Foucault presents many great ideas through his writings in discipline and punishment. He states that institutions in our society are what mold us to decide what is and what is not moral. Institutions may include groups, religion, and demographics. For example, In the United States of America about 75% of our population is christian, this has had a large influence on our society. The creation of societal normalities with christian ideas has been adopted by many Americans. Foucault also brings up the idea of surveillance and punishment. Foucault believes that we as humans survey our society, and the punishments to see what is right and wrong. We can correlate this with Foucault and his idea of social power and the connection to our soul. Our soul according to him is an instrument through which we create our ego or personality based on views from society. Our soul is born through the process of surveillance and punishment. Another branch off of society molding our soul is bio-politics. Genealogy of our body and society over time has built upon each other and has become apart of the basis for our soul molding. So what was seen as normal 200 years ago might not be considered normal today. We contribute this to the idea we cant escape social power. All of his ideas are evidence to one another kind of like a cycle. We watch and see the punishment of actions which molds how we think but also creates normalities for our society which contribute to Genealogy. Essentially Foucault is about the idea that morals are not interior, but rather created through exterior forces.
The literature piece I decided to analyze is Giovanni’s Room. This piece was one of the first american novels to deal with homosexuality in the 1950s. Its narrated by the boyfriend of Giovanni who is explaining his first experience with a man. I feel like Foucault would have much to say about this seeing as how on a personal level he was gay himself. To start I would say Foucault would understand why Giovanni feels scared about what begins to happen between him and Joey. The novel says..”I was very frightened, I am sure he was frightened too, and we shut our eyes. To remember it so clearly, so painfully tonight tells me that I have never for an instant truly forgotten it.” (Baldwin, page 24) Foucault would blame this on the society of that time period. In that time there was obviously not even literature that involved the idea about homosexuality let alone many people coming out. Today even those who are discovering their sexual orientation go through this where they are scared and confused. We’ve evolved as a society to accept people despite their sexual orientation. We recently legalized gay marriage. We now see many trans-gendered people and its become almost natural to accept such. As a young adult in our current society my soul and ideas have been molded to the idea of acceptance despite what I was told growing up with christian parents. Foucault would say his soul was molded by society. In the beginning of the story it mentions how him and Joey, his best friend and the guy he sleeps with, are checking out girls and hitting on them. Thats whats expected. To be a teenage boy and look at girls, not to sleep with men. In the final paragraph the narrator says Giovanni says something that really proves the idea of acceptance at the time… “When I finally did see him, more or less by accident, near the end of the summer, I made up a long and totally untrue story about a girl I was going with and when school began again I picked up with a rougher, older crowd and was very nasty to Joey.” (Baldwin, Page 25) Giovanni expresses that he lied to Joey. Why though, if at that time it was like our society now where experimenting and finding yourself without judgement was more appropriate than the era in this novel, would he lie? Would he tell him about how he felt and not have been scared and run away from Joey, like he did? What if he continued with Joey and fell in love. He goes to a new crowd because society says to be cool you need to be with the rough cool crowd. While he obviously ends up with a man, he could’ve avoided some hurt and confusion if this took place today rather than in that time period. Foucault is about exterior not interior. He obviously has feelings for Joey in some way and if he just followed through and wasn’t scared this would’ve been a lot different. Even from Joey’s point of view, He sees Giovanni being mean to him after what happened. Based on Foucault’s idea on surveillance and punishment, Joey can see and interpret ideas that what he did with Giovanni was wrong and that is why he is treating him like this. As far as we know this could have caused Joey to not even ever come out fully. Foucault also believes in history of society building off of each other. We could say in today’s times it is wrong to judge those who are gay or experimenting. However, in the Ancient Greek era judging based on sexual orientation was not even an idea. Men would have sex with other men to teach domination and or even just because they wanted to. Today, because of religion and different institutions, we’ve been relayed that this idea of feeling a special way towards someone of the same sex is wrong. Recently with many people standing up for their beliefs a wide range of support, there has been a widely gained acceptance that has changed and shaped our society. This has shaped many people’s ideas or souls of today. Foucault would say the novel, “Giovanni’s Room”, is a prime example of how society really shapes a person’s soul and how the idea of surveillance and punishment heavily is conveyed.
tsunami: Incensing Transdisciplinary Investigation 