A bit of cultural theory
We are neither in the amphitheatre, nor on the stage, but in the panoptic machine, invested by its effects of power, which we bring to ourselves since we are part of its mechanism.
- Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish
In my last post (“Visibility is a Trap,” 16 August 2023), I explained the basic functioning of the Panopticon. That is, a type of prison—whether a brick-and-mortar building or, more generally now, the overall structuring of modern society—that creates and maintains order via the constant surveillance of its prisoners. I also promised that, in subsequent posts, we would explore our panoptic experience as citizens of the modern world.
Well, here goes.
Arguably, there’s no instrument or institution of panoptic power more important or effective at disciplining people into modern citizens than school. School grabs us early and keeps us late. So we’ll begin our Foucauldian Tour of modern life with a peek at modern schooling.
As I pointed out in my last post, a key feature of modern power is its being a productive force. That is, unlike the repressive medieval power it gradually replaced, panoptic power genuinely can produce beneficial things and formulate positive social relations among people. Goods, services, a rising standard of living. All nice stuff.
Yet, at the same time, modern power also masks its controlling influences over us within this productivity. Because of such positive outcomes, we don’t recognize how and how much we’re being manipulated and defined by modern power—that is, by those holding more social power than ourselves. For example, what’s come to be called neuromarketing—when corporations use the latest advances in neuroscience to target the pleasure and reward circuits of our brains in order to spark addictive compulsions (in corporate parlance: profit) for a smartphone, an app, or a fat-filled hamburger. This situation demands some obvious and awkward questions: For whose benefit does modern power operate? Under whose control? Is everyone included in its productive prosperity?
An even more awkward question is this: Does modern schooling help us recognize and deliberate these central issues—or does school, by and large, work to obscure such thoughts from our thinking and, instead, condition us to accept a spot in the current-day status quo?
You know full well the answer to this question. That goes double if you currently live in Florida.
To facilitate our look-see into school, I’ll add here two more bits of Foucault’s cultural theories: knowledge-power and improvisation-within-constraints.
Foucault posits that a primary function of productive modern power is the formulation of knowledge, what he also terms “discourse.” For example, legal systems, political systems, scientific paradigms, academic disciplines, economic systems, and so on. However, this construction of knowledge is by no means objective or innocent. States Foucault, “the formation of knowledge and the increase of power regularly reinforce one another in a circular process” (Discipline and Punish, 1975, see here and here). That is to say, power creates discourses that support and sanction the continuing authority of power. This is what Foucault means by the knowledge-power nexus.
Foucault also calls this phenomenon “Truth and Power.” Those who have power get to create truth—or what is regarded as true. Explains Foucault:
Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth—that is, the types of discourse it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances that enable one to distinguish true and false statements; the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true. (“Truth and Power,” 1976, see here and here)
To name a few examples of these kinds of Truth-and-Power constructs: capitalism, socialism, religion, autocracy, democracy, the Boy Scouts, the law, the stock market, the military, basketball, any goddamn HOA, Google Chrome, the Economics Department on the campus nearest to you. (Below I’ll provide a detailed example of one such modern power discourse.)
Where does one get her earliest and best training in these regimes of truth? In school, of course. Pre through graduate.
(Without invoking the name of Foucault, I’ve discussed these ideas in two earlier posts: “Starting to Explore...The Regime,” 31 May 2023 and “Reproducing the Regime,” 7 June 2023. Please feel free to re-read.)
The second notion I want to introduce is that of improvisation-within-constraints. What Foucault means by this concept is that, at heart, modern power is not a mode of action that acts directly and immediately on us, such as the tyrannical command of a medieval king. Instead, modern power prefers to function as an action on our possible actions. That is to say, we are not restricted to a one-and-only response to power; rather, we are granted a range of reactions as a way to comply with the demands of power. Thus, we’re given an illusion of freedom.
In this way, we are most often spared the direct violence of power. In its place, we are...how to put this...invited to capitulate and offered some options for how to do so. Instead of being passive medieval subjects, we’re made into active modern subjects. Active, that is, up to a point. That range of options available to us is usually carefully demarcated. Foucault describes the modern power relationship thus:
...it incites, it induces, it seduces, it makes easier or more difficult; it releases or contrives, makes more probable or less; in the extreme, it constrains or forbids absolutely, but it is always a way of acting upon one or more acting subjects by virtue of their acting or being capable of action. A set of actions upon other actions. (emphasis mine; “The Subject and Power,” 1982, see here)
Modern power, then, is less about a confrontation between two adversaries (king versus subject) than it is about those with more social power governing those over whom power is exercised. Foucault uses the term “government” in the very broad sense of determining and directing the conduct of individuals or groups—such as the government of children or workers or the poor. Modern power is all about structuring the possible field of actions of others. In a word: management. Foucault characterizes panoptic discipline as “less of a face-to-face confrontation that paralyzes both sides than a permanent provocation” (“The Subject and Power”).
