I'm old-fashioned in a very un-Foucauldian way. I want to know whether a theory is coherent, explanatorily attractive, and empirically better supported than the alternatives. If so, I'll accept it as probably true. I don't take back bearings from political utility. I think we have to know the truth, then chart out what is most politically useful given the truth. --jks
>
>>There is nothing in Discipline and Punish, for example, once we
>>leave out the French philosophy, w hich isn't that much of it, that
>>Marxists and historical materialists should not hestitate to adopt
>>if it had adequate empirical support.
>>
>>--jks
>
>What political direction, if any, does _Discipline and Punish_
>suggest, though? Foucault ably makes an implicit argument that the
>result of Benthamite reforms (emphasis on the rehabilitation of the
>soul, etc.) may be an even more effective instrument of social
>control than spectacular torture of the body conducted in the name of
>pre-modern sovereigns, though the advocacy of Benthamite reforms was
>cloaked in the mantle of humanitarianism. In the USA, however, the
>trend in criminal justice, for the last couple of decades, has been
>toward the reversals of the very reforms that were objects of
>Foucault's critique: return of capital punishment; execution of the
>mentally ill or retarded; trials of juvenile offenders as adults;
>reintroduction of chain gangs; and so on (though prison overcrowding
>has also led to a counter-trend that calls for addiction treatment &
>the like rather than incarceration) -- in short, preference for
>punishment rather than rehabilitation (symbolized by the execution of
>Karla Fay Tucker).
>
>Yoshie
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