Page 1 Foucault Essay Outline Intro: A) Michel Foucualt once said, People know what they do; frequently

they know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does. Foucaults research and analysis of history provide great insight in to what the disciplinary society people have created does. A disciplinary society is a new regime of rationalized social organization and control that takes over in the Age of Reason and continues through the present, and that produces the loss of more and more freedom. People have believed that our society is constantly progressing, but Foucault shows that society is the product of various contingent events. In examining historical evidence, it becomes more than evident that Foucault was right in his claim that our disciplinary society not only reduces our freedom, but also shrinks the scope of what is treated as normal.

II. Modern Examples- Foucault claims regarding our loss of freedom are evident in even our everyday lives. A) Driving 1. You can get a drivers license, but are limited by where roads have been built and how fast you are allowed to travel in certain areas B) College 1. Even though one may go to college, your experience and education there is only validated if you take the specific classes for your major C) Television shows 1. You can only watch shows that are deemed as appropriate and popular by each channel and can only watch them at the specific times when they are on III. Foucaults in-depth, critical analysis and research of the rise and impact of the prison system is indicative of how contingency and discontinuity led to the rise of a disciplinary society A) He shows that we are not necessarily progressing towards truth and that changes in discourses is what alters how people think i. Discourse: what counts as knowledge in an area, and is thus an object and instrument of power B) Prisons-example of how disciplinary societies came about 1. They did not rise from a shift towards a more humane, rationalistic approach to punishment but was caused by a variety of contingent events i. Torture was rational Instilled enough terror to derive guilt Scared others away from committing the same crime Encouraged public to join in the mockery ii. Social and political unrest as well as pressure from technological advancement influenced its rise 2. Prison systems popularity was a product of emerging industrial capitalist economy that motivated the populace to protect private property and normalize the criminal population i. This restructuring of power came about because crime itself changed

Page 2 ii. Focusing more on private property 3. Focus on why the crime was committed involved new fields of social science as a means to explain why i. Experts in theses fields began attempting to correct the criminals and ii. The prison rose up as a new way to accomplish this goal It wasnt a product of a more humane nor rational punishment system, merely a product of discontinuity (Just like disciplinary society) 4. Ultimately such changes led to new methods for specific control of various purposes IV. Knowledge/power relation: TRANSITION: Experts determine how to control, conform, regulate members of society and therefore use the knowledge/power relationship to define truth for others A) Knowledge/power relationship: interdependent and inseparable connection that produces reality and truth i. Power- multiplicity of force relations within a social bodyand not the capacity of agents to carry out their will over another, nor is it a property or effect of an institution or structure ii. Knowledge: something that is known, and is grounded in a time and place, and in the experts preferences and passions 2. The Experts use this relationship to determine a discourse on crime and turn it into a discipline i. discipline-a formation of power and branch of knowledge that distinguishes people by a mere infinite number of means 3. By creating a discipline the experts can further regulate peoples view of crime and justice B) Means of controlling the production of discourse 1. Rules of Exclusion is how discourse is controlled i. What is prohibited: What we are not free to say or do ii. Division and a Rejection By creating opposites of reason and folly; folly is not socially acceptable iii. The Will to Truth (category of power)/ opposition between true and false Turning to experts to find true answers for why they act as they do Art expert to authenticate a painting 2. These means have spread outside of the prison system and crime to other components of the social body 3. Experts put us in a smaller and smaller cage of normality i. With changing ideas of knowledge, people assume that new ways of thinking are the only true ways and that these changes must be a progression V. Mechanisms in organizations for normalization A) Malleable, Docile Bodies 1. increasing amount of power exerted over the body to control actions, behaviors, etc. for various purposes

Page 3 i. In the past humans were not as malleable and docile, they had to be born as a fit now people are shaped into the needed role ii. humans become machines that can be altered and manipulated as needed for maximum efficiency 2. Manipulation of bodies have three necessary properties to shape a persons actions and expectations i. Distribution of Space ii. Organization of Time iii. Material objects these are necessary but not always intentional or obvious 3. Individual becomes an element of a larger force-concept of a Whole Machine i. Everyone functions as a single, unanimous, and docile entity B) Means of Correct Training-normalizing operations 1. Hierarchical Observation i. Idealistically, there is just one omniscient gaze, but realistically there are numerous people who form a support system to create continuous surveillance that is hierarchical ii. Everyone watches those below and around them, thereby holding institution together 2. Normalizing Judgment i. Creates a double-edged reward/punishment system to establish norm ii. Punishment is not about expiation or repression Compares- compares to the whole Differentiates- creates different degrees of separation and abnormality Hierarchizes-qualifies and quantifies the placement of people on these levels of abnormality Homogenizing- in creating values, it forces people to conform to what is valued Exclusion-alienating the abnormal and those who cannot become normal iii. Standards of Norm is maintained and deeply ingrained in disciplinary society 3. The Examination- used to make people into objects and subjects of power i. Gaze: The act of looking that defines the relation between knowledge and power in that the thing seen is constituted by the observer in his terms ii. People are objectified by locating individuals into a field of invisibility iii. Specific characteristics are then organized into written documents to help classify and identify groups and individuals C) Panopticism- aids further in regulatig and shaping people 1. Panoptical-describing the method of surveillance by which modern society regulates its members 2. Panopticon: Most efficient way of monitoring and training people i. Turning them into their own supervision and police 3. In the Age of Reason, panopticism spreads to public via four developments i. Expansion of disciplinary institutions

Page 4 Specific disciplinary technique begins to be used by more general institutions ii. Emergence of positive and productive disciplines Encouraging growth and manufacturing of positive individuals iii. Deinstitutionalization of disciplinary mechanisms Mechanisms are no longer constrained to institutions and have reached the populace iv. Organization of a police apparatus Creates an eternally functioning negative observer; a society-wide panopticon D) These factors force people into tinier cages of normality thereby increasingly diminishing their freedoms 1. History is not advancing in a rational or progressive manner towards the truth 2. Truth in our society is determined by the experts power/knowledge relationship 3. Our current disciplinary society is shrinking what is normal as well as our freedoms i. We become our own policemen to ensure that no one is breaking away from the herd VI. Conclusion: Foucault is right.