HC4- Theory of dicipline

Question 1

Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

Answer 1

Problem of ‘totalization’: rise of authoritarian regimes (Cold War; Greece, 1968; Chile, 1973; Iran, 1978; Thatcher/Reagan, 1980s)
Colonization of ‘life world’ by ‘system’ (Habermas)
The problem of ‘the subject’
What does it mean to be governed? What ‘truths’ are required?

Question 2

The problem of the Subject: Discourse/Knowledge/Power

Answer 2

• ‘dividing practices’: a new scientific episteme coupled with practices of separation and exclusion
• ‘scientific classification’: new discourses on health/illness; sanity/madness; sexual health/deviance; emergence of clinical medicine, psychoanalysis
• Subjectification: ‘Discipline and Punish’
  modes of enquiry producing ‘truths’

Question 3

Structures of scientific classification:

Answer 3

-structures of scienific classification: modes of enquiry producing ‘truths’ power/knowledge
->power/knowledge
-The structuring of discourses into ‘disciplines’: biology, urban planning, geography

Question 4

the problem of the subject: subjectification

Answer 4

-bio-power and technologies of the body: human species, population, fertility become the object of sustained political attention and intervention.
-the human body: not approached directly in its biological dimension bus as an object to be manipulated and controlled-> aim of disciplinary technology is to forge a ‘docile body that may be subjected, used transformed and improved’

translate: doel van disciplinaire technologie is het smeden van een ‘volgzaam lichaam dat kan worden onderworpen, gebruikt, getransformeerd en verbeterd’

Question 5

Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon (1785)

Answer 5

prison controlling everything

Question 6

difference focault and bourdieux

Answer 6

Bourdieux asks how power works. Focault asks where is is, and what it means to be governed.

Question 7

What is the Panopticon explained by Foucault, and why is this metaphor symbolic to Foucault’s theoretical thought?

Answer 7

French intellectual and critic Michel Foucault expanded on Bentham’s concept of the Panopticon, transforming it into a symbol of social control that extends beyond the prison system. Foucault argues that individuals in society internalize authority, leading to self-regulation and adherence to prevailing norms and institutions. This internalized authority is akin to the prisoners’ discipline in the Panopticon.

In everyday life, individuals often conform to social expectations and rules, even in the absence of external surveillance or punishment. For example, drivers may stop at a red light, even when there are no other cars or police officers present. The presence of internalized authority, in this case, the police, influences individuals to obey laws and rules, even when they are not being directly monitored. This self-imposed discipline is a result of social intuition and the incorporation of collective expectations into one’s body and mind.