This video along with your video about discipline and punishment and the story of torture you mention covers all of the book “discipline and punishment” correct?
Was mind blown when my professor shown me this in class about a decade ago. As liberty loving and efficiency admiring person, I was both appalled and impressed at the same time.
It’s so wild to me that Focualt was never assigned reading in any of my Philosophy classes. But Focualt always came up in law school, in queer/gender/disability studies classes, and in sociolinguistics. I’m glad I was lucky enough to have an interdisciplinary education-and these videos are so great at bringing parts of that to all (and teaching me, or re-teaching me, new things!)
Thanks Jay. I really appreciate that! I didn’t study Foucault in undergrad either and then when I got to grad school I found he was everywhere. So part of my thinking with these is to provide introductions to students in the same boat as I was 20 years ago!
Perhaps because your Professors didn't believe in his theories of Post-Modernism, where the subjective narcissism of the individual was the truth and objective reality was the falsehood, such as man claiming to be a woman and entering womens prison. Or perhaps it was because he was a Marxist, who believed that no one should have property rights (such as the Chinese living on Apple's factory floors and in time jumping to their deaths), the abolishment of police and of the family unit, not to mention gender identity and all forms of faith. Or maybe because of his sexual molestation of minors.
@@robertwhiteley-yv1syLmao this came from one accusation against Foucault, which was taken seriously due to most people not comprehending his position on power relations and sex. There are books and many accounts of people that say he was not a rapist, but he indeed used to have sex with boys younger than him.
Not sure if this has come up in comments, but the original French name of the book isn’t “Discipline and Punish” but « surveiller et punir » or *Surveil* and Punish. And in his article “We other Victorians” really shows how non-criminals enact the microfunctioning of power by ratting ourselves and each other out to the church through the (relatively new) sacrament of “confession.” Love studying Foucault and the ways we subconsciously surveil ourselves and each other.
The map isn't the land and so surely the more our data print is assumed to be an accurate reflection of our selves, the greater the vulnerability in the system becomes? For example, I have a supermarket loyalty card and everything I buy gives me points. So 'THEY' (erm...Tesco's - I live in the UK and they're a bit like Walmart, I guess?) can build up a complete picture of my dietary habits, theoretically, they could even use this to build a psychological profile of my personality. Ah yes, but what they don't know is that I only buy foodstuffs that I absolutely loathe to eat. I cram it nightly into my gaping maw, choking on every bite, but laughing, Sir, laughing at their foolishness.
I sort of touch on this at the end of the video. I think the short answer is "yes," and it probably takes on shapes and forms beyond Foucault's wildest imaginings.
we are fucking sleeper agents, we hear the name of a shape or we hear the words thyself or judgement and we immediately go and start reciting the entire ultrakill minos prime or sisyphus prime intro quote
thank you for this video. it has greatly helped enhanced my perspective upon this topic. learning about it in my surveillance studies class at university has been fascinating !!
The crazy thing about Foucault, is how blind he was to the likelihood of his own ideas rendering the masses increasingly susceptible to totalitarianism.
Good point. I think where WOKE totalitarians lost it is that they apply Foucault to everyone else but themselves. Everyone else is seeking power. They are seeking "rights" or "diversity". The power wokists seek is given a holy name.
thank you for the video, your videos have helped me immensely thus far especially since i don't have a formal education in philosophy or the like. would you consider making a video about gadamer on historically effected consciousness/wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein?
Focault was likely a subject of surveillance because he was in large part a leader of the French Left. This is probably what led him into studying the origins of the states use of surveillance.
Biopower is the term Foucault later fully fleshed out to describe this self-disciplining. It also makes me think of speed bumps (or humps depending on where you live) in a parking lot. A form of noninterventionist deterrence that conditions compliance. One might also be interested in the school of behavioral economics, employed by Obama’s most UChicago affiliated economic team. It essentially relies on the concept of biopower on the macro level.
Marshall McLuhan predates Foucault: "The Medium is the Message" and his take on what he calls "The Global Village, which most understand hem to mean as something positive, but he did not. He saw the Global Village as a regression to small tribal culture where everyone knew everything about those in the village, just like the Panopticon. Chomsky had it right, Foucault was in a state of incoherence, proof of that was the actions he took toward the end of this life.
Seems like we have even moved beyond the panoptic expression of surviellance. Take for example an intersection metered by a camera. The camera is always watching, and never fails to notice the traffic infraction of the driver. It is therefore an expression of perfect surveillance. However if part of the value of the panopticon is that the surveiled never knows if they are being watched and therefore self-regulate from fear of surveillance, is not part of the real value of the panopticon defeated in this new variation? Does the surveilled not become now apathetic to the notion that they are being watched, as now they know they certainly are? Perhaps perfect surveillance ironically leads to less self-regulation by the surveilled? "I am being perfectly surveilled, so who cares, let them do what they will." This likely goes beyond Foucault at this point. I, the surveilled, now associate my being watched not with a need for my self-regulation but with that of an economic estimation. "I know I am being perfectly surveiled, so I know that my speeding will result in a fine of x dollars, no problem I will pay the fine." Or, "I know I am being perfectly surveiled, so I will self-regulate my speeding not for fear of being caught, but for the certainty of being fined". I think there is certainly a deminsion beyond panopticism thus entered in a perfectly surveiled world that parallels social apathy and game theory moreso than self-regulation and power alone.
Cctvs everywhere. Who could possibly watch all of them? Do you really think they have that much storage space? Imagine the energy and cost to maintain such a system. I have had my own experience with cctv footage. It was not esay to get the security company to find the person that damaged my bike.
It means the government can use penopticon to get citizens to govern themselves they just have to be given a symbol to look at (the law) which in turn looks at them
This eerily reminds me of the catholic guilt. One actually believes that hes beign watched and judged at every moment at the penalty of eternal torment...good thing they can aways repent. I can only imagine the amount of neurosis it have created.
You keep saying Foucault is difficult to understand, but it seems to me that you don’t understand why we can find things “difficult” to understand. Let me ask you something, if I asked you about turnips (I’m being serious) what allows you to “understand” what I’m talking about?
So you might say, well, you’re being asked about what turnips are? So do you already have any data/experience on turnips ? If not do you have any data/experience on things that may bear close relations to a turnip? Another root vegetable perhaps? Do you know a root vegetable? Do you know how they taste or are cooked? The reason why Foucault (or anything for that matter) may be difficult for many to “understand” is because we don’t have enough reference points in our mind, ether to bring to life in our minds what is being talked about/references; We don’t have to always know about turnips, but it would help to at least know about root vegetables If we know neither We cannot understand what Foucault is going on about
Foucalt was a monster whos thoughts should have been strangled a tbirth. The monsterous proson he thouthg out is not a thought experiment, it's a model...a prototype.
