State Control Of Mechanisms Of The Discipline example essay topic

Said writes: For every Orientalist, quite literally, there is a support system of staggering power To write about the Arab Oriental world, therefore, is to write with the authority of a nation. (Said, p. 86) Not many things in this world compares to the weight of such knowledge. The occurrence of such ideologies and policies against the East from the West has deterred the development of a fundamental reverence between the two. It has infringed on the rights of the people of the East, and has deprived the West from knowing the true benefits of recognizing various cultures. Michel Foucault discusses power and discipline, the manipulation there of, and their effect on society over time.

One exceptional disciplinary model is the measures taken by a seventeenth century town when the plague appears. First there is a strict spatial partitioning which involves the closing of the town and dividing it into quarters. There is a syndic assigned to each street who keeps the street under surveillance. This syndic locks the door to every house on his street from the outside when the quarantine begins and gives the key to his supervisor, the intendant. There is one intendant per quarter. To get supplies to each house there are wooden canals set up between the streets and houses to distribute the residents rations of bread and wine thus allowing each person to receive his ration without communicating with the suppliers and other residents.

(Chp. 5) Only the intendants, syndics and guards are allowed to be on the streets, outside of the homes. No one else is permitted to leave his home for it is a crime punishable by death. Each individual is fixed in his place. And if he moves he does so at the risk of his life. (Chp.

5) Second there is ceaseless inspection. A large militia, commanded by good officer and men of substance, guards the gates of the town. (Chp. 5) This strict guarding is to ensure the prompt obedience of the townspeople and the absolute power of the magistrates as well as to observe all disorder and every action.

Everyday the syndic goes to the street he is responsible for, stopping at each house, calls the inhabitants to the window and takes attendance. If someone does not appear at the window they are assumed to be either sick or dead. This constant surveillance is based on a system of permanent registration and reports that are passed on from the syndics to the intendants to the magistrates. At the beginning of the quarantine the name, age and sex of each individual is recorded. Every observation made-deaths, illnesses, complaints, irregularities-is recorded on these documents and reported to the entire hierarchy. The magistrates have complete control over the medical treatment of the townspeople.

They select one physician whom they trust to treat the patients. No one else is permitted to visit a sick person without a written note to prevent concealing and dealing with the sick without the knowledge of the magistrates. The registration is constantly centralized with the relation of each individual to his illness and death being passed through the same hierarchy of power, which makes every decision based on it. A few days after the beginning of the quarantine the purifying process begins.

One house at a time, all the inhabitants evacuate the house for this process. The furniture and goods are raised from the ground or suspended from the air; perfume is poured around the room; after carefully sealing the windows, doors, and even the keyholes with wax the perfume is set alight. Finally the entire house is closed while the perfume is consumed Four hours later, the residents are allowed to reenter their homes. (Chp. 5) This enclosed segmented space is a disciplinary mechanism. The entire area is under strict surveillance.

Each individual has his designated place in which the slightest movements are supervised and all events are recorded. Power is exercised according to a hierarchical figure, in which each individual is constantly located, and examined. (Chp. 5) Foucault discusses the possibility of bringing up different children according to different systems of thought.

(Chp. 5) Some children would be taught that two plus two is not four. Another group of children would be taught that the moon was a large piece of cheese. Then, when these people become adults and are twenty-five years old one would have them discuss such things and it would be a more valuable conversation than any sermon or lecture. There are two forms of discipline. One extreme being discipline-blockade and the other extreme, along with panoptic ism, is discipline-mechanism.

In discipline-blockade there is an enclosed institution, located on the outskirts of society, which has the purpose to arrest evil, break communications, and arrest time. However on the other extreme, discipline-mechanism, where panoptic ism is, we have a functional mechanism that must improve the exercise of power by making it lighter, more rapid, more effective, a design of subtle coercion for a society to come. (Chp. 5) How does something such as panoptic ism get from one extreme to another? Through a process that depends on the formation of a disciplinary society, the gradual expansion of the mechanisms of discipline throughout the social body; a disciplinary generalization and the spread of disciplinary institutions.

The process has three steps. First, The functional inversion of the disciplines. Second, the swarming of disciplinary mechanism. And third, the state-control of mechanisms of the discipline. (Chp. 5) Discipline is neither an institution nor an apparatus; it is a type of power.

The use and manipulation of this power is a technology called panoptic ism in which it is the function of the state, or some other leader, to see that discipline reigns over society as a whole; and the formation of a disciplinary society, or social quarantine. (Chp. 5) While this appears to be a technological solution, it is not, a whole society emerges. The society of modern age People are now focused on the individual and the state where as we were previously people were focused on the community and public life.

The technology has taken over our society and has put us in danger of being under the absolute control of someone else, anyone else.