Painless execution drugs are the logical terminus of non-corporal penality
Evidence
A utopia of judicial reticence: take away life, but prevent the patient from feeling it; deprive the prisoner of all rights, but do not inflict pain; impose penalties free of all pain. Recourse to psycho-pharmacology and to various physiological ‘disconnectors’, even if it is temporary, is a logical consequence of this ‘non-corporal’ penality. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 46
Categorization
- SEED: Article angle: our contemporary discomfort with pain-in-execution is the extreme endpoint of the very discipline that made the telescreen’s silent coercion possible — violence by anesthesia.
- XREF: connects to: Modern punishment targets liberty, not bodily pain — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 46; Penalty operates through the idea of pain, not pain itself — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 155; Penal power shifted its target from the body to the mind — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 162 (+7 more)
Related
- Modern punishment targets liberty, not bodily pain (similarity 0.87)
- The guillotine aimed to punish a juridical abstraction rather than a pain-feeling body (similarity 0.83)
- Penalty operates through the idea of pain, not pain itself (similarity 0.82)
- The principle of humane punishment remains undefined yet treated as insuperable (similarity 0.81)
- Imprisonment has always retained a hidden element of physical pain (similarity 0.81)
- Pain was calibrated to crime, criminal, and victim by a detailed legal code (similarity 0.78)
- Modern punishment targets the soul rather than the body (similarity 0.78)
- Punishment is designed to maximize apparent suffering while minimizing real pain. (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Penal power shifted its target from the body to the mind
#expands(0.92) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 162 - Modern punishment targets the soul rather than the body
#expands(0.92) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 55 - Penalty operates through the idea of pain, not pain itself
#expands(0.90) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 155 - Subtler punishment masked sovereign power rather than making it more humane
#complicates(0.85) - Collective shaming discipline is psychologically violent though non-corporal
#expands(0.82) — , The Rod and the Child, 5618 - The principle of humane punishment remains undefined yet treated as insuperable
#corroborates(0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 127 - Corporal punishment is a prime candidate to leave lasting epigenetic marks
#contradicts(0.80) — , The Rod and the Child, 6821 - Feigned punishment could deter crime without real suffering
#qualifies(0.75) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 28