Nietzsche’s and Foucault’s respective interest in the modes of
domination in social life appears in at least three areas: (1) the evolution of punishment's meaning,
(2) the assumption that when people act immorally they exercise autonomy and
inflict injury, and (3) the social world as a realm of moral imprisonment and
control.
First, for Nietzsche, morals are constantly
reinterpreted social conventions of control. Confinement, for instance, as a mode of
punishment may have different purposes and uses at particular moments. They
evolve in significance, or, better, in what they signify. Punishment “can in this way be a continuous
sign-chain of ever new interpretations and adaptations” (513). Put slightly
differently, Nietzsche writes that “purposes and utilities are only signsthat a will to power has become master of something less powerful and imposed
upon it the character of a function” (513). But there is a common link in the evolving “sign-chain
of ever new interpretations and adaptations.” Although confinement as a mode of punishment
may be employed as appropriate for various reasons, the result of punishment in
each historical instance is always the same:
one’s subduing another and becoming master. |
| Michel Foucault (1926-1984) |
For Foucault, the insane (and other
marginal groups like the poor) began to be confined on a massive scale because of
a certain social sensibility that had evolved. During the Renaissance,
society viewed madness as having supernatural causes. In the
Enlightenment, society located madness within the material/social realm:
“...for the first time, madness was perceived through a condemnation of
idleness and in a social immanence guaranteed by the community of labor” (Madness
and Civilization, 57). Madness was judged a symptom of mendicancy and
idleness, which were seen as evil sources of disorder (46), and so madness had
to be punished.
Second, how Nietzsche understands the historical development of the human senses of guilt and freedom helps to explain further why madness and idleness were blameworthy. Nietzsche highlights two reasons that humans assign guilt, one older, one newer. The newer idea is that we take for granted the idea of autonomy in moral judgments: someone is guilty because he could have acted otherwise. The earlier idea from which this one evolved is that guilt exists, punishment is deserved, because of anger from a pain that has been inflicted. Punishment of the guilty subjugates those who have inflicted injury and acted otherwise than how the law, which arbitrarily defines the “just,” dictates that one should act. Law, in other words, is what makes a thing just or unjust, not anything above social decisions and convention: “ ‘Just’ and ‘unjust’ exist, accordingly, only after the institution of the law” (512). In Nietzsche’s estimation, the free man is the one who owns his measure of value, but, echoing Rousseau, one is not free if the society and relationships in which one lives govern, or control, the expectations of how peers should interact (496). Law is an organ of domination.
These two ideas of guilt -- (a) failing to act deliberately in a certain way and (b) injuring another -- inform Foucault’s interpretation of European confinement of the insane. Edicts like the one in 1657 which established the French Hôpital General were “full of moral denunciations” of its targeted residents, those who, the edict says, are “‘continually practicing all sorts of vice’” (58). The law grants the Hôpital’s directors “every judicial apparatus and means of repression: ‘They have power of authority, of direction, of administration, of commerce, of police, of jurisdiction, of correction and punishment’” including “‘stakes, irons, prisons, and dungeons’” (58). The asylum has quasi-sovereign rights and means, the power, by which one social group dominates another (39).
In this case, the mad, like the poor, are imprisoned because it is assumed that they could engage in productive work if they so chose. In choosing not to work the mad violate what society sees as “the great ethical pact of human existence” (59): labor as integral to the stability, structure, and flourishing of the community. Idleness threatens social order (you undermine it by not contributing to it) and injures society (you burden and rob it). In Europe at this time, idleness of all forms, Foucault contends along Nietzschean lines, was therefore punished.
Second, how Nietzsche understands the historical development of the human senses of guilt and freedom helps to explain further why madness and idleness were blameworthy. Nietzsche highlights two reasons that humans assign guilt, one older, one newer. The newer idea is that we take for granted the idea of autonomy in moral judgments: someone is guilty because he could have acted otherwise. The earlier idea from which this one evolved is that guilt exists, punishment is deserved, because of anger from a pain that has been inflicted. Punishment of the guilty subjugates those who have inflicted injury and acted otherwise than how the law, which arbitrarily defines the “just,” dictates that one should act. Law, in other words, is what makes a thing just or unjust, not anything above social decisions and convention: “ ‘Just’ and ‘unjust’ exist, accordingly, only after the institution of the law” (512). In Nietzsche’s estimation, the free man is the one who owns his measure of value, but, echoing Rousseau, one is not free if the society and relationships in which one lives govern, or control, the expectations of how peers should interact (496). Law is an organ of domination.
