Przemoc symboliczna w dobie biopolityki. Sankcjonowanie izolacji na podstawie rozwoju koncepcji eugeniki oraz pojęcia inteligencji

Abstrakt

Symbolic violence in the age of biopolitics. Sanctioning isolation on the base of development of the concepts of eugenics and intelligence

This paper makes an attempt to introduce the concept of Pierre Bourdieu’s symbolic violence into Michel Foucault’s considerations on the birth and functioning of bio-politics. On the basis of the eugenic thought and the related concept of intelligence, the data from the beginning of the century was analyzed and an attempt was made to indicate causes and effects of these phenomena in social practice. Efforts were made to indicate the way the functioning of symbolic violence lays foundations for bio-power which seems derivative, at the same time being a paradigm for maintaining symbolic violence. Eugenics was indicated as a consequence of social changes which require maintaining relations of dominance among groups by implementing new tools of power — isolation followed by segregation into the desired and the non-desired in the society. The considerations were summed up and pointed out new aspects of possible analysis of the above phenomena.