Meghan Byers, Professor KoontzENGWR 3029 April 2014The analysis of modernity and the Aufklärung in Foucault's What is criticism“What is criticism?” by Michel Foucault contains the explanation of why we are governed in this way, which accompanies the desire not to be governed so much or at all, and to be finally governed not because we want it but because we consider the consequences of doing otherwise and decide not to rebel to authority. (In “What is Criticism?”, Foucault refers to the French people when he means “we,” but his essay is often relevant and expanded to the entire world and Western culture.) Foucault defines being governed as “a certain way of thinking, speaking and acting, a certain relationship with what exists, with what one knows, with what one does, a relationship with society, with culture and also a relationship with others” and states that there is a critical attitude of what forms rebellion to the way we are governed as it exists indefinitely in perpetuity (42). Put more simply, the critical attitude exists alongside our way of being governed, and the critical attitude depends on our way of being governed as much as our way of being governed depends on the critical attitude. This critical attitude appears as a reaction to “modernity”, also known as the prevailing attitude, which was formed due to the Enlightenment in post-dark ages times. Furthermore, he sees much of what we are or have become as something that has been governed within us (as well as alludes to a dichotomy between power and knowledge that he will discuss later). Foucault argues that this is the foundation of the critical attitude and states that the main purpose of his essay is to define criticism, because hi...... middle of paper ......lidated or simply rational or simply accepted generic” (61). This holds that something that is known cannot be considered knowledge if it does not follow the conventions of knowledge of the time, of those in power, or if the thing known does not force people to believe in it, it cannot be considered knowledge at the Whole level. This leads to the understanding that all knowledge is subjective to a time, power, person, or place. Foucault states, again, that this is not necessarily worrying because “nothing can function as a mechanism of power if it is not deployed according to procedures, tools, means and objectives” and this means that all knowledge would be meaningless if it had no energy. Knowledge must have the power to exist just as criticism must exist with our current means of governance in order for government and criticism to exist.