Compare and Contrast Two Social Science Views About the Ordering of Social Life.

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Compare and contrast two social science views about the ordering of social life. Dr Craig A. Hammond (DD101 Preston Cluster) Michel Foucault: Social Order as Discipline Michel Foucault (1926-1984) Knowledge Power & Control Compare and contrast two social science views about the ordering of social life. Michel Foucault: Discipline & Punish (the birth of the modern prison) Surveillance • Michel Foucault’s is concerned with discovering the ‘birth’ and development of the modern prison. • The ways of thinking associated with this transition • And the impact on modern society • Read the following excerpt Social orthopaedics: Grow/be shaped in ways required by the State … The Panopticon (prison) Modern Society: transition towards … • Surveillance • Discipline • Normalisation • Discourse(s) to shape, perpetuate these characteristics – How do ‘discourses’ influence/regulate our lives? • Foucault argues that one of the main [and most important] points of the modern prison system was that of achieving ‘discipline’ and control over the bodies and minds of the offenders. • Whilst the ideas of Bentham’s panopticon were never fully implemented – clearly, the means of physical and mental control (and discipline) were. • Consider the following points taken from Foucault’s book, which explains the impact of the modern prison system developed: • “What was then being formed was a policy of coercions that act upon the body, a calculated manipulation of its elements, its gestures, its behaviour. • • The human body was entering a machinery of power that explores it, breaks it down and rearranges it. A ‘political anatomy’, which was also a ‘mechanics of power’, • • it defined how one may have a hold over others’ bodies, not only so that they may do what one wishes, but so that they may operate as one wishes, • • with the techniques, the speed and the efficiency that one determines.

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