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The Means of Correct Training, Michel Foucault

Foucault brings to our attention the mechanisms of power employed by the disciplinary state. Enclosed spaces that have their own rules of conduct aim to individualise and regulate the behaviour of their subjects. Collective spaces such as family, school, factories, prison or hospitals, all compartmentalise and splinter the individual's identity, thus reinforcing the technologies of social architecture. A subcategory of this is the technology of self, which relies heavily of self improvement and efficiency; the individual is motivated to invest in himself by the promise of being ranked according to a time and space based codification structure.

 "Discipline 'makes' individuals; it is the specific technique of a power that regards individuals both as objects and as instruments of its exercise." (Foucault, 170)

The means of correct training are as follows: hierarchical observation, normalising judgement, and finally the examination.

Compared to previous ruling systems, the disciplinary society functions at a more discreet level, it exercises power by becoming invisible and shifting focus from itself to coordinated and standardised frameworks. Training, the now primary control tool, is used to embed the observing gaze in the subject's subconscious. The subject internalises the network of surveillance and adjusts to a situation in which his/her conduct is microscopically analysed. An example for this is circular architecture as illustrated by Ledoux' Arc-et-Senans, which consisted of buildings placed together around the administrative, policing, economic and religious centre. It heralded a new supervision type that would create an uninterrupted network by ridding itself of structures singling out constituting nodes, there would be no shade left in which to hide; a perpetual alertness would become the norm.

In schools, judicial privilege would multiply into the smallest fractions. Pupils would be ranked based on their compliance with the rules established by authoritative figures: lateness, absences, interruption of tasks, impoliteness, disobedience would be reprehended and punished through "light physical punishment, minor deprivations and petty humiliations" (Foucault, 178). There were also other, subtler ways of straying from the path: not measuring up to the rule, not conjuring up enough stamina or intelligence to complete a task.

Postscript on the Societies of Control, Gilles Deleuze