Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

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Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

by Michel Foucault

4.16 · rating details · 4,908 ratings · 266 reviews

In this brilliant work, the most influential philosopher since Sartre suggests that such vaunted reforms as the abolition of torture and the emergence of the modern penitentiary have merely shifted the focus of punishment from the prisoner's body to his soul.

Paperback, 352 pages

Published January 12th 1979 by Vintage (first published 1975)

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Apr 03, 2007

Conrad rated it

Shelves: philosophy, pomo, masterpieces

In many ways a response to the French government's penal codes of the 60s and 70s but also a continuation of Foucault's work in Madness and Civilization, the influence of D&P can be seen everywhere from Spielberg's Minority Report to Enemy of the State to Ted Conover's Newjack and most if not all critiques of surveillant governments. It's also a horrifying read, starting out as it does with an account of the ritualistic execution of a regicide, which Foucault compares favorably to the prisons o...more

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Nov 10, 2007

Jessica marked it as owned-for-years-but-still-not-read

Recommends it for: intellectuals who have done something bad

Shelves: crime-and-punishment

I started it. I didn't finish. And unless I one day find myself in a situation with extremely limited mobility and options, with a great deal of time (read: years) on my hands, it's conceivable that I never will.

I'd like to have read this book, since I'm very interested in the topics it addresses, but I don't know that I have the mind, stomach, or patience for Foucault. So while I'd like to have read it, I don't know that I'd like as much to read it, if you get what I'm saying. Well, m...more

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Aug 22, 2007

Cat rated it

Shelves: culturalhistory

I've read this book three times: First time was in undergraduate, second time was in law school, third time was last week. I can honestly say that my understanding of this work has grown with each reading, but that growth in comprehension has come more from my reading of other books either discussing or related to Discipline and Punish.
Specifically, I would recommend Jurgen Habermas's critique of Foucault, although I now forget which book of his contains his critique. I would also recommen...more

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Jan 10, 2008

Lex rated it

Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: re-readable-classics, theory-gay-and-otherwise

This book rearranged my brain. I have never read something that met my intuition half way, and then expanded my vision beyond all critical capacities I knew before. I will never conceive of power, structures, knowledge, statistics, or my cock the same way again. His anti-humanitarian, empirical, and nonuniversal critiques that follow the money and the violence are the perfect medicine for people who have been reading saggy assed media studies and cultural studies for too long. Saved my life.

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Aug 06, 2008

Aaron rated it

i first trudged through this book when i was in high school. being 17, i realized that i wasn't really understanding what he was saying, but for the first time, felt like i was exposed to an analysis that transcended dominant thought in a way that i didnt know was possible. for the next 3 years i read a lot of foucault..his understanding of the co-productive nature of knowledge and power gave me tools to deconstruct our funny world and truths. not to be too corny, but this shit changed my lif...more

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Oct 05, 2011

Naxa rated it

Shelves: philosophy, favorites, post-structuralism-and-modernism

A nice overview of the procedures of law throughout a somewhat short span of western history. Not quite as good as MADNESS AND CIVILIZATION, but written and argued in the same way as that. The book was part of the major project of Foulcault's in showing that social institutions, especially those we don't associate with knowledge, are disseminators and power brokers of knowledge.

In this book he shows how even though we physically abuse and execute criminals less, we have used knowledg...moreA nice overview of the procedures of law throughout a somewhat short span of western history. Not quite as good as MADNESS AND CIVILIZATION, but written and argued in the same way as that. The book was part of the major project of Foulcault's in showing that social institutions, especially those we don't associate with knowledge, are disseminators and power brokers of knowledge.

In this book he shows how even though we physically abuse and execute criminals less, we have used knowledge as a new form of mental prison that destroys the "soul" of those incarcerated. The panopticon, proposed by Jeremy Bentham being both the culmination and beginning of the enlightenment semiotic view of how prisoners should be cataloged sorted and viewed as pieces of information to be viewed at all times in order to be rehabilitated. Pulling us into a militaristic nanny system that tries to control the life of the imprisoned as much as possible. He further and more importantly argues, that this view of the panopticon as an ideal institution has moved on to the rest of society and we all are involved in panoptic institutions that wish to control us beyond the means available to the traditional institutions they replaced, through information and a feeling of constant surveillance.

