Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, group response by chris, eric & audrey

In Discipline and Punish, Foucault critically describes an eighteenth century world that moves toward "educating" the mind. In this society, individuals learn self-discipline and how to transform their bodies into the kinds of bodies needed in the society that they live in. He calls these kinds of bodies the "docile bodies". He discusses how the society controls its members in our time. His chapter regarding panopticism discusses how he believed the panopticon was a generalized mechanism that illustrated disciplinary society through economics, politics and scientific techniques. It rationalizes and makes useful human bodies docile, for more higher and demeaning dominant classes.

A society forces docile bodies to believe in whatever that is dictated to them. We can take the simple example of how people believe that mass consumption is a direct translation to pleasure and self satisfaction - in this sense, the docile bodies are the consuming bodies that believe you are what you buy. During the group discussion, we were contemplating whether or not this is a 'good' or 'bad' thing, is it a threat to society rather than a benefit? We saw it as specific members of society looking against this example, where they would think outside of the box and resist the "mental self-discipline". Would it be justifiable for society to eliminate certain tools, such as literature, mass media or postsecondary education? As for the certain individuals that do believe these examples are used to analyse society, is it important to separate our academic work from our personal life? Would these consumptions be better fit to society as choices rather than obligations?

Inventions and control are two very important elements in this text. We can see the internet or any other type of mass media as a utility that allows any individual to express themself. As it was mentioned before however, with being able to express ourselves, we are restricted by understanding the information that is given to us each and every day, i.e. through schooling, books, etc. It can be seen as either / or. Expressing ourselves is a good way to send personal messages across to others, but is it not, in some sense, contributing to our "docile bodies"? Has it opened more oppurtunities for people? or has it restricted people to sit in front of a computer screen and be masked their entire lives through technological advances?