-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: LeoCasey@xxxxxxx <LeoCasey@xxxxxxx>
A: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Data: Thursday, March 18, 1999 12:17 AM
Oggetto: Power In Eduation & Foucault
>I suppose that one might complain that I simply don't have the ear for the
>poetry that speaks of "the music of their spheres," but I would like to
take
>up the question of the application of Foucault's analysis of power to the
>school and education. Once we move beyond the metaphysical language of
>"devoured souls," what exactly do we have here?
>
>Yes, some of the techniques of power which Foucault analyzes in D&P are
used
>in the educational setting, and it is important to have a grasp on how they
>work. A fascinating study could be done on how standardized educational
>testing functions as a technique of normalizing power, for example. But the
>conclusion that the school and the prison are homologous
>structures/institutions of power, drawn as a corollary of the observation
that
>both utilize similar techniques of power, reminds me of a prescient
criticism
>Michael Walzer make of Foucault some years ago: his analysis is unable to
>distinguish between authority and the authoritarian, and between the
existence
>of a total institution in a generally open society and totalitarianism. The
>facile equation of the high school and the prison, especially when
announced
>from the ivy-covered halls of an institution which likes to delude itself
that
>it is outside of disciplinary power, seems to me to be the logical extreme
of
>this flaw in Foucault's analysis.
>
>Leo Casey
>
But how can you say on the one hand that Foucault helps you understand the
workings of power and then say that you like Walzer's criticism that F can't
distinguish among power formations?
In what sense is the equation of prisons and high schools facile? Of course,
a 'comparison' is not an 'equation' and so your claim can't be, I assume,
that F says or thinks that high schools are 'just the same' as prisons.