The reviewer finds Foucault's 'Discipline and Punish' well-written and rhetorically persuasive but ultimately flawed and harmful. They argue that Foucault's critique of modern imprisonment, while insightful, is hypocritical and lacks practical solutions, leading to dangerous outcomes.
The reviewer recalls reading 'Discipline and Punish' many years ago and still remembers its vivid descriptions and central thesis. The book contrasts pre-modern penal systems with modern ones, highlighting the shift from public torture to disciplinary confinement. Foucault argues that modern imprisonment, despite its claims of humaneness, is a more efficient and intrusive form of power. The reviewer appreciates the book's insights but has several disagreements. They find Foucault's argument hypocritical, as he expects readers to recoil from past punishments while criticizing modern methods. The reviewer also notes that Foucault does not explain why these paradigms change or the consequences of his proposals. They argue that Foucault's leftist, sixties intellectual perspective leads to impractical and harmful ideas, such as prison abolitionism without viable alternatives. Despite its persuasive writing, the reviewer finds the book deeply wrong and intellectually poisonous.
Quick quotes
The main gist of the whole book is a thesis somewhat like this: different periods have different paradigms of how to deal with crime.
Foucault’s thesis assumes the existence of a series of paradigms that change over time, but he never makes an attempt at explaining either why this paradigms appear in the first place and/or under which circumstances they change.
It is well written and rhetorically persuasive; it is also deeply wrong, and in many ways, an intellectual poison that leads to hare-brained false ideas and beliefs and to noxious practices that create worse outcomes for everybody.