Foucault, Biopolitics, and Governmentality

BIOPOLITICAL LIFE
that different societies and different institutions link to that division – all
this may be nothing but the most belated response to that possibility of
error inherent in life. 48
Thus, it is through the notion of error that life is placed in a relation of
contiguity and contingency with truth and structures within which it is told.
“Error,” or the inherent capacity of life to “err” both establishes the relation
of life to truth and undermines that relation by disentangling man from the
structures of truth and power that respond to the potential for error.
Hence, “with man, life has led to a living being that is never completely in
the right place, that is destined to ‘err’ and to be ‘wrong.’” 49 From this point
of view, the biopolitical state appears as simply the modern response to the
possibility of error.
If this is so, the potential for error in life directs us to an important point
about the operation of biopower, specifically, that the biopolitical state is
necessarily and systematically reactive. The errancy internal to life constantly
provokes the biopolitical state, forcing it to respond to the contingencies
of the living and the phenomena of life. Today, a biopolitical state
cannot not react to the provocations of life, even if that reaction proves to be
a matter of disallowing life. Nevertheless, the ruse of biopower is to make it
appear as if the state controlled and mastered life. There is a cliché that it is
not so much the masters who walk their dogs, as the dogs who walk their
supposed masters. To elaborate, it is not simply that humans tame dogs as
pets—but rather, that somehow, dogs have managed to tame humans to
such an extent that the latter will spend thousands of dollars and hours in
keeping their pets alive and well. Similarly, we might consider the ways that
life has demanded that the state care for it, has demanded—often quite
successfully—that the state foster it by providing the conditions for its
flourishing in manifold ways.
This is not to say that the biopolitical state does not also involve itself in
the production of death—it evidently does; but when it does, it does so for
the sake of the living. Foucault suggests at points that within biopower,
death itself is relegated to the margins of political power: it is no longer a
manifestation of the power of the sovereign, but precisely indicates the
limits of power, the moment when life slips from the grasp of governance.
Within biopower, death, Foucault suggests, “is outside the power relation-
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid.
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