James Bookend

I can’t wait to accuse a friend of being complicit in the microphysics of power—y’know, Foucault!—and just hope they don’t ask what I mean. French people are so inscrutable.

The part of this book that makes a lot of sense, though, is the idea that when all of us suspect we’re being watched at all times, we do the state’s work for it: we imprison ourselves. And back when Foucault wrote this, we didn’t yet live inside our phones, telling the algorithm our whereabouts and our every whim. Almost makes you long for the good old days when a few unfortunate souls got a hand lopped off for stealing, and everyone else basked in a low-tech world of analog anonymity.

#foucault #disciplineandpunish