UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER JAMES JOYCE

SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957“HE WHO IS SUBJECT TO A FIELD OF VISIBILITY, AND WHO KNOWS IT, ASSUMES RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CONSTRAINTS OF POWER; HE MAKES THEM PLAY SPONTANEOUSLY UPON HIMSELF; HEINSCRIBES IN HIMSELF THE POWER RELATION IN WHICH HE SIMULTANEOUSLY PLAYS BOTH ROLES; HE BECOMES THE PRINCIPLEOF HIS OWN SUBJECTION” (FOUCAULT). DISCUSS IN TERMS OF FOUCAULT’S UNDERSTANDING OF DISCIPLINE.

Michel Foucault roots his understanding of ‘power’ in two

systems: firstly ‘discipline’ in his 1975 publication

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison; secondly in ‘Bio-

politics’, a concept he introduces in his 1976

publication ‘The History of Sexuality, Vol. I: The Will to Knowledge.

My essay will discuss the system of discipline. Foucault

understands discipline to be ‘methods’ that allow

“meticulous control over the operations of the body…and

imposed upon them a relation of docility-utility…”

(Foucault, 1991: 137). The quotation in question

describes the result of the most complete form of

discipline in Foucault’s opinion: “Panopticism”. Derived

from Jeremy Bentham’s ‘Panopticon’ design for a prison

where all prisoners are in a constant state of unilateral

observation from a watch tower, Panopticism is the effect

the structure has on each prisoner; their behavior

becomes self-correcting because the they know they are in

a “constant field of visibility”, but they never know

exactly when they are being watched. Therefore, each

prisoner must act as if they are always being observed

i.e. “he becomes the principle of his own subjection.”

However, before I explain the Panopticon and Panopticism,

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SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957I must present Foucault’s understanding of discipline and

how it is carried out upon the body first. I will use

‘Docile Bodies’, the first chapter of ‘Part III:

Discipline’ of Discipline and Punish, to assert that

Foucault’s understanding of discipline, and therefore the

functioning of the Panopticon, manifests itself as a

tetrad, controlling Space, Activity, Time, and Component

Forces, allowing those in power to achieve ‘docility-

utility’ over a body.

‘Docile Bodies’ starts by juxtaposing two soldiers

of different chronological disposition. Foucault

describes the seventeenth-century soldier as being: “…

someone who could be recognized from afar…his body was

the blazon of his strength and valour” (Foucault, 135).

The second part of his comparison describes the late

eighteenth-century soldier: “the soldier has become

something that can be made; out of a formless clay…the

machine that can be constructed”. Where the former

describes solely the physicality of the soldier, the

latter describes the composition of the soldier as a non-

individual subject; the soldier is seen to be an abstract

creation of power-relations, whose attributes can be

applied to any body. Foucault asserts that control over

the body has run throughout history, where making a body

‘docile’ allowed it to be subjected to use and

improvement: “The classical age saw the discovery of the

body as an object and target of power…the body that is

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UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER JAMES JOYCE

SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957manipulated, shaped, trained, which obeys, responds,

becomes skillful and increases its forces” (Foucault,

136). The eighteenth century saw that docility could be

implemented to all kinds of institutions to control

society in general, in schools, hospitals, prisons, but

also that ‘utility’ of the body was just as important in

the concept of discipline. Foucault explains that the

core to this new level of control was expressed in the

“meticulous control of the operations of the body”

(Foucault, 137), with three methods, which he calls

‘discipline’. Firstly, the scale of control: “it was a

question not of treating the body, en masse…as if it were

an indissociable unity, but of working it ‘retail’,

individually…at the level of the mechanism itself”

(Foucault, 137). Then, the object of control: “the

economy, the efficiency of movements, their internal

organization” (Foucault, 137). Finally, the modality: “it

implies uninterrupted, constant coercion…exercised

according to a codification that partitions as closely as

possible time, space, movement” (Foucault, 137). These

three methods or bind together and instill the relation

of “docility-utility” (Foucault, 137) into the body,

which is the key concept I will bring forward in

describing why discipline manifests itself as a tetrad to

Foucault.

Foucault argues that if the aim of discipline is to

instill in the subjected body this ‘docility-utility’

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SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957relation, then it does so in four areas: ‘Space’,

‘Activity’, ‘Time’, ‘Component forces’.

