Some book titles are to be abandoned, like “ReOrient”, “Reassemble the Social;” some to be revised, like “Public Passion” to “Passionate Public.” To the second group falls “Discipline and Punish,” which could be made “Punishment: from Spectacle to Discipline/Surveillance”(a poor one?).
A history of the modern soul on trial, Foucault’s work assumes both a historical perspective and a social-structural one. Historically, he traces the transformation of punishment from the monarchical period to the modern period---turning around 17-19 centuries. On a sociological level, he challenges traditional understanding of modern society as an assembly of individuals cemented together by “contract.” Instead, he proposes that the modern individuals, together with the knowledge of them, are products of power mechanisms.
I. Torture and Intro
The first chapter serves as an introduction to the basic propositions of the book, at the heart of which is what Foucault calls “body politic” or “political economy/anatomy of the body.” Techniques and mechanism to control and shape the body serve as weapon and routes for power and knowledge. Power produces knowledge; power and knowledge directly imply one another. In one word, “it is a question of situating the techniques of punishment... in the history of this body politic.”
Chapter 2 of Part I examines torture as both judicial ritual and political ritual. Punitive punishment aims at “truth,” cruel but not savage, thus criminal’s confession of guilt is pivotal. Correspondingly, the public implementation of penalties serves as manifestation of truth, as an ultimate proof at the end of the judicial ritual. Public execution at the same time functions as a political ceremony by which the imperial power is manifested, by which a momentarily injured sovereignty is reconstituted. Foucault concludes, “If torture was so strongly embedded in legal practice, it was because it revealed truth and showed the operation of power.(55)”
Part I reveals the “truth-power” relation in monarchical public execution, which, as a spectacle and carnival, arouses feelings of terror among the spectators/participants.
II. Punishment
Part II on Punishment delineates a transformation in both social structure and mechanisms of punishment. During the 18th century, illegality of rights turned into illegality of property, and the right to punish shifts from the vengeance of the sovereign to the defense of society. Accordingly, the punitive semio-technique was superseded by a new politics of the body.
In the monarchical physical torture, punishment is a ceremonial of sovereignty; ritual marks the vengeance to the body of the condemned man; before spectators, effect of terror.
The modern punishment, however, diverges into two model of “punitive city” and coercive institution. The “punitive city” is based on the lesson, the discourse, the decipherable sign, the representation of public morality. (110) It uses not marks, but signs, coded sets of representations. The great terrifying ritual of the public execution gives way to this serious theater(113). In the model of modern prison, punishment is seen as a technique for the coercion of individuals, training the body---not sign---by the traces left in the form of habit, in behavior.
Here lies the essential argument of this work---three mechanisms of punishment in two phases of historical development:
sovereign and his force---social body---administrative apparatus;
Mark---sign---trace
Ceremony---representation---exercise
Vanquished enemy---judicial subject---individual subjected to coercion
Tortured body---soul---body subjected to training
These three types are modalities according to which the power to punish is exercised: three technologies of power. Finally, modern prison prevails over the rest. Foucault asks, “How did the coercive, corporal, solitary, secret model of the power to punish replace the representative, scenic, signifying, public, collective model?” In other words, “Why did the physical exercise of punishment replace the social play of the signs of punishment and the prolix festival that circulated them?” Did Foucault give an answer? Does the answer lie in the third part on discipline?
At the end of the first two parts, Foucault brings up the core topic of this book---prison, and asks why it prevailed. Before directly engaging with prison, however, he inserts a whole part III on discipline. To understand this book, it is essential to understand that Part III on Discipline must be read not as parallel to Part I-II, but an a reply to them. That is to say, Part III on discipline and Part IV on Prison proper answers the questions posed in Parts I-II, on different levels.