As modern citizens, we are ever being prodded.
My point is this.
Because we are allowed to improvise within the constraints of modern power—that is, inside a prescribed set of actions we can select from a few options—we acquire a semblance of our free will and core individuality. Moreover, because modern power is capable of producing good and useful things—such as knowledge—we might readily presume that the status quo works not only in our best interest, but in the best interests of society as a whole.
However, these presumptions are not necessarily the case. Very often, in fact, they are emphatically not the case. Within a carceral system, rarely—if ever—are inmates accorded genuine freedom, individuality, and best interest. (As anyone who has ever held down a job knows quite well.)
Yet the disciplinary training of modern ideology operates smoothly and convincingly to make us think otherwise. To habituate us utterly to its functions. After all, as noted in the quote at the top of this post, when it comes to the technology of panoptic power, we are part of its mechanism.
Now let’s all stand, please, and recite The Pledge of Allegiance.
Applying this bit of cultural theory
To illustrate these theories of Foucault, I’ll offer an example from my teaching.
As you might imagine, introducing Foucault to college students can be a heavy lift. It’s complex and multi-layered material. I’ve found, though, that the best way to get students thinking about our larger social structure is to have them scrutinize something they are experts at: school. They’ve just been released, after all, from a prolonged sentence as elementary, middle school, and high school pupils. Their lived experience of the institution is fresh—even raw. While some students display quite positive attitudes towards their early schooling, most harbor scars and resentments about their overall treatment in school, citing only the occasional bright spot of a particularly cool teacher or understanding counselor or coach. All students report putting up with quite a lot of drudgery (also known as homework).
In spite of school being a major driver and determining factor of their young lives, few students have thought very deeply about their experiences within its hallways. Most students, I find, regard school as a kind of inevitable ordeal, a torment that can range anywhere from mild to severe, depending on circumstances. School is simply something normal that everyone must endure.
The perfect place to start my introduction of Foucault.
I begin by giving students a few head-punching readings about how the modern practice of schooling can be far more about indoctrination than it is about education. Two really good essays by John Taylor Gatto (see here) get the iconoclastic ball rolling: “A Few Lessons They Won’t Forget” (1991, see here) and “Against School” (2003, see here). I very much encourage you to give them both a read.
As discussed in an earlier post (“It’s the Intellect, Stupid,” 14 June 2023), I introduce students as well to Paulo Freire’s subversive idea of “the banking concept of education” from his influential book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970, see here). Finally, to focus in on the college experience itself, we read and discuss an insistent piece by William Deresiewicz titled “The Neoliberal Arts: How College Sold Its Soul to the Market” (2015, see here). I can tell you from personal experience that the Freire piece can get under the skin of fellow faculty and the Deresiewicz piece pisses off college presidents.
Fun.
From these readings, even the most inveterate teacher’s pets among my students have to admit that, okay, they recognize many of the prison-like elements of their schooling. The long, straight hallways perfect for keeping a watchful eye on the flow of student traffic. The random locker checks. The dress codes. In some schools, the metal detectors and security guards and video cameras. Along with these physical confinements, students recognize as well their mental captivity, especially in the prescribed curricula that, intellectually, hem in teachers as much as students.
However, like most American young people, students are loath to hear any viewpoints blemished by openly Marxist thought (Freire) or to entertain any criticisms countering their deeply held belief that capitalism and democracy are joined at the hip (Deresiewicz and, to a degree, Gatto). Nonetheless, these four readings set the stage nicely for the Panopticon.
Once we start reading and discussing Foucault, students see straight away the surveillance and self-monitoring aspects of the mechanism he describes. They understand all too well how visibility is a trap, that is, how they must adjust their behavior according to the standards of the figurative watcher inside the central tower. As we contemplate and enumerate all the many ways that we are watched and tracked in our daily lives—from social security numbers to report cards to medical records to credit cards to employment history to red light cameras and on and on—students get increasingly alarmed.
They realize: Hey, this is not the usual airy-fairy, eggheaded, “theoretical” stuff. This shit is real!
When students fathom how much of this panoptic surveillance they willingly facilitate via the masses of personal data they give away thoughtlessly over the internet, well, I’ve seen a bit of panic set in. For instance, one time a student described social media as the Panopticon on crack.
Indeed.
With regard to the two notions discussed above—the knowledge-power link and improvisation-within-constraints—students typically want more clarification. These are subtle practices of panoptic power, disciplining procedures so naturalized that we don’t see them as strategies but as inevitabilities. I’ve found, however, one good example that elucidates both tactics perfectly and simultaneously to students: the General Education Package (aka Gen. Ed. or G.E.).
From first-year to senior, all of my students are maneuvering their way through the G.E. Package. Few students give it much thought, seeing G.E. requirements as little more than a necessary nuisance. Annoying hoops to jump through on their way to a degree. But, upon inspection, G.E.s embody the modern power relationship hard at work.
