What is Discipline?

In class, we discussed two different forms of discipline, discipline-blockade and discipline mechanism. Discipline- blockade consists of a higher power such as a king or other ruler who has direct power and control over a group of individuals. For instance, Michael Foucault uses the black plague to illustrate this form of discipline. He mentions that during the time of the plague, citizens were required to stay home and were constantly watched by guards to ensure that they did not have contact with the contaminated individuals. In addition, healthy citizens had to report their name, sex, and age and a copy of this information was sent to officers, who were in charge. Moreover, the individuals who were assigned to inspect the houses of the town citizens were searched before leaving the house to ensure that they had not stolen any materials. After four hours of the inspection, citizens were allowed back in their house. It can be implied that the citizens of the contaminated town were aware of the rules and of who was in control. However, discipline mechanism is a more indirect in that individuals do not know exactly when they are being watched. Bentham proposed an idea called panopticon that serves as an example of discipline mechanism. A panopticon consists of round building divided into sections. The different sections have space to place prisoners, students, and mental patients. In the middle of the building, there is a tower where a guard stands to watch over the habitats. However, unlike discipline-blockade, the individuals are not aware of the times the guard is looking over and as such they must constantly be aware of their behavior.

If we compare these two forms of discipline, we can understand that there is no right way of creating a good conduct in an individual it all depends on the situation. For example, in class, we discussed how we tend to follow a stop sign rule even when the police are not around. The reason for this is that we have internalized the rules and as in the panopticon we never know where the police might be hiding so the best option is to always act moral and follow the norms. However, it would be difficult to use the discipline-blockade form in the case of the stop sign, because it would be impossible for police officers to be at every stop sign to see who follows the sign.

Therefore, is important to understand discipline and know what form of it necessary and effective according to the situation. In addition, there should be a limit to the level of discipline applied, because if individuals feel like their freedom and rights are being oppressed then discipline can ironically cause rebellion and chaos.