My Objective is to Analyse Certain forms of Knowledge, Not in Terms of Repression or Law, But in Terms of Power.

Reading Passage Question

My objective is to analyze certain forms of knowledge, not in terms of repression or law, but in terms of power. But the word power is apt to lead to misunderstandings about the nature, form, and unity of power. By power, I do not mean a group of institutions and mechanisms that ensure the subservience of the citizenry. I do not mean, either, a mode of subjugation that, in contrast to violence, has the form of the rule. Finally, I do not have in mind a general system of domination exerted by one group over another, a system whose effects, through successive derivations, pervade the entire social body. The sovereignty of the state, the form of law, or the overall unity of a domination are only the terminal forms power takes.

It seems to me that power must be understood as the multiplicity of force relations that are immanent in the social sphere; as the process that, through ceaseless struggle and confrontation, transforms, strengthens, or reverses them; as the support that these force relations find in one another, or on the contrary, the disjunctions and contradictions that isolate them from one another; and lastly, as the strategies in which they take effect, whose general design or institutional crystallization is embodied in the state apparatus, in the formulation of the law, in the various social hegemonies.

Thus, the viewpoint that permits one to understand the exercise of power, even in its more “peripheral” effects, and that also makes it possible to use its mechanisms as a structural framework for analyzing the social order, must not be sought in a unique source of sovereignty from which secondary and descendent forms of power emanate but in the moving substrate of force relations that, by virtue of their inequality, constantly engender local and unstable states of power. If power seems omnipresent, it is not because it has the privilege of consolidating everything under its invincible unity, but because it is produced from one moment to the next, at every point, or rather in every relation from one point to another.

Power is everywhere, not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere. And if power at times seems to be permanent, repetitious, inert, and self-reproducing, it is simply because the overall effect that emerges from all these mobilities is a concatenation that rests on each of them and seeks in turn to arrest their movement. One needs to be nominalistc, no doubt: power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategic situation in a particular society.

“My objective is to analyze certain forms of knowledge, not in terms of repression or law, but in terms of power.”- is a GMAT reading comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.

This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 7 comprehension questions. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed for the purpose of testing candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information or concepts. Candidates can actively prepare with the help of GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solution and Explanation

1. The author’s primary purpose in defining power is to

(A) counteract self-serving and confusing uses of the term
(B) establish a compromise among those who have defined the term in different ways
(C) increase comprehension of the term by providing concrete examples
(D) demonstrate how the meaning of the term has evolved
(E) avoid possible misinterpretations resulting from the more common uses of the term

2. According to the passage, which of the following best describes the relationship between law and power?

(A) Law is the protector of power.
(B) Law is the source of power.
(C) Law sets bounds to power.
(D) Law is a product of power.
(E) Law is a stabilizer of power.

3. Which of the following methods is NOT used extensively by the author in describing his own conception of power?

(A) Restatement of central ideas
(B) Provision of concrete examples
(C) Analysis and classification
(D) Comparison and contrast
(E) Statement of cause and effect

4. With which of the following statement would the author be most likely to agree?

(A) Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
(B) The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.
(C) To love knowledge is to love power.
(D) It is from the people and their deeds that power springs.
(E) The health of the people as a state is the foundation on which all their power depends.

5. The author’s attitude toward the various kinds of compulsion employed by social institutions is best described as

(A) concerned and sympathetic
(B) scientific and detached
(C) suspicious and cautious
(D) reproachful and disturbed
(E) meditative and wistful

6. According to the passage, states of power are transient because of the

(A) differing natures and directions of the forces that create them
(B) rigid structural framework in which they operate
(C) unique source from which they emanate
(D) pervasive nature and complexity of the mechanisms by which they operate
(E) concatenation that seeks to arrest their movement

7. It can be inferred from the passage that the author believes the conflict among social forces to be

(A) essentially the same from one society to another even though its outward manifestation may seem different
(B) usually the result of misunderstandings that impede social progress
(C) an inevitable feature of the social order of any state
(D) wrongly blamed for disrupting the stability of society
(E) best moderated in states that possess a strong central government

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