Space: - Firstly, disciplining a body requires the

meticulous control of ‘Space’, which itself is managed in

four ways:

1. ‘Enclosure’

2. ‘Partitioning’

3. ‘Functional sites’

4. ‘Rank’

Firstly, ‘enclosure’: “Discipline…requires enclosure…a place

heterogeneous to all others and closed in upon itself. It

is the protected place of disciplinary monotony”

(Foucault, 141). An exclusive space must be set aside for

the repetitive exercise of discipline on the body.

Institutions had always used enclosure to exert

discipline upon the subjects, hence the existence of

specific locations such as schools, hospitals, barracks

and factories; however Foucault claims that enclosure

alone is not “sufficient in disciplinary machinery”

(Foucault, 143).

Therefore the second part of using space in discipline is

‘partitioning’: “Each individual has his own place; and each

place its individual…Disciplinary space tends to be

divided into as many sections as there are bodies”

(Foucault, 143). This is true of many disciplinary

institutions today. In schools, one often has their own

specific seat within the classroom; a hospital assigns

beds to individuals; a soldier occupies a specific space

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SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957in formation; the worker has his own particular

workstation.

Thirdly, even when each body is in its own specific

partition, the partition must be a useful space, which

Foucault calls ‘functional sites’. Foucault takes particular

interest in the application of ‘functional sites’ in the

naval hospital in Rochefort, France: “[the hospital]

tended to individualise bodies, diseases, symptoms, lives

and deaths…a real table of juxtaposed and carefully

distinct singularities. Out of discipline, a medically

useful space was born” (Foucault, 144).

Finally, there needs to be classification or ‘rank’. Here

this means that there is subdivision within subdivision.

Schools are, and nearly always have been, divided into

‘years’ based on age; each ‘year’ is then usually divided

according to abilities and proficiencies in subjects,

with top, middle, and bottom classes/sets; within each,

the teacher, through the process of tests and

examination, will rank the individual students in their

class. Schools are a system of meticulous and rational

‘ranking’ of students’ ability, just as hospitals rank

and tabulate illness or disease; factories a point of

manufacture/production; barracks for army tactics.

Activity: - ‘The control of activity’ is the second

way in which discipline instills ‘docility-utility’ in a

body. Foucault splits the theme of ‘Activity’ into five

main points.

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SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957First is the ‘timetable’, an old and established tool in

controlling body movements and activities. Foucault

asserts it is a monastic concept, which seeks to

“establish rhythms, impose particular occupations,

regulate the cycles of the repetition” (Foucault, 149).

Success of the timetable as a model for controlling

activity lies in its long-term ubiquity in disciplinary

institutions: “It soon spread…to be found in schools,

workshops, and hospitals” (Foucault, 149). Furthermore,

Foucault emphasises how time within these timetables was

becoming increasingly divided: “One began to count in

quarter hours, minutes, seconds” (Foucault, 150).

Second in controlling activity is what Foucault deems “the

temporal elaboration of the act” (Foucault, 150). He contrasts

the abrupt seventeenth-century description of how a

soldier should march with that of an elaborate and

meticulous eighteenth-century description, which he

concludes is not a ‘timetable’ as such, but “a collective

and obligatory rhythm, imposed from the outside…it

assures the elaboration of the act itself” (Foucault 151-

152). Each instruction given to the body is broken down

into its constituent parts; each part has its own

position and specific timing. In doing so the body is

disciplined “Time penetrates the body and with it all the

meticulous controls of power” (Foucault, 152).

Third is “the correlation of the body and the gesture” (Foucault,

152). Foucault says that discipline does not exist in the

teaching of an individual action or a gesture, but rather

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SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957when all components of the body are brought together in

unison to create the action/gesture: “it imposes the best

relation between the gesture and the overall position of

the body, which is its condition of efficiency and speed”

(Foucault, 152). The end result is maximum efficiency and

use of the body: “A disciplined body is the prerequisite

of an efficient gesture” (Foucault, 152).

Fourth in controlling the activity is ‘body-object

articulation’. Foucault quotes another detailed account from

an eighteenth-century French army ordinance, constituting

the meticulous instructions for firing a gun. It commands

positions for the knee, the eye, the arm, the hand, and

the finger, all relative to positions on the gun: hammer,

barrel, screw, notch (Ordonnance du 1er Janvier 1776, cited by

Foucault, 153). He deems this “the instrumental coding of

the body” (Foucault, 153), as if the body is itself a

machine that can be ‘coded’ in sync with another machine,

in this case a gun. This “body-tool complex” (Foucault,

153) is the result of power, which simultaneously

constructs and regulates the operation of the tool.

