Foucault was one of the most influential theorists of recent times.

His work was broad,

and was much more historical and humanistic than much of contemporary US sociology
at the time.
Unlike the major classical theorists, his work was largely a collection of distinct pieces
with common themes, rather than a unified body of theory. It provides a way of looking
at the world, rather than a particular hypothesis.
Truth & Power
ecause the work is often very difficult to read, he spent a good deal of time doing
interviews with people !and recording"editing the resulting answers#. $hese form a large
body of the record of his ideas, and this is the first piece we read %$ruth and &ower'
&oints to take from this particular interview(
a# &ower is a key interest for our current reading of Foucault. )ot just economic
power !*ar+# or status !,eber#, but power instantiated in rules, language and
institutions. Foucault is arguing that power is rife throughout our social system,
particularly in %control technologies' such as prisons and medicine. He is one of
the first to make this claim so starkly.
b# %-eneology' is %a form of history which can account for the constitution of
knowledged, discourses, domains of objects, etc., without having to make
reference to a subject which is either transcendental in relation to the field of
events or runs i its empty sameness throughout the course of history.' . its
looking at particularistic elements and showing how one transforms into the other.
/ key element here is that we can0t suppose a single ever1lasting notion of truth
that is the same forever, or even a single purpose origin or principle. $hings
emerge accidentally, and are often the result of a plurality of sources.
c# Foucault does not like the notion of %ideology'
a. It presupposes a truth he0s unwilling to accept
b. It refers to the order of a subject . an actor driving history, rather than
events
c. Ideology is seen as secondary to something more fundamental, like
%structure' and he thinks this is a false dichotomy
d# &ower is more than repression. It0s more than just %saying no' . it0s generative
and pushes us to do things. *odern times are marked by an efficient e+ercise of
this sort of power. 2the case of se+uality is an e+ample !p.345#6
e# Discipline is the key concept to take from Foucault with respect to power. It0s
summari7ed well on p.348( %9that vast system 9 comprising the functions of
surveillance, normalisation, and control and 9 punishment9.'
a. )ote this is only partly a state issue, discipline and the power it controls is
wider than that.
f# )ote his treatment of power as a pu77le( how to make sense of what it means to
say that power is endemic to discipline. %/ll these :uestions need to be e+plored.
In any case it0s astonishing to see how easily and self1evidently people talk of
war1like relations of power or of class struggle without ever making it clear
whether some form of war is eant, and if so what form.' !2.34;#
g# In the ne+t section he0s really e+tending his idea of what changed in recent times
to e+tend power. $he ability to measure and control social features . though
population projects, health claims, etc., represents an ability to constrain free
action and thus represents a form of power. It0s key is the efficiency and wide1
spread nature.
h# In the last section he introduces a concept of discourse and relative truth that
we0ve not seen until now. $he point is similar to what *annheim and /rendt
refer to in ideology, but made <much< more general( every epoch has
%=ach society has its regime of truth, its general politics of truth( that is
the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true> the
mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false
statements, the means by which each is sanctioned the techni:ues and
procedures accorded value in the ac:uisition of truth, the status of those
who are charged with saying what counts as true.' !p.34?#
i# In our society, truth rests on 8 elements
a. $ruth is centered on the form of scientific discourse
b. It is subject to constant economic and political incitement (demand)
c. It is the object of immense diffusion and consumption
d. It is produced under the control of a few great political and economic
apparatuses !university, army, writing, media, etc.#
e. It is the issue of a whole political debate and social confrontation
!ideology struggles#
j# $o understand what intellectuals can do, we have to thus recogni7e their position
in this system
k# He thus ends with a few hypotheses about truth(
a. $ruth is to be understood as a system of ordered procedures for the
production, regulation, distribution, circulation and operation of
statements
b. $ruth is linked in a circular relation with systems of power !a regime of
truth#
c. $he specifics of this regime rest on capitalism
d. $he role of the intellectual is to demonstrate the potential for a new
politics of truth
e. $hey goal is to disentangle truth from power and hegemony
f. $he political :uestion is thus not error or illusion, but truth itself.
