SoberEnough Posted November 28, 2013 Posted November 28, 2013 I have just started reading Discipline and Punishment. I have a dreaded fascination with the merits of the penal system. I find myself identifying with Foucault's slow disillusionment with statism. As a reformed socialist the arguments are particularly pertinent. It is interesting to see the role of the state explored in this context. It tends to make more sense to hardcore leftists. Even to this day, I explain my own political ideology to leftists as a sort of reverse-Marxism where the role of society is to reduce the state through perpetual revolution with "anarchy" being analogous to the "communist" Utopia. Has anyone else read Foucault's works? Sorry, new to the forum. There might be lengthy discussions regarding this already.
In the belly of the beast Posted November 30, 2013 Posted November 30, 2013 I've never read him. It sounds like he has a few interesting ideas, but I'm not sure that I could stomach all the academese and post-modernist babble that I suspect is mixed in with these good ideas. A major draw to Stefan's thoughts, as displayed in his podcasts and videos, is the minimal use of jargon and his constantly maintaining the link between philosophy and our everyday experiences of the world. It's often painful to listen to an inspiring and thought-provoking FDR podcast, only to subsequently open up an academic journal article that mixes lengthy statements of the obvious with unnecessary jargon, all written in the passive voice with not a shred of humor, metaphor, or story within the article.
Armitage Posted November 30, 2013 Posted November 30, 2013 I have read about 80 pages from Foucault's Discipline and Punishment from the curriculum. He basically says, that the penal system has no merits at all. People just added to it some elements of the times and moods and projected their ideals into it. Do you know the metaphor of "stone soup"? That's how Foucault thinks. This penal system grew out of many needs few of which had anything to do with making the criminals better people. Eventually the 19th century created a whole social class of criminals who were useful to perpetuate a greater police control over the society, work as snitches in jails and so on. Surprisingly, the police originally did virtually everything, it had set prices of goods on market, it enforced public morality, gave out health advice, supported child music concerts at schools and so on. Only gradually the police specialized on repression. It would be so easy to employ scientific method in prisons and find out which method has the least recidivists. If criminals were treated more like sick or injured people, there would be less crimes. And this is what they are, after all. Our society weighs heavily on people and some of them won't withstand the pressure and will break. Politicians should apologize to all inmates for getting them into jail. For more literature, I suggest Resist Not Evil by Clarence Darrow. He deals with the state violence and the nature of crime. (he was the famous lawyer of 1925 Scopes monkey trial, but the book is later) A major draw to Stefan's thoughts, as displayed in his podcasts and videos, is the minimal use of jargon and his constantly maintaining the link between philosophy and our everyday experiences of the world. It's often painful to listen to an inspiring and thought-provoking FDR podcast, only to subsequently open up an academic journal article that mixes lengthy statements of the obvious with unnecessary jargon, all written in the passive voice with not a shred of humor, metaphor, or story within the article. Hear hear, brother. Beware of people who speak in side notes. And someone shoot me when I start speaking like a journal. It's terrifying to meet such people. It's terrifying to write a thesis under them, knowing that I know jack-shit and they can pull their academic rank on me any time they please. Knowing, that I haven't read a couple hundred books I should have read according to them. Yet, I'd want to communicate, I just don't want to show the depths of my ignorance. I want to show the depths of my philosophy and creative intuition, which is, as I understand it, ubiquitous in young people and not very tolerated below the doctorate degree.
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