These two ideas of guilt -- (a) failing to act deliberately in a certain way and (b) injuring another -- inform Foucault’s interpretation of European confinement of the insane. Edicts like the one in 1657 which established the French Hôpital General were “full of moral denunciations” of its targeted residents, those who, the edict says, are “‘continually practicing all sorts of vice’” (58). The law grants the Hôpital’s directors “every judicial apparatus and means of repression: ‘They have power of authority, of direction, of administration, of commerce, of police, of jurisdiction, of correction and punishment’” including “‘stakes, irons, prisons, and dungeons’” (58). The asylum has quasi-sovereign rights and means, the power, by which one social group dominates another (39).
In this case, the mad, like the poor, are imprisoned because it is assumed that they could engage in productive work if they so chose. In choosing not to work the mad violate what society sees as “the great ethical pact of human existence” (59): labor as integral to the stability, structure, and flourishing of the community. Idleness threatens social order (you undermine it by not contributing to it) and injures society (you burden and rob it). In Europe at this time, idleness of all forms, Foucault contends along Nietzschean lines, was therefore punished.
 |
| Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault |
Third, for Nietzsche, guilt works to control humans, and
punishment takes various forms in the service of this control. Central to this system of domination is the
institutional implementation of guilt’s basic paradigm: the creditor/debtor
relationship. The feeling of owing
something to someone keeps us in line.
This is morality’s function: to
keep us in line, to control thoughts and actions, to prevent the strong (those
who would exercise autonomy) from expressing their strength. When we violate the (moral) law, we are in
debt; society is our creditor: “The community, the disappointed creditor, will
get what repayment it can” (507; see 508-16).
As creditor, social authorities determine the punishment and its
justifications. Whatever meanings are attached to punishment for lawbreaking,
the effect is that social authorities prevent individual autonomy through
domination.
Foucault similarly interprets the European history of confining the insane as representing the social world as a realm of moral imprisonment and control. This dominion assumes expressly economic contours like the creditor/debtor relationship. The “idle” were incarcerated and forced to labor. Lack of presumed unwillingness to work was punished by forced work. Those who deprived the community of productive labor were punished by producing goods that might yield a profit (53-57). “[T]he very requirement of labor,” Foucault explains, “was instituted as an exercise in moral reform and constraint” (59). Society implements systems of surveillance and manipulation to prevent disorder and to impose order on “life and conscience” (62).
The overall implication is that Enlightenment, and perhaps all, society is a realm of total control: if you submit to society’s conventions, you are considered “free” (although you do not act autonomously); if you do not submit to bourgeois legal/moral conventions, you are confined. Either way, social life is a system of power relationships, Nietzsche and Foucault variously suggest, that suppress idiosyncratic expressions of authenticity and dominate life.
Foucault similarly interprets the European history of confining the insane as representing the social world as a realm of moral imprisonment and control. This dominion assumes expressly economic contours like the creditor/debtor relationship. The “idle” were incarcerated and forced to labor. Lack of presumed unwillingness to work was punished by forced work. Those who deprived the community of productive labor were punished by producing goods that might yield a profit (53-57). “[T]he very requirement of labor,” Foucault explains, “was instituted as an exercise in moral reform and constraint” (59). Society implements systems of surveillance and manipulation to prevent disorder and to impose order on “life and conscience” (62).
The overall implication is that Enlightenment, and perhaps all, society is a realm of total control: if you submit to society’s conventions, you are considered “free” (although you do not act autonomously); if you do not submit to bourgeois legal/moral conventions, you are confined. Either way, social life is a system of power relationships, Nietzsche and Foucault variously suggest, that suppress idiosyncratic expressions of authenticity and dominate life.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Brief comments to this post are welcome; however, please respect the civil tone of conversation that I wish to cultivate in this forum.