" no historical event, according to [Michael] Focault, has a single cause; rather, it is intricately connected with a wast web of economic social, and political factors."
we oversimplify cause and effect. Why cannot usually be answered by a single phrase or idea. Maybe in chemistry, but in human affairs, things get more complex. Why did the civil war start? it was more than slavery. Why did the colonies revolt against England? taxes? There must have been a million reasons...what did the colonists weigh in their minds when deciding which side to take? we teach everything like its simple. history is cause and effect. effect becomes cause and warrents another effect. it's easy.
"a brief sketch of one of focaults major works may help clarify some of his ideas. "Discipline and Punish" begins with a shocking but accurate description of the public drawing and quartering of a Frenchman who had botched his attempt to assassinate King Louis XV. Focault proceeds, then, by describing rules governing the daily life of modern Parisian felons. What happened to torture, to punishment as a public spectacle? he asks. What complex network of forces made it disappear? In working toward a picture of this 'power,' Focault turns up many interesting puzzle pieces, such as that in the early revolutionaryyears of the nineteenth century, crowds would sometimes identify with the prisoner and treat the ezecutioner as if *he* were the guilty party. But Focault sets forth sets forth a related reason for keeping prisoners alive, moving punishment indoors, and changing discipline from physical torture into mental rehabilitation: colonization. In this historical period, people were needed to establish colonies and trade, and prisoners could be used for that purpose. Also, becuase these were politically unsettled times, government needed infiltrators and informers. Who better to fill these foles that prisoners pardoned or released early for showing a willingness to be rehabilitated? As for rehabillitation itself, Focault compares it to the old form of punishment, which began with a torturer extracting a confession. In more modern, 'reasonable' times, psychologists probe the minds of prisoners with a scientific rigor that Focault sees as a different kind of torture, a kind that our modern perspective does not allow us to see as such"
I just thought that was interesting. That paragraph and quotation at the top are from Ross C. Murfin's essay "What is the New Historicism?" in James Joyce's "The Dead", edited by Daniel R. Schwartz, published by Bedford/St. Martons, Boston, 1994. He is summarizing "Discipline and Punish". Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon, 1978.
and now I think of The war in Iraq. people all over the world gather to chant "no blood for oil!" My word, what a hoplessly oversimplified analysis. Even if oil was a factor (and I'm certainly not saying it might not be), There must be scores of other reasons. One group picks one cause to chant about and another group picks another cause, and we are left wondering who is right. The truth is that effects have multiple social, economic, political, personal, and even emotional causes. And by the time you've waded through all the causes and realize that all sides are making valid points, it takes the protestin' spirit right out of you.
we oversimplify cause and effect. Why cannot usually be answered by a single phrase or idea. Maybe in chemistry, but in human affairs, things get more complex. Why did the civil war start? it was more than slavery. Why did the colonies revolt against England? taxes? There must have been a million reasons...what did the colonists weigh in their minds when deciding which side to take? we teach everything like its simple. history is cause and effect. effect becomes cause and warrents another effect. it's easy.
"a brief sketch of one of focaults major works may help clarify some of his ideas. "Discipline and Punish" begins with a shocking but accurate description of the public drawing and quartering of a Frenchman who had botched his attempt to assassinate King Louis XV. Focault proceeds, then, by describing rules governing the daily life of modern Parisian felons. What happened to torture, to punishment as a public spectacle? he asks. What complex network of forces made it disappear? In working toward a picture of this 'power,' Focault turns up many interesting puzzle pieces, such as that in the early revolutionaryyears of the nineteenth century, crowds would sometimes identify with the prisoner and treat the ezecutioner as if *he* were the guilty party. But Focault sets forth sets forth a related reason for keeping prisoners alive, moving punishment indoors, and changing discipline from physical torture into mental rehabilitation: colonization. In this historical period, people were needed to establish colonies and trade, and prisoners could be used for that purpose. Also, becuase these were politically unsettled times, government needed infiltrators and informers. Who better to fill these foles that prisoners pardoned or released early for showing a willingness to be rehabilitated? As for rehabillitation itself, Focault compares it to the old form of punishment, which began with a torturer extracting a confession. In more modern, 'reasonable' times, psychologists probe the minds of prisoners with a scientific rigor that Focault sees as a different kind of torture, a kind that our modern perspective does not allow us to see as such"
I just thought that was interesting. That paragraph and quotation at the top are from Ross C. Murfin's essay "What is the New Historicism?" in James Joyce's "The Dead", edited by Daniel R. Schwartz, published by Bedford/St. Martons, Boston, 1994. He is summarizing "Discipline and Punish". Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Pantheon, 1978.
and now I think of The war in Iraq. people all over the world gather to chant "no blood for oil!" My word, what a hoplessly oversimplified analysis. Even if oil was a factor (and I'm certainly not saying it might not be), There must be scores of other reasons. One group picks one cause to chant about and another group picks another cause, and we are left wondering who is right. The truth is that effects have multiple social, economic, political, personal, and even emotional causes. And by the time you've waded through all the causes and realize that all sides are making valid points, it takes the protestin' spirit right out of you.
