time to get your foucault out

"He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constranits of power; he makes them play sponatenously upon himself, he inscribes himself in power relations in which he simulatenously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection"

(Foucault, 1979: Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison) just made me think about all the Germans that were formely known as "Hartz-IV Empfänger" (Receivers of the very basic social insurance money) and are now officially called "Unterschicht" (lower class). It didn't made them feel better about their situation, but now they can complain while -seemingly- accepting their social shortcoming. Made & makes me think.

The qoute, by the way, is from a very thorough paper on the history of photography and anthropology, heavily influenced by the french poststructuralist gang of four (Foucault, Barthes, Derrida - but, now that I checked, no Lacan).