Foucault Disciplinary Power

The idea that oversight, structure and rules, including what time you wake, go to bed, eat and how one should behave combined with the fear of getting caught breaking the rules could actually become a source of power and result in behavior changes was interesting to me. This is the concept of disciplinary power as outlined by Michel Foucault. This paper explains what Foucault meant by disciplinary power, it explores the primary elements of disciplinary power, it will provide examples from history that helped establish Foucault’s beliefs, and it will also look at how disciplinary power applies to today’s society. Foucault’s theory of disciplinary power is based on historical evidence from leading armies to the control of criminals in prison,
Foucault supported the idea that people could largely be controlled simply by effectively observing them and he uses armies and monasteries as examples of the origins of disciplinary power. Power, as used by Foucault, is the ability to get a person, or a group of people, to do something that they might not normally do if it was not for the discipline. The historical example includes Foucault’s explanation that before the use of disciplinary power, power was strictly held by an individual like a king or queen who held all of the sovereign power. They ruled with a mighty fist and if you were to disobey a command or broke a law, you were punished publicly in a cruel way that set an example to all others. This form of discipline did not last long because of its inability to keep the people under rule, and eventually more efficient ways of keeping peace and asserting discipline were implemented. Discipline has become less about publicly punishing an individual in a negative way to neutralize threats and more of a way to try to play a positive role in making an individual better so they can learn from it. Watching the people, establishing standards for how they would be judged and this is followed by disciplinary
Foucault explains that the primary function of disciplinary power is to train and that it creates individual units from a mass of bodies (Foucault, 170). When I consider the research and look for disciplinary power being used or relevant in today’s society, there are many examples. Considering the use of surveillance as a method of hierarchical observation and then think of the many methods those in charge of society use surveillance to control the larger population. The first example I would refer to is the use of red light cameras and speeding cameras to control the population of drivers. The drivers know that there is a chance that they are being observed and the consequence of breaking the law is that the surveillance camera will observe them and they will receive punishment for this activity. The end result is that the driver wants to avoid a citation and therefore they follow the rules that have been established for the category of drivers. Foucault explained that a perfect device for discipline would allow a single gaze to constantly see everything and this is a pretty good description of a speeding camera that constantly gazes at traffic and sees all cars (Foucault, 173). Foucault explained that power over people could be obtained just by observing and the use of surveillance to observe is