Discipline and Punish - Michel Foucault

[Grim]

Anyone out here got a copy they feel like dusting off? PM me.

[ala1993]

You wanted to know about my specific interests regarding Foucault. I'm currently reading through 'Fearless Speech' on the topic of Parrhesia (I've just started a doctorate degree and it's my jumping off point); I also wrote my undergraduate dissertation on the subject as presented in Order of Things and History of Sexuality (specifically volume one).

I originally read DP for a class on 'prisons and punishment' but Foucault's method (at least in his main texts) of a 'horizontal' examination of historical documents in order to gain a clearer understanding of the manner in which institutions are able to derive their power interested me to the point of spending most of the rest of my undergraduate degree buried in anything I could find that he wrote and had published. I've also studied Heidegger and Hegel to some extent, along with Nietzsche, which has made reading Foucault (and thinking about him) even more interesting.

I'm interested, primarily, in political resistance (and its limits) and I'd like to take that angle when reading DP.

Let me know how you're thinking of starting this.

[Grim]

Political Resistance

Foucault seems to suggest that common institutions (school, hospitals, barracks) share underlaying relationships - that of the politics of power. The criminal was judged by the court (that essentially domineering pseudo-technological system which derives legitimacy by being allied to all symbols of rule) but the citizenry often has the ability (in some circumstances) / desire (when lacking the ability) to free those with whom they identify as being unjustly treated. The code of law fails to be practical in the scope of the average persons life creating a disharmony, or a disjunct, a effective disassociation between the code, its proponents (the readers, writers and speakers of laws), and the majority of those who live within any effectual boundary of the afore mentioned central discipline.

To those who determine discipline soul and the body are seen as inseparable, punish one and the other effectively suffers as well. Cage the body to inebriate the soul, euthanize the soul and the body is no longer a threat. And yet the prisoner cannot be compelled to be silent, and the body may reject the treatment of the soul even after the latter has been forcefully homogenized.

I think then that the nature of political resistance between those few with power and the many without is a combination of at least these two basic and complementary contentions as suggested by Foucault. A resistance to the anti-dualist theories of the prisons, and a reinterpretation of codes, acts, regulations and conventions by a majority from whose members the criminal is often characterized.

Ala please elaborate on your perspective with leisure.

[ala1993]

Interesting ideas, but I think that we can go into more detail. For example, I think that your post has overlooked two important aspects of DP. The most important of these is the complicated manner in which 'power' and 'knowledge' are bound together (in fact, Foucault spent many interviews and essays attempting to clarify this relationship). I think that to speak of such a relationship as 'dualist' or 'anti-dualist' is to attempt to bind it within traditional philosophical terms. Recall that he writes about the shift in the 'location' of power; what was once not only represented, but also found its origin within, the figure of a sovereign becomes dispersed. What was once a possession becomes decentralised to the point where individuals act as a means of, rather than a target for, power (Marxism represented the last attempt to envisage 'sovereign power' and Foucault was critical of it for this).

The second aspect follows from this. Recall that Foucault takes, as his model of modern power, the 'panopticon'; the structure in which individuals can be viewed without ever knowing when such viewing is taking place. This is extended out to cover the manner in which subjectivity is constructed. Extensive 'surveillance' through documentation which serves to create subjects which can be easily identified (this refers back to what Foucault was writing about in his earlier work 'The Order of Things', in which he attempts to document various intellectual 'eras' in which certain statements were understood as being true and meaningful on the basis of theoretical structural foundations). This is why I do not think that Discipline and Punish is about prisons 'per se' (or even the idea that the self imprisons the body, which itself seems to refer back to the Nietzschean idea of denial of life, or the way in which culture can bring individuals to deny their bodies for the sake of something 'higher') but rather is part of a larger opus in which Foucault attempts to chart the different ways in which individuals have been constructed.

There are two historical examples he uses when speaking about the body. The first is the figure at the opening of the book ('Damiens the Regicide') while the second is that of the soldier (specifically the way in which soldiers used to be chosen on the basis of their physical attributes, a method which is replaced by the teaching of those attributes to any man). It seems to me as though Foucault intends us to understand the subject as having once been an aesthetic phenomenon, becoming an ethical one. Those who are, at first, considered to be subjects are those who can display it (power is displayed, never hidden); in modern times, anyone can be a subject but they must learn appropriate techniques and types of behaviour. As for the figure of the criminal, the aesthetic is once again replaced with the ethical, insofar as an image of criminality is replaced with the idea of it (although the idea still conjures up an image, this image cannot be located in the physical world without some degree of reductionism).

