Michel Foucault - Surveiller et punir
SUPPLICE
12.02.2024
Reading this partially out of my own interest and part to build up understanding of the background I need to base my sociology essay on (which I'm also at least partially writing out of my own interest. May not get any actual reading done tonight, as it's already late, but at least starting the journal for now.
Interesting so far; compellingly introduced. I do think that there is perhaps something to the idea that the abolition of torture was more about putting an end to the spectacle than anything else, but I would need to read further to make a proper judgement on the subject; for now, however, I must sleep.
14.02.2024
Foucault is now beginning to speak of the idea that modern disciplinary structures pretend to focus on the soul, but are in fact still focused on the body; I will have to pay careful attention to this. It may be quite relevant to my sociological analysis of Laing's schizoid divided self, which experiences its "inner, true" self in opposition to body and world (to body-world).
Have reached his description of power-knowledge. I would, overall, so far say that I agree. I can understand why this book is considered such a fundamental text of Foucault's; it describes his general approach to power as an entity and does not just discuss the history of state justice.
Am also reading more of his description of the place of the soul within this power-knowledge and how it serves, though theoretically situated "within" the body, as a prison for it and a place of articulation of power. I think here there is something quite relevant towards my sociological discussion of phenomenological schizoidality, in which the "inner" self (corresponding in its way to a soul) does become imprisoned within the "outer" body-self. In this sense the suspension of the soul/inner self may be seen as a retreat from power-knowledge and therefore a threat to it, as its suspension maintains the possibility of other articulations.
15.02.2024
He has described the fall of public torture as related to the always possible (and sometimes realized) riot available to the viewing public. This becomes an "appropriation" of the sovereign's power to punish. The orderly public who participates in torture and executionmay be considered as an organ of the sovereign, through which he accomplished his own will. There is something schizoid in the public which finds itself viewing an execution and thus participating in the will of the sovereign, aware of its own distaste for this and therefore suspended in its relation to the torture; and in this suspension lies the possibility of resistance.
PUNITION
16.02.2024
Interesting point about the relatonship between the rise of capitalism and the delineation between "illegalities of rights" and "illegalities of goods". Also reminding me that I really need to learn more about the history of the French revolution; much of our sociological readings in the syllabi are also related to this topic.
Of course my attention was caught by the fact that the magistrate functioned as "an organ of the law". If my planned essay for which I am reading this book were less strictly sociological, I could have a lot of fun connecting this to my concept of schizoidity in terms of the body without organs (Artaud's use here—I've yet to properly get to Deleuze and Guattari). Nevertheless still good evidence of the alienating nature of social institutions such as the law for all involved; something worth comparing with the aforementioned public and its participation in torture and execution, which had more of a tendency to riot and appropriation (of the instruments which served as organs of law). Overall, I find it an insightful observation on Foucault's part that the "human" protected in legal reform was a "juridical and moral form". A strong instance of Foucault's overall critique of humanism.
Foucault is now discussing how crime was punished in relation to the threat it posed to the social order; this, of course, relates to the earlier observation of the differentiation of types of illegalities. Of course crimes against property pose a greater threat to capitalistic social order, which is ordered around property. (Of course, even different property crimes are punished differently; cf. wage theft). The harshness with which drug crimes are often punished can easily be interpreted as related with the fact that drugs render the body "unproductive" (the racial element of drug criminalization is also, of course, significant).
Have finished the first chapter of this section of the book. It was interesting to read how the police were supposed to represent society against the individual and justice the individual against society. This, in context of what he writes on punishment becoming less physical and more presentative is worth considering in context of the symbolic nature of social relations (DeBord, Baudrillard are relevant here) and the manner in which this is alienating.
The chapter has ended with a discussion of the beginning of a semiotechnique in which the body is controlled through ideologie inscribed in the sprit. As regards the schizoid experience as described by Laing, one may consider this as a disciplined body with an ideologically suspended spirit; its psychiatric crime lies in the fact of not having inscribed in its "nature" the ideology of power.
Further discussion of the symbolic nature of enlightenment punishment which has clarified it a bit more for me; finally understanding better what he meant with the previous glorification of criminals. I am beginning to grasp how enlightenment thought brought about a conception of crime as something to be understood ideologically as bad, as something done against Society as a whole (in violation of the social contract), rather than some monarchical figure. For that reason punishment had to become a method of teaching this very notion. This would educate against the potential criminal in all citizens; the guarrantee of a human nature which never belonged to nature and is instead very much produced.
