Michel Foucault and The Concept of Normalization

Sarah Barclay - H-03

What Is Normal? How do we define normal in our society? How has the concept of normal changed from 100 years ago? 50 years ago? 20 years ago? Why is it normal?

Philosopher Michel Foucault focused a large amount of time on the concept of normalization, moving from topics like madness, sexuality, and prison.

As I mentioned in my midterm blog post, Merlí, the Spanish show about a philosophy teacher, is one of my favorite shows, and it has introduced me to many philosophers, including Foucault. During the episode “Foucault,” they talk about the concept of normality which has always been an interest of mine. Attaching a name to that concept pushed me to do research and made me want to learn more about Michel Foucault.  

Born in 1926 to a family of doctors in Paris, France, Foucault was raised in a conservative upper-middle-class, bourgeois family. Although he never really spoke about his childhood, when he did, he recalled his father’s strictness and punishments he had endured, referring to his father as a bully and himself more of a delinquent.

Foucault was well educated, earning his baccalaureate (French diploma allowing for further education at a university) in 1943 before moving to École Normale Supérieure and the University of Paris. He mainly studied psychology, its history and philosophy, and was well read in medical and social sciences.

The Concept of Normalization

Our perception of what’s normal is created by a few societal influences which in turn has an effect on our behavior towards different things.

Our mood and emotions easily determine how we feel and whether or not we like something at any given moment. If you have negative feelings toward something, you’re bound to reject it more than if you had positive feelings, and vice versa.

Development during childhood has a strong influence on our ideals and values, especially due to how we’re raised by parents or other family members. Your belief system is formed by your parents’ belief systems, and what’s important to them could become important to you, whether you’re aware of this or not.

Role models form more behavioral effects as you age, and as you age out of your ability to alter how you think. These are people like teachers, mentors, celebrities, activists, even philosophers. If you like a person’s stance on an issue, you might be more inclined to follow more of their stances, even on things you’ve never thought about before.

In a 1971 televised debate with Noam Chomsky, Foucault expressed a philosophy similar of that to John Locke where he argued against the possibility of any fixed human nature. He thought that people were influenced by their surroundings.

A large part of Foucault’s philosophy surrounded the concept of normal through his works on madness, sexuality, and prison.

Throughout his life, he wrote a few books on these subjects

•       The History of Madness (1961)

•       The Birth of the Clinic (1963)

•       The Order of Things (1966)

•       The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969)

•       Discipline and Punish (1975)

•       The History of Sexuality (1976)

In 1961, Foucault wrote The History of Madness (L’Histoire de la folie), largely influenced by his academic knowledge of psychology and his work in a Parisian mental hospital, as well as his anger towards the moral hypocrisy of modern psychiatry. To Foucault, the idea that people who were mentally ill or sick needed some sort of medical treatment was not an improvement on earlier treatments and concepts. He thought treatments for the mad were a cover for controlling them, so they would fall under the conventional bourgeois morality. Foucault argued that the idea of mental illness was really the result of questionable social and artificial commitments.

In his book The History of Sexuality (L’Histoire de la sexualité), Foucault condemns the idea that western culture had suppressed sexuality for the past 300 years. Not only that, but he believed that society had an interest in sexualities with fell outside of the marital “normality,” like children, the mentally ill, the criminal and homosexual. Due to his thoughts and opinions expressed within this book, Foucault is credited with the idea that sexuality, including homosexuality, is a social construct. Basically, the only thing that made it taboo was the society at the time that viewed it and the ideals that were passed down through that society.

Foucault is arguably most known for his thoughts on prison, especially with its influence on modern society. In 1975, his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison) was published. This was genealogical study of the development of the supposedly “better, nicer,” more modern way of imprisonment, rather than the old way of torture or death sentences. With this study, Foucault claimed that this newer prison system was a better way of being able to gain more control. He argued that this new form of punishment was a model for controlling an entire society, with some of the systems being integrated into things like factories, hospitals, and schools. If you remember TCAP testing, the ACT/SAT in schools, or wellness tests in hospitals, Foucault saw these as methods of gaining control. He thought this standardization was a way to combine hierarchical observation with normalizing judgment. The people passing judgment are able to see a large amount of information on any one person and Foucault felt that they could/would use that information for the power system’s benefit and increase their ability to control that person.

Along with those standards, Foucault thought that if you tried to deviate, you’d fall into a different set of standards and would never be able to be free.

Quiz

• What is one of Foucault’s works?
• Name one factor of how someone can be influenced in society?
• How did Foucault view the treatment of madness?
• Who did Foucault debate in 1971?

Discussion Questions

• What makes something normal? Why is or should something be considered normal?
• In a society that hates your true self or finds you abnormal, would you find it easier to express your yourself the way you are or to change yourself into someone deemed appropriate/normal?

For more on Foucault

Midterm Report: Epicurus 

https://cophilosophy.blogspot.com/2018/10/epicurus.html