For this  assignment, there are 4 questions in total;  each question have multiple questions you should choose one question from each section. (for example, section one have 2 questions, choose 1 qu

Michel Foucault

I will address the Felluga article on Foucault and the chapter by Foucault together. Michel Foucault was a French philosopher and historian who died in 1984. He was interested in how social control and the power of institutions changed over time. His method was to examine a specific institution during a period of change or reform, the two most famous examples being mental institutions and prisons. A recurring theme in his work is that reform usually involves the substitution of more subtle internalized control for physical force and constraints. He saw the 19th century British utilitarian reformer, Jeremy Bentham, and his idea of the panopticon as particularly interesting.

Foucault describes the shift from a spectacle cult of punishment in which the very public rites of punishment (think public whippings, stocks, executions) served to deter, but also to demonstrate the authority of the king or governing body, to the carceral cult in which the prisoners were removed from society . He further charts the ways in which an internalized control is achieved.

Think about the panopticon as not just a prison structure, but as a technique of control. What are its key characteristics, what examples can you think of in your life? Consider the quotes below and be ready to discuss.

"He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection" (Foucault, Discipline 202-203).

As Foucault puts it, the Panopticon is polyvalent in its applications; it serves to reform prisoner, but also to treat patients, to instruct schoolchildren, to confine the insane, to supervise workers, to put beggars and idlers to work. (Felugga)

"The judges of normality are present everywhere. We are in the society of the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the 'social-worker'-judge; it is on them that the universal reign of the normative is based; and each individual, wherever he may find himself, subjects to it his body, his gestures, his behaviour, his aptitudes, his achievements" (Discipline 304).

"Government" did not refer only to political structures or to the management of states; rather it designated the way in which the conduct of individuals or of groups might be directed: the government of children, of souls, of communities, of families, of the sick. It did not only cover the legitimately constituted forms of political or economic subjection, but also modes of action, more or less considered and calculated, which were destined to act upon the possibilities of action of other people.

Choose your own quotes or questions.

Soft Surveillance

Gary T. Marx is an emeritus MIT Professor of Sociology. If you found his article interesting, consider visiting his webpage. He’s spent his professional life considering these questions.

These are just some topics that stood out for me when I read the article.

What distinguishes “soft surveillance” from “hard” in the criminal justice context?

In the spectrum that ranges from choices freely made to physically coerced actions, Marx explores situations that are semi-coerced, disguised, transactional, or just unclear. What are some of the forms he discusses, particularly those relevant to privacy?

How have technological advances contributed to the rise of ‘soft surveillance’, both the apparent intrusiveness and the uses and fate of the data collected?

What have been the traditional impediments to breaches of privacy and how have they eroded?

Marx describes cultural changes in how people gain affirmation of self through public display. This was written a while back… how have things changed? Marx says he’s more worried about the cultural changes than the erosion of legal protections. What does he mean and why is it of greater concern?

What is happening to the presumption of innocence?

Yesterday Julian Assange of Wikileaks was arrested in London.The political scene in Washington for the past few years has been in turmoil in part due to the unveiling of communications that were assumed to be private which were made public and publicized.. People running for office can expect a more intensive and intrusive examination of their lives, but think about how technology has abetted the degree to which the private becomes public and whether there is or ought to be some zone that is off-limits. Should we all be living our lives according to your mother’s admonition “Don’t do or say anything that you wouldn’t want to hear about in the evening news”?