Homework Task: Read the following handout on Michel Foucaultand the Theory of Power while keeping in mind the opening four chapters of 1984. MICHEL FOUCAULT seeks throughout his work to make sense of how our contemporary society is structured differently from the society that preceded us. He has been particularly influential precisely because he tends to illustrate the dangers inherent in those Enlightenment reforms that were designed to correct the barbarity of previous periods (the elimination of dungeons, the modernization of medicine, the creation of the public university, etc.). As Foucault illustrates, each process of modernization entails disturbing effects with regard to the power of the individual and the control of government. Indeed, his most influential work, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, paints a picture of contemporary society that sometimes resembles George Orwell's 1984. He explores the ways that government has claimed ever greater control over and enforcement of ever more private aspects of our lives. In particular, Foucault explores the transition from what he terms a "culture of spectacle" to a "carceral culture." Whereas in the former punishment was effected on the body in public displays of torture, dismemberment, and obliteration, in the latter punishment and discipline become internalized and directed to the constitution and, when necessary, rehabilitation of social subjects. Jeremy Bentham's nineteenth-century prison reforms provide Foucault with a representative model for what happens to society in the nineteenth century. Bentham argued in The "Panopticon" that the perfect prison would be structured in a such a way that cells would be open to a central tower. In the model, individuals in the cells do not interact with each other and are constantly confronted by the panoptic tower (pan=all; optic=seeing). They cannot, however, see when there is a person in the tower; they must believe that they could be watched at any moment: "the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so". the 'social-worker'-judge. and each individual. cell phones. Of course. This form of organization encourages a separation from real people since it turns individuals into statistics and paperwork. his gestures. Foucault refers to a culture in which the panoptic model of surveillance has been diffused as a principle of social organization. once again. his achievements’. however. subjects to it his body. he becomes the principle of his own subjection" This system of control has. the populace needs to believe that any person could be surveilled at any time. In time. society could be said to become less willing to contest unjust laws. of course. 5) bureaucracy A new white-collar labor force is necessary to set up the procedures for information retrieval and storage. telephones. he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles. the educator-judge. ATMs. it is on them that the universal reign of the normative is based. wherever he may find himself. 3) surveillance into ever more private aspects of our lives. This reform was implemented because of nineteenth-century outcries over the inhumane treatment of prisoners and the insane. is aided by new surveillance technology 4) information society All of this surveillance and information-gathering leads. arguably. in fact. To maintain order in a democratic and capitalist society. and who knows it. assumes responsibility for the constraints of power. he makes them play spontaneously upon himself. his apptitudes. A classic example is Nazi Germany's Adolf Eichmann. and the ever increasing number of surveillance cameras in urban spaces). the doctor-judge. to huge challenges for the organization and retrieval of data. Perhaps the very move of society into this new mode of social organization made the invention of the computer inevitable since it allows us to organize ever more vast amounts of data. 6) efficiency Value is placed on the most efficient means of organizing data and individuals to effect the mass production and dissemination of more goods . studies of American society (Philip Zimbardo. social security numbers." which entails the enforcement of the status quo on ever more private aspects of our lives (for example. credit cards. sexuality). his behaviour. We are in the society of the teacher-judge. which.Bentham saw this prison reform as a model for how society should function. just as willing to follow authorities even when it means doing violence to innocent subjects. been aided in our own culture by new technological advancements that allow federal agencies to track your movement and behavior (the internet. Foucault however questions the subsequent emphasis on the "normal. Stanley Milgram) have suggested that Americans are. Foucault has Nazi Germany in mind when he thinks about conformity. 