Discipline And Punish: The Birth of the Prison

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1975

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Part 3

Part 4

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

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Key Figures

Michel Foucault

Michel Foucault (1926-1984) was a French philosopher and literary critic whose work explored systems of power, knowledge, and sexuality. Foucault’s writing mirrored the philosophical school of post-structuralism, which undermined the structuralist theory that all aspects of culture were the result of a broader system of power. Foucault’s study of history emphasized discontinuity over structuralism; he was interested in historical anomalies and rejected a linear understanding of events over time. He was highly critical of Marxism, which relied upon a structuralist understanding of power, instead embracing relativism and building upon the works of Nietzsche. Despite Foucault’s love of discontinuity, much of his work relied upon a cause-and-effect structure of historical events.

His emphasis on the disconnectedness of history reflects his personal deviation from a traditionalist culture in 20th-century France. The radical social philosopher had capitalistic roots. Foucault came from a long line of surgeons, and his father hoped that his son would carry the tradition forward. Later in life, Foucault tried to downplay his family’s wealth and socially-conservative politics; when asked about his father, Foucault called him a bully. Rejecting his father’s career, Foucault attended the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where he studied philosophy and psychology. His teacher, philosopher Jean Hyppolite, encouraged Foucault to look at philosophy through a historical lens.

As a young man, Foucault struggled with self-harm and substance abuse; he attempted suicide at age 20. He was unpopular in school and starkly different from his peers; his classmates noted that Foucault had covered the walls of his dorm with images of torture. Foucault was gay, living in a period of France’s history that was marked by political unrest over the government’s treatment of the LGBTQ+ community. As an adult, he described how a crush on a boy in school led to his first experiences with an intellectual life.

Foucault joined the Communist Party in 1950, but he left in 1953, frustrated with the party’s anti-gay bias and antisemitic attitudes. Although Foucault was influenced by the work of Karl Marx, he rejected the Marxist premise that power was a system wielded by the bourgeoise to repress the proletariat. Instead, he saw power as part of being human, permeating everything. Foucault took various teaching jobs while researching at the Sainte-Anne Hospital. While there, he adopted many of Freud’s theories of psychoanalytical interpretation of dreams. At the age of 27, Foucault read Friedrich Nietzsche’s work Untimely Meditations, which stressed the importance of studying the past to improve the present. Nietzsche’s work had a profound effect on young Foucault; the young philosopher’s studies became centered on understanding modern conceptions of power through a historical lens.

Foucault’s first major work, Madness and Civilization, studied the history of outliers in Western civilization. His philosophies in this book laid the foundation for his book Discipline and Punish, which is considered to be Foucault’s most influential work. Foucault was a leading anti-prison activist. He helped to run the French Groupe d’information sur les Prisons a few years before publishing Discipline and Punish in 1975. This prisoner support group gathered testimonies from incarcerated individuals to bring public attention to their experiences. Discipline and Punish explored the history of the Western penal system and tracked its shift from a focus on punishment of the body to punishment of the soul; he argued that the invention of the modern soul and shifts in social sensibilities brought about the contemporary penal system. However, Foucault denied that one form of penal restitution was more humane than another. Instead, he argued that all forms of punishment were strategies of power.

Foucault was a prolific writer and produced many texts that continue to be studied in universities across the globe, including The Birth of the Clinic, The Order of Things, and The History of Sexuality. His work is profoundly influential in a plethora of academic studies. Discipline and Punish has been used to understand and deconstruct many modern institutions and executions of power. He died from HIV/AIDS in 1984; his partner, Daniel Defert, founded the AIDES charity to honor the memory of Michel Foucault.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher and writer. This influential thinker applied a critical approach to religion and morality. Nietzsche was the youngest person to serve as Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 in Basil, Switzerland. The University of Leipzig awarded Nietzsche with a doctorate—despite his lack of dissertation or testing—because of the quality and breadth of his philosophical writing. Nietzsche’s career diverged from classical academia in 1872 when he published The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. Throughout his life, Nietzsche suffered from multiple health issues: migraines and depression as well as eventual paralysis and dementia. From 1879 through 1889, Nietzsche lived in near isolation and wrote prolifically. He died in 1900 from pneumonia at the age of 66.

