2/17 Foucault Summary

One can sense from afar a soldier’s presence through his stance, demeanor, and figure. Soldiers serve as an example of an ideally conditioned and tailored population. In “Docile Bodies”, Focault introduces the concept of easily manipulated populations. Focault proposes various methods of controlling a body, related to enclosure, organization, time, distribution, and activity.

 

Enclosure of each individual is Focault’s first proposed key of creating discipline in a population. Enclosure creates a “protected place of disciplinary monotony” (78). Creating a monastic cell not only gives each individual their own space and place, it also partitions the population. This partitioning breaks up the communities in the population. Communities are detrimental to creating docile bodies as it gives the subjects of control their own control. Furthermore, enclosed partitioning  “establishes presences and absences” so that the ones in control can keep tabs on the subjects (79).

 

The organization of the enclosed population is also integral to control. “It is spaces that provide fixed positions and permit circulation; they carve out individual segments and establish operational links; they mark places and indicate values; they guarantee the obedience of individuals” (81). Circulation is key to the organization of enclosure as it determines the pathway of each individual.  For example, every worker would have to pass a particular sign to go to the work site, or a guard’s station would be elvated from cells to overlook the inmates. How a space is organized determines how it is used.

 

 To develop discipline, a rigorous and strict time table must be employed, “Precision and application are, with regularity, the fundamental virtues of disciplinary time”(83). A time table or schedule can most efficiently organize and control each individual’s use of time. Dividing work with time creates predetermined actions that each most perform at specific times.

 

              Distribution of work also plays a role in Foucault’s argument as he explains how idle time is wasted time. Enclosure is important to eliminate idle time, “By assigning individual places it made possible the supervision of each individual and the simultaneous work of all” (81). Each individual not only has his or her own space, but they have their own task in this particular enclosure. This organized system is easy to control and clear to understand. It is also much more productive.

 

Lastly, perfection of activity or gesture is also a means to create mechanical and efficient workers. Foucault uses the example of perfect handwriting, and how it involves not only the hand but the entire body and its posture and control. Establishing this type of control in one’s action trains their body to become docile, and at the same time increases production because correct activity allows maximum productivity.