According to Foucault, there are two basic types of power. One is the traditional way, which is classed as repressive power, but the second is the subtler concept of power he called the normalising of power. Some examples of repressive power include an angry boss telling you to do what he wants and the desire of a country with superior military might to occupy a poor one. Mostly, we consider power in these terms. And the violent form of this power can easily be seen. The repressive power forces us to do what we don’t want to do. Should this be considered power or something else? In retrospect, should we call this type of power a successful power?
While it may seem successful, it is actually the failure of power. If a boss is using violence, it means he has actually failed in making his worker do things as per his wishes through other means. The same is the case with the superior military might of a country. It exerts power only after failing to convince the less powerful country with all other means. Thus, repressive power only creates temporary fear. For example, even imprisonment does not reform people. A thief does not stop stealing even if he has been imprisoned several times. The few successes of repressive power cannot make it a strong strategy as the failures are overwhelming.
On the other hand, we never think of stealing from the supermarket because we don’t want to. The same is the case with students who would not cheat even if an opportunity arises because they don’t want to. And this power is what Foucault termed as “Normalising Power.” It means the power to act as the society would like us to act or we would like to act as we have been taught.
A person enrolled in a successful institution gradually becomes capable of striking a balance between his desires and beliefs
Normalising power is useful and superior to repressive power because the repressive power makes us do the things, we don’t want to do. On the other hand, normalising power makes us do what we have to do or what society wishes us to do. This counts for the success of our educational institutions because if we have been rightly taught, our priorities change after getting our diploma or degree. For example, some students may drink too much; some may fail exams again and again and some may break the law. Yet, society might be a little lenient towards them just because they are pursuing education. We hope that once done, they would become assets to society; paying taxes; refraining from any urge to steal and upholding the law. Thus, they would do what society wants them to do. Willingly.
But this only happens when students have been taught in a way that normalises them. In fact, a person enrolled in a successful institution (albeit he benefits from it) changes his beliefs and gradually becomes capable of striking a balance between his desires and beliefs. And this behaviour is called normal. That is why it is called normalising behaviour by Foucault. It means that society plays a significant role in normalising a person. It is, however, not possible for society to create a perfectly normal human because, after all, we are human beings and, therefore, have our personal belief system as well. However, if a person is rightly taught by society, we can create our true self in us, which would not let us transgress the law and automatically make us do the right thing. This function cannot be performed by the repressive power because it creates a problem that already did not exist. It needs to constantly keep repressing the individual to make him do what the powerful wants.
Family, school, commercials on television and other social institutions are major normalising powers. They teach us that we don’t need to steal and we automatically obey the boss because we believe in a hierarchical system. It can be seen that only a few institutions like police and military have repressive power. Meanwhile, normalising power is found everywhere. That is why only a few people would break the law in a healthy society but in a society where repressive power is used in teaching, the rate of crime would be at a much higher level. So, we need to analyse, especially in Pakistan, the working of the educational and social institutions to check the extent to which they are using repressive powers to teach students and how they are normalising a young individual. In a normalised environment, everyone has to remain under power. If an employee is supposed to obey the boss, the boss is also under a certain influence to use his power the way society wants him and so on so forth.
In a society like Pakistan, an ideal balance of normalising and repressive power is needed for the time being. The frequency of crime cannot be controlled as such. While at the same time, this is not a permanent solution. We need to change the mindset, which can happen only if the normalising function is performed well by our relevant institutions, especially educational institutions. Once the normalising power takes a stronghold in the society, there will be very few occasions when repressive power is needed.
The writer is the principal of Emerson University, Multan. He serves as Adjunct Faculty at ISP, Multan; Visiting Faculty at NUML; BsU, Multan and English Dept Chairman Dept, GEC, Multan