3min chapter

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32: Where Does Power Come From? Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault

Made You Think

CHAPTER

Introduction

Exploring Michel Foucault's 'Discipline and Punish', the hosts discuss the concept of disciplinary power and its impact on visibility and control over individuals. They debate the book's relevance in postmodernism, power dynamics, and its nuanced presentation of punishment history without pushing a singular perspective.

00:00
Speaker 2
Traditionally, power was what was seen, what was shown, and what was manifested, and paradoxically, found the principle of its force in the movement by which it deployed that force. Those on whom it was exercised could remain in the shade. They received light only from that portion of power that was conceded to them, or from the reflection of it that for a moment they carried. Disciplinary power, on the other hand, is exercised through its invisibility. At the same time, it imposes on those whom it subjects a principle of compulsory visibility. In discipline, it is the subjects who have to be seen. Net, we're
Speaker 1
back at Meiji Think. We are back, and we are doing another afternoon episode, enjoying a little wine as we record here. And I think it's necessary. Some Malbec. For this book. It's fine, Malbec. The book that we're discussing today is Discipline and Punish by Michelle Foucault. And, you know, this is a special book for us. We broke a record. We did. We broke a record where every book and article up to this point, I think we could solidly say we would recommend people go out and read. This one, I think we would solidly say we do not recommend. You could just listen to the episode. You could just listen to the episode or read Okepede a summer or something. Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily wish this book on other people. But, you know, we shat on postmodernism so much in our past episodes that we decided it made sense to actually read one of the
Speaker 2
postmodernist works. No, I think I would say that that was the intention behind this one, but it seemed like it was not actually that much about postmodernism in the same way that like it didn't have much about like the gender differences or like. Well, I think it does. Okay. He has another work that is just about that, right? Well, it's about sexuality. And I'm not 100% sure what he covers. I read it, so I don't know. Yeah, I just know
Speaker 1
title. Well, I think too, there's like so in philosophy, right? There's a difference between the underlying philosophy and how that philosophy is being brought into modern discussions. Okay. The thought process versus the manifestation. Yeah, exactly. So I think this is definitely like a big foundation of postmodernism, even though, you know, some of the punishment stuff at least is not in like the modern discussion area, right? You can still see how the ideas are very relevant to the conflicts that are talked about.
Speaker 2
Well, it's like, folks who's on power.
Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly. It's a big focus on power dynamics type stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 2
In some ways, it's also a history. Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Well, that's why the book is kind of interesting is that he's not really arguing anything in the book. Yeah. Most philosophy books that you read, the author has some point that they're making. They're saying, you know, like, this is what's right, or this is what the world is like, or this is science, or this is beautiful. Foucault's not really arguing for anything in particular. He's more saying like, this is what is, and it's kind of his interpretation of the history of punishment and discipline. It's much less like this is how the world should work. Right. It's more this is how he sees it already working.
Speaker 2
Yeah.

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