foucault “the spectacle of the scaffold”
May 29th, 2007 by chard3ah
Truth- The justice system being described by Foucault has an interesting concept of truth and falsehood, guilt and innocence. It “did not obey a dualistic system: true or false, but a principle of continuous gradation” (42). In this way, minor punishments are given to people who are accused of horrible crimes but have only minor evidence against them: they are a little guilty, so receive a minor punishment since their absolute culpability cannot be established. Although this certainly seems very odd to us, it seems like a strangely modern idea: the accused is only as guilty as the evidence suggests. It is not exactly innocent until proven guilty, but still only as guilty as you are proven. The idea of physical punishment is very tied up with the notion of truth, as in many circumstances torture and execution is done with the objective that “the body has produced and reproduced the truth of the crime” (47).
Secrecy-The justice system in Europe remained secret from not only the public but from the accused. Foucault notes that “knowledge was the absolute privilege of the prosecution,” as the accused had no idea who was accusing him, any evidence or documents being used, or the names of any witnesses against him (35). The modern day justice system is an interesting reversal of this, as we currently make a spectacle of the arrest and trial, while punishment is kept secret. While the spectacle of public torture and execution was intended to reveal truth, the secrecy of the justice system was intended to limit the knowledge of the truth to the magistrates and judges.
Spectacle- Part of the reason that there is a spectacular element to punishment is so that the public will be deterred from committing crimes: “men will remember…pain duly observed” (34). Perhaps more importantly, though, punishment and torture must be a spectacle so that the public can witness the triumph of truth and justice; this is the “ceremonial of justice” (34). In this way the guilty man becomes “the herald of his own condemnation,” every ritual procession and reading of the sentence reinforces the triumph of truth over the accused (43). The public punishment of a condemned man was less about him and more about the audience: as Foucault notes, “in the ceremonies of the public execution, the main character was the people, whose real and immediate presence was required for the performance” (57).
Katie,
This is a superb reading of the second chapter of Foucault. I particularly appreciate your discussion of the “spectrum of guilt” in relationship to truth. This notion of guilt as directly related to the degree of evidence suggests a slide scale of truth that is not so easily broken to the strict dichotomy of “guilty/not guilty”. Moreover, the fluidity of truth is n important issue in regards to Foucault’s notion of genealogy that we did not spend as much time on as I would have liked to, so I am really glad you discuss it in detail here.
Additionally, the idea of spectacle that you discuss here brings a lot of important points into focus. The role of the public in these spectacular executions is much more complex than we might often assume. We can all easily grok the idea that the scaffold was a place to parade state power -but how does it also empower the public simultaneously? How might such a spectacle offer a potential space for dissent, subversion, and general disobedience? If the main character of the performative act of public execution was the people (how can it be public without them?) was their role always predictable or even beneficial to that power of the state?
Excellent work!
Foucault’s views on truth are interesting because they are pertinent to the rest of the reading. So many ideas about history and the difference between right and wrong are fluid but seem absolute because they have been so ingrained. I also think it’s interesting that you pointed out that we view a relative, graded definition of guilty as modern. This ties in with the notion of evolution Foucault talked about and our wish to view modern as better. This view in itself is a sort of rigid form of truth influenced by our culture that we often support without recognizing its rigidity.
I think that you can view the role of the public as a devise which the government used to make them feel included. If the people feel that they have an active role in the workings of the government then they are satisfied and less likely to resist the status quo. Given the fact that the public’s actions and reactions were so predictable, I can’t help but see them as a part of the equation made up and carried out by the government. Although there were many cases where the reactions of the crowds went against what was predicted, for example memebers trying to free prisoners and protesting against the manner in which a prisoner was executed, they were mostly puppets.