Murphy, Foucault

Foucault caught me off guard with his style of writing and his perpetual use of reasoning through the happenings and results of the plague on society of the time. Immediately Foucault introduces the reader to phrases such as "Inspection functions ceaselessly" and "The gaze alert is everywhere". While reading this excerpt from, Discipline and Punish (1977) I was reminded of a time of war, where the captives were being punished. It felt like a Nazi regime over an innocent people. When in reality this was supposedly not a political movement, it was in the best interest of everyone's health of the area and era. It is hard to see the good intentions of those in charge when Foucault writes, "Everyone locked up in his cage, everyone at his window, answering to his name and showing himself when asked--it is the great review of the living and the dead."
The people begin to sound like cattle, " This enclosed segmented space, observed at every point, in which the individuals are inserted in a fixed place, in which the slightest movements are supervised, in which all events are recorded, in which power is exercised whiteout division, according to a continuous hierarchical figure, in which each individual is constantly located, examined and distributed among the living beings, the sick and the dead-- all this constitutes a compact model of the disciplinary mechanism" (95). With few in power, rules and regulations, ideologies and constructions are left in the hands of those with self-interest to continue to be in power, and to continue to accumulate wealth. This relates to Karl Marx's ideas on class separation and the rich getting richer while the poor are getting poorer. Foucault also connects with Marx when he begins to discuss the ideas of "binary division and branding": mad/sane; dangerous/harmless; normal/abnormal. Foucault goes on to discuss how, even today, the power structure is set up around the abnormal individual and trying to label him and then change him into the norm.