Foucault's Philosophy - Essay Example

Foucault's Philosophy Michel Foucault is a modern-day philosopher whose best-known work is probably the seminal Discipline and Punish (1977), which is an incisive discussion on the evolution of the penal system in Western civilization. This work stands apart because it dissects and analyses punishment and discipline, and articulates their typology, attributes, elements and mechanisms (Garland, 1986). What probably strikes a chord with students and critics of Foucault who have made Discipline and Punish one of his most widely read works is the ability of the book to provoke intense discussion even among non-philosophers. Those who have read the book are easily able to draw parallels between its tenets and their personal experiences or observations – a testament to the real-world relevance of the philosophical theories expressed therein. This brief discussion aims to accomplish the same end, that is, to understand Foucault’s ‘Discipline’ and explain it in the context of personal insight. Discipline and Punish is a treatise on the development of methods of punishment and their implication as tools for the exercise of power and control over the individual to compel obedience and compliance. It is divided into four parts. The first part is on Torture, treating on the body of the condemned and the spectacle of the scaffold. The second is on Punishment and its different degrees and intensities. The third is on Discipline, and the fourth is in Prison, the practices and the level of security therein (Sargiacomo, 2009). Of these, the topic of interest for this essay is Discipline, and in this part, the discussion shall dwell on Docile Bodies. It is important to situate the topic, to understand in what context it should be viewed in Foucault’s theory. Discipline is distinguished from either torture or punishment; by these distinctions, the discussions on discipline, therefore, excludes those practices that subject the body to atrocious and terrifying abuse, and the strictly punitive measures to which errant individuals are subjected for purposes of either retribution or rehabilitation in atonement for their misdeeds. In describing disciplines, Foucault goes through a description of what they are not. For one, disciplines are not slavery because they do not involve the ownership of the body and its attendant violence. They are not service because they do not subject the individual will to the expressed will of the master. Disciplines are not vassalage because the latter entails a distant relationship that exerts no power over individual behavior or department, but only on the claim to the products of labor and ritual symbols of loyalty. Finally, they are not ascetism, which is a spiritual renunciation of things worldly, and seeks to increase one’s utility over his own body – the reverse of what disciplines do. Foucault draws a parallel between economic exploitation and disciplinary coercion: "If economic exploitation separates the force and the product of labor, [then] disciplinary coercion establishes in the body the constricting link between an increased aptitude and an increased domination” (Foucault, 1977:138). Clearly, then, the aim of discipline is to make the body more capable to do things in a certain way, while at the same time detaching this competency from the individual's will over it in favor of a higher degree of obedience to the external will. Discipline then is a “political anatomy of detail” (p. 139), and the results of discipline than are obedient or “docile” bodies. Foucault broadly traces the genealogy of disciplinary methods that span centuries. First among these is the art of distributions which refers to how the spatial allocation of individuals influences the body to comply with what is desired by the individual. These refer to enclosures such as factories, schools, barracks; partitioning, where “each individual has his own place, and each place its individual” (Foucault 1977:143); and functional sites architecturally designed to enhance supervision and control. There are many examples but the one most illustrative are the monastic cell that imposes the solitude of body and soul in contemplative space. The control of activity is another discipline, exemplified by the present-day timetable by which the start and end of activities are regulated according to segments of time. Then there is the organization of geneses which views individuals and the society they function in as in a constant state of evolution in terms of "Genesis." Organizing the progression of many individual "geneses" involves administering time and "making it useful, by segmentation, seriation, synthesis and totalization” (Foucault, 1977:160). When the bodies are made docile by the Disciplines described by Foucault, they would tend to exhibit four characteristics: that “it is cellular (by the play of spatial distribution), it is organic (by the coding of activities), it is genetic (by the accumulation of time), it is combinatory (by the composition of forces)" (Foucault, 1977:167). Because it has these attributes, it has employed four "great techniques: it draws up tables; it prescribes movements; it imposes exercises; lastly, in order to obtain the combination of forces, it arranges ‘tactics'." (Foucault, 1977:167). The four disciplines, therefore, correspond to the four characteristics exhibited by docile bodies and are manifested through the four techniques which have become regular fixtures in the modern structured and segmented workplace. Of the four disciplines, the third – the organization of the geneses – shall be made the basis for further discussion here in terms of contemporary business activity. According to Sargiacomo, Foucault best described this discipline as follows: Divide duration into successive or parallel segments, each of which must end at a specific time … Organize these thread according to an analytical plan— successions of elements as simple as possible, combining according to increasing complexity … Finalize these temporal segments, decide on how long each will last and conclude it with an examination … Draw up series of series; … the ‘seriation’ of successive activities makes possible a whole investment of duration by power: the possibility of a detailed control and a regular intervention (of differentiation, correction, punishment, elimination) in each moment of time (Foucault, 1977:157–160, in Sargiacomo, 2009:274). The preceding text describes the newfound technology of the late eighteenth century during the emergence of machinery and mechanization and conceptualizing man as an element in the mechanized system. The machine metaphor is in fact reiterated by Foucault at the end of the discussion on Disciplines in his discussion of "composition of forces", which he summarily describes as the machine's productive force that is required to attain "maximum efficiency" that creates a result that