Elmo, Foucault

The reading by Michel Foucault was a little bit tricky; it seems to be pretty different from what we have been recently learning about. However, there was one specific quote that I found to be interesting; Foucault says that, “everything that may be observed during the course of the visits— deaths, illness, complaints, irregularities— is noted down and transmitted to the intendants and magistrates. The magistrates have complete control over medical treatment; they have appointed a physician in charge; no other practitioner may treat, mp apothecary prepare medicines, no confessor visit a sick person without having received from him written not ‘to prevent anyone from concealing and dealing with those sick of the contagion, unknown to the magistrates’” (95). While this quotes seems rather dated, it does have relations to out lives today (clearly that’s why we’re reading it). Today the government seems to have complete control over us and can access any information they want pertaining to our lives. They make up rules and laws for us to follow and if we break any of them there are percussions. They dictate to us what we can and cannot do; yet no one seems to question it, we just do what they say. This reminds me of Benjamin’s theory about how we are such absent-minded examiners. We don’t think about this power that the government holds over us, we just play into what they want us to do. I personally can go days without thinking about how the government is controlling my life but when you actually stop and think about it, it’s pretty crazy. I guess that we have been so exposed to it and got so used to it, that we barely even think about it anymore. This could also relate to what we have learned about ideology. The government having control over the general public is an ideology that we have just all learned to play into and not question.