Source selection biases portrayals of disciplinary power toward total control

Evidence

There is one main complaint to be made about Mitchell’s description of how modern disciplinary techniques are supposed to work. This has to do with the confusion and helplessness that the observing subject typically (in Mitchell’s analysis) experiences when confronted by these modern techniques of power which leaves him no room for resistance, accommodation or negotiation. It is true that the picture presented in this chapter appears to corroborate this view. But this is so because most of the sources used here were intentionally selected to present the military authorities’ viewpoint and their desires regarding how the soldier was supposed to behave. So was the language used, a language of precision, discipline and order. Together, the sources and the language employed in them represent an ideal world, a world in which every action is controlled, every object accounted for and every person thoroughly manipulated. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 748

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what counter-evidence of Egyptian soldier resistance or accommodation does Fahmy draw on after this methodological caveat?