Another Brick in the Wall: Foucault and Schooling

Michel Foucault sees the examination as a practice of power and as a way of discipline; he sees a kind of shifting roles among the ones who are examined and the subjects of exam. The subjects (ones who are examined) are differentiated, objected, judged, and classified according to the objects of the exam, which are externally transmitted to them. There, the meaning of training and examination loses its real meaning and becomes a way of cultivation for the “people”, for Foucault they become “pupils”. The individual differences which makes the individuals who they are, erased and, now they are considered in a homogeneous group. Therefore, examination for Foucault is a way to dominate.
Now we are living in a world controlled and dominated by the processing of “bio–powers” ; the extraction of most ideal forms, development of them by the sophisticated technologies and standardization of them and imposition of this “ideal” to the given society or community. The authorities aimed to do that for the creation of “normal”, “healthy”, long-living nations. Examination in this perspective is another tool used for the imposition of the bio–power, through the practices.
Apparently, this way of “examining the things” has introduced to us by modernization, in order to be efficient and productive; the authorities have to have “legible” subjects. The legibility comes with classification and it requires an application of “standards”. Moreover, these standards are not always the ones which are determined by the average of the subjects, rather by the “will” of authorities. If we think about the IQ tests that were done on the colonial subjects of the European empires, we can see the same kind of plot. The subjects to which the colonial subjects are qualified were not matching the wills of “intelligent” Europeans, therefore the colonized people were classified as equal to non-humans. However, such kind of examination made the tacit, rationality, practicality of subjects to be lost.

Self, Mind, Hitler, Society: Goffman's Stigma

The personality of the individuals and their unique selves are often constituted by the society, for many sociologists. Therefore, individuals, since they know the rules of the “game”, adjust their personality to the society in order to live together. Yet, this process of adjustment is a quest to create “ideal-types” in the society, then, the ones who do not success (willingly or unwillingly) in this process are stigmatized. Since, all of our actions, beliefs and roles are being judged according to the “perfectly, correctly construction” principle (the perfectness and correctness are defined according to the “dynamic” norms of the society), ones having mental, physical or ethno-religious differences are stigmatized. The reaction of others to these “deviations” destroys the normal identity of stigmatized person and because the reaction is received repeatedly it is considered as a process –just like the self–.

Michel Foucault’s bio-power seemed to me very connected to this idea of stigma. Industrial capitalism brought “efficiency” to our life as a main target to achieve. In this respect, standard, controllable, productive and consumer individuals have been “normalized” by the bio-power. For instance, for many nations “long-living, white, ‘protestant’, middle class man” is a model in their discourses. This legitimizes the disapproval or marginalization of any other persons who do not fit in these criteria.

In my opinion, the Holocaust was the ultimate form of stigma; millions of people killed because of being “different” than Aryan race, and millions more were killed being “not proper” Aryan. But, this article shows something beyond this unfortunate illustration, that is; all societies do actually have some “Hitler feelings” and will of stigmatizing. Two lessons we should learn from stigma, bio-power and Holocaust: first; we always have to look at what and who is behind the “normative, normal, and ideal”. Second; individuals have the same power as the ones who constituted “normal”, each individual can resist unless there is full and absolute control among them.