Is Jeremy Bentham the prophet of the modern age
[2 points] Is Jeremy Bentham the prophet of the modern age? How do you respond to Foucault’s suggestion that the doctor, the psychiatrist, the social worker and the teacher are engaged in a continual process of surveillance and examination that helps to impose the carceral state?
[8 points] Foucault’s text begins with an account of a system enacted in the seventeenth century to control the spread of the plague. After describing this system of surveillance, he compares it to the “rituals of exclusion” used to control lepers. He says, “The exile of the leper and the arrest of the plague do not bring with them the same political dream.” At many points he sets up similar pairings, all in an attempt to understand the relations of power and knowledge in modern public life.
As you reread, mark the various points at which Foucault works out the differences between a priori and the current “political dream” of order. What techniques or instruments belong to each? What moments in history are defined by each? How and where are they visible in public life? How did this new surveillance system of the plague mark a shift in the way power functioned in society?
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