It is as if Foucault is showing that the emergence of the liberal state (because he never speaks about non-European nations; in fact, I think he confines the entire scope of his work to Western European history save for a few mentions of the USSR from time to time) is concurrent with the need for a greater degree of population control (he expands on this during the first volume of History of Sexuality, which I believe was the follow-up to DP). The history of the prison (along with the history of medicine in Birth of the Clinic and the history of the concept of madness in History of Madness) serves as an angle from which to observe the changes in the way 'man' is understood (I recommend reading Order of Things, especially the last two chapters, to get a better idea of how he sees 'man' as a transitory rather than absolute concept).

Lastly, on the subject of resistance, I don't think he ever made it clear as to exactly how 'resistance' was to take place. However, I think that his 'histories' were themselves an attempt at such a resistance, insofar as they were intended to illuminate an alternative understanding of the development of categories (which, from Kant up until Nietzsche, were themselves absolute and foundational). So I would argue that each of Foucault's books is a work of resistance, the greatest problem being that of whether we are to understand the books - and perhaps the man himself - as more than just manifestations of a network of power relations. Put simply, what if DP is entirely in line with the dominant mode of thinking it would appear to challenge?

[Grim]

The most important of these is the complicated manner in which 'power' and 'knowledge' are bound together (in fact, Foucault spent many interviews and essays attempting to clarify this relationship).

What sort of epistemology was developed around his notion of knowledge? Is it contrary to (what could be considered) the commonly understood dynamic, that knowledge in some existential sense equates to tangible expressions and related feeling of power? The citizenry in one of his examples knew the law and yet had some type of informal knowledge structure where they were able to steal. There was a power structure of socially acceptable theft based around the knowledge that punishment was unlikely.

I think that to speak of such a relationship as 'dualist' or 'anti-dualist' is to attempt to bind it within traditional philosophical terms.

Forgive my informality. I merely meant to show that a person is fully capable of rejecting the disciplinary notion that to punish one aspect of the mind-body dynamic is to control the entire essence of that particular being. I understand that to speak like this is a rather malaprop use of the term anti-dualist.

the figure of a sovereign becomes dispersed. What was once a possession becomes decentralised to the point where individuals act as a means of, rather than a target for, power (Marxism represented the last attempt to envisage 'sovereign power' and Foucault was critical of it for this).

Wholly agreed. I do trust that you are correct regarding Foucault's opinions of Marxist theory.

he attempts to document various intellectual 'eras' in which certain statements were understood as being true and meaningful on the basis of theoretical structural foundations).

These foundations are his psychological history, or the continually revised definitions of what it means to refer correctly to another human within any particular context (DP is contextual to something Foucault was trying to say in general)?

This is why I do not think that Discipline and Punish is about prisons 'per se' (or even the idea that the self imprisons the body, which itself seems to refer back to the Nietzschean idea of denial of life, or the way in which culture can bring individuals to deny their bodies for the sake of something 'higher') but rather is part of a larger opus in which Foucault attempts to chart the different ways in which individuals have been constructed.

Fascinating. I am glad to have the opportunity to have you mention this. This obviously relates to the "theoretical structural foundations," if you have the leisure please elaborate.

(specifically the way in which soldiers used to be chosen on the basis of their physical attributes, a method which is replaced by the teaching of those attributes to any man).

This explains the control of the spectators over the verdict? The capability of resistance even in the weak.

the subject as having once been an aesthetic phenomenon, becoming an ethical one. Those who are, at first, considered to be subjects are those who can display it (power is displayed, never hidden); in modern times, anyone can be a subject but they must learn appropriate techniques and types of behaviour. As for the figure of the criminal, the aesthetic is once again replaced with the ethical, insofar as an image of criminality is replaced with the idea of it (although the idea still conjures up an image, this image cannot be located in the physical world without some degree of reductionism).

