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22 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Michael Foucault ( cont'd)
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- changed understanding on many areas of Western culture (psychiatry, prisons, hospitals, knowledge, education, sexuality)
- hated bourgeois society (like Marx) - analyzed Euro society from the point of view of marginalized groups (psychiatric patients, prisoners and sexual minorities) - father of q. THEORY - analysis of society and sexuality from the point of view of sexual minorities - first prominent figure to die of AIDS |
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Response to Repressive Hypothesis
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-Foucault was interested in capitalism and its oppressive consequences, he argued against the repressive hypothesis which is the idea, still common today, that the onset of capitalism led to increasing sexual repression in the service of a new work ethic
- linked sexuality to power (not economy) - rejected the belief that speaking about and resisting sexual oppression is important and leads to political liberation - generation of 1968 ("Make Love, Not War"), played a political role associated with sexual and political liberation - Foucault's objection to these ideas was they're based on the premise that power is always and only negative and constraining , successfully opposed by speaking the truth about it - popular belief that power and truth are opposed to each other |
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Bio-Power
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-Foucault’s term for a political technology that emerged in Europe in the seventeenth-century, a time when states expanded their activities from merely collecting taxes, defending national borders and maintaining order, to promoting the well-being of their citizens.
-governing or exercising power through promoting social well-being and, at the same time disciplining the population. - ex. public schools - provide us with knowledge and skills, at the same time, train us to attend regularly, listen, do assignments etc. (disciplinary power) -led to new kinds of political reasoning and new political parties led to the development of what become the modern social sciences - they sought to understand the specifics, unlike generalized forms today, major concerns were 1. ) the human species, or how human life unfolds and reproduces itself at the collective level, 2. The human body, not so much as a means for reproduction, but rather as something that can be manipulated or disciplined. |
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Bio- Power (cont'd)
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- Insistutions aimed to produce a docile and productive body, accepting discipline and work
- was applied in schools, prisons, hospitals and factories - Foucault argued discipline was necessary for capitalism, but NOT the cause |
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Bio-Power (cont'd)
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- Foucault traced the history of political thought in which it developed.
3 Major Traditions The first political theory, Ancient Greek and Christian thinking, aimed at acheiving a good and dair society. The second kind of political thinking (Renaissance), took the form of advice to the prince on how to maintain and increase his power (The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli in 1500s) - not concerned with fairness or justice, simply on the politics of ruling from above The third line of political thinking, the one associated with bio-power, were found in the practical manuals of administrators , particularly the police. Their thinking revolved around the state, aimed to increase power and efficiency by citizens. |
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Bio-politics
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- Method of governing which fosters like and also disciplines its population at the same time (see previous)
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Theory of Surplus Value (Marx)
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- value produced by the work of the proletariat but not paid for by their employers
- Foucault referenced Marx in his discussion of discipline - applied this idea of surplus and explitation to politics, specifically the way i which states see their inhabitants as ppl who possess surplus strength - makes the individual a resource - like oil or gas- which the state can exploit |
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Cont'd
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-next step in the development of bio-power was when, in the nineteenth century, control over the population and control over the body came together in a strong interest in sex, the behavior which links the dynamics of the body and the dynamics of the population.