exceeds the sum of its inputs. The machine metaphor employed to human activity is not new to serious students of business. It immediately calls to mind the tenets of Taylorism and Fordism. In 1911, Frederick Winslow Taylor published his theories on the enhancement of the effectiveness and efficiency of production methods through the use of scientific methods involving division of labor, time and motion studies, and a wage system linked to productivity performance. The book was entitled Principles of Scientific Management, and Taylor was subsequently dubbed the Father of Scientific Management. In effect, Taylor introduced the use of performance metrics, breaking down jobs into the most basic tasks (i.e. into “successive or parallel segments” and assigning a method and time within which to accomplish each task, which by time and motion study was the most efficient manner of accomplishing it. The same metrics were employed to determine the most efficacious manner of allocating resources so that waste is minimized and costs are reduced. The result was the regimented “seriation of successive activities” as envisioned by Foucault in his description of the organization of geneses. The very terminology of the text from Foucault conjures up images of Henry Ford's assembly line factory set-up devised for the production of the Model T. Henry Ford is best known for being the founder of the firm that produced the first mass-produced car in the United States. Ford, an astute follower of Taylor, devised the contemporary model of mass production which to this day is employed by manufacturing firms in all industries where standardized, large-volume production is undertaken. In 1914 Ford pioneered in the assembly line method of manufacturing, where jobs are again segmented into discrete tasks. Workers are trained to perform these tasks according to a predetermined standard procedure and are then assigned places alongside a conveyor-belt type set-up upon which the product is carried in successive stages of completion. Chronologically sequential tasks are situated in serial stations along the conveyor line, while tasks that may be done simultaneously are situated in parallel lines. In this manner, the time it takes for work in process on the conveyor belt to traverse the line from beginning to end comprises the time it takes for a product to be manufactured. Ford’s Model T assembly line increased the productivity of the labor force by ten times, and reduced prices of cars to only half of their prices before such automation. Fordism is credited with the standardization of products and their manufacture en masse at prices within the capability of the common man to acquire (Beynon & Nichols, 2006). Taylorism and Fordism embraced methods which largely took away the aspect of manufacturing that has to do with craftsmanship. Prior to scientific management, the quality of manufactured goods depended largely on the skills and craftsmanship of the labor force. However, when the work was broken down into tasks and the processes were specified, the production method minimized the discretion and control that individual laborers may exercise over their work. Each item produced became the product of not one individual but scores and maybe even hundreds of individuals executing simple tasks repeatedly and according to the routine. This description aptly corresponds to Foucault’s disciplines. Work is broken down and segmented, serialized, and centrally controlled. Docile bodies perform minute tasks mechanically, thereby exhibiting the infinitesimal control described by Foucault under the Disciplines. There is a greater economy of anatomy, but lower political power. Because of the manner in which the scientific management method was actualized, there was a heightened control exercised by the capitalist and less control by the individual worker. The pictures below exhibit the assembly line set-up of the Model T and its parts. Photos sourced from http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Anthro/Anth101/taylorism_and_fordism.htm Aside from the employment of Foucaultian disciplines in the manufacturing industry, there are other industries and undertakings which display similar attributes to those ascribed the disciplines. One such field is that of bioethics, which it has been claimed has become a mode of biopolitics (Lysaught, 2009:384). It is observed that bioethics (i.e., the observance of ethical standards in the field of medicine and pharmaceuticals, particularly in international bio-research) as it is practiced now, imposes upon the medical professional the need to internalize a set of norms as he becomes subject to the surveillance of the social order. “As such, this exercise of power can direct individuals to engage in actions that are not necessarily to their advantage” (Lysaught, 2009: 390). One example of a situation where docile bodies in bioethics complied with the social order was when children became the subjects of an experimental procedure conducted by a leading pharmaceutical firm, although the parents were led to believe that their children were receiving free treatment from a compassionate institution (Lysaught,2009:385-386). Foucault’s discussion on discipline, while it is situated in the continuum proceeding from torture and punishment, and provides the foundation for the modern-day prison, nevertheless has applications that go beyond the mere punitive aspect in which it was originally conceived. As mentioned in Discipline and Punish, the disciplinary mechanisms that create “docile bodies” take place in schools as much as it does in monasteries and in places of incarceration, although the degree of intensity and severity may be different. Still, the resultant obedience to the social order that is simultaneously acquired with the physical competence and skills is employed in all aspects of the social undertaking for as long as it serves the social order; without it, society in all likelihood will not be situated where it is today. As has been said of Foucault’s observations, it is neither good nor bad, it just is. Bibliography Beynon, H. & Nichols, T. (2006) The Fordism of Ford and Modern Management: Fordism and Post-Fordism: Vol. 1. Edward Elgar Publishing. Foucault, M. (1975) Docile Bodies. In Alan Sheridan, Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison (pgs. 135-169) New York: Random House. Garland, D. (1986) “Review: Foucault's ‘Discipline and Punish’--An Exposition and Critique. American Bar Foundation Research Journal, 11(4), 847-880 Lysaught, M.T. 2009 “Docile Bodies: Transnational Research Ethics as Biopolitics.” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 34:384-408 Sargiacomo, M. (2009) “ Review – Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison,” Journal of Management & Governance, 13, 269-280 Taylor, F.W. (2008) The Principles of Scientific Management. Stilwell, KS: Digireads.com Publishing Read More