Punishment was therefore still a public spectacle—I remember encountering in the past a discussion of this work which mentioned how the prison became so significant as making the treatment of criminals much less publically visible. As so far Foucault has well explained the necessary spectacle of punishment in this age (18th century), I am curious as to how this retreat from pubic view will be explained later.
Initial discussion of prison has begun, and Foucault has described its role in training the body (returning to focus on body from the sprit). With this, this section of the book is complete, with a suggestion that there will follow an explanation of how prison become the dominant form of punishment. The next section of the book is that on discipline, and seems promising in terms of my needs to understand particularly current discourses and Foucault's conception of discipline as a whole in order to write my essay. I am also interested in how this particular situation came about.
DISCIPLINE
17.02.2024
A long section of the book. Quite interesting, however. Only at the beginning, but I find the connection between aptitude and domination compelling.
Now we have a dscipline which "individualizes" by classifying. Much to think about. In a way this is heavily related to me dislike of identity as justification. To say that by this I have defined myself and proven that my behavior is according to regulation is to have already submitted oneself to an external power-knowledge.
Discipline as something which requires a body as object; impossible not to see the connection between this and the schizoid perception of body-world as opposed to body-self. At the same time, the disciplined body is an object of the sciences, natural and organic. Schizoidity, meanwhile, parodies this and demonstrates the discursive nature of the disciplined body.
This book continues to remind me how much more I need to learn of history in general. Very fascinating connection between the enlightenment and the rise of military power as coercion over bodies, but I feel I would comprehend this more if I had more of a connection with the historical context.
Having read the chapter on docile bodies is giving me more of an ability to connect Foucault's concept of discipline with Goffman's concept of a social role. Discipline, by treating the body (which performs the social role) as a target, I think becomes a significant element in the dissociation therefrom.
Long discussion of how the individual is produced. Measured, in order to determine its place in a system of power. A good articulation of part of what has long been my problem with the need to place oneself hierarchically in order to achieve "validation"; it is ultimately submission to systems of power and use. (The other part of my problem is phenomenological and based on the pathetic, contradictory dependance one those one deems "lower").
Subjects become objects. Any external act is subject to observation and classification. Made an articulation of systems of power; schizoid internal self becomes a reaction against this. The observed, measured self becomes fixed. The internal self retreats in order not to be fixed. Just as Laing observed that with the growing omnipotence of the phantasized inner self there is a growing weakness of manifestation through the outer self, the more the outer (body) self becomes fixed and resistant to spontaneous manifestation, the more there is a retreat and desire for internal omnipotence.
This production through measurement (and corresponding training) leads to a pretense of bodily discipline according to an inherent nature. Schizoid disidentification from the bodily self represents an awareness of this contradiction.
Finished the chapter on the panopticon and the "discipline" section in general; finally, the infamous "everything is a prison" quote. Regrettably, Foucault has explained his reasoning (would he be mad at me for using this word? I can't think of a better one currently) well.
Impossible not to think of the unidirectional gaze of the operator in the panopticon in contrast with the "he's looking at us" moment in Tetsuo, which become the occasion for the salaryman's transformation. Gaze that reminds of suspended possiblites. Perhaps I will have to discuss this film in my sociological essay.
Another thing to consider: is the schizoid one who performs outward panoptical discipline while seeing inside the state of exception of a plague society? At any rate, the schizoid experience represents an uninternalized sense of discipline.
PRISON
17.02.2024
Isolation as a fundamental aspect of prison. Disciplinary structure which aims to produce the human but requires isolation from humanity for the possible negative influences lurking in a less controlled external social space. In every human is the potential non-discplined, non-human. Self-isolation as such a method carried to the absurd.
Work as a method of disciplinary transformation. One's actions are not one's own, but an external force. The divided self experiences life as an articulation of these disciplinary forces.
Incredibly insightful observaton about the creation of the deliquant through criminology and a focus on the life & soul rather than the act. Worth considering, then, how much the schizoid experience consists (in a disciplinary society) of the suspension of this criminal life, while the normal experience consists of a suspension of this suspension, allowing one to behave in a disciplined manner without feeling such a tension.
Something to consider in the description of the triangulation police-prison-deliquency, and how the latter serves as an instrument against other illegality, and parallels with respectablity politics and "justified" deviance. Justification and assimilation, always begging permission at the cost of liberation, and always restraining less acceptable forms of deviance.
I have finished the book. I think Foucault rightfully observed that disciplinary society is essentially haunted by deviance. Perhaps the one hope in the ability to ever fully escape from systems of power; power itself would not exist without a constant threat over which it exercises itself, and the actualization of this threat is always possible.