I was particularly interested today by the statement “truth is invested in sites of power.” I feel that I have heard a similar statement multiple times before. The example that comes to mind is “history is always written by the winners.” We hear of the bravery and cunning from the scribes of the winners much more often than the accounts of the losers. Why is this so? Simply put, the winners win the right to recount history, and the losers forgo this right when they surrender to the opposing side. Thus, truth with a historical context tends to not fit our modern definition of truth. Instead, it is something skewed by the bias of the writers who, more often than not, were the prevailing side in the account.
The interesting part of Foucault’s work is that it seems to be a collection of evidence from people not in power. Some of the people he quotes were well respected men and thinkers of the time, however, we would be strained to say that they were in power. The power rested in the hands of the sovereign or king. Foucault’s work depends on the accounts of people not in power to show how truth, the correct verdict of punishment for crimes such as the death penalty, was really a reassertion of the sovereign’s power during this time. Foucault opens the curtain to show us where this power comes from and how its relation to truth changes over time.