2) rehabilitation rather than cruel and unusual punishment. By carceral culture. As he puts it. As we naturalize rules. Some of the effects of this new model of organization include : 1) The internalization of rules and regulations. the census. such a structure would ensure that the people would soon internalize the panoptic tower and police themselves: "He who is subjected to a field of visibility. "The judges of normality are present everywhere. it is a physics' or an 'anatomy' of power.. even if at the expense of exploitation or injustice. contribute to the process of disindividuation since they promote the facelessness of the bureaucrat ("I'm just doing my job". transportation. tends to "disindividualize" power. The idea of discipline itself similarly functions as an abstraction of the idea of power from any individual: "'Discipline' may be identified neither with an institution nor with an apparatus. “A power relationship can only be articulated on the basis of two elements which are each indispensable if it is really to be a power relationship: that 'the other' (the one over whom power is exercised) be thoroughly recognized and maintained to the very end as a person who acts. (After the fall of Nazi Germany. and so on. however. Foucault sometimes gives a sense that power somehow inheres in institutions themselves rather than in the individuals that make those institutions function. it is a type of power.and information. Power has its principle not so much in a person as in a certain concerted distribution of bodies. the school.) MICHEL FOUCAULT's understanding of power changes between his early work on institutions (Madness and Civilization. a whole field of responses. what Foucault explores in those books is how the creation of modern disciplines. so much so that we increasingly rely on other "experts" to complete tasks that had previously been shared or common knowledge (the preparation of meats and other food products. For this reason. the factory. procedures. making it seem as if power inheres in the prison. This word . and possible inventions may open up”. In the early work. results. Foucault makes clear in his later work. targets. Of course. for example. 7) specialization. Bureaucracies. and that. for it automatizes and disindividualizes power. surfaces. building construction. Members of the workforce are organized into increasingly specialized fields. reactions. faced with a relationship of power. gazes. The Panopticon becomes Foucault's model for the way other institutions function: the Panopticon "is an important mechanism. lights. levels of application. one can finish reading Foucault's Discipline and Punish with the paranoid feeling that we are powerless before such an effective and diffuse form of social control. like disciplines. in an arrangement whose internal mechanisms produce the relation in which individuals are caught up". and most of its workers. a technology". including those that are surveilled or punished. comprising a whole set of instruments. the "technology" of power) rather than in its operator. a modality for its exercise. Discipline and Punish) and his later work on sexuality and governmentality. that power ultimately does inhere in individuals. the general bureaucratic structure. etc. "I'm just a cog in the machine") and tend to continue functioning even after major revolutions. Foucault therefore turns in his later work to the concept of "government" in order to explain how power functions: Basically power is less a confrontation between two adversaries or the linking of one to the other than a question of government. with their principles of order and control. techniques. remained in place. The Birth of the Clinic.) The effect of this tendency to disindividualize power is the perception that power resides in the machine itself (the "panoptic machine". or at least they should assume that they could be watched at any time. "slavery is not a power relationship when man is in chains. and bringing into question of power relations and the 'agonism' between power relations and the intransitivity of freedom is a permanent political task inherent in all social existence. of communities. which is government. The structure exerts discipline because inmates are constantly under the gaze of a guard. of the sick. . in this sense. of souls.. The turn to this concept of "government" allowed Foucault to include a new element to his understanding of power: freedom. (In this case it is a question of a physical relationship of constraint. elaboration.must be allowed the very broad meaning that it had in the sixteenth century. at best.Indeed. "Government" did not refer only to political structures or to the management of states. of families. lauded by Foucault. TASK The panopticon. more or less considered and calculated. neither warlike nor juridical. When applied to prisons the architecture of the Panopticon allowed guards to maintain surveillance over all prisoners. recalcitrance thus becomes an integral part of the power relationship: "At the very heart of the power relationship. rather it designated the way in which the conduct of individuals or of groups might be directed: the government of children. and constantly provoking it. which were destined to act upon the possibilities of action of other people. "Power is exercised only over free subjects. was designed by Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century as a structure that allowed a few number of guards to control a large number of occupants. Conversely. The relationship proper to power would not therefore be sought on the side of violence or of struggle. and only insofar as they are free".)". but also modes of action. but rather in the area of the singular mode of action. It did not only cover the legitimately constituted forms of political or economic subjection. Foucault explains. Foucault thus provides us with a powerful model for thinking about how to fight oppression when one sees it: "the analysis. only be the instruments of power). nor on that of voluntary linking (all of which can. is to structure the possible field of action of others. To govern. are the recalcitrance of the will and the intransigence of freedom. Identify the similarities between Foucault’s description of the prison system as a model of society and Orwell’s imagined society in 1984. Consider how the method of control used by the party parallels Foucault’s description of the power of surveillance as a type of discipline.