Synopsis
'Postscript on Societies of Control by Deleuze'
A dissection on “the disciplinary man” by Foucault
compared to “the man of control” by Deleuze
The disciplinary man:
He passes from one enclosed environment to another first the family, then the school (when no longer in the family) the barracks (when no longer in school),the factory … and the hospital or prison could occur.
He is a man controlled by time rate.
He always starts from zero.
He has been molded by society.
He has a signature and number, /a watchword/ which has labeled him and his position within the mass.
He relies on numbers or fixed rate.
He operates with a machine that involved energy.
The man on control:
He is the person out of the factory: now engage in “the corporation”.
A person in crisis /family crisis, educational,professional furthermore the crisis of the fall of capitalism and the emergence of creditalism.
He is modulated by the society or continuously changed modulation.
A man of control or being controlled - opposed, divided, examined… being infinitely trained.
He has to display himself and his capacity to re–invent or re–adapt himself to the constantly changing environment.
He is stimulated by financial rewards or discouraged by them.
He is a stockholder – a product of capitalism where the main focus is how to sell and market the product in terms of lowering and transforming it, rather than specializing it.
He relies on floating rates, the exchange on the market, currency changes, stocks’ trade.
He operates with another machine of a third type or the computer.
He is online.
He is man on limitless, continuous control / power, who ceased to be an object of surveillance, being watched, tracked or controlled.
He is regulated by a password – a code, which provides an access to a certain information or rejects or bars it.
“He is no longer individual he became dividual”.
He is no “longer man enclosed he is man in debt”.
Annotation on 'Better living through reality TV'
The chapter six - TV’s constitution of Citizenship is about how Reality Tv has replaced the actual government and its constitution. Reality TV now molts current government such as households, neighborhoods, workplaces and other social structures, drawing set of rules, strategies, stereotypes how to improve or “teach” the viewer into becoming more efficient part of society – “good”, productive and responsible citizen in the process of “reinventing his/hers own government”.
Popular TV broadcasting games, related to the subject have been examined and dissected. For instance TV shows as Survivor, The Apprentice and Top Chief could be highlighted as an example of games of group governance. Types of social, behavioral experiments, where players have to share collective sense or taking part of community. Paradoxically only one is about to win the game, the one who will become the most “self-actualized” citizen and remains self – reliance.
Meanwhile reality formats such as Wife Swap and Supernanny focus on modifying one’s constitution or the rules of life and order at the household. This links directly to the contemporary TV attempt of approving technology of the self or the constitution of the self.