Gramsci/Foucault Journal 4/13 - Leigh Bagood

Foucault suggests truth to work as “a system” of statements “linked in a circular relation with systems of power.” What I think he means by this is that each society has its “regime of truth,” which is what the society itself accepts as true. This system is created by struggles of power and thus, truth arises from individuals in possession of power. This attachment between truth and power, which defines truth as political, then relates truth to social, economic, and cultural hegemony. I think how this relates to our current discussion about culture is the political undercurrent of culture. The excerpt mentions a “battle for truth” and knowledge as the “outcome of a struggle for power” so in the context of this class, I think culture can be a form of truth in that, as discussed in Stuart Hall’s reading, it results from tension between what is dominant and what is marginal. I sort of see how both readings talk about hegemonic culture as a result of power struggle. The Gramsci reading was more difficult to understand however, I picked up on additional relations to culture and power. I think part of what Gramsci was trying to say when he said that creating a new culture “means the diffusion in a critical form of truths already discovered, their ‘socialization’ as it were, and even  making them the basis of vital action, an element of coordination and intellectual and moral order” relates to Foucault’s point about power not being in the facts of truth itself, but in society’s acceptance of that truth due to a source of power establishing cultural hegemony.