-Caveat Lector- ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- >From http://www.philosophers.co.uk/current/foucault_snapshot.htm Michel Foucault: a snapshot Chris Bates Michel Foucault marked out new boundaries for a French philo- sophical tradition moving away from Sartre and structuralism into post-modernism. His writing synthesised history, psychology and philosophy into ‘archaeologies’ of the human subject that examined the impact of concepts upon the world rather than their origin and meaning. Drawing on Nietzsche, Foucault considered the interaction of power, knowledge and the subject. Folie Philosophers have long studied the individual, the subject and the mind to uncover the meaning of ‘self’. This discourse, building through Descartes’ cogito through Kant, Hegel and Freud to structuralism and linguistics was, for Foucault, a pointless philosophical quest. The use of the concept of ‘self’ and ‘the individual’ was far more important. Foucault took the issue of reason and madness to explore how the language of reason developed to control the concept of ‘madness’ and use it to re-define reason. Foucault saw reason as oppressive, not liberating as Descartes and the positivists suggested. In Madness and Civilisation (1960) he examined the ‘great incarceration’ of the insane into asylums in 17th and 18th century France and England. This was physical and moral incarceration, a stigmatisation of madness to replace the old stigma of leprosy. The madhouse isolated unreason, substituting ‘for the free terror of madness the stifling anguish of responsibility’. This systemisation and categorisation of madness as social failure led to the asylum becoming a tool of accusation, judgement and condemnation. Madness became the antithesis of reason, and the dialogue of reason and unrea son – as with the fool in King Lear – was ended. Reason had triumphed at the expense of the unusual, the non-conformist and, ultimately, what was truly individual. Surveiller Foucault expanded this theme of incarceration in Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison (1975). Building on the archaeology of the asylum he examined how the institution of the prison based on control of the mind had replaced torture of the body as punishment using an 18th century execution and Bentham’s panopticon prison as contrasts. In the panopticon prison the all-seeing warder would sit in darkness observing the inmates witho ut their knowing. Eventually, the degree of control would be such that the watchtower would need no occupant as the inmates would behave as if under constant surveillance and discipline themselves. For Foucault, this mind control reflected the idea that knowledge is power and can be used to dehumanise the individual. The torture and physical punishment of the past may have been brutal, but was also brief, infrequent, and preferable. The prison represented the modern way of control through regulation, be it the panopticon, religion, society itself, or Freud’s idea of the all-knowing super-ego. Knowledge becomes a means of regulation and control seen i n all institutions of incarceration, be they asylums, prisons, hospitals, barracks or schools. Modern society was where surveillance (an aggressive observation) was commonplace, exercised by police, psychiatrists, teacher s, doctors, social workers and so on. Foucault saw this categorisation of the individual as dangerous and to be resisted. In The History of Sexuality he would explore these themes in one area of human activity. Sexualite In his sexuality archaeology, Foucault pursued his theme that concerns for the mind superseded those for the body. He saw a shift from the Middle Ages when sex was a bodily concern, to the modern age, when the intention b ehind sex became the major concern. Freudian psychology refined this approach and sex became an object for categorisation, control and direction. This ‘subjectification’ affected the individuals ‘self formation’ by appear ing to be the key to understanding human nature. In effect, we may feel free to talk about sex but what we are doing is demanded by society, negating our actual freedom and exposing us to surveillance and supervision. Foucault saw the search for reason and truth as self-deluding. In sex, as with crime and madness, new concepts and theories have given us no more control over our destiny. All we have done is change the nature of our impr isonment, binding us with more elaborate and subtle controls – the velvet straitjacket. The key instrument of oppression has been the state. L’Etat Foucault saw the state as a peculiar advance and corruption of society and the individual. The state was not liberating, using ‘bio-power’ to exert control over its population. Through categorising and normalising individ uals, the state can produce a totalising web of control. In effect, we live in the shadow of the state, and are forever caught in its spotlight. Foucault sought liberation from these ‘totalising procedures’ of the anonymous state. In an age of computerisation, classification and technological surveillance the individual appears increasingly powerless and de-humani sed. Foucault’s powerful image of the individual being erased ‘like a face drawn in the sand at the edge of the sea’ by this process retains great poignancy. Suggested reading The Foucault Reader, Ed. 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A<>E<>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Integrity has no need of rules. -Albert Camus (1913-1960) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." --Buddha + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Universal Declaration of Human Rights + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. 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