III. Discipline
Part III starts with a definition of discipline: a “modality” of an uninterrupted, constant coercion, a system of “methods”, which made possible the meticulous control of the operations of the body. Discipline must be the major feature of modern punishment, in particular the prison. “The historical moment of discipline was when an art of body was born.(137)”
Discipline creates out of the bodies four types of individuality: cellular(by spatial distribution); organic(coding of activities), genetic(accumulation of time), combinatory(composition of forces). It draws up tables; it prescribes movements; it imposes exercises; arranges tactics. Tactics, the highest form of disciplinary practice.(167)
Chapter 2 of Part III examines the means of correct training, including hierarchical observation, normalizing judgement, and examination which combines former two techniques. Examination is at the center of the procedures that constitute the individual as effect and object of power, as effect and object of knowledge. This is a moment when “a new technology of power and a new political anatomy of the body were implemented: the transition from historico-ritual mechanisms for the formation of individuality to the scientifico-disciplinary mechanisms.”
Up to now, Foucault has examined the mechanism of modern discipline. Then Foucault continues to situate this abstract description into history, both intellectual and political. Foucault presents an understanding of history as the birth of “individuality”: “If from the early Middle Ages to the present day, the adventure is an account of individuality, the passage from the epic to the novel, from the noble deed to the secret singularity, ...it is also inscribed in the formation of a disciplinary society.” As a blueprint, Bentham’s panopticism links mechanisms of discipline and the birth of modern prison.
In Chapter 3 of a historical description, Foucault starts with a scene of plague-control in the Middle Ages. He concludes this chapter with two images of discipline: discipline blockade, enclosed institution; Panoptocism, discipline-mechanism. He generalizes on the historical development of mode of discipline, “The movement from one project to another, from a schema of exceptional discipline to one of a generalized surveillance, rests on a historical transformation: the gradual extension of the mechanisms of discipline throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries---the formation of what might be called in general the disciplinary society.” The essential feature of such a disciplinary society is a mechanism of panopticism. ---Should we consider moving this chapter to the last part to go with Prison?
Foucault continues to cite Julius who saw “as a fulfilled historical process that which Bentham had described as a technical program.” According to Julius, antiquity had been a civilization of spectacle. With spectacle, there was a predominance of public life, the intensity of festivals, sensual proximity. The modern age poses the opposite problem: the principal elements are no longer the community and public life, but on the one hand, private individuals, and on the other, the state. Foucault further points out that the Napoleonic period is at the point of junction from the monarchical, ritual exercise of sovereignty to the hierarchical, permanent exercise of indefinite discipline.
In one word, “our society is not one of spectacle, but of surveillance.”
IV. Prison
Finally Foucault comes to prison, leaving the reader too exhausted to read carefully. But we may simply glimpse through this part to see how modern prison exemplifies the realizes the power mechanisms Foucault has described before.
V. Conclusion
All in all, Foucault is studying the prison as a modern form of punishment, behind which he explores the birth of panopticism as the modern type of power mechanism. With this transformation accompanied the transformation from sovereignty to society, from community to individuals, from historico-ritual mechanisms for the formation of individuality to the scientifico-disciplinary mechanisms, in sum, from a society of spectacle to one of discipline. “Punish” refers to social institutions; “discipline” refers to power mechanisms. The factor that links institution, mechanism and humans is the “body”. Once the object of physical punishment, it later gave way to the soul, but finally comes back to be the basis for the production of the individual and its knowledge, and to be the nexus of power mechanisms. Thus, power, knowledge, body, history.
Two theme loom as implicit backgrounds Foucault argues against. The first is his challenge to the traditional understanding of society, as I wrote in the beginning. A second one is the challenge against the myth of “ideology.” He calls for abandoning the violence-ideology opposition, or the model of contract/conquest. Power is everywhere, not only in violence, but also the more “human” way of punishment. Wherever there is knowledge, there is power; vice versa. I’m not sure though, how Foucault makes the jump from discussion of punishment to a discussion of “knowledge” in general. For example, how should we read his discussion of knowledge here with that in The Archaeology of Knowledge?
Knowledge-power might serve as a path toward an understanding of early and late Foucault.