I can agree with most of the main thrust of his argument in this and his other works. I dislike the way he makes prisoners seem merely as misunderstood and as freedom loving. I realize he was trying to critique enlightenment views and he didn't hold this view as fervently as some of the people he was quoting, but some types of violent offenders commit serious crimes that should taken seriously. They effect real victims and they shouldn't be seen as part of a rubric system that wants to stop "freedom lovers."

That being my one and only caveat with the book. I still very much agree with the rest and enjoyed his writing and historical examples. Another masterpiece by Foucault, not his greatest, but still very much worth reading and taking stock of. (less)

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Sep 18, 2011

Bay rated it

Fascinating! Foucault begins by discussing how punishment has changed over time from a corporal, physical punishment to a punishment that is targeted at souls. The disciplinary and penal system changes as the body was discovered as an object and target of power. In the early 17th century, bodies were punished as an affirmation of the sovereign’s power. When a crime was committed, the offender was in essence “attack[ing] the very principle and physical person of the prince” (54). The king wo...more

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Jul 28, 2011

Derek Baldwin rated it

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Foucault's greatest work, in my opinion, and certainly one of the more accessible.

The book begins with an extraordinary account of a regicide's slow and painful torturing to death. This is a visitation upon the body of the wrongdoer, says Foucault, of the sovereign's power, and typical of its time. But we have very gradually moved from this very overt and vengeful and direct form of the exercise of power to a far more subtle "disciplinary power".

In modern societies, he says, we mount ...more

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Jan 10, 2011

Ally de Padua rated it

Foucault for Historians, Foucault as Historian

"It’s true that I prefer not to identify myself, and I’m amused by the diversity of the ways I’ve been judged and classified. Something tells me that by now a more or less approximate place should have been found for me, after so many efforts in such various directions…I have to be convinced that their inability to situate me has something to do with me."

Michel Foucault, Interview with Paul Rabinow

Discipline an...moreFoucault for Historians, Foucault as Historian

"It’s true that I prefer not to identify myself, and I’m amused by the diversity of the ways I’ve been judged and classified. Something tells me that by now a more or less approximate place should have been found for me, after so many efforts in such various directions…I have to be convinced that their inability to situate me has something to do with me."

Michel Foucault, Interview with Paul Rabinow

Discipline and Punish is difficult when considered as a historical work. While reading it, the historian-by-training feels a certain sense of self-consciousness, a realization that Foucault’s method of analysis has somehow left the inner workings of our discipline exposed. A “historian of a sort,” conspicuously absent from Foucault’s work is the hallmark of modern historical writing—the external dialogue. For most modern historians, their work is meant as a response, a continuation of a disputation between peers. The bibliography of a work of “legitimate” scholastic history is normally a list of scholars, those whose ideas have inspired our own. The bibliography of Discipline and Punish is the first place one could look and find the disparity between his historical task and ours. With the exception of fewer than twenty-five texts (for a 309 page work), his bibliography is dominated by primary sources hailing from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Discipline and Punish was written outside of the dialogue of historians, and what’s more, the distance he keeps is intentional. In The Use of Pleasure Foucault writes:

"The studies that follow, like the others I have done previously, are studies of ‘history’ by reason of the domain they deal with… but they are not the work of a ‘historian.’ Which does not mean that they summarize and synthesize work done by others…It was a philosophical enterprise."

Simply put, Foucault is not interested in the questions that the historians have traditionally been asking.