Fascinating distillation. The physical has become increasingly theoretical, the mastery of the world by thoughts rather than superficial action and in a sense heredity. Or is it perhaps the domination of those who can act outside of a particular ethics by a technologically enhanced (enhanced using capabilities similar to those deployed for imaginative thought and thereby directed by them - suggesting that within our ethics (not to mention our economics) there is a certain level where destructive powers are legitimized even encouraged) force inherently authenticated for mass cognizance by an idealized aesthetics of homogeneity.

(I recommend reading Order of Things, especially the last two chapters, to get a better idea of how he sees 'man' as a transitory rather than absolute concept).

Thanks.

Lastly, on the subject of resistance, I don't think he ever made it clear as to exactly how 'resistance' was to take place.

Could it be considered that madness is a type of resistance?

So I would argue that each of Foucault's books is a work of resistance, the greatest problem being that of whether we are to understand the books - and perhaps the man himself - as more than just manifestations of a network of power relations. Put simply, what if DP is entirely in line with the dominant mode of thinking it would appear to challenge?

Seems probable, considering the obvious failing of discourse to match the effectiveness of force to intrinsically alter frames of reference, by modifying expected thresholds ethically for any manner of situation Foucault may indirectly encourage us to be satisfied in our theoretical freedoms forgetting that these are only facets of a much bigger picture regarding the changing controls of power and limits of the powerless in one sense and the dynamic relationships one has with important institutions as represented by his countrymen on the other.

[Grim]

Lastly, on the subject of resistance, I don't think he ever made it clear as to exactly how 'resistance' was to take place.

Could it be considered that madness is a type of resistance?

"The body, required to be docile in its minutest operations, opposes and shows the conditions of functioning proper to an organism. Disciplinary power has as its correlative an individuality that is not only analytical and 'cellular', but also natural and 'organic'." - Foucault Discipline and Punish p156 "Docile Bodies - The control of activity"

[info]

Derrida was the serious (if largely wrong) thinker and Foucault was the charlatan.

Derrida has no style or presence compared to Foucault. In video I mean.

This is a key book

For a book it's okay.

[Arising_uk]

Derrida has no style or presence compared to Foucault. In video I mean. ...

Is this what post anarcho-futurism is! Convinced by presence rather than words?

For a book it's okay.

?!

[info]

Derrida has no style or presence compared to Foucault. In video I mean. ...

If you saw the movie Fahrenheit 451, and have also heard of Youtube, then you know graphism is over.

[Arising_uk]

If you saw the movie Fahrenheit 451, and have also heard of Youtube, then you know graphism is over.

You mean reading is out and stupidism is in. Bet you've not actually read Fahrenheit 451.

[info]

If you saw the movie Fahrenheit 451, and have also heard of Youtube, then you know graphism is over.

You mean reading is out and stupidism is in. Bet you've not actually read Fahrenheit 451.

Of course I did.

Did you?

Writing has only been around for about the same amount of time as money, war, slavery and all the other patriarchal illnesses. Don't be a literacy Luddite. Violence of the word: reading and writing are rape!

[Arising_uk]

Did you?

Yes and still have it on my shelf.

Writing has only been around for about the same amount of time as money, war, slavery and all the other patriarchal illnesses. Don't be a literacy Luddite. Violence of the word: reading and writing are rape!

Well, give or take a thousand years.

"Rape", "patriarchal illnesses". Still, given the way you write I could understand this.

[chaz wyman]

If you saw the movie Fahrenheit 451, and have also heard of Youtube, then you know graphism is over.

You mean reading is out and stupidism is in. Bet you've not actually read Fahrenheit 451.

Of course I did.

Did you?

Writing has only been around for about the same amount of time as money, war, slavery and all the other patriarchal illnesses. Don't be a literacy Luddite. Violence of the word: reading and writing are rape!

Actually war is first (millions of years), then slavery (probably 200k years ago), Money is rather recent by comparison (c. 1000bc depending on the definition), proper coin not until 6thC Bc, as for rape - I thought you advocated that!! - open the prisons and allow pedophilia!!

If reading and writing are rape then what are you doing on the Forum?

[info]

If reading and writing are rape then what are you doing on the Forum?

Because I am the victim!

[Arising_uk]

Of what? Your own reading and writing? I can believe that!