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Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
by Michel Foucault
by Michel Foucault
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 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.
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.
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