Michel Foucault: Power and Struggle | Hacker News Reader

Michel Foucault: Power and Struggle

the-tls.co.uk

68 pointsapollinaire42 comments

The only Foucault I can claim to have read is 'Discipline and Punish'. In particular, the idea that stuck with me most was his description of the Panopticon, the building model developed by Jeremy Bentham - primarily for use as a prison.

For those that aren't familiar with the Panopticon, the simple explanation is that it's a circular building with a 'watchtower' in the middle. The watchman is at the top of the watchtower and the windows of the watchtower are slatted such that those being watched cannot tell if the person inside is looking at them. This means that they essentially must assume that they could be monitored and watched at any given time and have no way to determine if they are not currently being watched.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

Short bit from the Wikipedia page for the Panopticon related to Foucault:

> Foucault first came across the panopticon architecture when he studied the origins of clinical medicine and hospital architecture in the second half of the 18th century. He argued that discipline had replaced the pre-modern society of kings, and that the panopticon should not be understood as a building, but as a mechanism of power and a diagram of political technology.

This idea to me extended to the modern age of digital technology and the fact that (especially after the documents that Snowden revealed) practically whenever you are using modern technology, you could be watched and you wouldn't know it. This according to Foucault is an astounding amount of power that is being used as a lever against you - it in essence ensures that people will always behave as if they are being watched, even if they actively are not. And I believe studies have shown that people will act differently if they think they are being watched. I find the idea so fascinating that I strike up conversations in real life with people about the Panopticon every chance I have.

Perhaps fortunately, this model has only ever been used in one real prison in Cuba - slight aside, Fidel Castro and his brother Raul were actually imprisoned here for a period of time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidio_Modelo

I believe the now shuttered "Roundhouse" at Stateville in IL would qualify.

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h3WuvN44-fo/WAFxp1I1-CI/AAAAAAAAa...

One of the simplest forms of this is why do we stop at stoplights when no one is around (in the US anyway)? The idea of the Panopticon also goes into laws. Just because a law exists doesn't mean people follow it, there has to be a mode where we are no longer controlled from top-down, but we modify our behavior because of the power put on us by this fear of being watched or other people judging our behavior so we change it.

The reference to the stop light is interesting. The structural model of the panopticon need not even apply for the principles behind it to. I don't think I've ever run a red at night, even when no one was around for this explicit reason. How could I be sure there were not traffic cameras around? How could I know there wasn't a cop sitting by, just out of sight, watching and waiting? Better to alter my behavior and play it safe.

yes, that's the fundamental insight of foucault's model of micropower: that no one but you need be watching for power to change your behavior. the panopticon was essentially just a visual aid for that.

> why do we stop at stoplights when no one is around (in the US anyway)?

1) Because we learn habits.

2) Because over-riding habits requires conscious mental attention.

3) Because when you start exercising the concious mental attention to consider blowing through the red light, its easy to imagine a car or motorcycle traveling through the intersection. Many people find the notion of being in a fatal car crash to be quite scary, so they'll slow down anyway, to look around.

4) Because if you're driving when "no one is around", you're probably driving late at night. So, you're extra-cautious in case there is a drunk driver you don't see.

True story: the only ticket I've ever gotten was running a red light. Happened around 1am, on my way home from work. This was in a rural area, nobody on the road for miles, and this idiotic light would stay red for minutes. A cop was sitting in a speed trap just past the light.

Revenue generation: it's the law.

Well, that was very unsporting of the cop. Sometimes I'll treat red lights like stop signs, very late at night, as a minor demonstration of sobriety--like, if you want to pull me over, have at it, but you're gonna be bored and disappointed.

> Perhaps fortunately, this model has only ever been used in one real prison in Cuba

I think the design is actually a lot more widespread that that. For example, some of today's hot new software companies like Bubble App are already experimenting with it:

"Good news! In response to your “concerns” about our current open-plan creative campus, we are pleased to announce our new building: a towering panopticon à la Jeremy Bentham’s eighteenth-century vision of utilitarian corporate efficiency!"

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/our-open-plan-office-fai...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20946847

I'm not sure if you meant this comment to be serious, but McSweeneys is a satire publication like The Onion, not an actual news source.

Either way, I must say I appreciated the comment as I've never heard of this site before. Off topic but, just checked out their very seasonal article 'It's Decorative Gourd Season...' - absolutely hilarious!

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its-decorative-gourd-sea...

My favorite is "FAQ: The 'Snake Fight' Portion of your Thesis Defense".

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/faq-the-snake-fight-port...

> Perhaps fortunately, this model has only ever been used in one real prison in Cuba - slight aside, Fidel Castro and his brother Raul were actually imprisoned here for a period of time.

The Panopticon isn't necessary in modern jails since CCTVs are cheap and installable everywhere.

Very real effect. I argue with the massive increase in surveillance that I should never have to submit a form or write a contract again, particularly with government. Simply answering yes/no to the correct question that is recorded and databased should count as effectively as filling out the endless DMV forms. All of the corresponding ID work has already been done once country-wide face recognition is in place and the phone can act as a physical confirmation device.

Radical vulnerability is the only way forward. There are comedians like Dara O Briain asking young people not to take dick pics or sex videos (for the love of christ), because it ends up on the cloud and out from there. But I argue if you are going to shine a light on everything, then you have to take it all. The only way to combat the panopticon is to radically reveal everything you can consciously do, and then hold the authority to the same higher moral standard. An elected official cannot be as vulnerable as your average citizen and they must be pressed to create safe harbours from the eye of computing judgement. Once the politicians have protected themselves the line between privacy and transparency will have been renegotiated and it will spread downwards.

