pre class for Foucault 4/ 13/10

After reading the Foucault reading I can seriously say…thank you dr. cummings…the last reading was nearly impossible for me because it is very hard for me to understand how someone could actually talk about a topic like that for that long and not thing themselves to be a tad inane, but this was the perfect length and a good topic and not too cryptic all at once. I found the first piece about discipline and punishment better how he said “ (they) were both 2 ways of exercising power over men, controlling their relations, of separating out their dangerous mixtures”. yet looking back at the time of the plague, the medical technology and knowledge of the time, and the extreme volatility of the bubonic plague one can only wonder if the right thing was done. Personally I look to Thomas Malthus and his Essay on Population as wella s Darwin, if you look at the way England and Europe was at that time a certain piece of land can only support a significant number of people and when that number gets to high something such as war, plague, or famine takes care of the population. That is all this was, natural selection at its finest. I think looking at the method that they used to take care of it was a little extreme, but at the end of the day would you rather die a horrible death (believe me the plague really wasn’t a good way to die seriously you bleed out of almost every exit you have on your body). It is only obvious that people will say that you give up your personal freedoms for the idea of protection, this is how horrible dictatorships and communism start, but at the same time during a medical emergency like that isn’t something called martial law instituted anyway. I think it is very interesting to try and make a claim like that during an epidemic that wiped out almost a 1/3 of Europe. I don’t know it thought it was interesting, but if you want a nice connection check out Thomas Malthus and think about the world around you. People are like ticks, we destroy the world and suck the blood out of it, every now and then the world likes to shake us off or scratch at us.