Foucault And Truffaut: Power And Social Control In French Society :: essays research papers

Foucault and Truffaut Power and loving Control in French SocietyBoth Michel Foucault and Truffauts depiction of a disciplinary societyare nearly identical. But Truffauts explanation sees to a greater extent room for freedomwithin the disciplinary society. The difference stems from Foucaults beliefthat the hearty control in disciplinary pervades all elements of life and thereis no escape from this type of control. Foucaults work deals mostly with" superpower" and his conception of it. standardised Nietzsche, Foucault sees power non as afixed quantity of visible force, but sort of as a stream of energy satinythrough all aspects of society, its power harnesses itself in regulating thebehavior of individuals, the systems of knowledge, a societies institutions, andevery interaction between people.Foucault in Discipline and Punish, applies this notion of power intracing the come of the prison system in France and the rise of other coerciveinstitutions such as monasterie s, the army, mental asylums, and othertechnologies. In his work Foucault exposes how seemingly benign or evenreformist institutions such as the modern prison system (versus the stocks, andscaffolds) are technologies that are typic of the modern, painless, friendly,and impersonal coercive tools of the modern world. In fact the success of thesetechnologies stems from their great power to appear unobtrusive and humane. Theseprisons Foucault goes on to explain like many institutions in post 1700thcentury society isolate those that society deems abnormal. This isolation seeksto outpouring the souls of people in order to dominate them similar to how thetorture and brutality of pre 1700th century society sought to dominate thephysical bodies of prisoners. In Foucaults interpretation freedom from thepervasive influence of "power" is impossible. Because his conception of "power"exists not just in individual institutions of society like prisons but insteadexists in the str ucture of society and much importantly in peoples cerebrationsystems, escape from affectionate control is impossible. Foucault in the last chaptertalks nearly how even the reforms in the system have been co-opted to further thegoals of the state. Instead of a lessening of social control Foucault sees thatthe technologies change from the wheels and gallows of the 17th century to thedisciplinary society of the 19th century to the emerging carceral city of thefuture. In this carceral city the dispersion of power will be complete. Thetechnologies of control will exhale from all parts of society, "walls, space,institution, rules, and discourse."Truffauts interpretation of society and its future is much more upbeat.Although like Foucault he sees the technologies of the disciplinary society asinsidious social control mechanisms.