For starters, any General Education Package is the sanctioned discourse the college or university wants to inculcate into students. Gen. Ed. = regime of truth. End of story.
Each division of the college (for the liberal arts, normally Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences) has settled on an acceptable body of knowledge to impart. Each individual department within these four divisions has done the same. Students have no say in these formulations or even a very good idea about how such determinations are reached. They are just plugged into a knowledge arrangement where those in power (professors) have decided what counts as true or false, the means and standards by which acceptable truth is gained, and the measures by which students will be tested in their mastery of these selected truths.
Don’t get me wrong. These are all necessary educational steps and decisions that—if we intend to maintain this current scheme of higher education—have to be made. By no means am I claiming that they’re carried out, as a matter of course, with ill intent. For the most part, these are difficult but honorable judgment calls. But they are not objective. The “truths” they arrive at are not absolute and unchangeable. And at every turn their negotiation is permeated with the struggles of power.
In fact, as I always tell students, if you ever want to start a riot, just raise the question of restructuring the G.E. Package at a faculty meeting.
Within an academic division, the more powerful departments (i.e., those with the most majors and minors) hold sway over the weaker departments when it comes to which disciplines and courses students will be herded toward. Within a department, the more senior professors hold sway over the more junior professors when it comes to which subjects, critical approaches, and teaching methods will be emphasized. Overriding all of this, the college administration—its eye always on the bottom line—has the ultimate say when it comes to supporting lucrative segments of the curriculum or axing instructors, courses, programs, and whole departments that are not putting enough student butts in classroom seats.
As if all this intramural wrangling isn’t enough, figuring into the knowledge-power equation of Gen. Ed. as well are any number of outside factors—social, financial, global, legal, legislative. At present, for example, the keenly pernicious and highly organized rightwing war on academic freedom weighs heavily on the program of study of public and private institutions alike (see here).
All of these activities are matters of, as Foucault explains it, the circular process of fashioning knowledge that fortifies and boosts the power fashioning it.
And students don’t have a clue. They just sign up for “an education.”
Likewise, the G.E. package is a flawless model of improvisation-within-constraints. Sure, you must fulfill the following requirements. But look at all the wonderful choices you have to satisfy them! To complete the X requirement, you can take this course or that course. To complete the Y requirement, you can take that course or this course. Unlike the demeaning slog of high school, you are a free agent as a college student! The creator of your own education! The master of your own destiny!
Uh-huh.
Larded onto this illusion of choice, of course, is the seduction of productivity. Not only is this smorgasbord of G.E. courses mind-expandingly good for you, but once you check all the boxes (along with all the boxes of your major) you’ll get handed a college degree! One you can then show employers to assure them that, indeed, you have been well conditioned to cogging inside the panoptic machine.
And the status quo rolls on...
So what?
Lots of college students—and first-years in particular—hope and imagine that with their matriculation into a school of higher learning they have entered, as well, into the heady world of unfettered college-life freedoms followed by the boundless expanse adult-life opportunities. Yes, it’s adorable and sad at the same time, and I try to let them down gently. I really do.
But...
My job as an educator is not to indoctrinate anyone. My job is to trouble minds with added information, to broaden the intellectual and emotional playing field by providing and considering new and different points of view. Especially viewpoints that run contrary to the prevailing attitudes and beliefs that color our current views of the world. All the while, I look and hope to have my own mind troubled and broadened as well. As I’ve said elsewhere in my posts, good education, for me, is all about cognitive discomfort.
You got to squirm to learn.
At the same time, I’m under no illusion that I’m not just another brick in the wall (to channel Pink Floyd). I am. We all are. I was disciplined by school. Then I became one of the discipliners within school—that guard in the tower. If you live in the modern world, you are subjected to modern power. It’s a dilemma perpetually needing to be survived.
And while I know that my depiction of school above is, well, on the dismal side, make no mistake: I am wholly convinced, as well, that school represents THE best opportunity for someone to be exposed to ideas that run counter to the knowledge-power mindlock of current hegemonic ideologies and groups.
(Cue the inspirational music...)
Across the country and around the world, teachers at all levels work bravely to present fuller and more accurate pictures of the world to their students. For their efforts, such educators routinely go underpaid and frequently get disparaged. And now, in many locations, they also suffer outright attack from individuals and factions incited by hate and exhibiting no idea whatever of what they’re bellyaching about.
This is bullshit.
Yet, take heart. Foucault adamantly insists that modern power is ever under the pressure of change. Just because one batch of folks occupies the high ground today, that doesn’t mean they’ll still be there tomorrow. Hegemony is always contested. That means power can be won by people and ideas whose goals are not rife with control and bigotry and greed.
Hm...might school move us in that direction? Yes we can. While exasperation is practical, hope is useful. In future posts, we’ll explore opportunities and strategies pointed out by Foucault (and others) that can lead to useful transformations in modern power.