A hallmark of what Thomas Flynn considers Foucault’s “post-modern” historical thinking is an avoidance of the traditional questions of “causation,” of the discussions of influence, of the chronological stringing of events. Thus the bewilderment we feel as we follow his trajectory in Discipline and Punish is the historian’s bewilderment at how he uses his massive archival erudition, or rather, how he refuses to use it. His use of the archival texts is illustrative, rather than deeply analytical—he does not search them for eternal meanings, or universal structures—questions of facticity, of causation, of “what the texts are really saying” are not his concern. His history is tactical, not based on the uncovering of a grand narrative, but rather an uncovering a multiplication of events in their contingency and plurality.

The study of History is a Discipline, in the manner that Foucault describes Discipline as a power whose function it is to “train, rather than to select and levy…it separates, analyses, differentiates, carries its procedures of decomposition to the point of necessary and sufficient single units.” It is power articulated onto time, a discipline aimed at knowing the past by “uncovering” linear evolutions, or coherency within it. The very questions that most historians ask of the past, of its documents and of its remnants reveal our underlying presupposition of the possibility of uncovering facticity, of being able to separate what is history from what is fiction. The discipline of History is a system that works towards the goal of uncovering what can be objectively known about the past, and this goal directs our discourse.

What insight has Discipline and Punish given us about the meaning of the term “Foucauldian analysis”? Running the risk of oversimplification or generalization, I would suggest that one begin with the recognition that there really is no fact, no objective history that exists outside of the subjective experience. The question of separating what can be objectively known from what has been subjectively recorded is not as important as asking why a document is written. The question is not necessarily if what was written is objectively “true” or more or less reflective of past reality, but instead what goals their writing reflected. Foucault’s “history,” if it must be labeled as such, ultimately feels like a history of “thoughts”—a genealogy of the present rather than a narrative of the past.
What we gain from Discipline and Punish, and Foucault’s tactical approach to history in general is the realization that the past and the present, if they are realities, are realities that only exist in multiplicities—on chance and the diversity of “events,” rather than unification and chronological trajectory. An examination of Foucault’s sources for Discipline and Punish reveals that a majority were the writings of eighteenth and nineteenth century ideologues, jurists, and theoreticians, men whose plans and theories for the penal institution may or may not have been overtly successful in achieving their intended goals, whose ideas may or may not have even been put into practice. Every trail of thought, even unrealized holds a space in history as significant as that of a reign, a battle, or an explosion. Everything can be an event.
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Oct 15, 2010

The Awdude rated it

This book marks Foucault's transition from an archaeological posture to a genealogical one, a theoretical shift which allows him to begin theorizing about the frighteningly inescapable dynamics of power. The writing is beautiful, haunting, and poetic in all the right ways, and the aesthetic grace with which he deploys his ideas almost eclipses the terrifying implications of their content. But not quite. There is no escaping the Panopticon of power! The technology of discipline and the diffus...moreThis book marks Foucault's transition from an archaeological posture to a genealogical one, a theoretical shift which allows him to begin theorizing about the frighteningly inescapable dynamics of power. The writing is beautiful, haunting, and poetic in all the right ways, and the aesthetic grace with which he deploys his ideas almost eclipses the terrifying implications of their content. But not quite. There is no escaping the Panopticon of power! The technology of discipline and the diffuse mechanisms of punishment are hard at work in every minute detail of our lives, and their overall effects on society is what ultimately constitutes the paradox of the modern episteme: subjectivity presupposes subjection. Legality presupposes illegality; incarceration invents and encourages delinquency; morality constitutes criminality and visa-versa. And man, at the end of the day, constitutes an object of knowledge that remains in perpetual opposition to man as a subject of transcendence. He has invented himself in order to develop a taxonomy of himself. His self-invention constitutes the moment in which he begins a long process of trying to hide from himself the fact that he does not exist. The discipline of the body is one mechanism of this process; as the invented signifier of the soul, which according to Foucault is the modern arm of power, the body bears the marks of the failure of the self-disguise. We multiply apparatuses of subjection but get no closer to, and probably even retreat from, the desired state of subjectivity. Which is similar to the lesson you might take from the show The Wire. We're all playing our roles in the game of subjection; the more we invest in morality, the more we invest in immorality. Neither of which exist, of course. Power, according to Foucault, is pretty much the only thing that actually exists. Discipline and Punish is a brilliant exploration of power, and it demonstrates all the ways in which we can be certain that contemporary power in human society is much stronger, much more varied in form, and much, much more widely distributed than it ever has been. The greatest trick power ever pulled was convincing the world it didn't exist. Read this book and see. (less)

