The spectacle’s crowd could invert terror into revolt against the punitive power
Evidence
Now it was on this point that the people, drawn to the spectacle intended to terrorize it, could express its rejection of the punitive power and sometimes revolt. … Preventing an execution that was regarded as unjust, snatching a condemned man from the hands of the executioner, obtaining his pardon by force, possibly pursuing and assaulting the executioners, in any case abusing the judges and causing an uproar against the sentence – all this formed part of the popular practices that invested, traversed and often overturned the ritual of the public execution. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 115
Categorization
- XREF: This is the instability point of sovereign power that drove the shift to the panoptic, disciplinary model — power that no longer needs a crowd and no longer risks crowd revolt, directly anticipating the enclosed Discipline chapter. — connects to: Punitive spectacle could invert into a festival glorifying the condemned. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 396; Political revolt could be rerouted into mere crime by the penal apparatus — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 435; Celebrated criminal spectacles deliberately drowned out political violence — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 435 (+9 more)
- QUESTION: Does the internal instability of the penal spectacle here explain why panopticism replaced the scaffold — a question the chapter sets up and the book’s later chapters answer?
Related
- Punitive spectacle could invert into a festival glorifying the condemned. (similarity 0.84)
- State power neutralized spectacle by garrisoning execution squares (similarity 0.82)
- Rather than displaying sovereign power, executions staged a reversible duel between executioner and people (similarity 0.81)
- Public executions produced disorder rather than deterrence for the crowd (similarity 0.81)
- Sovereign power was recharged only through visible spectacle (similarity 0.81)
- Public torture was spectacle designed to display sovereign power publicly (similarity 0.80)
- The crowd functioned simultaneously as audience and participant in royal punishment (similarity 0.80)
- Public execution reactivates injured sovereign power rather than restoring justice. (similarity 0.78)
- Public executions required a witnessing crowd to constitute their meaning and effect (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Revolutionary terror designed to discredit the state often backfires into sympathy for the state.
#contradicts(0.85) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1523 - Public torture was spectacle designed to display sovereign power publicly
#qualifies(0.85) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 83 - Restricting freedom provokes the rebellion it aims to prevent
#expands(0.80) - Public executions required a witnessing crowd to constitute their meaning and effect
#expands(0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 113 - Provoking state repression is the core mechanism of modern revolutionary terrorism
#corroborates(0.80) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 368 - State power neutralized spectacle by garrisoning execution squares
#corroborates(0.75) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 120