The Order of Things by Michel Foucault - Book Report/Review Example

Michel Foucault - the order of things. Introduction The Order of Things was first published in French in 1966 and later translated to English and published in 1970. This was a forerunner of many of Michel Foucault's thoughts. He also could influence the thought processes of many of the philosophers and psychologists of the day. His later day books did inherit many of the qualities that he reflected in this book. As a matter of fact, many of the books published after the Order of Things seems to reinforce the thoughts that he expressed in this book. In the current essay, we will take a quick look at what are the core issues that are found in the books, The Order of Things and Discipline and Punish. This will let us look at the way the books have evolved and the influence of the one over the other is also noticed. In addition to this, the author's continuance of the thought processes with respect to one another is also taken care of. The Order of Things The central issue that the book The Order of Things, is stressing about is: the acceptable idea or concept or the truth in every period in the history has been changing. The division between true and false is neither arbitrary nor modifiable nor institutional nor violent, says Foucault (p10). But then the concept of truth itself is not fixed for all times! This could be seen in the way every piece of art is viewed from period to period. There is a change in the perception of the people. This has also resulted in an ongoing and continuing change of mind of the people over a period of time. In order to establish this central piece the author has gone to great lengths in bringing together data pertaining to all the situations that could be thought of. To check his hypothesis, he introduces the concept of discourse or interactions of knowledge. The scientific discourses could bring about different episteme at different points in time. As a matter of fact, he even accepts and proposes in later to writings that there could be multiple episteme occurring the in the same period and running parallel to one another. All this could indicate how the episteme or knowledge exists on various topics and heads of information. With the introduction of episteme and the scientific discourses, Foucault could bring about a major change in the view knowledge growth happened. An episteme that is true in a particular epoch may not be true in the next one. The changes keep happening in every one of the episteme but then more often episteme mildly changes with evolution and adopts to the social changes that happen in the implemented country or society. The scientific discourses and the evolution of the episteme changes from one epoch to the other has been in discrete steps. In order to hold this true, the author indicated the way the language and the grammar have come about or evolved in the history of mankind. Similarly, he also says that, 'the world of similarity can only be a world of signs' indicating that the world seems to have evolved into a system that is pretty similar to one another and carry specific signatures. This makes the development of various aspects all the more easy. As a forerunner to language, the author talks about representation. 'Don Quixote reads the world in order to prove his books. And the only proofs he gives himself are the glittering reflections of the resemblances'. All this makes the way the language looks at it self in more a set of graphism rather than as a source of knowledge. According to him, the language is not the work of the mind but that of spontaneity. That is why; the languages did not have similarity across the world. There is a clear difference in the way, the language that was spoken in the east and that in the west and even between languages in the west. It is not necessary that the verb should come in the center or in the first or the second universally. They seem to be taking root in the structure by spontaneity rather than out of any careful thought or plan. However, Foucault insists on the staged development that has been happening in the language and grammar as a proof of his hypothesis. Similarly, he also relates the 'discourse of nature' in the way evolutionism has happened in the world. He also quotes the growth or 'evolution' of wealth from the bullion based economy to something that is not. He quotes extensively from economists such as Child, Petty, Galiani among others to prove that the perception on wealth has been changing track from period to period. What was considered as the best way to transact business has been changing particularly with the anti bullionists and the Becher Principle. In all these measures, he continuously supports his hypothesis that is the theme of the book, that every period had its own truths or episteme. Discipline and Punish In this book that was published in 1975 in French and published in English in 1977, Michel Foucault traces the history of punishments and discipline in human society. What ever was considered right and whatever was considered wrong is also taken into account. In the start of his discussions, he describes the execution of Robert - Francois Damiens by Louis XV that happened in 1757. In the course of this very elaborate and brutal description of the event, the author was trying to establish the shift in the society's thought process. From a strong and violent society towards punishments, it moved to become something passive within a short span of one hundred years. Tracing the history, the author indicates the way the prisons were made and maintained one hundred years later and the nature of punishment that was given to these people over this period in time. According to the author, the torture had some intended purposes and also brought about unintended purposes too. Some of the unintended purposes which eventually took place were that the convict or the victim was the target of great mass sympathy. This resulted in many places where such public torture took place, a revolution or a revolt that lead to a major political loss. This possibly was the reason, why the movement of torture from public to inside the walls of the prison happened. Foucault reiterates that the disappearance of public torture was a part of this happening. In addition to this, the humanitarian approach was not, according to the author, the cause for such reconsideration of the way torture was carried out. It was more because of the political needs. However, what was considered right during the eighteenth century turned out to be something unimaginable during the early nineteenth century. This change also took further change over a period of time so much so, that the entire prison life is controlled more by professionals rather than by the king or the monarch. The political direction that the prison had has yielded place to the professional approach to prison life. It moved from a punishing methodology to a disciplining methodology. The disciplining was more in line with the changes that was