The Construction of the Indivitual Among the books discussed over the duration of the course, the most recurrent theme has been the dominance of power relationships and the construction of institutions driven by power. The framework for these socially ingrained power relationships that has been transformed over time has been laid out by Michel Foucault in his book Discipline and Punish. According to Foucault, power is everywhere, dispersed in institutions and spread through discourses. The state functions on a number of dispositions which are hierarchical, naturalized and are the modes of power for the power elite. The result of this social and economic control is observed in nations and across nations through the beauty myth, the prison system, the creation of informal systems or the overarching cultural hegemony and attempted reform of the non-western world. The key to the success of this has been through the misrecognition of the constructed systems of power which are instated through very fundamental mediums that they are not questioned. These structures of control by the state are adopted and reproduced from the base of the familiar, through arrangements and dispositions that pose themselves as natural, as they are embodied and programmed in the play of language, in common sense, and in all what is socially taken for granted. In this essay I will examine these above mentioned structures of the power and how these models are used to discipline individuals and states. According to Foucault, the individual is created and removed from the society by subjecting him to certain norms. This ensures that the individual is created to fit into an already constructed power hierarchy as opposed to creating a society in which individuals a... ... middle of paper ... ...taken the form of universalization of those same structures across the world through reforming measures or through discourses in the Muslim world, thus creating conflicts as noted by Majid. The main weapon of this power relationship is observing and differentiating between good and bad, thus ingraining binary oppositions with the western values at the superior end. Thus, the western hegemony is like a beauty myth which is an unattainable western standard which is not only undesirable but harmful for the non-west. Still, they are coerced to adopt this standard due to a constant gaze and pressure from the West. Therefore, there is a need to revert this gaze and dismantle the western hegemony and power structures through the proliferation of ideas; ideas that take root not merely from the power elite or existing structures but stem from individual and provincial needs.
This essay focuses on two theories of Erving Goffman and Michel Foucault on how society is ordered; it will attempt to show how these two theorists approached understanding society and how it is ordered, as well as look for any similarities or differences between the two theories. When looking at how social order is constructed, it is not only important to study the role of the individual, but also the role of the state or government. The part they play in the order and rules of every day interactions. Social order refers to unspoken rules of conduct in everyday life, or stable social situation in which connections are maintained without change or if change occurs it is in predictable way. (Taylor, 2009, p.173). in addition these case studies; Buchanan report (1963), Monderman thesis (1980) will be linked to Goffman’s and Foucault’s theories, to help us to understand how order is attained and maintained by individuals, authorities and institutions, in certain places, and in different contexts as well as how social order is constructed at different historical moments. This essay concentrates on Goffman’s and Foucault’s theories, claims, and concepts, by comparing and contrasting their ideas on social order and who makes the order, the evidence that they draw upon, and the different levels of social life each theorist chooses to focus upon. Both Goffman and Foucault are concerned with the wider questions of how society is produced and reproduced, but specifically how social order is made and remade. At the same time, both also seek broader ways of understanding singular issues in interaction. Goffman focused on the individual, interactional order, and performances, while in contrast Foucault focuses on discourses, power, knowle...
The article revolves around the negative implications of the Kingston Penitentiary, a prison designed to provide reform for criminals through intensive labor, the use of the panopticon model, and implementation of harsh disciplinary practices. It represents a social institution which is expected to embody discipline and social control, and exert power over its inmates. However, the article highlights the institution’s inability to take effective disciplinary action against its inmates (Neufeld 1998) In addition, Michael Foucault’s theories are critiqued in relation to the faulty Penitentiary Model. Foucault’s understanding of power and surveillance provided little to no justification for the institution’s downfall. This paper will argue that the Penitentiary model failed due to poor administration, harsh disciplinary practices and the perpetuation of gender inequalities.
Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Dante’s Inferno both exhibit Foucault’s idea of categorization and subjectification using “dividing practices.” (Rabinow 8) Foucault argued that people can rise to power using discourse, “Discourse has the ability to turn human beings into subjects by placing them into certain categories.” (Rabinow 8) These categories are then defined “according to their level of deviance from the acceptable norm.” (Rabinow 8) Some examples of such categories are the homosexual, the insane, the criminal and the uncivilized. (Rabinow 8). By the above method, called “dividing practices,” people can be manipulated by socially categorizing them and then comparing them to norms. In this way human beings are given both a social and a personal identity (Rabinow 8) and this is how superiority among human beings can be established.
...easily controls and manipulates the way individuals behave. Although there are no true discourses about what is normal or abnormal to do in society, people understand and believe these discourses to be true or false, and that way they are manipulated by powers. This sexual science is a form of disciplinary control that imprisons and keeps society under surveillance. It makes people feel someone is looking at them and internally become subjective to the rules and power of society. This is really the problem of living in modern society. In conclusion, people live in a society, which has created fear on people of society, that makes people feel and be responsible for their acts. Discourses are really a form in which power is exercised to discipline societies. Foucault’s argument claims discourses are a form of subjection, but this occurs externally not internally.
