The guillotine aimed to punish a juridical abstraction rather than a pain-feeling body

Evidence

The guillotine, first used in March 1792, was the perfect vehicle for these principles. Death was reduced to a visible, but instantaneous event. Contact between the law, or those who carry it out, and the body of the criminal, is reduced to a split second. There is no physical confrontation; the executioner need be no more than a meticulous watchmaker. … It is intended to apply the law not so much to a real body capable of feeling pain as to a juridical subject, the possessor, among other rights, of the right to exist. It had to have the abstraction of the law itself. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 48

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s core thesis: the telescreen in 1984 applies law/surveillance to an abstracted subject, not a flesh-and-blood body — same juridical-subject abstraction Orwell dramatizes. — connects to: The reformed penalty shifted its target from the body to subtler suffering — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 43; Penalty operates through the idea of pain, not pain itself — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 155; Modern punishment targets the soul rather than the body — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 55 (+4 more)
• DEFINE: Foucault defines the juridical subject as the abstraction the modern penalty addresses, contrasted with the pain-capable body of the old regime.

Related

• Modern punishment targets liberty, not bodily pain (similarity 0.85)
• Modern punishment targets the soul rather than the body (similarity 0.84)
• Painless execution drugs are the logical terminus of non-corporal penality (similarity 0.83)
• The reformed penalty shifted its target from the body to subtler suffering (similarity 0.82)
• Penal power shifted its target from the body to the mind (similarity 0.81)
• Pain was calibrated to crime, criminal, and victim by a detailed legal code (similarity 0.80)
• Penalty operates through the idea of pain, not pain itself (similarity 0.80)
• Imprisonment has always retained a hidden element of physical pain (similarity 0.79)
• Modern penality’s ideal is endless observation rather than spectacular punishment (similarity 0.78)
• The criminal’s soul is itself judged and punished, not merely analyzed (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The reformed penalty shifted its target from the body to subtler suffering #expands (0.95) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 43
• Penalty operates through the idea of pain, not pain itself #expands (0.90) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 155
• Modern punishment targets the soul rather than the body #expands (0.90) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 55
• Penal power shifted its target from the body to the mind #expands (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 162
• Modern punishment targets liberty, not bodily pain #expands (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 46
• Painless execution drugs are the logical terminus of non-corporal penality #expands (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 46
• Subtler punishment masked sovereign power rather than making it more humane #complicates (0.80)