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Jan 07, 2010

Bradley rated it

Wow, just wow. My dissertation advisor told me that Foucault worked 18-20 hours a day, 7 days a week to write this text. I can see all of the hard work paid dividends! All through the first few sections the groundwork is being laid down. In it Foucault outlines the transition from sovereign power to disciplinary power; or what Marxists call Formal subsumption (coercion of the proletariat by use of overt force) to the final stage of capitalism called Real Subsumption (the ideological superstruct...moreWow, just wow. My dissertation advisor told me that Foucault worked 18-20 hours a day, 7 days a week to write this text. I can see all of the hard work paid dividends! All through the first few sections the groundwork is being laid down. In it Foucault outlines the transition from sovereign power to disciplinary power; or what Marxists call Formal subsumption (coercion of the proletariat by use of overt force) to the final stage of capitalism called Real Subsumption (the ideological superstructure is sufficiently complex that it takes care of all potential insurgencies through pure discourse and weight of law).

Foucault shows how the penal codes gradually became evermore complicated to meet the needs of a capitalizing West; hence new juridical institutions and laws were written to handle "theft," and "corrupt business transactions," and other newer crimes dealing with the appropriation of property. Also, he notes that criminology was invented during this period, in the late 18th century, creating a "Labyrinth" of legalistic jargon that made the practice of law possible only by professionals. Hence, as the legal superstructure began to become more complex, so did the different types of "Crimes," that the state needed to protect "us" against.

Hence, the invention of the infamous Panopticon had to come about because the capitalization of the West could only happen through the procurement of Healthy, productive, "Docile Bodies," to work in factories. Disciplinarity began to subsume all aspects of the Modernizing, capitalizing society... and I began to wonder at this point, "How effective is this new disciplinary power?" And then Foucault answered my concerns by showing how the excesses of disciplinarity created the conditions of possibility for resistance. This is what Foucault calls a "Physics of Power," which basically means - for every action there is always an opposite and equal reaction- therefore, when power becomes excessive, there is a bounce-back effect leading to a multiplication of resistances, subversions, and even carnivalesque overturnings of the status quo. Yet, all of this resistance is effectively kept to the margins of society. Alas, we are all slaves to an invisible master. What a bummer. (less)

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Nov 06, 2011

Chris K rated it

Foucault is fascinating not only for his ideas but also for his meticulous historiography. His goal is to write a history of the present (i.e., trace the historical relationships that led to our current construction and understanding of society).

In Discipline and Punish, Foucault demonstrates how institutions represent modern society's power-knowledge over the individual. For Foucault, power-knowledge is the tool institutions use to govern our lives; they do this by creating knowledge...more

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Sep 03, 2011

Salma marked it as to-read · review of another edition

أشعر بالغيظ، فقد قلبت مكتبتي مرتين و أنا أبحث عنه عبثا، أذكر أني خبأته في مكان ما... و لكني نسيت أين خبأته... فقط لحسن الحظ أني لم أخبئ معه نقودي و إلا كانت ضاعت هي الأخرى معه... و لكني طمأنت نفسي بأنه ربما من حسن الحظ أكثر أن ليس لدي نقود تستحق أن أخبئها فأنسى أين وضعتها هي الأخرى فتضيع علي
راودتني نفسي بقراءة النسخة الالكترونية
و لكني تراجعت عنها لأني كنت سأشعر بالغيظ مرتين من نفسي لأني سأكون أضعته مرتين حينها، مرة حين خبأته و مرة حين اشتريت النسخة الورقية عبثا و لم أقرأها... حسنا سأ...more

