Date: Mon, 6 Jul 1998 00:10:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: "M.A. King" <kingma-AT-mcmail.CIS.McMaster.CA>
Subject: Is French Toast a loaf of moldy slosh?



On Wed, 1 Jul 1998, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

> Production and control of the 'criminals' in the USA have become very
> unsubtle and overtly & obviously repressive, especially in the Southern
> states like Mississippi. Rehabilitation is out; capital punishment, prison
> labor, chain gangs, boot camps, 'three strikes and you're out,' etc. are
> in. Newly respectable racist politics and the triumphant bourgeoisgie may
> have made a Foucauldian analysis obsolete in this respect. Much has changed
> since the time when Foucault was writing _Discipline and Punish_.

Well, don't forget that capital punishment was in in France at the time
Foucault was writing _Discipline and Punish_.  Are today's
prisons--setting aside the whims of the middle classes and their
editorialists--really less geared toward "rehabilitation" than prisons
were at the time of the riots at Attica and in France that were part of
the motivation behind D&P?  I really don't know--but I really suspect not,
too.  The conservative government here in Ontario announced a couple of
years ago that it was jumping on the boot camp bandwagon--but so far, only
one has been implemented.  A lot more smoke than fire, so far.  That may
change, though, because that one boot camp is being hailed as a smashing
success.  A success at what?--at turning car thieves into model citizens.
Seems that we haven't regressed to the point where brutality can be sold
as brutality....

Anyway, even if there *is* a general regression occurring, isn't D&P still
relevant (apart from its fairly obvious continuing relevance in areas
outside penal practices) as a cautionary tale for "progressives" trying
to reverse that regression?  

Matthew

----Matthew A. King------Department of Philosophy------McMaster University----
     "The border is often narrow between a permanent temptation to commit
     suicide and the birth of a certain form of political consciousness."
-----------------------------(Michel Foucault)--------------------------------