A story about the only thing in existence meeting the other only thing in existence

It’s too easy to picture power only as domination, as something that allows an Emperor or a President to give commands or to keep other people in their place. Indeed, classical sociology often sees coercion as the abiding intention of power, as its centrality, as something imposed (Weber) even when it isn’t noticed as this (Lukes).Put simply, this gives it the capacity to make someone do what they otherwise wouldn’t (Dahl). As a result, we tend to ignore the fact that it actually comes in many more varieties than this. Indeed, power mostly isn’t domination or coercion and as compelling as their hold on us feels, they paint only one representation of power.We are constrained too by caprice, the indifference of surveillance and the nuances of custom. We are imposed on by the needs of systems, responsibilities and services. We are held in check by rules, language and knowledge. We must keep promises, honour debts and forget trespasses.All involve the giving and taking of power. As a result, most modern accounts have very different takes on power or see very different reasoning at work. These allow power to have hidden purposes, covert contrivances and unthinking and incalculable consequences.Power becomes very complicated, consisting of a number of moving parts. We’ve talked before about the power-medium, a place where our thoughts and desires become socialised. But there’s also another issue at work here which makes all this even more befuddling. It’s that power might be exclusively one thing but exclusively not this at the same time!This is a little bonkers when you think about it. After all, this is not a description of contradiction where we might recognise an opposing force or opinion and react to it. Instead, it’s asking us to deny the existence of something even when the rules of logic and reason that have lead us to that conclusion also say it still exists.You may be feeling slightly dizzy at this point or be about to give up. Don’t. Indeed, many philosophers and sociologists believe such things are possible because power operates with duality. This is not easy to explain but I will have a go. We can probably accept that power will assert, or always involve, the uptake of truth, no matter how this truth is reasoned, formed, fabricated or evolved. This is the moment when statements, claims, ideas or descriptions become understandable or stimulate actions consistent with this.If this moment exists, so too must the moment before it, when understanding or action wasn’t required. It’s the moment when power and truth haven’t decided the direction in which they’re going. It’s where power-truth has a choice, operating with options, with possibility but no effect. It might become something but in that moment we cannot discern what this will be. In other words, it has a duality. The idea of duality is not completely deranged. We have accepted its existence in physics for knocking on a hundred years or so*. It’s the view that some things only qualify as existence when they obtain a fixed state. Before that, they have a ‘superposition’, no single state but with the potential to become any one of many. This fixed state only forms if we look to see if it’s there.Similarly, power-truth is always around us, ready to do what it’ll end up doing. We only become aware of its presence when this shows as influence or effect, perhaps changing the trajectory and potential of something else. Before this, it was in a ‘superposition’, capable of showing up anywhere in our power universe.In sociology, this idea of power-duality has been developed somewhat. It emerges in many places, more than can be reasonably acknowledged here, but these can be illustrated to some degree by the opposing places formed by Michel Foucault’s belief that power and knowledge are intertwined as truth (1980) and Jürgen Habermas’ thoughts on what he called ‘communicative action’ (1984).These conjure worlds dominated by two very different types of reasoning. We’re free to select either, of course, depending on what suits us best but, plot spoiler, neither really resolves the tension between power and truth and nothing they say reduces the arena in which the power-medium operates, the place where power-duality is resolved into one state.Both of these modern-ish accounts argue, in contrasting ways, that what counts as knowledge is shaped by power and its relations. However, they then go on to explore very different ground. Summarising the thoughts of two of sociology’s most influential thinkers is dangerous territory but worth travelling to.Foucault argued that truth can never be neutral and is bound instead to what he called ‘regimes’ of authority. Note the plural. These seem to operate in an homogenous as well as interconnected fashion at the same time. In other words with a duality. Power and truth become inseparable, leading to both intended as well as unintended systems of advantage and disbenefit.This is a little like the world’s most potent energy drink, consisting of parts so compromised by the presence of each other that they’ve become indistinguishable. We are shown the recipe on the label, we know its parts exist separately, but we can’t really identify the ingredients as we drink what they’ve become.Habermas (1984) saw truth not as ‘constitutive’ in this way or as completely integrated with power but as something outside of it. Truth was a product of the rational, achieved through non-prejudicial discussion working under conditions of ideal speech.He thought that partiality and deception existed but only as lies, ignorance or misinformation. These acted as distortions or imperfections in the way truth is represented. On the one hand, this seems simple with no duality in sight but, on the other, he felt too that what we recognise