Punitive Society (1973) Chs. 10 & 11, pp. 170-179 & 186-196

 

We began with questions:

1. What distinguishes illegalisms from laws and morals? How do they all intersect?
2. What is the difference between degradation and dissipation, and how does this distinction play out (or not) today? (pp. 188, 190)
3. What is the relation between workers’ bodies and the production of wealth wealth? Is it a relation of subset or opposition? (p.172)
4. How is this reading connected to the paradigm of war Foucault writes about later on? How is this linked with the notion of knowledge from below/subjugated knowledges (concept from ’76 lectures)?
5. Test, inquiry, examination (p. 196) – can we map this out a bit so as to get the constitutive
components of examination? And can we extend this series forward to the 19th century context he is writing about here? What about practices such as standardized testing—would they be next in sequence or would they be variants of the examination? (thinking as well about education analytics etc.)
6. What does F mean by "capillarization of judgment" (p 194)?
7. How might examples of workers practicing illegalism (work stoppages, strikes, taking long breaks etc) link up with structure and practices of illegalism in apparatuses of education?

 

And then we discussed:

- Alex Feldman has an article on illegalism and F's genealogy of racism.
- p. 75: those who make the law do it in a way that they can evade it
- Thinking about the context of what F is doing in the 70s: moving away from analysis in terms of sovereign power (a power of forbidding) and thinking power in terms of managing
- F seems concerned not so much with all-powerful capital controlling everything but specific techniques of stopping the generation of wealth - “collective machine breaking” (p. 172). More like Bartleby’s mode of disruption - an “I’d rather not.”
- dissipation (moral system) and depredation (legal system) as forms of illegalism (p. 186)
- Perhaps we can say illegalism is a kind of nascent illegality. Something which is on its way to being an illegal act.
- footnote on p.173: Illegalism starts below or before the law. It cannot be captured by the law?
- p. 176: The idea of the immorality of the worker. This is about the body desire, need and will.
- What concept did illegalism become in DP? Or is it not in DP?
- p. 194: We can see how this system of micro adjustments makes individuals… in this realm of paralegality there is this system of micro punishments which forces the individual to become a criminal in this way. Delinquency as a self-fulfilled prophecy.
- The analysis almost points at illegality as an endpoint. In DP, the perspective will have shifted. It’s not that techniques disciplines are dangerous and concerning because they are getting people caught up in law; they are a problematic in and of themselves.
- Foucault shifts away from paradigm where to show something is truly political you have to point to the law and the state. He talks about delinquency and indocility – neither points to the law but they could lead there.
- There is a prehistory of the law which undoes liberal discourse on law from within by showing it has an under-structure.
- The separation of illegalism and legality is of utmost importance. They are different forms of control.
- Education as a set of institutions that among other things help to manage illegalisms
- There is this production of technologies which manage, and it is better for the law if it doesn’t have to manage illegalisms.