What the Foucault? Sayin who the Michel
He's got all the other theorists perplexed as hell
So go ahead and yell cos you fear you don't get it
Or just open up your ears so I can hit you quick wit it
First thing to know - power isn't some sovereign force
Dorks think they can charge overlords with sharpened forks
We all perpetuate the structures that we say we hate
If there's an oppressive system we had a bit to create
As in we implicate ourselves in it
This ain't a lottery or race, we can't win it
and I'll get to that more thoroughly in just a minute
For now suffice to say power is a network of strategies
I'm just the messenger so don't get mad at me
Instead of words real control plays out through
our anatomy
this reality is simultaneously terrifying
and so rad, you see
The panopticon doesn't work
the way some people think it do
It really make the prisoner
do all the surveillance for you
If you don't know when you're watched
it might as well be all the time
We used to take a pound of flesh
now we brand you for your crime
power is tolerable
as long as it masks its true intentions
we adapt our behaviour
to routine social conventions
our acquiescence constructs the present
i forgot to mention
the illusion of total inclusion
trickles down like a pension
Wonder what the hell is water
as the fish grow wetter
Discipline and index, hang a scarlet letter
Indelibly ink your legal name in a ledger
label your deviance with shame, it works better
Render bodies docile with proscribed practices
Free actions are fossils
we'll make you think you asked for this
Normative behaviour adapts to the episteme!
What was once acceptable
is rendered as a fading dream!
They'll call you mad and put you on a ship of fools
you confess about sex, the priest quietly drools
pure biopower growing thicker by the hour
productive not repressive
concrete cracks for the flower
systemic classification
sometimes makes me feel hated
but my body's just an object to be manipulated
regimented blurry-eyed rituals of health
preoccupied by technologies of the self
there are things we love
about the way we're oppressed
button up your favourite brand name
as you get dressed
social systems wouldn't last
without giving us pleasure
gettin dizzy as we chase
what we're taught to call treasure
and we consent to resented commands
even within our leisure