as ‘perfect’ truth is actually shaped by society and that power settles this for us. Therefore, power and truth must have duality, as with both a potential to emerge in opposing forms as well as a single rational or preferred existence.Here, truth is a bit like a verdict reached in court. Everyone can speak, the rules are impartial and the strongest argument wins. Yet the court’s rules of evidence and reasoning were written and agreed by people beforehand so the system that decides the truth remains a product of any imperfection this brings.In other words, there must be plenty of duality about still, plenty of potential for different claims to truth to exist at the same time.Foucault and Habermas both seem to confirm the presence of a power-duality even though neither really makes this claim. Indeed, they largely argue the opposite. Foucault says power and truth are the same thing, beyond separation. Habermas says that truth exists separately from power.Foucault contradicts himself when he recognises a place for competing regimes of power because these are plural and therefore by definition, not the same. Habermas contradicts himself when he says logic and discussion determine truth because its different states, even its ideal form, are pre-configured by power.Habermas’ ideas honour a place for reason in truth. We must thank him for this. They permit us the ability to distinguish it from delusion or misrepresentation regardless of when or where it was encountered. This makes discourse heroic, capable of filtering and sanitising that which is somehow wrong.If we talk and listen to each other in an honest and balanced way, we can protect ourselves from the strangely too convenient, wholly subjective or selectively destructive. He re-establishes truth as objective and a matter capable of withstanding any power deployed to protect or corrupt it.However, he also requires ‘truth’ to operate in a single state. In other words, we have to know what something is if we want to argue about it. This must leave behind a previous superposition, a place where it had only the potential to be what it eventually became. Power here is not an intrusion upon truth but the means through which it can be known, formed into a discrete entity, in the Habermas universe.Foucault was strangely silent on the implications of superposition and a great deal of his thinking on this comes to us via the rationalisations of others. On the one hand, his writings see truth and power as different expressions of the same force meaning he might seem to accept duality. Yet, he also remained anxious to establish power and truth as existing without distinction, meaning he was rejecting the idea that they could be two things at once.Foucault saw truth as made in the moment of expression, as an avatar for a power that establishes meaning. This need not be directed or intended but truth and power work hand-in-hand as partners, products of trajectory and consequence as much as anything else. This sounds a little like the power-medium but don’t be fooled by this.These dualities, superpositions, are accommodated within the power-medium because it allows for their socialisation, as matters accepted by and negotiated within culture and social practice. This means power and truth are never settled. They are always in the process of change. The Foucault account tends to nullify or constrain the power-medium. This is probably wise but only in the sense that it should not be mistaken for truth or knowledge. Instead, it is the means through which these become a single state. It is the door, the force, through which the potential of superposition resolves itself into substance, something meaningful.The power-medium accepts duality, is fuelled by it. It’s capable of generating the homogeneity demanded by Foucault whilst allowing the reason and logic central to Habermas’ search for rational effect. It resolves into specific entities all that is formed in the universe we know as society.If you’ve made it this far, thanks. The bad news is that there are two more Substacks on this topic to come. Yes, I know. The world is a complicated place and is made more complicated every time we think about it. So, let me know what you think or even what’s stopping you from thinking. I’ll try to explain myself further.ReferencesDahl, R.A. 1957. The concept of power. Behavioral Science, 2(3), pp.201–215.Foucault, M. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. Brighton: Harvester.Habermas, J. 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Boston: Beacon Press.Lukes, S. 2005. Power: A Radical View. 2nd edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Weber, M. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.Image: Ron LachThanks for reading The choreography of power! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Note: * The term superposition has several different meanings in science. It was probably used first in geology by Nicolaus Steno in 1669 to describe how sedimentary rock forms in chronological layers or sequences. It was also adopted by Daniel Bernoulli in 1753 to illustrate the movement of vibrating particles. It’s probably best understood today in the context of quantum physics and was first proposed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1926. This tells us that a particle can operate in two states at the same time right up to the point it is measured or observed. It then collapses into a single state.You might be interested in:We must breathe: Power is the medium of social lifeDoing is power: Let’s think about what that meansThe necessity of power: How power recognises, reinforces and reacts to social lifeThe wind and the rain: To live socially is to live immersed with others. This makes power a little like the weather This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drrobdalton.substack.com