The Body of the Condemned by Michael Foucault - Book Report/Review Example

Book Review: The Body of the Condemned by Michael Foucault. The essay that Michael Foucault wrote on “the body of the condemned man” starts with a deliberately shocking account of a mid-eighteenth century public torture and execution of a convicted criminal in France. It moves on to a detailed description of a nineteenth century prison, with its regimented timetable and requirement that prisoners respond to drum beats issued by the prison controllers. Foucault remarks that these two examples “do not punish the same crimes, or the same type of delinquent. But they each define a certain penal style.” (Foucault, 1995, p. 7) Foucault points out that modern forms of punishment are, thankfully, not carried out in the same spirit or with the same purpose. Many legal reforms were instituted between the old world of executions and torture and the new world of prisons and labour camps, the main difference being that what used to be a public spectacle became, over time, a regimented process, more bureaucratic than anything else, that is carried out behind high walls and locked doors. For Foucault what is significant about this change is that the punishment is no longer something visibly displayed, and it no longer focuses so sharply on the human body of the convicted person. Foucault concedes that penalties such as imprisonment, forced labour, deportation and the like do also affect the human body but they do so indirectly: “The body now serves as an instrument or intermediary…physical pain, the pain of the body itself, is no longer the constituent element of the penalty.” (Foucault: 1995, p. 11) He observes that a whole army of “technicians” are now involved in the penal side of the criminal justice system, and one need only think of the modern prison to realise that he is right. Warders, chaplains, social workers, educators, even doctors and psychologists all participate in the process. In states and in periods where in states where the death penalty is or was permitted, there is also an increasing presence of technicians in the process. The methods chosen for death have veered away from elements of spectacle and torture and have become swifter, for example the guillotine in France, the hangman’s noose in England and the lethal injection in America. Technical experts accompany the convicted person right up to the moment of execution. Drugs are used to dull the sensations of inmates, and also to make sure that executions are free of physical pain. Foucault calls this a kind of disconnection which makes the penalties non-corporeal and therefore distanced from the physical being of the person. Punishment in this way becomes, for Foucault something abstract, with only the most fleeting actual contact with the body of the victim. If modern punishment systems do not target the prisoner’s body any more, then the question of what exactly it does target then arises. Foucault suggests: “The expiation that once rained down upon the body must be replaced by a punishment that acts in depth on the heart, the thoughts, the will, the inclinations” (Foucault: 1995, p. 16) Some people might refer to this as the soul of the person, and cite moral or religious beliefs to underpin this view, but Foucault looks instead at the way attention has shifted away from the past crime that has been committed, and towards the person who has committed the crime and now deserves some kind of punishment. There is in modern criminal justice systems a belief that punishment can be used to change a person’s behaviour for the better, and perhaps even influence his nature and personality in a positive way. This can be done in a way that suppresses part of the person’s personality. Foucault also observes a modern fascination in the causes of crime, by which he means all the circumstances which surround it, including the background of the criminal and all the various factors which contributed to his committing the crime. This is a very important point, because it brings Foucault to make a serious judgement about modern justice: “A whole set of assessing, diagnostic, prognostic, normative judgements concerning the criminal have become lodged in the framework of penal judgement.” (Foucault: 1995, p. 19) These insights about how modern society has evolved its current views on punishment are very illuminating because they help to explain some of the contradictions and absurdities that can be perceived even today. The central issue of insanity, for instance, which is used both to excuse and to stigmatise criminals is linked to this new element of “normative judgements” which has crept into legal decision making. One of the most interesting sections of Foucault’s treatise on the body is his observation that society sees the human body in political and economic terms. Punishment systems nowadays seek to control and suppress the bodies of criminals, and they mark out a person’s physical status with uniforms when in prison, or tagging systems, which are concrete reminder of this. Former convicted criminals are also stigmatised in society, and their access to the labour market and the benefits of modern consumer society are severely limited not only while they are serving out a term of imprisonment or completing community service orders or other tasks determined as punishment. Society wields power over all its citizens, and not only criminals and former criminals. Critics, and especially those who hold Marxist ideas about society, have used Foucault’s ideas in this treatise to make further explorations about all aspects of modern society, including workplaces, schools, even the family and the media. The concept of “discipline”, formerly associated with teaching in the classical world or with following religious leaders in the Christian world, has accumulated a new meaning in the modern world thanks to the processes that Foucault describes so well: “Foucault’s studies suggest that discipline, as a procedure of subjection, does indeed tie each individual to an identity.” (Sarup and Raja: 1996, p. 73) Foucault has the reputation of being a “difficult” writer, and this may be partly due to the fact that for English speaking readers many of his references to French history and ideas are not very familiar. He also takes on very big topics, and approaches them from a philosophical point of view, questioning what underlies things as well as what appears on the surface. One of the greatest contributions of this treatise on the body in particular, is that it gives the reader a perspective over the last few hundred years, and explains the path that modern Western societies have taken to get where they are now. This is highly relevant to the modern world, because it is almost impossible to see one’s own society objectively, or indeed even to properly see it at all. We are conditioned by so many common assumptions that we no longer question what we see, and this is a great weakness for those who wish to understand the complexities of the modern world. It is only looking back at other times, other practices, and the writings of earlier scholars, and comparing them with what happens now, that we can begin to see where our own unconscious prejudices lie. The implications of Foucault’s insights are quite far-reaching, and cover disciplinary areas such as politics, sociology, history and even areas like gender studies and media studies. The way that society perceives, uses, and even constructs them is a topic that has many applications. Joanna Bourke, for example, analyses the way that early twentieth ideas of manliness masculinity are bound up with notions of heroism and sacrifice. She traces this back to notions that Foucault first expressed: “Other historians have been stimulated by the work of Michael Foucault in which he attempted to demonstrate how human interactions are constructed through particular genealogies and systems of knowledge. The knowledge produces networks of power…” (Bourke: 1996, p. 8) Other scholars consider Foucault’s ideas about “normalisation” in relation to gender politics, (Butler, 1993) whereby some dominant elements of society often seek to homogenize individuals, curbing their freedom to express their identity in clothing and behaviour. Other scholars use Foucault’s ideas in studies about homosexuality (McWhorter, 1999, p.156) and there are even critics who claim that Foucault’s work on the body is an example of a feminist approach, not least because he has managed to explode the myth promoted by Marxist that subservience and dominance are matters reserved for relations between different classes (Sawiki, 1991, p.23) There are also a number of critical studies of Foucault which illuminate how far reaching his ideas are in terms of keeping alive a philosophical dialogue between forces of power in society and forces which are cast in the role of subservient participants: “In Foucault’s explication of Nietzsche’s notion of genealogy, the body is inscribed by events, is molded by regimes, and is a locus of resistance.” (McLaren, 2002, p. 86) It is clear from the large number of modern studies on Foucault’s ideas about the body and punishment which are still being produced that this text is truly of seminal importance to contemporary thinking in a wide range of disciplines. References Bourke, Joanna. “Masculinity, Men’s Bodies and the Great War.” History Today 46 (2) 1996, pp. 8-10. Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter. New York: Routledge, 1993. Foucault, Michael. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Person. New York: Second Vintage Books, 1995, pp. 3-31. McLaren, Margaret A. Feminism, Foucault and Embodied Subjectivity. Albany: State University of New York, 2002. McWhorter, Ladelle. Bodies and Pleasures: Foucault and the Politics of Sexual Normalization. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999. Sarup, Madan and Raja, Tasneem. Identity, Culture and the Postmodern World. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996. Sawicki, Jana. Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power and the Body. New York: Routledge, 1991. Read More