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Mar 20, 2010

Siria rated it

Shelves: french-history, history, nonfiction, historiography

When I finished reading this book, I broke out a tub of Ben and Jerry's Half Baked—chocolate and vanilla frozen yoghurt with brownie and cookie dough chunks seemed the only suitable reward after 300+ pages of Foucault's prose. Whether or not its his writing style or an effect of the translation, Discipline and Punish is a dense and at times frustratingly opaque book. That, coupled with Foucault's fondness for using minuscule, ahistorical details to justify large-scale abstractions, made this a v...more

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Sep 16, 2011

Ruhat alp rated it

devletin, suçlulara, aykırılara, delilere, düzene uymayanlara ve günümüz moda terimiyle ‘teröristlere’ ihtiyacı var...

Historically, the process by which the bourgeoisie became in the course of the eighteenth century the politically dominant class was masked by the establishment of an explicit, coded and formally egalitarian juridical framework, made possible by the organization of a parliamentary, representative regime. But the development and generalization of disciplinary mechanism...more

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Jul 24, 2010

Blayze rated it

Shelves: theory

thrown as we are into an age where prisons are overflowing and law is one of the more competitive vocational fields for graduates, it's hard to imagine that the prison is a relatively recent construction. foucault instructs that a historical process exists individualizing and internalizing punishment since its more naturalistic beginnings in torture. we might normally associate torture with a punishment on the soul, but foucault goes to show that the invention of the prison (although he uncertai...more

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Aug 15, 2009

Leila T. rated it

God, Foucault is so intense. I read this at university, and now that I think of it, I probably didn't end up reading the whole thing. I really do appreciate reading Foucault itself, not an interpretation of his stuff, but it's very long and dense and requires a level of concentration that most of my life does not demand; I am therefore unpracticed and inept.

The point of this review is that even if you read just a few chapters of this, it will be intellectually edifying. And I mean i...more

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Jan 06, 2010

Justin Mitchell rated it

Every time I read Foucault, I leave asking myself "What am I supposed to do with this?"

My main issue is that I feel everything Foucault comes up with is ridiculously obvious. Of COURSE power is the basis for all our social interactions. It's not a mind-blowing point. Of course public executions are demonstrations of power over crime. Of course the disciplinary systems of the prison, the rehabilitation concept, etc., are all rooted in power. It doesn't challenge anythin...more

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Jun 09, 2011

Chris rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: theory, queer

Like most of Foucault's classic work, Discipline and Punish is about how power impinges on bodies. His great achievement in this book is to induce readers to reconsider what both bodies and power could mean-- what the words themselves refer to, how those categories have acted in the readers' own lives and in history, how their own bodies have come under various powers' sway. As an intervention in certain French intellectual and political debates, it made much more of an impact than Foucault hims...moreLike most of Foucault's classic work, Discipline and Punish is about how power impinges on bodies. His great achievement in this book is to induce readers to reconsider what both bodies and power could mean-- what the words themselves refer to, how those categories have acted in the readers' own lives and in history, how their own bodies have come under various powers' sway. As an intervention in certain French intellectual and political debates, it made much more of an impact than Foucault himself expected. As a work of contemporary philosophy, it made his academic career. Most remarkable of all, as a marriage of rhetoric and critical thought, it is a flat-out masterpiece. I can think of no achievement comparable since Kierkegaard.

The story here, about how French modernity came into being on the bodies of criminals, is fascinating and indelibly told. It seems Foucault got many of his facts wrong; indeed, I'm not sure his points are even falsifiable, much less verifiable. That is hardly the point. The details do matter, however, because they lend this book most of its considerable moral force. Even at its most ironic (and Foucault, a classic interpreter of Nietzsche, is a grand ironist) the human cost of torture, incarceration, and surveillance is always before the reader's conscience. Tellingly, when critics fault Foucault's handling of the past, they sometimes do it to fault his theoretical conclusions, but not the ethical force that drives them.