Finally, Foucault says these meticulous controls must

result in ‘Exhaustive use’ of the body. Traditional

applications of the timetable had “negative principles”

for the body of “non-idleness; it was forbidden to waste

time…a moral offence and economic dishonesty” (Foucault,

154). Foucault claims that discipline changed the

principle of the timetable to a positive one of “a

theoretically ever-growing use of time; exhaustion rather

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SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957than use” (Foucault, 154). ‘Exhaustive use’ provides a

“positive economy…it is a question of extracting, from

time, ever more available moments and, from each moment,

ever more useful forces” (Foucault, 154). Discipline

allowed and maintained the most efficient use of the

time, where activities would be carried out at maximum

speed and with minimal inconveniences.

Time: - the third theme in Foucault’s discipline-

tetrad, which he head under ‘The organization of geneses’.

Foucault explains that progression through the eighteenth

century meant there were variances in how time was

arranged, and this meant that discipline was a device

that could measure and capitalise time, in four main

ways.

Foucault says that if time is to be implemented in a

disciplinary sense, one must “Divide duration into

successive or parallel elements, each of which must end

at a specific time” (Foucault, 157). Secondly, these

threads must relate to a plan, with each stage subtly

increasing in complexity: “Organise these threads

according to an analytical plan – successions of elements

as simple as possible, combining according to increasing

complexity” (Foucault, 158). Thirdly, these threads of

increasing in complexity should be consummated by a form

of test or examination for Foucault writes that this has

a three-fold effect: “showing whether a subject has

reached the level required, of guaranteeing that each

subject undergoes the same apprenticeship and of

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SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957differentiating the abilities of the individual”

(Foucault, 158). Finally, divide the series and subdivide

again and again: “Draw up series of series; lay down for

each individual, according to his seniority, his rank,

the exercises that are suited to him”.

Foucault concludes that the linear seriation of

activities with specific times meant that “…detailed

control and a regular intervention…in each moment in

time” (Foucault, 160) was now possible, and that this

seriation is centered upon exercise “Exercise is that

technique by which one imposes on the body tasks that are

both repetitive and different, but always graduated”

(Foucault, 161). Foucault asserts that exercise in the

ascetic life of the military and religion were “tasks of

increasing complexity that marked the gradual acquisition

of knowledge and good behavior” (Foucault, 161) i.e.,

exercise is a method that makes us behave and also

useful; it instills ‘docility-utility’.

Component forces: - Fourth in his understanding of

discipline, Foucault asserts with reference to Karl

Marx’s Capital, that component forces create an efficient

machine and that the resultant productivity/power is

greater that the sum of its individual component parts:

“…the sum total of the mechanical forces exerted by

isolated workmen differs from the social force that is

developed, when many hands take part simultaneously in

one…operation” (Marx, Capital, vol. I, 308; cited from

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SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957Foucault, 164). Foucault splits ‘Component Forces’ into

three parts.

Firstly, Foucault asserts that each individual body is a

cog that is ‘inserted’ into a machine, like a soldier

within a regiment: “…an insertion of this body-segment in

a whole ensemble” (Foucault, 164).

Secondly, each specific time, Foucault affirms that to

acquire the maximum quantity of forces and obtain the

optimum outcome, the time of the individual bodies must

be adjusted in relation to the others (Foucault, 165).

Foucault explains the seventeenth-century concept of

mutual improvement schools: “the oldest pupils were

entrusted with tasks involving simple supervision, then

of checking work, then of teaching; in the end all of the

pupils all of the time was occupied…The school became a

machine for learning” (Foucault, 165). The end result was

that all the pupils would be learning/improving a great

deal more than if there was one master doing all the

teaching; the productivity becomes greater than the sum

of its parts.

Thirdly, arrangement and timing of a machine become

organized under a successful command system: “All the

activity of the disciplined individual must be punctuated

and sustained my injunctions whose efficacity rests on

brevity and clarity…it must trigger off the required

behavior…”(Foucault, 166). For Foucault, a successful

command is a concise phrase or word that simultaneously

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SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957defines the entire manoeuvre and instantaneously

initiates this manoeuvre in the component bodies.

After Foucault explains his abstract understanding of the

four areas of discipline in ‘Docile Bodies’, he then

gives body to this hypothesis in the chapter

‘Panopticism’.

