Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

It's an interesting book. The type of one that makes one realize we are worse off then ever if people would bother reading these things or even considering these thing. Quotes like these one are worth paying attention too, its a good example of how the elite view the masses. I found this interesting pg. 102-103 for the interested reader. "When you have thus formed the CHAIN OF IDEAS IN THE HEADS OF YOUR CITIZENS, you will then be able to PRIDE YOURSELVES ON GUIDING THEM AND BEING THEIR MASTERS. A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly by the chain of their own ideas; it is at the stable point of reason that he secures the end of the chain; this link is all the stronger in what we do not know of what it is made and we believe it to be our own work; despair and time eat away the bonds of iron and steel; but they are powerless against the habitual union of ideas; they can only tighten it still more; and on the soft fibers of the brain is founded the unshakable base of the soundest of Empires (103) More or less nothing is true and everything is permitted appears to be the mindset. Quotes like these one were written centuries before and I can't imagine what's been dreamed up, accept I suspect people will continue moving in the one direction, not questioning anything, and just following as usual. Throw technology into the mix and you can be responsible for dooming future generations permanently, probably at the higher levels it becomes sillier, why would they believe in something that they themselves made up, an idea that came from their own head, to control others. It's quotes like these that show more of the secret and oh so wonderful aspects of the human race. It's all rather disappointing in my eyes. The book itself is an interesting read, but Foucault has a tendency of making me rather depressed when I read his work. However, his goal in a Nietzschean way was to use his own works to transform himself. So good read and he's rather outdated now, we've had another 60+ years in a way to continue the process of control we can see it 10X amplified. Until people stop believing in ideas or following along there won't be any change. It would be more like an exodus, sillier when educated men most of them knowing metaphysics sat down and made up a Declaration of Independence, not that anyone knows the foundations or what it was taken from or built upon, again all ideas. I think the end goal is a genetically bred drone class to an elite in a technological controlled world, worse then the Panopticon or more of a communal telepathic world where everyone, thinks, acts, and does the same thing, but still just as controlled. So a good book for the interested reader willing to uncover more.

It’s a curious fact, but if you want to understand some of today’s most controversial issues, you have to read the works of a French philosopher who died in 1984. That philosopher is of course Michel Foucault. His most influential works were genealogies of phenomena as diverse as modern sexuality, clinics and prisons. The key to understanding him is to understand what Foucault meant by a genealogy. It was not a history or even a history of ideas. It was instead how a body of knowledge, or science, had developed and been used to seize and wield power. Explicitly denying the fact that objective sciences of humanity were possible, he saw psychology, criminology and even to an extent physiology as merely tools of power. That’s why he begins Discipline and Punish with a subject as seemingly esoteric as the classical theory that any crime was an attack on the king’s metaphorical body. Thus, he describes the elaborate public ritual where redress was made on the prisoner’s physical body. What Foucault wants is to convince the reader that this archaic form of punishment was rational to the men of that day. By this, he can shake from the reader’s head any idea that the modern system of prisons is any more rational than this was. It’s an ingenious and influential work—although in my opinion too influential. While I cannot argue with Foucault’s genealogy—nobody has read more or could trace lineages better than he—I will point out that, after destroying the rationale for imprisonment, he puts nothing in its place. Perhaps, it’s unfair to demand that he should have single-handedly come up with his own theory of retributive justice, but for those of us who have to live in this world, it’s rather discomfiting to see prisons torn down and nothing erected in their place. Ingenious, important but ultimately pernicious, in my opinion. Still an incredibly rewarding work of modern philosophy. Highly recommended.

Of all the books I have read in my lifetime there has never been equal in the nightmare this book presents because it is upon us all with NSA surveillance. A book everyone should read. For those who say to surveillance "so what if you have nothing to hide there is nothing to be concerned about or fear". Think again! Part of your imprisonment is that you believe that. I really had not a clue about the commentary on the back of the paperback where it states that "Michel Foucault suggests that punishment has shifted its focus from the prisoner's body to his soul". The surveillance of the NSA is obvious to anyone who pays attention since the good work of Edward Snowden and others but to understand these controls by surveillance as an imprisonment of the soul is another matter that transcends the body. There is of course 1984, The Matrix and such but for human beings to have begun planning & implementing controls back in the 17th century I find astoundingly nightmarish as what is with us now did not just didn't show up on the horizon "yesterday" but has a very long history, a very long trail that requires a conscious awareness of imperialism in all its forms. A central characteristic of the NSA surveillance & Foucault's treatise is being seen but not seeing. The seer has unlimited information but the seen have little or no information on the seer!!!!!!!!!!! Does this sound familiar! If if does not, it should! Like the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan by Harry Truman in 1945 and Oppenheimer's statement "we have become God". This is Man playing God again but with no more than the little "flashlight" of human being's limited capacity. To control the very soul of human beings is diabolical in the extreme. The "bomb" is control limited to the body, but surveillance is control of the soul!

I began to punish myself after reading this book. This book has helped me become a masochist. Thanks to this Foucault.

Exactly what I expected

Really quick delivery. No damage. My son in law will be happy.

Except for Foucault's twisted and tangled style of building up an idea and making a point, I personally found the book to be spectacular. It is a very interesting read. If you will enjoy this book, I recommend you to also try Ivan Illich. Maybe "Deschooling Society", or another book. You can find most of them on amazon.fr.

Very good