The problem with the Panopticon as a model for current society is that the criminality in the story removes innocence. We have plenty of innocents that need protecting. Protecting from the world but also the Panopticon itself, which changes the model from a power dynamic to something more fluid.

> Radical vulnerability is the only way forward.

With the new "always recorded" culture any unscripted behavior can be edited out of context by malicious actors.

I used to work with journalists who media trained corporate spokespeople for TV interviews. It feels like we are now carefully managing our brand at all times in the same way. Pray that you don't get your 15 minutes of fame.

Editing out of context can be managed by having a predictable reputation which most people have, but it's in the dark. Editing out of existence is scarier. The police body cam footage disappearing means there's already holes in the net. If we grow to rely on non-public surveillance and data, the record can be changed behind the scenes. Increasingly so as deep fakes and video fakery grows.

I've already had my 15 mins of severe negative attention. It was a relief in some sense that for some sectors of life at least, it has no long lasting negative repercussions.

There was a DEFCON talk about statistical deanonymization of data. You can relatively easily correlate points of data like URL visits down to a few identities that can be validated. It's easy to identify anonymised data. This ID'd a german judge who liked to watch porn of a particular taste during chambers and some of the working day. The more these stories grow in number, the more we have to ask questions about what is normal for people in society to do and how we manage the privacy of those acts. The 15mins of negative attention is to boldly go to the frontier of this stuff at the moment.

Power / Knowledge, Discipline and Punish, and History of Sexuality were huge influences in my thinking about the world and how to think about life itself as a system with power being the interconnect. I highly recommend it to understand how culture/subcultures behave and it ends up becoming in a sense graph theory.

What makes you sure that is the right way to think about the world?

It is a model, it is a model that has been useful for me. I don't discount that there are flaws with Post-Structuralism but most ways of making sense of the world have flaws.

Fair enough if it is useful for you. I am curious what makes it useful, as it seems to be a very negative and destructive way of thinking. At least I have never met an adherent to that philosophy with a positive outlook on things.

What makes you think a "positive outlook on things" is the right way to think about the world in general, and those issues in particular?

"Positive Outlook" maybe sounds a bit naive. I mean that people have the means to do things and change things. Not everything is just a power play. Of course some situations in the world can be very bad, but even then I don't see how musing about power structures would help.

I guess it is (for me) about practical approaches and solutions vs theoretical musings.

Also in general people are not all that bad. Even most bad people are just misguided, not inherently bad.

I don't think it is made to have a positive/negative outlook. It just allows you to understand the structures as they are which gives you the knowledge to potentially change them.

It has actually given me a hugely positive outlook since it means I don't feel so lost when I need to affect change. I know what power structures to target as opposed to feeling lost.

I would rephrase that question to "What makes you believe that is one of the more useful models for thinking about the world?"

Here is a list of philosophy books I have been compiling https://github.com/Jfaler/Philosophize please feel free to make a pull request and contribute.

For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, here's an interesting debate between Foucault and Chomsky: [1]

Unfortunately, they're mostly speaking past each other, but it's still worth watching.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfNl2L0Gf8

It seems to be a problem with any televised debate - the people debating have no intention of finding the truth or changing their mind, instead it’s all about convincing the viewer by appearing to be “winning” the argument.

It's a common failing of philosophy. Many philosophers constantly reframe everything they hear and see as exemplifying and justifying their own view, and seem to be unable to engage anyone else on their own terms or even charitably see the point others who don't agree with them are trying to make.

This goes double for when the conversation is across the Analytic/Continental divide, as is the case with the Chomsky/Foucault debate (though Chosmky isn't exactly an Analytic philosopher, he's a lot closer to the Analytics than he is to the Continentals).

How machiavelic it is to think everything is revolving around power. I haven’t read Foucault but I tend to think I’m more enclined towards other values, like morale for example.

But he doesn't, there is a direct quote in the article about this very idea.

I think it's an unstable equilibrium. In the right group/social context, some values lead the behaviors of people (love, morality, spirituality) but it doesn't take much to go back to negotiation/power.

I think otherwise, and thanks to this fact we are still alive today. Just think of the numerous false positives in the Cold War, where individual soldiers responsible for launching the nukes reverted back to their moral code, undermining the very power structure that depended on them to function.

Good points but these are outliers IMHO. The context was extreme and also rare.

Power by itself isn't positive or negative. It is how power is used that has that. Morality, etc. are basically ways of actuating power.

To add to your comment, it is also how power is obtained that is important.

In other words, you can’t kill your way to power and then give away money to rescue your soul.

The universe however doesn't care about souls (rescued or not).

In other words, you can very much kill your way to power and then be fine (as to "how you sleep") with it.

Even more, unless you overdo it like Hitler or Stalin, you can have other people (heck, history itself) be fine with it, and celebrate you as a great leader, a beautiful soul, etc...

> I haven’t read Foucault but

No PoliSci 101 flashbacks? Foucault, Gaventa, Lukes, Nietzsche, Voltaire?

Or maybe they have been supplanted with something?

Foucault doesn't use the word "power" the way you think he does.

One might be more inclined towards whatever value, but the world at large still revolves around power as it always did...

The article directly refutes the misconception that Foucault believes everything is about power.

I know postmodernism isn't in favour with a lot of people, especially around here, but Foucault's ideas are profoundly interesting, and I strongly recommend you read him.

that's needlessly pessimistic. we're all bundles of values. power is the mechanism by which our values are expressed and used to change others, for better or worse.

if you want to understand people, and especially organizations, you need to understand power.

Last week I got my comment downvoted and flagged for suggesting someone needed to read Foucalt.

I still think a lot of you need to read Foucalt.

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