User:Thalia de Jong/Synopsis Societies of Control

Chapter 1: Historical Foucault has concluded that the individual living in the beginning of the 20th century was controlled in vast spaces of enclosure such as the family, school, the military, the factory, the hospital and most obviously prison. But these institutions will soon be replaced by others that are not so clearly enclosed. We are moving towards different societies of control that might be equally confining and we need to find ways to fight against that.

Chapter 2: Logic The new of control consist of independent variables, that are ever changing. As the vast space of a factory has changed to a corporate situation, so has the way that salary is earned. The individual is now ever competing with its colleagues. Therefore also he does not move from the vast space of school to factory, but receives a perpetual education, in order to keep rivaling the co-worker. Examination at the end of an education no longer exists, but is ongoing. In the societies of control, one is never finished with anything. The shifts are visible in many more systems such as the justice system, and the economic system. Control is of short-term and of rapid rates of turnover, but also continuous and without limit, while discipline was of long duration, infinite and discontinuous. Man is no longer man enclosed, but man in debt.

Chapter 3: Program The mechanisms of control, that are already replacing the enclosed spaces need to be studied. Perhaps adjusted methods will again take their place, from older societies as the sovereign ones.

What will the youngsters do? I don’t know! I don’t understand the last bit about the ‘joys of marketing’ and kids that proclaim to be motivated, though I am slightly curious if I myself am being addressed here…