Writing shifted from commemorating rulers to documenting the ruled

Evidence

The disciplinary methods reversed this relation, lowered the threshold of describable individuality and made of this description a means of control and a method of domination. It is no longer a monument for future memory, but a document for possible use. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 297

Categorization

• STORYSTEM: The biography-into-dossier inversion is a strong premise for a surveillance-fiction piece: a society that writes the poor into being via files rather than glorifying the powerful.
• XREF: connects to: Writing transitioned from record-keeping to expressing ideas through literature. — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 287; Naming conventions of rulers encode the shift from monarchy to citizen-republic — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 130

Broader Connections

• Writing transitioned from record-keeping to expressing ideas through literature. #qualifies (0.85) — Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects, 287