Michel Foucault and Donna Haraway – Group 6
By Maimouna,Daria,,Aaron,Anouk and Ghina.
“This book is intended as a correlative history of the modern soul and of a new power to judge.” Foucault (Discipline and Punish)
“Discipline and Punish” analyzes the concept of punishment in society and examines how it affects individuality.
In the part entitled “Docile Bodies”, Foucault describes the ideal soldier of the seventeenth century, to show how the body is trained to achieve docility through forces of discipline and control. He also finds the roots of discipline in monasteries and armies where the notions of self-control and the obedience to rules extended throughout the centuries with institutions such as schools, prisons and hospitals into a new form of controlling people. This new form of control is based on the organization and regulation of space and time in which the individual lives. A space is divided into smaller parts or cells and is based on the idea of a series, and Time is divided in the same way. The disciplines do not only calculate (like cl
ocks) but regulate time and space as the individual experiences them. So regulating space and time affects and controls the way in which we act and think and is a very empowering strategy.
In “The means of correct training”, Foucault’s disciplinary power is based on three elements: observation, normalization and examination.
On observation, Foucault states that by being constantly observed you can be forced to do something. The perfect disciplinary institution is that in which everything can constantly be seen at once.
Examination, involves both the process of observation and normalization, where a person can be analyzed and compared to a “norm”. The idea of “norm” is a form of oppression, where the normal becomes the good and the abnormal becomes the bad or what is to be punished and corrected. Here the individual is an unnatural tool constructed by power. Through discipline, individuals are formed out of a group. The more abnormal and excluded a person is, the more individual he becomes.
In the following section, on “Panopticism”, the Panopticon (similar to the commonly known concept of Big Brother) is a tool of empowerment developed out of the need for surveillance and discipline; it is a building with a tower at the center from which it is possible to observe everything at once.
To introduce the concept of the Panopticon, Foucault examines the measures taken to protect a society from a plague, and how the Panopticon allows power to function efficiently.
“I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess”
Haraway (A Cyborg Manifesto)
In “A Cyborg Manifesto” Haraway believes that humans are increasingly becoming cyborgs. What is for many a form of destruction of humanity is for her a hope for a new postmodern, feminist and socialist vision in the white capitalist and patriarchal society we live in. For Haraway, a goddess is a creation of man,a mystical and passive representation of the woman, strongly related to nature and earth. Whereas, the Cyborg is an extension of the self and it is a creature with no origins, that transgresses the boundaries between dichotomies such as animal and human, machine and life, mind and body, female and male…It is an empowering tool to fight against the ideas of race, gender and class. In the future, technology will shape a new world, a new system where representation will be dominated by simulation, reproduction by replication, realism by science fiction…
In both readings we can see how the authors relate to the body as a creation of society and its environment.For Foucault, discipline shapes and transforms the body into a tool of power, and creates the individual by introducing the idea of the “norm”. Therefore, the body becomes a construction of society shaped by oppression and unnatural processes. This shows a relationship with Harway’s feminist approach which considers that the body and the representation that society has of women is a pure creation of men and his white capitalist patriarchal system.
“This book is intended as a correlative history of the modern soul and of a new power to judge.” Foucault (Discipline and Punish)
“Discipline and Punish” analyzes the concept of punishment in society and examines how it affects individuality.
In the part entitled “Docile Bodies”, Foucault describes the ideal soldier of the seventeenth century, to show how the body is trained to achieve docility through forces of discipline and control. He also finds the roots of discipline in monasteries and armies where the notions of self-control and the obedience to rules extended throughout the centuries with institutions such as schools, prisons and hospitals into a new form of controlling people. This new form of control is based on the organization and regulation of space and time in which the individual lives. A space is divided into smaller parts or cells and is based on the idea of a series, and Time is divided in the same way. The disciplines do not only calculate (like cl
ocks) but regulate time and space as the individual experiences them. So regulating space and time affects and controls the way in which we act and think and is a very empowering strategy.
In “The means of correct training”, Foucault’s disciplinary power is based on three elements: observation, normalization and examination.
On observation, Foucault states that by being constantly observed you can be forced to do something. The perfect disciplinary institution is that in which everything can constantly be seen at once.
Examination, involves both the process of observation and normalization, where a person can be analyzed and compared to a “norm”. The idea of “norm” is a form of oppression, where the normal becomes the good and the abnormal becomes the bad or what is to be punished and corrected. Here the individual is an unnatural tool constructed by power. Through discipline, individuals are formed out of a group. The more abnormal and excluded a person is, the more individual he becomes.
In the following section, on “Panopticism”, the Panopticon (similar to the commonly known concept of Big Brother) is a tool of empowerment developed out of the need for surveillance and discipline; it is a building with a tower at the center from which it is possible to observe everything at once.
To introduce the concept of the Panopticon, Foucault examines the measures taken to protect a society from a plague, and how the Panopticon allows power to function efficiently.
“I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess”
Haraway (A Cyborg Manifesto)
In “A Cyborg Manifesto” Haraway believes that humans are increasingly becoming cyborgs. What is for many a form of destruction of humanity is for her a hope for a new postmodern, feminist and socialist vision in the white capitalist and patriarchal society we live in. For Haraway, a goddess is a creation of man,a mystical and passive representation of the woman, strongly related to nature and earth. Whereas, the Cyborg is an extension of the self and it is a creature with no origins, that transgresses the boundaries between dichotomies such as animal and human, machine and life, mind and body, female and male…It is an empowering tool to fight against the ideas of race, gender and class. In the future, technology will shape a new world, a new system where representation will be dominated by simulation, reproduction by replication, realism by science fiction…
In both readings we can see how the authors relate to the body as a creation of society and its environment.For Foucault, discipline shapes and transforms the body into a tool of power, and creates the individual by introducing the idea of the “norm”. Therefore, the body becomes a construction of society shaped by oppression and unnatural processes. This shows a relationship with Harway’s feminist approach which considers that the body and the representation that society has of women is a pure creation of men and his white capitalist patriarchal system.
posted by Ghina at 7:24 AM
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