Foucault on Torture Part II

Foucault, Michel. 1975. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Random House Publishers.

When we left off last, the Enlightenment was upon us...Great men were theorizing about the best way to create a new law and order for all. The death of absolute monarchy was impending and the dawn of democracy was fast approaching... Reason and rational thought began to take center stage, and a whole new "field of objects" were now subject to scientific scrutiny...Logic had trumped belief...1000's of years of western culture were in the middle of an earth shattering paradigm shift...In a nutshell, the Enlightenment was a total reorganization of society.

In order to have a working and ordered society, there must be rules, sanctions, norms of behavior, and laws which everyone follows. If a person is not following the rules, i.e. committing crimes like stealing or killing, there must also be consequence. After all, the social engineering of consequences aids the masses in governing themselves does it not? We can't have criminals running about causing mayhem and getting off scott free can we? Of course not, one of the most important functions of government is to maintain social order. If people just run around doing whatever they please, social order is lost and "society" collapses.

What the heck does this have to do with torture? Lets stop and consider what Foucault thinks shall we?


Pre-enlightenment period, the way to deal with this criminal or deviant element was to have spectacle punishment, torture, and death. It was the "body" of the person that was condemned by the State. The intention of this public exhibition was to brand a body with "infamy"(p. 34). Public torture was intended to be "spectacular," to be seen as the "triumph" of social order over the common criminal (p. 34). Even to go so far as to commit torturous acts on a dead body to show that "justice pursues the body beyond all possible pain" (p.34).

These public exhibitions would drive the masses into a frenzy and as the Enlightenment began to take hold, sovereign leaders began to rethink this. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to rile the public in this way. Rationality, in its restrained subtleties, would dictate that a more somber rule of law would create a tighter social order. But how to properly punish then? To force payment of these deviants for their criminal acts?

Foucault begins to address this question with a question of his own..." If the penalty in its most severe form no longer addresses itself to the body, on what does it lay hold?" (p.16). The answer he provides? "Since it is no longer the body, it must be the soul" (p.16). Huh. The punishment now was to "act on the depth of (peoples) hearts" (p. 16). No more quick guillotine decapitation for you buddy, no sir.

Instead, how about years of isolation for society? Sexual deprivation, food deprivation, not getting to see your wife and children, back breaking labor for the benefit of the State, getting up and going to bed when you're told? In other words, complete displacement and a total loss of your liberties and choices. You get to become a tortured soul instead. Your body is imprisoned by the State and your soul becomes imprisoned within the wretched confines of your body. OK...

And what of the public? Where do they fit now? In a public trial where rational law and explanations rule and spectator sport is dead, a loud and rowdy public must now bring itself to order and assume appropriate courtroom manner. Now instead of judging others, they watch the courts judge and absorb that judgement into themselves...a new way for the governing elite to force compliance of the masses by a different kind of example. This new judgement would weigh heavily on the hearts of the condemned as well as the masses.

To be continued....