Let me return to this book's writing. It is much more accessible, I think, than even Foucault's other work, and much more so than most of the classics of Theory. If you are curious about Foucault, this is definitely the place to begin. It is not a point-by-point argument with all terms safely defined: What, you thought this was C. S. Lewis? But its writing will tend to pull you into Foucault's own thought processes, which you may find cropping up inside your own as you keep reading. The French, let me add, is even better, limpid and direct. I highly recommend it if you have the means.

We do have some of Foucault's lecture notes now, which is a gift. As an example of his written pedagogy, I find this even better. This book will teach you new and unsettling ways to think. I can't sell you on that, but I can urge you to give it a try and see how it fits. Few who try are wholly disappointed.(less)

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Jun 01, 2009

Matt rated it

Admittedly, my expectations were quite high for this book. I've heard and read some whole-hearted praise for Discipline and Punish which compelled me to read it. I had gone through some of it in college and thought I'd tackle it again.

And, at the risk of being labeled obtuse, I'm not sure I get it.

Part I focuses on an ideological history of torture. The conclusions regarding the purpose and effect of torture by the sovereign are interspersed with anecdotal tales height...more

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Jan 13, 2010

O. Thurmond rated it

One of my all time favorite books. Not for the quality of the writing or translation from French, which is amazing.(The subject matter is far too dense to ever be enjoyable as literature) It is Foucault who deconstructed the underpinnings of societal control. One aspect of that is illuminated through meticulous and wide-sweeping analysis of Penal systems. I have underlined, highlighted, dogeared and written in the margins of this book so much that astonishes even myself. There are sections I...more

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Jul 31, 2009

Ed rated it

Shelves: torture

Analysis of power relationships and how social structures are created and modified to maintain them. While about prison, punishment and torture on one level it is just as fundamental in its discussion of the equations of control and dominance of populations, using examples from throughout society such as the architecture of hospitals, the design of military bases and how prisons are laid out.

The underpinnings of captitalist production, taken for granted by those they most effect, ar...more

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Sep 27, 2010

John Carter McKnight rated it

Shelves: academic

Fascinating, almost gripping read. While best known for the back half, on the Panopticon and the origin of the prison as the predominant judicial punishment, I found the first half, on the rise of a culture of discipline across the school, barracks and hospital, of the disciplinary society focused on meticulous procedure and recordkeeping, much more interesting (and personally useful in my work).

For anyone remotely interested in the rise of modern institutions of control and indoctr...more

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Dec 17, 2011

Tyler rated it

This is the first Foucault I've read, but it won't be the last. That's not to say that I enjoyed reading it. But the book squeezed my mind-grapes.

Some aspects of the book seemed self-evident which may be due to the influence of the book itself:

1) Prison creates a criminal class, and the purpose of prison isn't reform of the criminal but control and maintenance. The prison was created not out of a concern for reform or a humanist rejection of sovereign terrorism but for contr...moreThis is the first Foucault I've read, but it won't be the last. That's not to say that I enjoyed reading it. But the book squeezed my mind-grapes.

Some aspects of the book seemed self-evident which may be due to the influence of the book itself:

1) Prison creates a criminal class, and the purpose of prison isn't reform of the criminal but control and maintenance. The prison was created not out of a concern for reform or a humanist rejection of sovereign terrorism but for control of unruly subjects. The prison tortures in a different way than the King. And it was more effective, given the emerging capitalism and the new forms of control and power required, to imprison.

2) The prison is a disciplinary institution qualitatively the same as the school, workplace, etc. The disciplinary techniques of these institutions create obedient subjects of power (read: capital). These techniques are varied and function on bodies so they do the bidding power, the reproduction of capital and themselves as workers.

But there were some ideas that were new to me:

1) The naming of the disciplines as a category or force rather than a collection of disparate properties of different institutions. This makes some sense since it's not like these institutions sprung up without a socio-economic reason to back them up. They served a greater power.

