Monthly Archive for May, 2009

This Boing Boing post titled “FBI terrorist interrogator on the uselessness of torture and the efficacy of cookies” reminded me of a line from Foucault’s Discipline and Punish about discipline and gratification that has stuck with me over the years: “In discipline, punishment is only one element of a double system: gratification-punishment.”

The Boing Boing post features someone’s argument about how building rapport with someone is more effective than torture when trying to get information. They use the experience of giving a diabetic prisoner sugar free cookies as a turning point in gathering information that likely couldn’t have been had by any other means.

I think it is not only a good example of discipline via the form of gratification, but also a good argument for the effectiveness of gratification as a form of discipline over punishment. Another way to read this is to figure the embodied experience of pleasure at the core of subjectification.

It reminds me that most people aren’t necessarily even aware of gratification as a form of discipline. I try to be conscious of it, but it’s difficult to resist the rewards that go along with particular modes of being. Though, knowing that gratification is also a form of discipline doesn’t make it any easier to know what to do. Sometimes this knowledge, as often seems to be the case, just leads to paralysis.