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Postmodernism is the work of three primary French writers: [[Jean-François Lyotard]], who coined the term "postmodern"; [[Jacques Derrida]], and especially [[Michel Foucault]].  Foucault started off as a young Marxist<ref>[https://read.dukeupress.edu/positions/article-abstract/27/1/115/137351/The-Hidden-Area-between-Marx-and-Foucault?redirectedFrom=fulltext The Hidden Area between Marx and Foucault]</ref> under the tutelage of Louis Althusser, joining the French Communist Party in the 1950s.  He moved on from this, however, and became an author and formulator of his own ideas.

Postmodernism is the work of three primary French writers: [[Jean-François Lyotard]], who coined the term "postmodern"; [[Jacques Derrida]], and especially [[Michel Foucault]].  Foucault started off as a young Marxist<ref>[https://read.dukeupress.edu/positions/article-abstract/27/1/115/137351/The-Hidden-Area-between-Marx-and-Foucault?redirectedFrom=fulltext The Hidden Area between Marx and Foucault]</ref> under the tutelage of Louis Althusser, joining the French Communist Party in the 1950s.  He moved on from this, however, and became an author and formulator of his own ideas.

Through his work, Foucault re-purposes Marxism into a philosophy that can be used in any category, not just economics.  Foucault sees life through interactions, and every interaction has a power dynamic.  Because of this, there is no truth, and instead there are only power-knowledge interactions.<ref>[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/731488 Foucault with Marx]</ref>  Each interaction has a winner and loser, thus everything can be interchanged.  In his book ''Discipline and Punish'', Foucault wrote:

Through his work, Foucault re-purposes Marxism into a philosophy that can be used in any category, not just economics.  Foucault sees life through interactions, and every interaction has a [[Power|power]] dynamic.  Because of this, there is no truth, and instead there are only power-knowledge interactions.<ref>[https://muse.jhu.edu/article/731488 Foucault with Marx]</ref>  Each interaction has a winner and loser, thus everything can be interchanged.  In his book ''Discipline and Punish'', Foucault wrote:

<blockquote>Perhaps we should abandon a whole tradition that allows us to imagine that knowledge can exist only where the power relations are suspended and that knowledge can develop only outside its injunctions, its demands, and its interests. Perhaps we should abandon the belief that power makes people mad and that, by the same token, the renunciation of power is one of the conditions of knowledge. We should admit, rather, that power produces knowledge (and not simply by encouraging it because it serves power or by applying it because it is useful); that power and knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Perhaps we should abandon a whole tradition that allows us to imagine that knowledge can exist only where the power relations are suspended and that knowledge can develop only outside its injunctions, its demands, and its interests. Perhaps we should abandon the belief that power makes people mad and that, by the same token, the renunciation of power is one of the conditions of knowledge. We should admit, rather, that power produces knowledge (and not simply by encouraging it because it serves power or by applying it because it is useful); that power and knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations.</blockquote>