"Exercise is that technique by which one imposes on the body tasks that are both repetitive and different, but always graduated. . . . towards a terminal state."
And then, ominously:
"Exercise, having become an element in the political technology of the body and of duration, does not culminate in a beyond, but tends toward a subjection that has never reached its limit."
Keep that in mind next time you step on the treadmill: a subjection that has no limit.
(from Discipline and Punish, Vintage Books (1991), p. 161, 162)
Well, I haven't read the book so I don't know his train of thought. So this is probably entirely off the subject.
I guess in thinking about it, there are two things I see that scare me: habitual self-medication among adults in order to "balance" their own minds with the goal of allowing themselves to continue to function bodily in life with a minimum of emotional stress (antidepressants).
The second thing is a little scarier - habitual medication (antidepressants, hyperactivity drugs etc) given from parent to child, school to child, prison to prisoner... with the rhetoric of balancing the recievers mind (and thus freeing them to function "bodily" in life with a minimum of emotional stress), but also minimizing the emotional stress of the parent, school, or prison.
you mean that if you accept the rhetoric about balance it makes you riper for subjection? Your mind won't get in the way of the use of your body for the exercise of power?
Foucault is all about prisons and schools, at least in this book. That is where the individual, "docile body" is created, where power is internalized.
This somehow makes me think about current trends in medication - especially rhetoric about "balance". I guess if you could completely "balance" your state of mind, it wouldn't get in the way of the bodily exercise of the drudgery of daily tasks.
It's somewhat scary the the rhetoric seems to be most prevelant in prisons and schools.