The modern concept of progress and individual development emerged from techniques of power.
Evidence
The disciplinary methods reveal a linear time whose moments are integrated, one upon another, and which is orientated towards a terminal, stable point; in short, an ‘evolutive’ time. But it must be recalled that, at the same moment, the administrative and economic techniques of control reveal a social time of a serial, orientated, cumulative type: the discovery of an evolution in terms of ‘progress’. The disciplinary techniques reveal individual series: the discovery of an evolution in terms of ‘genesis’. These two great ‘discoveries’ of the eighteenth century – the progress of societies and the geneses of individuals – were perhaps correlative with the new techniques of power, and more specifically, with a new way of administering time and making it useful, by segmentation, seriation, synthesis and totalization. A macroand a micro-physics of power made possible, not the invention of history (it had long had no need of that), but the integration of a temporal, unitary, continuous, cumulative dimension in the exercise of controls and the practice of dominations. ‘Evolutive’ historicity, as it was then constituted – and so profoundly that it is still self-evident for many today – is bound up with a mode of functioning of power. No doubt it is as if the ‘history-remembering’ of the chronicles, genealogies, exploits, reigns and deeds had long been linked to a modality of power. With the new techniques of subjection, the ‘dynamics’ of continuous evolutions tends to replace the ‘dynasties’ of solemn events. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 243
Categorization
- XREF: Directly relevant to the panoptic thesis: just as visible-yet-unverifiable space produces internalized surveillance, serialized time makes the subject’s own development a kind of self-monitoring progress. — connects to: Power produces the individual rather than merely repressing it — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 301; Discipline produces individuality with four characteristics via four techniques — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 251; Power and knowledge mutually constitute and imply one another — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 75 (+4 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: The claim that our most self-evident historical mindset — progressive, evolutionary time — is itself an artifact of disciplinary power is dense and paradigm-shifting enough to sit with.
Related
- Progress is a historically-bounded ideology; becoming is a pure philosophical concept (similarity 0.88)
- Power produces the individual rather than merely repressing it (similarity 0.82)
- Demographic growth and production growth jointly drove the rise of disciplinary methods. (similarity 0.81)
- Power controls the individual through the segmented, seriated ordering of time. (similarity 0.81)
- Discipline produces individuality with four characteristics via four techniques (similarity 0.81)
- Disciplinary time replaced initiatory mastery with graded progressive series (similarity 0.79)
- Disciplinary power produces individuals rather than suppressing them. (similarity 0.79)
- Disciplines function as machinery for capitalizing and accumulating time (similarity 0.79)
- The idea of progress was born when society gained rational control over nature (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Power produces the individual rather than merely repressing it
#expands(0.85) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 301 - Discipline produces individuality with four characteristics via four techniques
#expands(0.82) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 251 - Power and knowledge mutually constitute and imply one another
#corroborates(0.75) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 75