Subtler punishment masked sovereign power rather than making it more humane

Evidence

The Pasha is saying that he takes these offenses very seriously because he considers them an attack on his sovereign person. It is his “momentarily injured sovereignty” that had to be avenged and the public punishment was seen as a way of reconstituting this sovereignty. It does so “by manifesting [that sovereignty] at its most spectacular … [O]ver and above the crime that has placed the sovereign in contempt [public punishment] deploys before all eyes an invincible force. Its aim is not to re-establish a balance [as much] as to bring into play, as its extreme point, the dissymmetry between the subject who has dared to violate the law and the all-powerful sovereign who displays his strength.” — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 675 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Institutional accountability constrains violence exercised by authority figures. — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 2000; Procedural regulation of birching normalized rather than mitigated its violence — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 9128; Prisons create the illusion that free people’s rights and liberties are secured by imprisonment. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 24 (+38 more)

Related

• Public punishment served to reconstitute the sovereign’s injured authority (similarity 0.85)
• Punishment shifted from sovereign vengeance to ensuring no crime goes unpunished (similarity 0.82)
• Public punishment displayed excess rather than justice to affirm the sovereign’s unrestrained power. (similarity 0.81)
• The Pasha punished unauthorized brutality, not brutality itself (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Public punishment served to reconstitute the sovereign’s injured authority #complicates (0.70) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 675
• Military punishment reform moved from spectacular severity toward certainty of punishment #complicates (0.60)