happening in the world centered on economic superiority. In the capitalistic economy that had come into the world, the human discipline was an important requirement in most of the societies. Foucault argues that discipline creates docile bodies. These are essential for the new economy that is in need of disciplined soldiers who would work tirelessly in their factories, mines, in battle fields and in class rooms. In all these cases, unless the person is well disciplined, it is not possible for the egalitarian to achieve their targets. This is possibly the reason why the means of using the prison to discipline and build docile bodies was sought out by these classes of people. Historically, the process by which the bourgeoisie became in the course of the eighteenth century the politically dominant class was masked by the establishment of an explicit, coded and formally egalitarian juridical framework, made possible by the organization of a parliamentary, representative regime. But the development and generalization of disciplinary mechanisms constituted the other, dark side of these processes. The general juridical form that guaranteed a system of rights that were egalitarian in principle was supported by these tiny, everyday, physical mechanisms, by all those systems of micro-power that are essentially non-egalitarian and asymmetrical that we call the disciplines. (p.222) In order to bring about better observation conditions and therefore better punishment in a subtle way, the Bentham's Panopticon was designed, according to Foucault. This again was a method to watch over the person in the prison while providing light to the person. Though he might be thinking he is under more light it is not true freedom since he becomes more watched with the kind of arrangement that is done in the prison cell. This development of the punishment using the prisons has taken a different form which subdues the spirit of the man and therefore, makes him or her more docile. Killing the man is not looked at as the method that would yield results to the dominating people of the country. As Foucault says in his opening account, 'the body as the object of penal repression disappeared' during a period of few decades from the time when the world was interested in public display of punishments. This change in human approach is the change that is being discussed in the book. Relationship between the two The order of things proposes and tries to establish the way thoughts have evolved in every one of the activities that human race was involved in. Whether it is the creation of the language or the development of the same over a period of time, the changes have happened in specific steps. What was considered truth during one period suffered changes in the other. This concept has been taken over in the book on Discipline and Punish. Here the history of the prisons and the punishments has been brought out more explicitly to establish the nature of development that has been happening in the human thought process. History of prisons further substantiates the hypothesis that the author has with respect to the growth of human thought. There has been a gradual evolution of the prisons taking into account the progress of thoughts in the human society. The same can be said about punishments too. The body that was the aim of the punishments in the earlier days, yielded place to mental taxing; secondly, the aim of the punishment which was to dissuade any who might have an idea of doing the same crime from it. But over a period of time, the punishments became a correction method. In others, punishment was so visualized in such a way as to build the people into docile partners to the needs of the industry and the society. The dominating group of people had always the ways and means that would take the world to the next level by ensuring that the rest of the people would be docile partners to the activity. With this behind the thought, it was not reeking revenge that was considered important but the method of ensuring the person became docile and submissive to the activities of the government was considered more important, a level of 'unspoken order'. This was possibly the purpose that the prisons were made to serve the society. In more ways than one, the progress of the prisons and the way they evolved over a period of time both pointed to the same nature of thought process in the governing people. From a monarchy that wanted to have its subjects fear punishment to an oligarchy that wanted people to be docile and capable of working with the industrial growth that was needed. Therefore, it is easy to perceive that the ideas Foucault brought up in the Discipline and Punish was more in line with the thoughts that he brought up earlier in his Order of Things. As a matter of fact, the research of the history of prisons and the way the punishments have evolved over a period in time, he has substantiated his claim that the central point in the evolution of any of these ideas and concepts is the slow change in the perception of the people from one epoch to the other. With the change in the social perception, the way these were implemented also changed. The society adopted what was important for them as perceived by themselves. More importantly, the governing people ensured that the social change in perception was modified to suit their purpose and would serve them in enhancing their own profits. The author establishes how the personal gains have been the reason for the approach that they had finally taken it to be (Michel Foucault, 1970, pp 172). Conclusion Close analysis of the two books, brings us to the conclusion that they are closely related. The Order of Things had a very wider perception and had presented the basic concept behind most of the writings that the author did subsequently. This idea and concept has been further reinforced by the author in his work on Discipline and Punish. He could establish that the changing perception of the society affected the way these were implemented in the society. Though the perception of the society was important, the author felt that this was not the sole reason for executing such a change. It was the gain that the people in the power and the industries will get which made them go in for the changes that were considered important. Though for the public consumption, this was made to appear as something that would add to the better living and humanitarian conditions; that was not the reason why this was done. It was felt that with the increasing need for more people in the industries, it was essential that the industries had enough hands but they should be docile and accommodative to the ways and means of these managers. In order to adopt this, the change was accepted and brought about. This again proves the basic work that Foucault enunciated in his book on Order of Things. Reference 1. Michel Foucault, 1970, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences. Routledge. 2. Michel Foucault, 1977, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Read More