WoolyBully7, Foucault

Foucault’s first writing about the plague and the quarantine remind me of today’s cops. Surveillance, authority, control are words that pop into mind when I hear about cops. They have traffic cameras, undercover cops, hierarchy, observations, wire taps/bugs, records, files, information, basically things they use to exert power over us. Althusser argue that all of those elements are a part of either Repressive or Ideological State Apparatuses. Now, many people argue cops do that stuff to help protect people, and I guess that is what happened to plague victims back in the day, to help keep people safe from the plague virus. Foucault says that the plague stands for confusion and disorder. By utilizing our word definition tools from last class, what would the plague be in our society today? What is confusing and disorderly in our society? One could argue politics, or economics sure, but I believe many of us believe it could also be the media.

Now the media may not physically plague or infect people in the same ways as the real plague as far as the immune system and our health are concerned but it definitely plays a role. Our media is disorderly and confusing, which is why we all have chose this as our major, to try and make some kind of sense of it all. A study recently said that the average human sees approx 5,000 media products each day. That’s a pretty significant number and it can be overbearing which is why, our class/major, is trying to overcome this quazi-plague and our professors especially are trying to keep us safe from it in a way. I know a lot of this is a stretch of the imagination but I think it relates at least enough to be important to mention. Nazism was a plague that affected virtually all of Europe if not the world. The Red Scare about communism could have been considered a plague. We can look at many significant events throughout history and relate them to a plague based on Foucault’s definition that a plague stands for confusion and disorder.