But the guilty person is only one of the targets of punishment. For punishment is directed above all at others, at all the potentially guilty.
Interpretation
Punishment serves as a warning to potential wrongdoers rather than solely addressing the actions of the guilty.
In this quote, Michel Foucault emphasizes that punishment is not only about penalizing the individual who has committed a wrongdoing but also functions as a deterrent to the wider community. This perspective highlights the societal implications of punishment, suggesting that it is designed to instill fear or caution among others who may contemplate similar actions, effectively broadening the impact of punitive measures beyond the immediate offender.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the implications of criminal justice reform.
A real subjection is born mechanically from a fictitious relation [...] He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribed in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.
Matthey, a Geneva physician very close to Rousseau's influence, formulates the prospect for all men of reason: 'Do not glory in your state, if you are wise and civilized men; an instant suffices to disturb and annihilate that supposed wisdom of which you are so proud; an unexpected event, a sharp and sudden emotion of the soul will abruptly change the most reasonable and intelligent man into a raving idiot.
I donβt feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for love relationships is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we donβt know what will be the end.
You may have killed God beneath the weight of all that you have said; but don't imagine that, with all that you are saying, you will make a man that will live longer than he.
The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political will of others; it is, through the analyses that he does in his own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways of working and thinking, to dissipate conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules and institutions and to participate in the formation of a political will (where he has his role as citizen to play).
There is object proof that homosexuality is more interesting than heterosexuality. It's that one knows a considerable number of heterosexuals who would wish to become homosexuals, whereas one knows very few homosexuals who would really like to become heterosexuals.
I don't think most people are aware of the exotic and extreme tools at the disposal of the most powerful and wealthy men of America when they are bent at silencing accusations against them.
Rest in natural great peace, this exhausted mind, beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thought, like the relentless fury of the pounding waves in the infinite ocean of samsara.
Memories are like mulligatawny soup in a cheap restaurant. It is best not to stir them.
See, even despite pious statements to the contrary, much of the industrialized world has not yet come to terms with the recognition of the fallacy of what I call the strong man syndrome.
Every Christian is important - important to God, to the world, and to the kingdom.
A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
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