So, what were his views on lets say morality? Did he find that it was purely structured by the society it resided in? Would he condone what the majority would define as moral? Or would he value all moral codes regardless if it was believed by the majority or not? I mean I know he talks a lot about how he observes society, but it never seemed like he was ultimately deciding on a specific action of the individual to follow. Are we supposed to combat some categories? Are we suppose to accept categories? I wish I still had my notes, and thanks for the responses.
Morality, like all social constructs (I.e., like almost everything) is structured by the society is resides in, mostly non-deliberately. Insofar as morality is one construct at all. That word means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and a lot of things which clearly bear on morality aren't marked as such. That doesn't mean you just embrace cultural relativism. Surely it's possible to critically and politically engage with the various moralities you find out in the world, although Foucault's work (and post structuralism in general, really) kind of begs the question of what perspective you do that from. He wouldn't have committed to a moral code, in my opinion (and I'm talking out of my ass even more so now than I have been) because it's such an inflexible thing to do, and typically it's an uncritical thing to do (I.e., you just accept a socially constructed position without fully appreciating how it came about it what it does, though of course you don't necessarily make that mistake). Better to be primarily an analyst or a historian of modernity as Foucault called himself, taking pragmatic but well researched positions where political issues you find significant arise.
I think I understand a bit more now. Some of what you say already feels familiar, but some of it not so much. I'm not sure I'm in agreement with his thinking especially on an individual level. Things just seem too fluid in his perspective. It seems like at a certain point he doesn't really believe anything is concrete or even approaching concrete. How do you begin to define the self, if at all in that case? Thanks so much for responding so thoughtfully btw.