and perennial labour force for the existing system. Thus, a static society can produce more executives, bureaucrats from educational institutions than innovators and pathfinders. These manipulated personas, thereafter, ensure the longevity of the status quo by providing labour for it. Consequently, the existing power makes its foot soldiers from those, who could have been potential rebels. 

    The industrial-technological era encompasses the span of this diffused power. In the present era, human beings live in a more pre determined, cushioned world. Technological gadgets are there to aid a person in work and physical labours. Knowledge is now available in easily chewable digital, visual formats. Arts and entertainment are accessible to everyone within a second via video platforms, mobile and computer devices omnipresent in every hand. Education is mostly defined by degrees. Success is more frequently measured by economic gain. Consequently, individuals are alienated, fragmented and over reliant on the diffused branches of the reigning power. The current reality for these groomed individuals is a reality produced by the reigning technological-industrial biopower. This reality is designed to strengthen the interests of the system. In this new reality produced by power, its controlling instruments appear as indispensable to life. This has been the case of modern life in the present era. That is why, there is a growing percentage of people who feel utterly clueless without the presence of the mobile phone or the computer in any given day of their lives or who are completely broken down by academic failures. What we are getting out of such a diffused power system are confused, reliant individuals who are the mere instruments of power. This is the reality that appears as the single biggest challenge to individual existence in the modern era.

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