6 ms·

Foucault is explicitly referring to norms of behavior, not the shapes of buildings: - regular chronologies - forced labour - authorities of surveillance

Foucault is explicitly referring to norms of behavior, not the shapes of buildings: - regular chronologies - forced labour - authorities of surveillance and registration

Der_Einzige 6y ago
Are you sure? I've seen some pretty panoptic school designs, and this IS indeed a shape of building that Foucault focused on... Here's the chapter of his book about the nature of certain building styles and shapes being important here... https://foucault.info/documents/foucault.disciplineAndPunish.panOpticism/ https://foucault.info/documents/foucault.disciplineAndPunish... Also interesting to talk about, are the ways that the people influenced by Foucault talk about space, area, and architectural design. Deleuze and Guattari had a whole lot to say about all of those topics, and they are one of the principle reasons for Foucaults fame...
cyberbanjo 6y ago
I believe it's that they're linked and both arrive out of the same logics of dominion, and authorizing use of dominion over a spaces and people.
- lambda_obrien 6y ago
  Form follows function, I agree.
alisonatwork 6y ago
Where is the forced labor in schools, barracks, hospitals and factories? I understand there are some instances where this might be the case, but generally people go to those places because they want to, or because it offers them a favorable outcome that they're willing to temporarily trade some autonomy for. You can deconstruct the whole of society and make an argument that all labor exchanged for capital is oppression, that all regular chronologies favored by the dominant culture is oppression, that all authority figures are oppressive etc... But it's difficult to imagine a thriving, post-industrial society not featuring some of those things. Even looking back in history, people have self-organized into hierarchical, regimented systems. I think a lot of this is just a natural reaction to our environment, which is also dictated by regular chronologies (days, lunar cycle, seasons), necessary labor (biological need for food and shelter) and implicit authority figures (parents).
- yrimaxi 6y ago
  d/
  - mlyle 6y ago
    Sure, there's no inevitability, but there can also be ways that make sense. It might be possible to make a space launch vehicle that's short and squat, or operate a factory without any regular worker hours, but it's going to have some costs compared to our current equilibrium
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      The definition itself of cost and equilibrium is ideologically defined, but otherwise your point is correct.
- em-bee 6y ago
  when i am sick at work, then i can take a few days off. (with or without pay). whatever work needs to get done, will be done by someone else, and i join back in without penalty when i am ready when my kids miss school, they have to catch up the work they missed. if they already struggle then they can't afford to get sick because they will fall to far behind and may not be able to catch up. so yes, school is forced labor and it's a prison
  - pmg102 6y ago
    Ex-primary teacher here. At any one time a certain percentage of kids in the class would be off sick, it was a given. So the curriculum doesn't proceed linearly but more like a helix: it circles around and around the same topics year by year with each child being supported to learn at the level they are - always a broad range in any one class. So it's in my experience totally untrue to suggest that any child would have to "catch up" any learning missed due to sickness (and also reveals that schools are talking bollocks when they suggest that taking a few days off to go on holiday during termtime will have any noticeable adverse effect, but shhhh)
ineedasername 6y ago
Outside of "forced labor", just about any large building is going to have people & operations that occur on fixed schedules and have some degree of security.
- ianleeclark 6y ago
  And now you understand Foucault.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Maybe not: If he considered those sorts of structures (absent the forced labor) to be inherently bad in some way then I do not understand that point of view.

Foucault is explicitly referring to norms of behavior, not the shapes of buildings: - regular chronologies - forced labour - authorities of surveillance and registration

Der_Einzige 6y ago

Are you sure? I've seen some pretty panoptic school designs, and this IS indeed a shape of building that Foucault focused on... Here's the chapter of his book about the nature of certain building styles and shapes being important here... https://foucault.info/documents/foucault.disciplineAndPunish.panOpticism/ https://foucault.info/documents/foucault.disciplineAndPunish... Also interesting to talk about, are the ways that the people influenced by Foucault talk about space, area, and architectural design. Deleuze and Guattari had a whole lot to say about all of those topics, and they are one of the principle reasons for Foucaults fame...

cyberbanjo 6y ago

I believe it's that they're linked and both arrive out of the same logics of dominion, and authorizing use of dominion over a spaces and people.

lambda_obrien 6y ago
Form follows function, I agree.

alisonatwork 6y ago

Where is the forced labor in schools, barracks, hospitals and factories? I understand there are some instances where this might be the case, but generally people go to those places because they want to, or because it offers them a favorable outcome that they're willing to temporarily trade some autonomy for. You can deconstruct the whole of society and make an argument that all labor exchanged for capital is oppression, that all regular chronologies favored by the dominant culture is oppression, that all authority figures are oppressive etc... But it's difficult to imagine a thriving, post-industrial society not featuring some of those things. Even looking back in history, people have self-organized into hierarchical, regimented systems. I think a lot of this is just a natural reaction to our environment, which is also dictated by regular chronologies (days, lunar cycle, seasons), necessary labor (biological need for food and shelter) and implicit authority figures (parents).

yrimaxi 6y ago
d/
- mlyle 6y ago
  Sure, there's no inevitability, but there can also be ways that make sense. It might be possible to make a space launch vehicle that's short and squat, or operate a factory without any regular worker hours, but it's going to have some costs compared to our current equilibrium
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    The definition itself of cost and equilibrium is ideologically defined, but otherwise your point is correct.
em-bee 6y ago
when i am sick at work, then i can take a few days off. (with or without pay). whatever work needs to get done, will be done by someone else, and i join back in without penalty when i am ready when my kids miss school, they have to catch up the work they missed. if they already struggle then they can't afford to get sick because they will fall to far behind and may not be able to catch up. so yes, school is forced labor and it's a prison
- pmg102 6y ago
  Ex-primary teacher here. At any one time a certain percentage of kids in the class would be off sick, it was a given. So the curriculum doesn't proceed linearly but more like a helix: it circles around and around the same topics year by year with each child being supported to learn at the level they are - always a broad range in any one class. So it's in my experience totally untrue to suggest that any child would have to "catch up" any learning missed due to sickness (and also reveals that schools are talking bollocks when they suggest that taking a few days off to go on holiday during termtime will have any noticeable adverse effect, but shhhh)

ineedasername 6y ago

Outside of "forced labor", just about any large building is going to have people & operations that occur on fixed schedules and have some degree of security.

ianleeclark 6y ago
And now you understand Foucault.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Maybe not: If he considered those sorts of structures (absent the forced labor) to be inherently bad in some way then I do not understand that point of view.