2) The naming of Power as a subject of history. Power utilized the law of the King while it still worked, but when the crowds started revolting against such grotesque sights as the public execution, Power had to function discretely instead. I'm kind of confused how we can translate the Power of the sovereign to the Power of discipline so easily, that is the power of the King (and his court) to the power of the controlling methods of institutions. (No doubt there was some connection between the rulers of the pre-capitalist age and capitalists. See Silvia Federici in Caliban and the Witch: "Capitalism was the response of the feudal lords, the patrician merchants, the bishops and popes, to a centuries-long social conflict that, in the end, shook their power, and truly gave 'all the world a big jolt.'")

The book is well-argued with lots of interesting details. I don't have the philosophy background to engage with some of Foucault's concepts. Though, they weren't vague and were within reach.(less)

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Dec 06, 2009

Lance rated it

Obviously, this is a linchpin of modern philosophy that impacts just about any field of academic study or intellectual thought that thus far exists. Foucault's style is clear and concise, while using plenty of historical and concrete details to illustrate his thought. What I found in finally reading this book (I have, of course, read bits and pieces) is that Foucault is more structuralist than post-moderns would like to admit. If Foucault is post-structuralist, then it seems only the other si...more

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Sep 19, 2009

El Habib Louai rated it

Surveiller et Punir as it is originally its title in French, Discipline and Punish is such an interesting book which takes back again to the origines of such and interesting point in human history: the birth of prison, surveillance and punishment. Foucault with his archeological persistent method leads us to peek at the very begining of human subordination, one sided-mastery and big-brotherness in a very modern sense.I remember that I finished the last pages in this interesting book while listen...more

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Mar 05, 2010

Kharpo7 rated it

interesting concept if you can get through the convuluted writing style.

Here is one sentence to give you an example. Pg 206-7

"The panoptic mechanism is not simply a hinge, a point of exchange between mechanism of power and a function; it is a way of making power relations function in a function, and of making a function function through these power relations"

This is just one example.

My professor actually suggested after class that readi...more

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Jan 15, 2012

Pavlo rated it

· review of another edition

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Наглядати і карати
Після прочитання перших кількадесят сторінок ця книга може здатися студією з історії тортур, страт та в'язниць. І справді, на сторінках книги ми неодноразово подибуємо описи жахливих тортур і в'язничних звичаїв, проте було б помилково зводити суть книги до опису еволюції страхітливих практик правосуддя. Насправді Мішель Фуко прагне показати, і на моє переконання, йому це блискуче вдається, що відмова від тортур, "гуманізація" покарань і створення системи пенітен...moreНаглядати і карати
Після прочитання перших кількадесят сторінок ця книга може здатися студією з історії тортур, страт та в'язниць. І справді, на сторінках книги ми неодноразово подибуємо описи жахливих тортур і в'язничних звичаїв, проте було б помилково зводити суть книги до опису еволюції страхітливих практик правосуддя. Насправді Мішель Фуко прагне показати, і на моє переконання, йому це блискуче вдається, що відмова від тортур, "гуманізація" покарань і створення системи пенітенціарних установ є наслідком поширення в суспільстві "дисципліни" - нової техніки влади, що спирається на безперервний нагляд та контроль над людиною спочатку в рамках дисциплінарних інституцій (школа, лікарня, військо, завод, в'язниця), а згодом і в усьому суспільстві.

Ієрархія, нормалізація, екзамен - ось основні інструменти цієї дисциплінарної техніки. Витворення покірливого, слухняного, економічно корисного індивіда - ось її мета.