VI. Connections
Through my reading of his work, many topics jump out to offer connections with other sociologists. In very simple words, Foucault criticizes Durkheim for merely studying “general social forms.” Weber explains how society comes into being when individuals assemble at a [religious] sign. Foucault might see such a theory as same to the social-contract model. If I’m not convinced by Durkheim, neither am I by Foucault’s use of “discipline” of the “body” as a pivotal concept. Anyway, why body, and what does Foucault mean by “body”? The physical body? How does he place this concept in the philosophical history upon body/soul/person/individual?
Durkheim starts his discussion of social solidarity with law---punitive and restitutive. Law and morality are two main ways to produce social solidarity. To Foucault, however, law, accompanied with punishment, is but the mechanism of power relations.
Accordingly, when Durkheim sees hope of liberation of individual personality with modern division of labor, Foucault only sees individuals produced in chains and cages.
Foucault cites Marx when talking about the composition of forces in discipline, which can be neglected.
At one point Foucault talks about “exhaustive use of time” as a way of discipline. He sees time as “counted by God and paid for by men”, and sees waste of time as “moral offense and economic dishonesty.” This might lead us to Weber’s discussion of the protestant asceticism. While Weber sees God in the ethics of modern working, Foucault sees only power.
VII. Questions
1. What is the relation between punishment and discipline? Foucault generalizes three types of punishment, but discipline seems to belong only to the third one of prison. What, then, would he call the plague-control system in the Middle Ages?
2. What can we make of the second type of punishment which is based on codes, representation and theater? Foucault mentions theater in panopticism. In other words, how would Foucault understand the role of media and symbolic discourses in punish and discipline?
3. How to understand the relation between punishment, discipline and modernity?
--监狱出现之前 - 以惩罚为主的的司法制度史
福柯说之前人们通常研究的是法律的历史(history of law),而不是像他研究司法制度的历史(history of judicial system)。《规训与惩罚》的前半部分,也就是第一章和第二章,讲述的是监狱出现之前法国乃至欧洲的司法制度历史,重点在“规训和惩罚”的“惩罚”上。其中涉及到法学和伦理学的一些概念逻辑,以及十八世纪法国社会经济的一些变化。这对说明监狱的出现的在司法史上的“断裂”性质和厘清权力的在现代新的运作方式的历史背景都是必要的。这里简单说明一下福柯阐述的几个重点。它们和本书的主题,权力,也许没有直接的关系,但被我作为逻辑的完整性保留下来。
“The eighteenth century invented, so to speak, a synaptic regime of power, a regime of its exercise within the social body, rather than from above it.” 39 Surveillance是随着现代化出现的一项发明。当这项发明被应用在刑罚中时,君主的暴力消失了,司法惩戒的宗旨被毫无悬念的放弃了。因为“it was more efficient and profitable in terms of the economy of power to place people under surveillance than to subject then to some exemplary penalty.” 38 至此,福柯花了整整前半本书铺垫提出的问题算是有了答案:监狱的诞生是随着现代surveillance技术的发明而发生的。
