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And just because people took their kids doesn't mean they didn't find it frightening. The two claims have literally nothing to do with each other. It's like say

And just because people took their kids doesn't mean they didn't find it frightening. The two claims have literally nothing to do with each other. It's like saying people pay good money to see horror movies so they aren't scared of being hacked to bits by psychopaths. Native peoples in the Great Lakes region mostly enjoyed torturing prisoners of war to death in variously fairly horrible ways, often over days. The whole tribe participated and it had something of the carnivalesque atmosphere the link you provide mentions. Yet there is also evidence that fear of capture loomed very large in the minds of warriors because of the fate that awaited them. One of the things the post-structuralists (especially Derida, who is really nothing but a troll) are good at is distraction and indirection. Foucault's bloodthirsty descriptions of torture in D&P have no scholarly value and could easily be replaced by a one-or-two-line sketch of the reality without loss of utility... except that people would then read the rest of the book in a less aroused state of mind, and would be more calmly critical of his unsupported and frequently implausible claims.

benbreen 11y ago
It seems to me that you're conflating too different manifestations of fear - the fear of the crowd that watched executions and a larger societal fear of governmental or judicial violence. No one who has read primary sources from the period we're talking about would argue that the latter didn't exist; as for the former, like Muir points out, it could manifest many different ways, from howls of fear to laughter and jokes. In the end we can never say definitively what was running through the heads of everyone in a crowd 400 years ago, but it's not just Foucault making stuff up or trying to trick his audience when he writes about attitudes toward early modern executions. It really is there in the original sources. Here's just one case in point, from the dairy of Samuel Pepys: Saturday 13 October 1660 To my Lord’s in the morning, where I met with Captain Cuttance, but my Lord not being up I went out to Charing Cross, to see Major-general Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition. He was presently cut down, and his head and heart shown to the people, at which there was great shouts of joy. http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/10/13/ http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/10/13/

benbreen 11y ago

It seems to me that you're conflating too different manifestations of fear - the fear of the crowd that watched executions and a larger societal fear of governmental or judicial violence. No one who has read primary sources from the period we're talking about would argue that the latter didn't exist; as for the former, like Muir points out, it could manifest many different ways, from howls of fear to laughter and jokes. In the end we can never say definitively what was running through the heads of everyone in a crowd 400 years ago, but it's not just Foucault making stuff up or trying to trick his audience when he writes about attitudes toward early modern executions. It really is there in the original sources. Here's just one case in point, from the dairy of Samuel Pepys: Saturday 13 October 1660 To my Lord’s in the morning, where I met with Captain Cuttance, but my Lord not being up I went out to Charing Cross, to see Major-general Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered; which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition. He was presently cut down, and his head and heart shown to the people, at which there was great shouts of joy. http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/10/13/ http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/10/13/