Power

This week I watched the ‘Hunger Games’. This film is a perfect example of power and the struggle for it, and how fragile the entire system can be. The Capital is rich and holds all the power, even though there are far fewer people living there than there are in the Districts combined. Foucault’s essay on ‘The Struggle of Power’ relates to this film perfectly. Foucault's view in ‘The Subject and Power’ is the base assumption that power is not wielded through oppression but rather through the manufacturing of "individuals". In the hunger games, 24 individuals are chosen each year to fight in the games. The games are manufactured to place the game maker (the Capital) in the position of power over the tributes (the Districts). Very few individuals are all that are needed to set a system into place.

In the essay, six main struggles are talked about. The essential quality of all these struggles, says Foucault, is that they do not oppose a group or institution but rather a mode or "technique" of power. This mode is characterized by operating in the realm of daily life. It classifies individuals into categories, ties them to their identities. The mode of power in the hunger games is the capital threatening to cut off supplies or with violence. Therefore no one does anything to cause trouble because of the potential consequences which just leaves the power in the capitals hands.

“Power is exercised only over free subjects, and only insofar as they are free.  By this we mean individual or collective subjects who are faced with a field of possibilities in which several ways of behaving, several reactions and diverse comportments, may be realized. “This is an important distinction. When a slave’s body is bound, and the possibilities for basic physical mobility much less resistance and creative responses are so restricted, he is no longer considered free. This is important because the free subjects do have the ability to act and react in more than one way. Like I said previously though, people don’t want to revolt in case they suffer more. But they absolutely have the ability to do so.

We can see how the Hunger Games and Foucault’s essay relate to the world we live in. These examples range from dictatorships to the work place and more.