Explain in your own words what you understand either by the term disciplinary society

According to Foucault (2000, p. 339)

“What is to be understood by the disciplining of societies in Europe since the eighteenth century is not, of course, that the individuals who are part of them become more and more obedient, nor that all societies become like barracks, schools or prisons; rather, it is that an increasingly controlled, more rational and economic process of adjustment has been sought between productive activities, communications networks, and the play of power relations”.

Critics have repeatedly read Foucault’s opinion of a disciplinary society as meaning that people subject to its effects act like automatons (Munro, 2002). That is surely the aim of the disciplinary regime, but not automatically the result in practice. In fact, people continually oppose attempts to reduce and organize their behavior whether with a deliberate program of resistance in mind, or piecemeal in specific situations just because they don’t like it. Unfortunately as punitive regimes become more sophisticated, people have to become more and more creative – or just simply destructive – in their attempts to get around these authoritarian systems.

Foucault’s ideas have often been blamed – particularly by conservative commentators – for the alleged contemporary breakdown in social order and for development the resistance to traditional seats of authority which has marked ethical systems in the post World War II period.  I would argue that Foucault’s work – as was the work of other thinkers who emerged in the 1960s – was in fact a caution about certain directions in social organization which have now become all too obvious. According to Johnson (2010, p. 18)

“The disciplinary society is not something that had its heyday in the nineteenth and up to the mid twentieth centuries and now only exists in Charles Dickens novels or the histories of totalitarian regimes. It has evolved using sophisticated techniques of govern mentality to become a system of extraordinary complexity and regulatory effectiveness”.

Humanity is subjected to the labor process for those who have control over it instead of any general purposes of humanity as such. If someone controls humans over the labor process, it will pull a 360-degree turn on people and the labor process tends to control humans (Johnson, 2010). Machinery comes into this world sort of like anonymity. Most people just experiment and see what works. Humanity uses the new machinery not as a belonging just to get by, but as an instrument to those who use it. In addition to machines technical function of increasing the productivity of labor, machinery also has in the capitalist system the function of divesting the mass of workers of their control over their own labor.

In the course of a life, an individual passes linearly into and out of these various institutions (from the school to the barracks to the factory) and is formed by them. Each institution has its own rules of subjectivities: "School tells us: 'You're not at home!  The army tells us: 'You're not in school anymore.” (Johnson 2010, p. 11)

The relation between inside and outside is essential to the functioning of the modern institutions. In effect, the clearly delimited place of the institutions is reflected in the regular and permanent form of the subjectivities produced. In fact, the social institutions produce prejudice in an ever more intense way. The walls of the institutions are breaking down so that inside and outside become impossible to differentiate

Each contemporary social formation is related together as part of the imperial design. Those who are clamoring today for a new constitution of civil society as the vehicle for the transition from either socialist States or despotic regimes are “merely nostalgic for a previous stage of capitalist society and stuck in a dream of political modernization that was not really so rosy even when it had a certain effectively” (Johnson 2010, p. 15). The disciplinary society is tending ally everywhere the order of the day.

What is possibly most worrying at present is the high degree of voluntary and automatic compliance by individuals with mechanisms which seek to restrict their freedom. Mechanisms of social order are, of course, necessary to the survival of human beings at all levels, but the query becomes, and indeed has always been, where to draw the line between rules essential for harmonious social function, and rule that simply enslaves people, locking them into unfair relations of power?  

For example the importance of discipline in educational institutions is well recognized. The discipline in schools can reduce the violence and vandalism and also can help the students to focus better on their studies and career. Discipline is very important even in the family. Parents must raise their children in a pleasant and disciplined atmosphere. They be supposed to teach them the true-right values. They must themselves lead an orderly life so that their children can learn from their case. Children growing in disciplined and happy homes become responsible adults.

Almost every day in the news, we can hear about a trouble with undisciplined children. Sometimes there is a report of a school shooting or a teenager who went on a rampage against his entire family. It is strange and dangerous that countries cannot control a situation like this. Probably it is because when children are not punished, they think they can get away with anything.  And also very often today’s parent who has a child that shoots someone blames society, everything and everyone … but themselves.

The power of nations lies in discipline. The discipline helps the nation to make progress, scrap external invasions and maintain unity. The Government makes laws to maintain “law and order” in the country. The laws are compulsory to discipline the citizens and to maintain “peace and harmony” in the country.

It is often, that people produce chaos in public places by their undisciplined behavior. For instance, they show lack of order and manners while boarding buses and trains. The rising crime in the country is due to the lack of the discipline. Also, without discipline there can be no scientific advances, and no industrial or technological achievement, and no settled system of law, also no exploration and no development. The discipline is essential and necessary for personal growth and national success and prosperity. Absence of the discipline in the society can lead to failure, defeat and backwardness. In my opinion respect of parents, teachers and elders should be given importance. Also honesty and doing a duty with devotion and dedication should be stressed. In society should be a spirit of harmony, cooperation and mutual respect coexistent amongst fellow human beings. All should follow the norms and regulations laid by law. Disciplinary society means full realization of the sense of responsibility of every person.  Only this will bring progress and prosperity in the society and the nation. A suitable and reasonable balance has to be wedged between liberty and discipline.

In conclusion, I want to say that in my opinion discipline is the basis of the whole universe. The discipline is a basic requirement of a civilized society. Citizens of the disciplinary societies work with a strength of cooperation and harmony. "Discipline is obedience to rules formed by the society for the good of all”(O’Neil 1986, p. 11). Liberty is much cherished and mush valued advantage in our society. But absolute liberty is not possible. The discipline involves a control on liberty, which is necessary for the interest of society. Discipline has been found essential for both individual and social interests. The discipline is not only desirable but obligatory. All over the place where the discipline and regulation of human conduct are absent, the moral and material deterioration has set in. Absence of discipline often means decay. To prevent the decay, discipline has to be compulsory in the common interest and for the common good.

Sources:

1. Foucault M, (2000). “The Subject and Power”. In Power The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954-1984. Volume Three. New Press: New York
2. Johnson T, (2010). Future society. Social Science Press: El Cajon
3. Munro J, (2002). Empire: the coming of the control society. Ephemera: Phoenix
4. O’Neil J, (1986). “The disciplinary society from Weber to Foucault”, The British Journal of Sociology. London
5. Tonnyson A, (2007) Selected Poems: Tennyson (Penguin Classics), XVI editions, Penguin Group: London