- 19th C - increased interest in and discourses about the body and sexuality - grew with professional social welfare programs - miscengenation(racial mixing) were attached to the increasing racism of this era in the West |
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The Modern Individual
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- elaborated the genealogy of the modern individual as a docile body
- history of the present, or explanation of where our ideas and practices come from - 3 historical configurations of punishment 1. torture as a weapon of the king 2. the recommendations of the humanist reformers of the 17th C 3. development of the modern prison |
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Torture as a Weapon of the King
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- public torture and execution was a pre-modern form of punishment
- law was expressed the will of the king, violating the law was an attack on the king final step of a series of procedures 1. accussations written up and investigated 2. accused would be tortured in public until he confessed, then executed - torture represented configuration of power, truth and bodies - for this display of power to effective, an audience had to watch - if audience felt punishment was unjust, riots could form, freeing the prisoner and attacking king's officials |
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The Humanist Reformer
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- -18th C - humanist reformers wrote against puishment through what they saw as excessive violence in the name of revenge
- torture and execution were disgusting and ineffective -their recommendations were based on the idea of the SOCIAL CONTRACT (society as a group of individuals who maintain a contractual arrangement with each other) - crime is no longer an attack on the king, rather a breach of contract - the victim (society) redresses and punishes the wrong - all parties to the social contract share is their humanity, any punishment must respect the humanist of all involved - developed guidelines for punishment that would restore the criminal as a useful member of society - precise knowledge was needed to match crimes, criminals and punishments - reformers elaborated detailed legal codes to categorize criminals and crimes on the basis of knowledge -punishments involved work, not death - criminals absolve their crimes by working for society, serving as a lesson to society (example of bio-power) - gov't provides discipline and infrastructure, producing docile and productive bodies - plans of humanist reformers never implemented seriously, hoever did influence later disciplinary ideas and technologies |
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Modern Prison
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- first model of a modern prison was in Netherlands i the 18th C
- criminals and vagabond were made to work to pay for their detention - later prisons in England added insolation, for the criminal to think about behaviour and reform soul |
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Disciplinary Technologies
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- Foucault argued that insititutions operate on the body which is analyzed by experts, it can be subjected and imporoved in a process of precise training, for example, exercises
- Exercises, they are required to function as a larger organization - Factories- supervision, discipline and production Hierarchial Observation: everyone is observed by someone of a superior rank - dynamics within a disciplinary space as an optics of power Micropenalties: small punishments for minor infractions (lateness, rudeness, inattention) Examination: psychiatric, [physical or educations, brings together hierarchial observation and normalizing judgement to produce a detailed report and evaluation of an individual Normalizing Subject: observer categorizes those observed as normal, superior or substandard to describe these processes |
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Dossiers
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- Files containing the seults of the observations and judgements of the individual
- Foucault argued that this kind of exercise of power, knowledge and discipline is what shapes the modern individual - shapes the human sciences - disciplines - most of the social sciences - psychology, criminology and anthropology orginated in institutions of discplinary power |
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The Genealogy of the Modern Individual as Subject
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-Foucault saw sexuality as shaped by history
- the language in which sex was written was seen as so powerful and irrational that strict individual seld examination and social control were necessary to regulate it - early technology devleoped for this purpose was confessions - Foucault emphasized sex in bio-power, how efforts to control sexuality emerge partly within administrative intiatives to learn about and control disease and prostitution - sex became no longer subject only to religious judgement, it became policed by the secular authorities as well 18th C - sexuality linked to public welfare 19th C - part of medicine and health of the individual |
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Sex vs. Sexuality (Foucault)
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Sex - referred to family
- Western laws around sex were concerned with ensuring the right for partners for people and property being distributed ex. clarifying which people can be sexual partners, who is responsible for who and who inherits family property Sexuality - about individual pleasures and fantasies which came to be seen as the core of each individual's personality - brought together the individual, groups meaning - ex. meaning of diff. sex acts and control - 4 strategic unities where power and knowledge combined in mechanisms to control sexuality - linked power and pleasure |
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1. Hysterization of Women's Bodies
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- women's bodies were seen as full of a potentially dangerous sexuality which had to be researched and understood
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Pedagogization of Children's Sex
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- visible in efforts to eliminate masturbation, and it was based on the idea that children too have a sexuality that is dangerous and must be under control
- therapies included: meatless diet, electric shock, warnings that included blindess, hairy hands or stunted growth |
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Socialization of Procreative Behaviour
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- couples were given medical and social responsibilities regarding procreation
- by regulating their sexuality, husbands and wives were charged with ensuring the health of their offspring and their community - 'racially appropriate sex" |
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Psychiatrization of Preserve Pleasures
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sychiatrists had developed a sexual science which constructed a long list of perversions and pathological sexualities, of which only some –including fetishism, voyeurism and exhibitionism - are still familiar to us today. Before the nineteenth century, for example, men who had sex with other men were called sodomites. They were assumed to be normal men who indulged in a kind of sinful behavior to which all men are tempted. In the late nineteenth century, ‘sodomites’ became ‘homosexuals’ who were seen as completely different and pathological people.
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Technologies of the Self
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- strategies through which individuals can know and improve themselves
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Ars Erotica
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outside the West, sex is approached as an ars erotica, or an ‘erotic art’ where truth comes from pleasure. It’s seen as a practice which brings experience. The important part is pleasure, and it’s not linked with the individual self. It’s only in the West that sexuality is known through science which focuses on analysis, for purposes of utility or morality, but not pleasure.
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