Ключова для розуміння ідей автора частина книги - це нарис паноптичного суспільства (сс. 244-284). Запозичуючи в Ієремії Бентама ідею "паноптикуму"- ідеальної в'язниці, у якій наглядачі могли б постійно контролювати кожен крок і кожен рух в'язнів, зостаючись при цьому непомітними, - Фуко змальовує картину страхітливо величної системи тотального, безперервного, непомітного нагляду, страх індивіда перед яким дозволяє владі функціонувати ніби самій по собі, не вдаючись до відвертого насильства. Якщо Бентамів паноптикум - лише ідеальна тюрма, то на думку Фуко, "паноптична схема ... призначена для поширення в суспільстві; її покликання - перетворитись у суспільстві на загальну функцію". Ця система, функціонуючи в суспільстві з формально рівним доступом до влади, формує в ньому нездоланну асиметрію і фальшує саму основу демократії - суспільний договір.
Ключовою інституцією паноптичної системи є в'язниця і, ширше, тюремне суспільство. В'язниці, попри те, що від самого народження їх критикували за нездатність досягати задекларованих цілей, чудово виконують свою справжню, приховану, роль - вони створюють особу злочинця і злочинність, як специфічну форму беззаконня. В цьому позірний парадокс в'язниць: покликані боротися зі злочинністю, вони насправді формують її як окрему, згуртовану, але проникну і загалом безпечну групу, що легко піддається контролю та маніпуляції з боку влади. Злочинність - витвір карного правосуддя, але також й інструмент в руках панівного класу для збереження і посилення своєї влади: "Злочинність як опановане беззаконня - один із чинників беззаконня панівних груп".

Хоча в книзі переважно йдеться про французькі реалії XVIII-XIXст., актуальність ідей автора не викликає жодного сумніву і в сьогоднішньому суспільстві. Тіла і душі людей - це й досі глина, з якої протягом всіх етапів життя спочатку школа, а потім армія, державна служба, лікарня, виробництво за допомогою дисципліни, ієрархії, розподілу, класифікації, диференціації, контролю, нормалізації, реєстрації виліплюють покірних, безвольних, слухняних та "корисних" індивідів. Нічого не змінилося, більше того, сьогодні розвиток мобільних технологій та інтернету, як видається, дає в руки влади досі небачені механізми стеження, нагляду та контролю, робить їх дійсно безперервними, тотальними та всюдисущими.

Підсумую. "Наглядати і карати" - блискучий твір, глибокий і проникливий аналіз підвалин західного суспільства, з яким варто ознайомитися хоча б тому, що Мішель Фуко - один з найбільш цитованих авторів в суспільних науках :-)

Ще одне зауваження. Подеколи мені нелегко було стежити за багаторівневими мисленнєвими конструкціями, що їх зводить на сторінках книги критичний розум французького філософа. Проте як для книги такої глибини і такого масштабу "Наглядати і карати" читається напрочуд легко. Цим маємо завдячувати і перекладові, який попри певні огріхи, можна оцінити як вельми вдалий.

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Feb 03, 2012

Sean Chick rated it

The first two chapters are interesting, although his defense of public torture is idiotic. His critique of modern society is a stunning case of postmodern claptrap. My god, prisons are meant to dissuade us from committing crime! You don't say! He essentially says Enlightenment reform was actually insidious and bad for humanity. In this way he is actually a conservative, by calling into question all the reasons for reform. The fact that the left embraced this book, which was a grand critique of l...more

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Jul 21, 2011

Oliver L. rated it

I can't believe I waited so long to read this book. Even in translation, Surveiller et punir is a thrilling work. Foucault constructs an elaborate argument about the development of the disciplines, the evolution of modern Western legal codes, and the shifting locus of "corrective" punishment, in the process using a fair assortment of primary sources to buttress his claims (more than in the History of Sexuality series, anyway...but perhaps not enough for many professional historians)....more

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About Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas. He held a chair at the Collège de France with the title "History of Systems of Thought," and lectured at the University at Buffalo and the University of California, Berkeley.

Foucault is best known for his critical studies of social institutions, most notably psychiatry, medicine, the human scien...more

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Books by Michel Foucault

The History of Sexuality 1: An Introduction

Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason

The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences

The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Discourse on Language

Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings 1972-77

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“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” — 8 people liked it

“The 'Enlightenment', which discovered the liberties, also invented the disciplines.” — 8 people liked it

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