NotNormativelyHuman 177
particularly salient factor in the evolution of disciplinary society where
the"theestablishmentoftruth"(DisciplineandPunish184)reliesonthe
deployment of norms is, for Foucault, the consolidation of the practice
ofmedicalexaminations.Here,themedicalgazenormalizespeople,not
only by judging whether or not they conform to certain norms, but
beforethefact,byalreadyactingonthepeoplewaitingtobeexamined.
AsFoucaulthadpreviouslyshowninotherareas,peoplesetformedical
examination internalize the requisite norms, and in this anticipatory
fashion they perform, as it were, normalization and (try to) conform to
its pressures. This process of self-induced normalization is captured by
Foucault in his ideas concerning the docile body, or docile subjectivity
(DisciplineandPunish136).^23 Here as elsewhere, the grip of bio-based
normalization is portrayed as both persuasive and pervasive. The body
ofknowledgewhichemergedinthecourseofEuroAmericanmodernity
is indeed abody, addressing human life at the point where it "reaches
into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself
into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and
everydaylives"(Power/Knowledge39).
Inhislaterwritings(thesewouldincludetheuncompletedHistoryof
Sexuality(1978-86)plusassortedtextssuchas"Body/Power"),Foucault
would then somewhat shift his emphasis, generally speaking, from
genealogies of power in European modernity acting on thesocialbody
(and other objects) to such techniques that work specifically on the
individual,the biological body, which now comes to be seen as one of
the principal "capillaries of power" (Power/Knowledge39). Overall,
though, not much is changing in this new critical dispensation. Once
again, the concerted efforts at making the body the object of allegedly
objective scientific disciplines are seen by Foucault as simultaneously
promisingknowledgeofitsmechanismsanddesiresandthedomination
of these in the interest of efficient governmentality. Now, however, the
focus on "the question of the body and the effects of power on it"
(Power/Knowledge58) is more directly applied in order to limn out the
biologicalsubstratumofpoliticalpower.OnFoucault'saccount,modern
norms apply especially to the intimacies of the body, and here most
(^23) This may also be the reason why some people accept and identify with
practicesandnormsothersconsideroppressive.Cf.Swanson,esp.100.