DisciplineAndPunish

Foucault’s Discipline and Punish was surprisingly digestible, all things considered. In the end it left me quite stumped and more than a little uncomfortable with my existance. The parts of society we quite naturally try to surpress and forget is brought into daylight, and I feel confronted with a choice. Not to fight is to surrender. The first two parts of the book are dedicated to the history of torture and of punishment. It felt like a good introduction to the topic, complete with the shocking in-your-face methods used in a not too long ago history. It was an extravagant and excessive display of sovereign power, like an angry God towering over his subjects.

The meat of the book is found in the third chapter, Discipline. Slowly we start to see the development of a new field of knowledge, of the disciplinary apparatus. The similarity to that of a machine is obvious as the development of discipline parallels that of the industrial machines. It would not be too far-fetched to call them co-dependant, as we will see later. Discipline can be tracked and understood by its development, at first, in the military. The goal was to transform peasants into soldiers. To break them down in order to build them up, mold them like clay-figures, building a giant war-machine where the cogs are replaced by soldiers. It starts at the individual level. We find for example, as Foucault points out, an eighteenth century description of the four type of steps:

“The length of the short step will be a foot, that of the ordinary step, the double step and the marching step will be two feet, the whole measured from one heel to the next; as for the duration, that of the small step and the ordinary step will last one second, during which two double steps would be performed; the duration of the marching step will be a little longer than one second. The oblique step will take one second; it will be at most eighteen inches from one heel to the next…”

From the minute details of how to walk, slowly the movements of a soldier is built up. From the same description, on a later note on handling a weapon:

“Bring the weapon forward. In three stages. Raise the rifle with the right hand, bringing it close to the body so as to hold it perpendicular with the right knee, the end of the barrel at eye level, grasping it by striking it with the right hand, the arm held close to the body at waist height. At the second stage, bring the rifle in front of you with the leftt hand, the barrel in the middle between the two eyes, vertical, the right hand grasping it at the small of the butt, the arm outstrecthed, the trigger-guard resting on the first finger, the left hand at the height of the notch, the thumb lying along the barrel against the moulding…”

Later on, in the same way, soldiers learn to move in relation to another. The one-celled organism has become two. From that point on it’s not far off to the idea of a thousand men. We have to note the structural field of knowledge that is being developed in that of discipline, the hierarchical power-relations that works from the very smallest level of minute movements up to that of the emperor of a nation. With the prison as its playground, the apparatus of discipline slowly spreads throughout society. It first develops in the prison and the church, the factories and in school. The same hierarchical power-structure is imposed, using varying means, in all these institutions. The warden, boss, teachar and priest all operate in the same system. Students and monks get chosen for special tasks, extending the depth of hierarchy ever so slightly. Terrifyingly, discipline spreads to all corners of society. It’s at this critical point that we find the development of norms. Suddenly it’s not only your teacher’s gaze that instills discipline, we find that the look of a peer burns us even more.

“In discipline, it is the subjects who have to be seen. Their visibility assures the hold of the power that is exercised over them. It is the fact of being constantly seen, of being able always to be seen, that maintains the disciplined individual in his subjection. […] power, instead of emitting the signs of its potency, instead of imposing its mark on its subjects, holds them in a mechanism of objectification. In this space of domination, disciplinary power manifests its potency, essentialy, by arranging objects.”

We are objectified, analyzed, and arranged in a grid with a label stating the expectation we’re supposed to meet. Examinations is the technique by which this is done, and it’s “the ceremony of this objectification”.

Flash forward to present day civilization, and this process has gone far deeper than anybody could reasonable comprehend. This “power of normalization” has acted on itself more than anywhere else. Who among us hasn’t grown up in this mindset, of the importance of discipline and the contrivance of “adjusting”. The most terrifying part, the one that should keep you up at night, is that this is done in a society where “freedom” and “individuality” is valued higher than anything else. We need to break out of our chains and discard the system entirely in order to even begin the search for truth and self. Or, you can surpress the haunting memories of a well-written book and go to work the next day like nothing happened. I know what my choice is.