/Finaltext
This short essay is about discipline society and society of control. I will attempt to underline their historical and structural differences and the transition among these models . Additionally I wil try to approach the current state we are in.
The concept of Discipline Society was conceived by Michel Foucault during the 70s. This society is based on rules and norms, the power over individual is exercised through discipline, while its function is to train. Foucault also speaks about the spaces of enclosure which are fundamental in his concept. The model of society of Control was introduced by Deleuze in his text of 1992. He speaks about a society with a crisis in every enclosure space where the administrations in charge are into reforming and where power is exercised through control and not discipline. This society is based on code.
Historically, both models refer to a different time and society. Foucault located the disciplinary societies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; they reach their height at the outset of the twentieth’. (Deleuze, 1992, p.2), while Deleuze is referring to the society after the 2nd world war. Deleuze explains also that even Foucault was aware of this transition.(Deleuze,p.2). Furthermore from the title of Deleuze’s book which contains the word “postscripts” one can assume before reading the book that the model described could be ceased too. In terms of “progress” and industry, discipline society is related with the industrialisation but control society is connected with the post fordist, post industrial society.
After the historical differences it would be useful to focus on the ways that power over the individual is exercised in these two models and to present further structural differences between them.
As stated above, in discipline society power is exercised through discipline. As Foucault states, the success of this society derives from the use of simple instruments: hierarchical observation, normalising judgement and their combination in the procedure of examination (Foucault, p.170). Disciplinary society does not punish nor kills, it reforms subjectivity. Foucault also uses the concept of Panoptikon inspired by Jeremy Bentham to represent the status of surveillance and how it works. We know we are watched and our behaviour is based on that. ‘The individual never ceases passing from one closed environment to another, each having its own laws’ (Deleuze, p.2). Family, school, hospital, prison, factory are Foucaults disciplinary spaces which make us eternalize control and follow norms. Within this systems power remains and our individuality is constructed with external to us elements. In society of control as described by Deleuze power is exercised through informational interchanges. The control of people is beeing organised via their access in informational discourse. Here discourse can be understood as an action in space. The economy of control society is based on the sharing of information. We are constantly contributing in the flow of data. Deleuze also refers to Virilio who recognizes that ‘ free float control replaced the old discipline’ (Deleuze, p.4). In this society the corporation has replaced the factory (Deleuze, p.4). When in discipline society the individuality was reformed, in control society ‘an excellent motivational force opposes individuals against one another and runs through each, dividing each within.’ (Deleuze, p.5). In disciplinary society one starts every time from the beginning, but in control society one cannot get finished with anything .(Deleuze, p.5). And what about the man in each model? The man of discipline society is producing energy without stop, but the man of society of control is in orbit, in an endless network. (Deleuze p.6). In discipline society individuality is constructed while in control society “individuals have become "dividuals," and masses, data, markets, or banks."(Deleuze p.4). For Deleuze,”control affects the bodies within the social space and the creation of these bodies into forms of artificial life (what for Foucault is the work of the self on the self),that are divituated , sampled and coded” (quoted in Galloway, 1992, p.12). It seems that the well advertised information age has to offer a variety of tools to authorities to exercise surveillance and power. In this society the notion of information is beeing transformed and is transforming. It changes the way we work, the means of production and the social formations while an information, digital and computer literacy gap among people and societies is emerging. In such a state of transition, Deleuze sees that authorities are always aware and capable to react rapidly (Deleuze, p.4) .
We have to notice that within the “information age” not only service jobs became more important but according to Lutticken one is performing oneself as a unique commodity person. Everybody is a performer.(quoted in Rusthon, 2012, p.71). Moreover, performance is essential for us to retain visibility within and ever-changing marketplace (Rushton, 2012, p.71). A different pattern of individual behaviour and personality modeling is visible. The enclosed, disciplined and extra productive subject whose flow and development are always interrupted, is beeing transformed into a never ending “participant” of networked communication, production and consumption. The enclosed in particular modules personality of industrial society gives its place to a model that consists of information collections accessed and rebuilt within distributed networks.
In his article Foucault and the databases (1990) Mark Poster posits the transition from panopticon model to the superpanopticon (quoted in Rushton,2012 , p.71) and introduces the database as the organisational principle that calls us to explain, and organize ourselves. The database here can be seen as a principal element of surveillance. But a database stands for user interaction. It its a set of metadata categories, empty structured spaces that call us to participate and share. Here surveillance is not based on a particular space (non scopic surveillance). Data can function as a lens of surveillance. In the system of participation where we all take part as performing subjects we never stop to contribute in the flow of data. This leads us to the participatory surveillance, the contemporary form of surveillance that enables subjects to exercise power among themselves. Here the authority seems to be more hidden, in a way that first creates the structures of surveillance (for example the database) and then demands individuals to agree, fill and exercise surveillance to themselves. In superpanopticon societies ‘databases constitute individuals by manipulating relationships between bits of information’. (quoted in Rushton, p.71).
In the transition from discipline to control society the exercise of surveillance is beeing transformed. The society becomes more document based and the surveillance too. As Poster said, the mode information is changing ( quoted in Rushton, p.71). The individuality is affected from this new mode of information and the new functions of text within the database. Lazzarato in his text Immaterial Labor (1996) introduces the importance of new communication technologies and the high computer literacy standards set by corporations. (Lazzarato, 1996, p.2). That underlines the importance of computer related literacy in the new personality model for post industrial societies. During the 70s the first theories on information literacy are emerging. Was this an action of resistance within the information educational world or a sign to investigate further about surveillance , control and capitalism in the educational system?
Another interesting point is that the major communication media of the societies described are different. Discipline societies major media were the newspaper and the printed press but here also have the first mass media their roots. With the transition from discipline to control society television appears, which reaches the houses around 20s. Analogicaly, we could connect the transition from control society to our current state with the birth of the Internet.
In our current state, Internet is the major medium of communication while it exists within the diagram of our society which according Galloway is the distributed network.Here control is decentralised. Galloway notes that there is often this misconception of the Internet as a mass of data lacking organisation, but he claims that the internet is highly controlled. Referring to the management style of our society which is protocol, Galloway explains the DNS system and its inverted tree of hierarchical controlled information.(Galloway, 2004, p.10). He also adds to the discussion of the transition stated above in the text that each new diagramm, technology or management style is an improvement on the previous one and contains the germ that must grow to a higher form (Galloway, p.17).
To return to Foucault, in disciplinary society we were aware that we were watched and our behaviour was based on that. Are we now aware that we are performers? Is our behaviour based on that?
Overall, the concept and the way of exercising power and surveillance is beeing transformed throughout societies. Its trajectory has three critical shifts. From sovereign power and punishment, to discipline and surveillance, which becomes non scopic and participatory, control that becomes decentralised. This transformation expresses different stages of capitalism, which seems to be able to reinvent itself in any new condition. Additionally it expresses also how the construction and reconstruction of individuality is changing.