‘Panopticism’ derives from Jeremy Bentham’s eighteenth-

century concept for a prison the ‘Panopticon’ which

itself originates from the ancient Greek words ‘pan’ –

‘all’, and ‘optos’ –‘to see’ (in Greek mythology there

existed a hundred-eyed monster called Panoptes). The

Panopticon is an annular building of individual cells

with each cell’s walls running from inside the outside to

the inside, so each individual cannot see into the cell

next to his. The building allows light to pass from the

outside to a central watchtower in which guards are

posted; blinds and partitions mean these guards cannot be

seen by individuals within the cells, whilst the

unilateral manipulation of the light means the guards can

see everything within each individual cell, what Foucault

calls ‘the seeing/being seen dyad’ and this is the key

point of interest, for each prisoner knows he can always

be seen, but never knows exactly when, which is both the

essence and the source of power in the Panopticon:

“Visibility is a trap” (Foucault, 200). Therefore each

must act as if he is being watched all the time, and this

means his behaviour becomes self-correcting, or as

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SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957Foucault puts it: “he inscribes in himself the power

relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he

becomes the principle of his own subjection” (Foucault,

202-203). ‘Panopticism’ is the whole effect created by

Bentham’s mechanism, where behaviour becomes self-

correcting due to the certain uncertainty of being

observed: “Permanent in its effect, even if it is

discontinuous in its action” (Foucault, 201). Foucault

succinctly describes the Panopticon’s affect: “it

automatises and disindividualises power” (Foucault, 202).

The power within the Panopticon cannot be attributed to

any authoritative individual because the power is the

result of the mechanism and it’s meticulous setting;

Foucault says that it is so efficient that changing the

person in the central watchtower would not change

anything: “Any individual, taken almost at random, can

operate this machine” (Foucault, 202). This is because

the mechanism itself in its arrangement of the cells, its

lighting, its unilateral visibility and the certain-

uncertainty of being observed, creates the power over the

individual inside, hence it is ‘disindividualised’.

Secondly, this power is inserted into the individual by

the mechanism and continuously kept inside them, thus

‘automatising’ the power, so much so that Foucault wrote:

“[the Panopticon]…can reduce the number of those who

exercise [power], while increasing the number of those on

whom it is exercised” (Foucault, 206). One of the most

fascinating things for Foucault about the Panopticon is

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SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957this inverse relationship between degree of power and

those who exercise it; Bentham’s Panopticon would work

without anyone in the central watchtower: “[power] tends

to the non-corporal; and, the more it approaches this

limit, the more constant, profound and permanent are its

effects” (Foucault, 203).

For Foucault, Bentham’s Panopticon is the simultaneous

optimisation of the discipline-tetrad – Space, Activity,

Time, and Component Forces – that I explained earlier:

“It is a type of location of bodies in space, a

distribution of individuals in relation to one another,

of hierarchical organisation…” (Foucault, 205). Foucault

sees the shift from physical exertion to mental exertion

as a step into modernity for humans. Where power used to

be exerted publicly and physically on the body to

exemplify wrongdoers and thus control society,

discipline, as we have seen in the functioning of the

Panopticon, seeks to exert ‘automatised’ and

‘disindividualised’ power over the individual’s mind in

order to establish order and control in society. This is

‘Panopticism’ for Foucault, a transferable concept, not

exclusive to the Panopticon, used by disciplinary

institutions but more importantly by the powers that be

to control society: “The Panopticon…must be understood as

a generalisable model of functioning; a way of defining

power relations in terms of the everyday lives of men…

[the Panopticon] is the diagram of a mechanism of power

reduced to its ideal form…it is in fact a figure of

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SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957political technology that may be attached from any

specific use” (Foucault, 205). Foucault claims it is “…

polyvalent in its application” (Foucault, 205), giving

examples of hospitals, schools, sanatoriums, barracks and

places of work: “Is it surprising that prisons resemble

factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all

resemble prisons?” (Foucault, 228). Foucault claims that

modern society sees the proverbial ‘Panopticon’

personified in the Police, defined as “The state-control

of the mechanisms of discipline” (Foucault, 213). George

Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World describe

and explore this concept with chilling precision in

predicting modern life; ‘Big Brother’ really can be said

to be always watching in the twenty-first century!

Foucault writes ‘Police Power must bear ‘over

everything’”, and that it achieves this in “the dust of

events, actions, behavior, opinions” (Foucault, 213). In

my opinion this is exactly the case for modern society,

at least in civilized societies. One only has to walk in

any town or city to feel the automatised power at work on

one’s self; the simultaneous ubiquity and invisibility of

the police is like a mist that hangs in the air that

keeps the street in order and under control.

Word Count: 3070

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SOCY60221: IDENTITY, POWER & MODERNITY ID: 9555957

Reference ListFoucault, M. (1991). Discipline & Punish: The Birth Of The Prison. (A.Lane, Trans.) Penguin Books.

Word Count including Reference List: 3088

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