In his 1975 book, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, French philosopher Michel Foucault proposed that the prison system -- along with other social institutions like the hospital, school, and army barracks – acts as a form of social control. Rather than being punished or rehabilitated, inmates are reeducated into an obedient docility, thus maintaining the social hierarchy. Though Foucault’s claims may appear rather reductive and dystopian, he is careful to note that the sole reason the prison (and other social institutions) are able propagate this induced docility is because their true purpose is kept largely clandestine: the prison’s ideal function is to punish and rehabilitate; however, its actual function is the establishment
Foucault discusses the whole idea of power stressing much on the positions of those people who hold power in any societal setting and how they relate with their subjects to try and ensure that the power is exercised effectively without abandoning or neglecting a section of the subjects being ruled. He also discusses the issue of sex and connects it to power giving details of how sex and politics interrelate. Foucault, in his discussion, gives a detailed analysis on the relationship between power and objectives that those holding power seek to achieve in the long run. He goes ahead to describe the tactics that those in power and generally politics need to employ in order to realize results in view of both the governors and the governed. In his
His impressive career Foucault became known for his many demonstrative arguments that power depends not on material relations or authority but instead primarily on discursive networks. This new perspective as applied to old questions such as madness, social discipline, body-image, truth, normative sexuality etc. were instrumental in designing the post-modern intellectual landscape we are still in nowadays. Today Michel Foucault is liste...
Problems with Foucault: Historical accuracy (empiricism vs. Structuralism)-- Thought and discourse as reality? Can we derive intentions from the consequences of behavior? Is a society without social control possible?
Introduction Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman’s work was centralised around two different concepts of how your identity is formed through the process of power and expert knowledge. This Essay will discuss the ideas of Michel Foucault, a French Social Theorist. His theories addressed the relationship between power and knowledge and how both of these are used as a form of social control through society. The essay will look at Foucault’s work in The Body and Sexuality, Madness and Civilisation and Discipline and Punish, which displays how he conceptualised power and identity on a Marxist and macro basis of study. The Essay will also address the Ideas of Erving Goffman, a Canadian Born Sociologist who’s key study was what he termed as interactional order, that is how the functions of ritual and order of every individual member of society, in everyday life, interact to form social order.
First, institutions control nearly all of the individual’s time. Second, institutions control the individual’s body. (Foucault, “Truth and Juridical Forms” 79-81) As such, “the operation of these institutions implied a general discipline of existence that went far beyond their seemingly precise ends” (Foucault, “Truth and Juridical Forms” 81). Institutions control the entire livelihood of the individual such that his time and body may be transformed into productive labor time and labor power. For example, in school, the individual does not only learn arithmetic and other like subjects, but also the correct, most efficient way to accomplish such.
Foucault’s conception of power differs from the Critical theorists conception of criminal violence in the fact that Foucault believes that power is used as a deterrent against crime and is used to keep people in order due to the fear that they are constantly being watched from the “viewing tower” and that power is everywhere. However critical theorist conception of criminal violence is that, “Both crime and the criminal law are shaped by the structure of the political economy, with particular emphasis on the importance of class, ethnicity, race, and gender.” This meaning that unlike Foucault’s power, the power in the Critical theorists is controlled by a select few and its creates crime rather then deter it and
As it will be discussed further in the paper, power should not be taken detached from its context, but rather it should be taken into consideration within its social structure and in relation with knowledge. However, it is also important to stress that for Foucault power is (a) productive and beneficial and (b) present at every level of the social body, macro and micro. Moreover, power “comes from below” , yet Foucault is not stating that there does not exist domination (in the case of a prison, for example, guards have a clear advantage over the prisoners), however power relations exist in all circumstances (again in the case of a prison, both groups are involved in power relations) and “domination, then, is not the essence of
In "Truth and Power" Michel Foucault revisits the major theoretical trends and questions of his career. He is a thinker who knows no bounds of subject or field. His ideas stretch from literature to science, from psychology to labor. He deals in a currency that is accepted everywhere: truth and power. Foucault spends much of his career tracing the threads of truth and power as they intertwine with the history of human experience. He especially loves to study asylums and prisons because they are close to an encapsulated power structure. Using techniques culled from psychology, politics, anthropology, sociology, and archaeology, Foucault presents a highly politicized analysis of the flow of power and power relations.
Foucault wrote a book called Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison explaining his thoughts on how he discipline should be taught. Discipline and Punish is a book about the emergence of the prison system. The conclusion of the book in relation to this subject matter is that the prison is an institution, the objective purpose of which is to produce criminality and recidivism. The system encompasses the movement that calls for reform of the prisons as an integral and permanent part. Foucault states that The more important general theme of the book is that of “discipline” in the penal sense, a specific historical form of power that was taken up by the state with professional soldiering in the 17th century, and spread widely across society, first via the panoptic prison, then via the division of labor in the factory and universal education. The purpose of discipline is to produce “docile bodies,” the individual movements of which can be controlled, and which in its turn involves the psychological monitoring and control of individuals, indeed which for Foucault produces individuals as
Power plays a very important role in society and is closely tied to other key concepts such as knowledge and freedom. It is therefore important to investigate its origin and operation. The conventional view of power as something that is law-like and is primarily restrictive and negative is a limited view of its real form, which Foucault claims is far more dynamic and omnipresent. Power is not just contained in the state, its institutions, and the law but is a multiplicative force that is inherent in the relations existing at all levels of a society. It is complex and productive and circulates in every direction, producing all sorts of results.