The Problematization of Power

Abstract

When power appeared inseparable from a figure of external transcendence, it was the other-worldly figure that ruled by the mediation of earthly representatives. These representatives were sanctioned from above by divine decree and not from below by the accord of the governed. As such, they can be considered representatives before society, and not as representatives of society. Through them the dictates of the invisible order were transcribed onto the materiality of social existence, giving it a form and consistency that was never completely its own. By linking the social order to its provenance in a divine order, these representatives, not only relieved society of its prof ance existence; their presence was considered necessary to its very ‘constitution’. In this sense it is not quite correct to call them representatives ‘before’ society; for this suggests that society could appear as a separate entity, the origin and carrier of its own order. On the contrary, society appeared to be totally dependent for its existence, and for the form of that existence, on the position of power in both its immediate and mediated forms. This, to be sure, is another way of saying that society could not be represented, though here one might consider representation in its political as well as its more general sense.