Can we call our societies in any way demorcratic?

From the Chomsky-Foucault debate: On Human Nature. “Do you believe, Mr. Foucault, that we can call our societies in any way democratic, after listening to this statement from Chomsky?”

Foucault: No, I don’t have the least belief that one could consider our society democratic. [Laughs.] If one understands by democracy the effective exercise of power by a population, which is neither divided nor hierarchically ordered in classes, it is quite clear that we are very far from democracy. It is only too clear that we are living under a regime of a dictatorship of class, of a power of class which imposes itself by violence, even when the instruments of this violence are institutional and constitutional; and to that degree, there isn’t any question of democracy for us.
Well. When you ask me why I was interested in politics, I refused to answer because it seemed evident to me, but perhaps your question was, how am I interested in it?
And had you asked me that question, and in a certain sense I could say you have, I would say to you that I am much less advanced in my way; I go much less far than Mr. Chomsky. That is to say that I admit to not being able to define, nor for even stronger reasons to propose, an ideal social model for the functioning of our scientific or technological society.
On the other hand, one of the tasks that seems immediate and urgent to me, over and above anything else, is this: that we should indicate and show up, even where they are hidden, all the relationships of political power which actually control the social body and oppress or repress it.
What I want to say is this: it is the custom, at least in European society, to consider that power is localized in the hands of the government and that it is exercised through a certain number of particular institutions, such as the administration, the police, the army, and the apparatus of the state. One knows that certain number of decisions, in the name of the nation or of the state, to have them applied and to punish those who don’t obey. But I believe that political power also exercises itself through the mediation of certain number of institutions, which look as if they have nothing in common with the political power, and as if they are independent of it, while they are not.
One knows this in relation to the family; and one knows that the university, and in a general way, all teaching systems, which appear simply to disseminate knowledge, are made to maintain a certain social class in power; and to exclude the instruments of power of another social class. Institutions of knowledge, of foresight and care, such as medicine, also help to support the political power. It’s also obvious, even to the point of scandal, in certain cases related to psychiatry.
It seems to me that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the workings of institutions, which appear to be neutral and independent; to criticize and attack them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them.
This critique and this fight seem essential to me for different reasons: first, because political power goes much deeper than one suspects; there are centers and invisible, little –known points of support; its true resistance, its true solidity is perhaps where one doesn’t expect it. Probably it’s insufficient to say that behind the governments, behind the apparatus of the state, there is the dominant class; one must locate the point of activity, the places and forms in which its domination is exercised. And because this domination is not simply the expression in political terms of economic exploitation, it is its instrument and, to a large extent the condition which makes it possible; the suppression of the one is achieved through the exhaustive discernment of the other. Well, if one fails to recognize these points of support of class power, one risks allowing them to continue to exist; and to see this class power reconstitute itself even after an apparent revolutionary process.

See it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSgReGKmCwQ

The Word 'Parrhesia'

The following is an exerpt from tape recordings made of six lectures delivered, in English, by Michel Foucault at the University of California at Berkeley. The lectures were given as part of Foucault's seminar, entitled "Discourse and Truth," devoted to the study of the Greek notion of 'parrhesia' or "frankness in speaking the truth."
(Note: if you want more information about this or about Foucault visit: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault )

The meaning of the word: 'Parrhesia' is ordinarily translated into English by "free speech" (in French by 'franc-parler', and in German by 'Freimuthigkeit'). 'Parrhesiastes' is the one who uses 'parrhesia', i.e., the one who speaks the truth.

Frankness: The one who uses 'parrhesia', the 'parrhesiastes', is someone who says everything she has in mind: she does not hide anything, but opens her heart and mind completely to other people through her discourse. In 'parrhesia' the speaker is supposed to give a complete and exact account of what she has in mind so that the audience is able to comprehend exactly what the speaker thinks. The word 'parrhesia', then, refers to a type of relationship between the speaker and what she says. For in 'parrhesia', the speaker makes it manifestly clear and obvious that what she says is her own opinion. And she does this by avoiding any kind of rhetorical form, which would veil what she thinks. Instead, the 'parrhesiastes' uses the most direct words and forms of expression she can find. Whereas rhetoric provides the speaker with technical devices to help her prevail upon the minds of her audience (regardless of the rhetorician's own opinion concerning what she says), in 'parrhesia', the 'parrhesiastes' acts on other people's minds by showing them as directly as possible what she actually believes.

Truth: There are two types of 'parrhesia', which we must distinguish. First, there is a pejorative sense of the word not very far from "chattering," and which consists in saying any- or everything one has in mind without qualification. This pejorative meaning is found more frequently in Christian literature where such "bad" 'parrhesia' is opposed to silence as a discipline or as the requisite condition for the contemplation of God. Most of the time, however, 'parrhesia' does not have this pejorative meaning in the classical texts, but rather a positive one. "Parrhesiazesthai', means "to tell the truth." But does the 'parrhesiastes' say what he thinks is true, or does he say what is really true? To my mind, the 'parrhesiates' says what is true because he knows that it is true; and he knows that it is true because it really is true. The 'parrhesiastes' is not only sincere and says what is his opinion, but his opinion is also the truth. The second characteristic of 'parrhesia', then, is that there is always an exact coincidence between belief and truth.

Evolution Of The Word: Rhetoric, Politics, Philosophy

Rhetoric: The relationship of 'parrhesia' to rhetoric-a relationship, which is problematic even in Euripides. In the Socratic-Platonic tradition. 'Parrhesia' and rhetoric stand in strong opposition; and this opposition appears very clearly in the 'Gorgias' for example, where the word 'parrhesia' occurs. The continuous long speech is a rhetorical or sophistical device, whereas the dialogue is a major technique for the playing the parrhesiastic game. The opposition of 'parrhesia' and rhetoric also runs through the 'Phaedrus'-where, as you know, the main problem is not about the nature of the opposition between speech and writing, but concerns the difference between the 'logos' which speaks the truth and the 'logos' which is not capable of such truth-telling. This opposition between 'parrhesia' and rhetoric, which is so clear-cut in the Fourth Century B.C. throughout Plato's writings, will last for centuries in the philosophical tradition. In Seneca, for example, one finds the idea that personal conversations are the best vehicle for frank speaking and truth-telling insofar as one can dispense, in such conversations. And even during the Second Century A.D. the cultural opposition between rhetoric and philosophy is still very clear and important. However, one can also find some signs of the incorporation of 'parrhesia' within the field of rhetoric in the work of rhetoricians at the beginning of the Empire. In Quintillian's 'Institutio Oratoria' for example (Book IX, Chapter II), Quintillian explains that some rhetorical figures are specifically adapted for intensifying the emotions of the audience; and such technical figures he calls by the name 'exclamatio' (exclamation). Related to these exclamations is a kind of natural exclamation, which, Quintillian notes, is not "simulated or artfully designed." This type of natural exclamation he calls "free speech" ['libera oratione'] which, he tells us, was called "license" ['licentia'] by Cornificius, and 'parrhesia' by the Greeks. 'Parrhesia' is thus a sort of "figure" among rhetorical figures, but with this characteristic" that it is without any figure since it is completely natural. 'Parrhesia' is the zero degree of those rhetorical figures, which intensify the emotions of the audience.