Discipline and Punish
It0s useful to have @urkheim0s @ivision of Aabor in the back of your mind as you
think through this work. *F is asking where social control comes from, and his answer
is that control is e+ersi7ed as power through %disciplines'. / discipline is a way of
organi7ing action, usually built into social systems. =+amples are schools, workplace
rules, law, eti:uette, etc. $his is also a more clearly historical work, much less abstract
than we just finished. $he full book traces the history of punishment from public
spectical to the rise of modern prisons. $he transformation is one that rests on efficiency
and technological control, of moving past wasteful and hapha7ard theatrical displays of
power to concerted, focused social control in prison punishment. However, this same
e+ersi7e of social control came to play in hospitals, schools, military settings, etc.,
e+tending the core scope of %disciplinary' power. Bombined these tools create docility .
people who are easy to control. !=choes of )iet7sche here#
Cur selection starts with one of the most famous images in contemporary theory(
The panopticon. $he prison designed such that one guard can watch everyone all the
time. $he structure raises a number of analogies that Foucault thinks characteri7e
modern social life(
a# $he effect of the &anopticon is %to induce in the inmate a state of
conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic
functioning of power' !p.3D4# . this is the role that surveillance in
general plays in modern life, for *F.
b# &ower is constant but unverifiable( you always know it could be
watching you, but never know for sure.
$he effect of %dissociating the se"being seen' dyad is key to understanding the general
nature of power. It %automati7es and disindividuali7es' power . makes it ubi:uitous and
ever1present.
%&ower has its principle not so much in a person as in a certain concerted distribution of
bodies, surface, lights, ga7es, in an arrangement whose internal mechanisms produce the
relation in which individuals are caught up.' !p.3D4#
Discipline serves the same role in modern life.
%It is a type of power, a modality for its e+ercise, comprising a whole set of instruments,
techni:ues, procedures, levels of application, targets> it0s a %physics' or an %anatomy'E of
power, a technology' !.p.3DD#
$he key is that all of those little things that regulate our e+istence add up. ,e are used to
them, they are ever1present, but they have the effect of making us do things we wouldn0t
otherwise do. $hink, for e+ample, of what happens when a bell rings. Cr how you stand
in line for coffee. Cr how cameras watch you in elevators. CF how your advisor knows
every class you0ve taken and the grades you get. $hese all speak to control mechanisms.
Some key features(
D. EeconomicG @isciplines are techni:ues for assuring the ordering of human
multiplicities.
a. @o this at the lowest possible cost
b. ring the effects to ma+imum intensity and e+tend them as far as possible
c. $o link it to the output of the systems !education, medicine# that it is part
of.
$hese combine to increase docility and utility of each setting. $hese resulted
from the increase in population and the tools for productivity !division of
labor, again#. [note the subtle swipe at Durkheim on p.212, where he says that
the jumbled mass could not enerate reulation on its own!
$he key is that this form of power substituted for and replaced splendid power
!see :uote on p.3DHI#.
)ote the echoes of his historical study !which we didn0t read#(
%9it might perhaps be said that the methods for administering the
accumulation of men made possible a political take1off in relation to the
traditional, ritual, costly, violent forms of power, which soon fell into disuse
and were superseded by a subtle, calculated technology of subjection.' $he
two !capital and control# are intently linked.
Here then we see a return to the themes of the @ivision of Aabor, but now you
can think of this as %@urkheim plus power' instead of the simple emergent
cohesion @urkheim described, and thus a difference in the notion of
punishment(
3. EJuridico1political " punishmentG $he panoptic modality of power
1 &anoptical power is not directly under the state, but neither is it
independent.
1 Aegal e:uality on the one hand seems to make everyone e:ual
and thus have a rightful share in power, but these are offset by
the rise of disciplinary power. %$he general juridical form that
guaranteed a systems of rights that were egalitarian in principle
was supported by these tiny, everyday, physical echanism, by all
those system of micro1power that are essentially non1egalitarina
and asymmetrical that we call the disciplines.' !p.3D5#
$hus, while there is formal e:uality, at the base there is
submission of forces and bodies. %$he real, corporal disciplines
constituted the foundation nof the formal, juridical liberties.'
!p.3D5#
Bontract is the best model for law, panopticon the best model for
control. $hus the disciplines seem to provide a counter1weight to
the freedoms implied by legal e:uality. $he every1day lives of
people are bound by asymmetric e+ercises of power and control.
$his, again, speaks directly do @urkheim, as it raises the :uestion
about how we make sense of law and punishment(
%,hat generali7ed the power to punish, then, is not the universal
consciousness of the law in each juridical subject> it is the regular e+tension,
in infinitely minute web of panoptic techi:ues.' !p.3D8#
H. EScientificG. =ach disciplinary techni:ue has its own uni:ue history, but with the
rise of scientific management !Fordism is the height#, these came to be self1
reinforcing. =ach domain !school, medicine, work# became %apparatuses such
that any mechanism of objectiviation could be used in them as an instrument of
subjection, and any growth of power could give riese in them to possible branches
of knowledge' . we developed a scientific organi7ation to disciplinary
domination.