Nietzsche was inspired by the works of Ludwig Feuerbach and Arthur Schopenhauer. When Nietzsche, who grew up in a Protestant household with a Lutheran pastor as a father, read Feuerbach’s assertion that man created God rather than the reverse, he felt compelled to examine culture through a lens of nihilism and agnosticism. Nietzsche’s popularity rose in the 1960s and 70s as a new understanding of truth, humanism, and The Relationship Between Knowledge and Power took hold. Nietzsche’s work with moral relativism in his book Untimely Meditations inspired Foucault’s philosophy. Nietzsche utilized genealogical methods to examine culture; Foucault applied these same methods in his work Discipline and Punish.

Karl Marx

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German philosopher and economist whose work widely influenced politics, historical criticism, and literature. Marx is best known for his works The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. He studied law and philosophy at the universities of Bonne and Berlin, but his controversial philosophies caused him to live in exile in London beginning in 1845. Marxism is a critical theory named after the philosopher that centers on critical theories about economics and society. The theory uses socioeconomic analysis to consider how the rise of classes contributed to social conflict. Marx asserted that the bourgeoisie controlled and advanced wealth by exerting power over the working classes. He argued that this system would eventually self-destruct and be replaced by socialism.

Foucault began his career as a Marxist. He included many of Karl Marx’s theories in his writing but later redacted these points. Foucault’s philosophies shifted to examine power as a pervasive structure that is intrinsically connected to the human experience. He believed that power was not held by any particular social class; instead, power is exercised as a strategy by all humans in various settings. Rather than centering on a single despot, Marx focused on the power that existed in class structures. Foucault’s work in Discipline and Punish recenters on sovereign power and how it manifests in the Western penal system.

Robert-François Damiens

Referred to as “Damiens the regicide” in Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Robert-François Damiens was a French domestic servant in the 18th century who attempted to assassinate King Louis the XV. Damiens was a veteran of the French Army. After the military, he held many different jobs and was dismissed from each for his behavior. Many historians believe Damiens may have had a mental illness.

On January 5, 1757, Damiens lunged at the king, who was boarding a carriage, and inflicted a small stab wound with a penknife. Although the wound was only half an inch deep in his chest and far from fatal, the king asked for a priest to hear his final confession. Damiens was severely tortured, and Foucault provides a detailed description of the brutalization of Damiens’s body during his execution in Discipline and Punish: Damiens was drawn and quartered, then burned alive.

Damiens’s story inspired many philosophers. For example, in Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, the author points to Damiens as an example of the brutality that occurs within a government ruled by a single person. Literary figures, such as Charles Dickens, Voltaire, and Mark Twain, also alluded to the historical account. Damiens’s brutal torture stands out in history for its severity, especially when compared to the ineffectiveness of the crime. Foucault suggests that Damiens serves as the perfect example of how sovereign power used public torture to maintain control and faith in the monarch’s political hegemony.

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1747) was an English philosopher best known for the invention of the concept of Panopticism. Bentham’s social philosophy influenced prison reform and the modern welfare system. He was a devout humanitarian who was opposed to slavery and the separation of church and state. His work was controversial and unusual for the 18th century, since he emphasized equal rights for women and the decriminalization of homosexuality. As a child, Bentham was an intellectual prodigy. At the age of 12, he attended Queen’s College in Oxford and trained as a lawyer.

While visiting his brother, Bentham conceived the idea of the Panopticon. This prison model was an economic way to increase surveillance while limiting prisoners’ observation of prison administrators. Bentham spent 16 years developing and refining the Panopticon. Despite his efforts, he was never able to see the architectural model built. The philosopher was bitter and frustrated that the government never fully embraced his idea. Foucault utilized Bentham’s work in Discipline and Punish, citing the Panopticon as a modern strategy of power parading as a humanitarian form of punishment.