回到回归宏观的问题上来,福柯在成功给出了监狱诞生这一司法历史的意外转折的解释后,有意避免特指任何利益集团或阶级作为这一变化的策划者和受害者。但从他对十八世纪犯罪情况的描述中,不难看出他暗指新的监狱制度针对的是流浪汉、乞丐等城市贫民。而在很多别的场合,尤其是68年五月风暴后他和法国毛泽东主义者对话的记录中,福柯明确指认资产阶级(bourgeoisie)和无产阶级(proletarian)作为18世纪末19世纪初新的权力关系的主客体。“To make the proletariat see the non-proletarianised people as marginal, dangerous, immoral, a menace to society as a whole, the dregs of the population, trash, the 'mob'. For the bourgeoisie it is a matter of imposing on the proletariat, by means of penal legislation, of prisons, but also of newspapers, of 'literature', certain allegedly universal moral categories which functions as an ideological barrier between them and the non-proletarianised people.” 15 这里,流动劳动力,包括无产阶级的不安定分子和离开农村的农民,都是资产阶级新的权力机制规训的主要对象。资产阶级要通过监狱这个组织,辅以别的宣传和意识形态工具,把他们(流动劳动力)由无产阶级革命的领导者,离间为无产阶级主体的敌人。我们后边会谈到,福柯在本书的最后一章对此有精彩的阐述。
总之,福柯的权力-肉体二元结构是他独特的微观-宏观的结合机制。权力的作用是毛细的(capilary)、微观的,权力关系“不是固定在国家与公民的关系中,也不是固定在阶级分野处” 29 而肉体却是可以在宏观层面观察的,权力的作用结果也同样如此,虽然“the bourgeoisie is blind to the basic relations and real processes”。
监狱:过滤社会不安定分子的安全阀
福柯对监狱在当代社会中的运作机制有及其精辟的解读。监狱不是用来消灭犯罪,而是吸收犯罪,并将其转化为控制社会的有效手段。它像是社会的一个排毒器官,进去的是与社会系统不相容的因子(“spearhead of popular rebellion”16),出来的则都是过失犯。这些过失犯被贴上标签,再也不可能回归普通人影响大众兴风作浪、反对社会机器,而成了人民公敌。Johny Depp饰演的“public enemy”[]的反叛的英雄时代一去不复返了,所剩下的全是小偷、毒贩子、皮条客这样的小人物。他们和警察狼狈为奸,共同扮演着社会的阴暗面,为司法暴力和当局侵犯人权的监视正名。福柯自己的一段话最能说明这一精巧的设计:”At the end of the eighteenth century, people dreamed of a society without crime. And then the dream evaporated. Crime was too useful for them to dream of anything as crazy – or ultimately as dangerous – as a society without crime. No crime means no police. What makes the presence and control of the police tolerable for the population, if not fear of the criminal? This institution of the police, which is so recent and so oppressive, is only justified by that fea. If e accept the presence in our midst of these uniformed men, who have the exclusive right to carry arms, who demand our papers, who come and prowl on our doorsteps, how would any of this be possible if there were no criminals? And if there weren’t articles every day in the newspapers telling us how numerous and dangerous our criminals are?” 47 参照911之后布什政府已反恐怖为借口的非法审判和窃听等种种违宪行为,在七十年代的和平时期就警惕我们珍贵的自由人权被偷偷侵犯的福柯就更显得像一个自由斗士和革命先知了。
福柯的理想国是什么样的?在《规训与惩罚》中,福柯并没有给出答案。似乎离理想最接近的,是前半本书里法国改革法学家们的“惩罚之城”。《规训与惩罚》成书与1975年,在更早的七十年代初,当整个欧洲都在激烈的讨论着中国的文化大革命时,福柯也曾作为司法历史的专家对人民法庭 (people's court)在中国的出现和在法国的有可能的应用提出评论和意见。福柯坚决反对任何形式的法庭在阶级斗争中被中心利用:“…I'm not so sure that afterwards it will be so absolutely necessary for there to be a state judicial apparatus in order for the people to perform acts of justice. The danger is that a state judicial apparatus would take over acts of popular justice.”32 那时他似乎暗示一个更激进的司法公正的形式,那就是回到旧君主时代的最简单的仲裁机构(court of arbitration)。这个仲裁机构没有武力执行的能力,甚至没有意识形态的权威性来组构法庭,只有一定的调查和澄清真相的能力。“… it seems to me that a certain number of habits which derive from the private war, a certain number of ancient rites which were features of 'prejudicial' justice‘, have been preserved in the practices of popular justice…”6 没有任何的强制执行能力,福柯所说的这种公正机构在工厂暴动和土地改革中的规范和教育作用显得格外的不切实际,而在革命之后的执政阶段就简直近似与无政府主义。可以说,只破不立是福柯令人疑惑却又一直坚持的一个原则。
facebook belong to the mass communication which have nothing to do with panoptcism, more like omnipticon your idea stay at a enclosed discipline of panoptcism , try think about the extendible one, the discipline is everywhere, the language, the way we write, the form and the operation of the social structure...everything, is in the discipline, cause the purpose of efficiency and accuracy.