Unarmed dignified walking can breach military checkpoints briefly

Evidence

The soldier is above all a fragment of mobile space, before he is courage or honour. Guibert describes the soldier in the following way: ‘When he is under arms, he occupies two feet along his greatest diameter, that is to say, taking him from one end to the other, and about one foot in his greatest thickness taken from the chest to the shoulders, to which one must add an interval of a foot between him and the next man; this gives two feet in all directions per soldier and indicates that a troop of infantry in battle occupies, either in its front or in its depth, as many steps as it has ranks’ (Guibert, 27). This is a functional reduction of the body. But it is also an insertion of this body-segment in a whole ensemble over which it is articulated. The soldier whose body has been trained to function part by part for particular operations must in turn form an element in a mechanism at another level. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 248 (#complicates, via linked claim)

There’s not one gun in two ready to fire in the whole blockhouse line after this rotten snow. — Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, 244 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The soldier becomes a measurable spatial segment rather than a reservoir of courage — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 248; Uniforms ended desertion by making the soldier legible to observers; Fortified defense lines can decay into near-total unreadiness through neglect — Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, 244

Broader Connections

• The soldier becomes a measurable spatial segment rather than a reservoir of courage #complicates (0.74) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 248
• Fortified defense lines can decay into near-total unreadiness through neglect #complicates (0.73) — Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, 244