Political Anatomy

"Discipline is a political anatomy of detail" (Foucault).  Michel Foucault was a french philosopher, he developed a phrase that anthropologist still use today, "Political anatomy".  To him political anatomy was the controlling of human bodies.  It was how society shaped it's members, how it got people to act a certain way.  The political anatomy are the tools in which a culture may use to influence people to operate in the desired fashion.  Anthropologists can take this new definition and try to find the devil in the details.  Knowing that a society has tools and that people in general shape there lives with political anatomy, anthropologist can seek it out.  They can break down the everyday things that we see and see it for what it really is, what it means about us as a hole and as individuals.  The Idea of political anatomy brings about a hole new perspective on the world.  Like the example Robbins gave about schools in the textbook "Cultural Anthropology".  Schools are a huge web of tools developed for the control of students.  Bells, isolated desks, drawing attention to the front of the room, clocks, these are made to control students through space and time.  They are tools to get kids to pay attention, to not get comfortable and fall a sleep in class.  The Class room was developed to discourage socializing.   The bells and clocks are made to control the movement of students throughout the campus.  When looking at the world as anthropologist and using political anatomy, the world comes into a different focus.  Now everyday things have a new definition.  Roads, sidewalks, trails are all made to control the movement of people,  to get them to operate in a certain direction.  Forks, plates, dinning table, are all made to control how we eat.  Restaurants and bars have different styles of seating to control how long we stay and how we socialize.  Upon finding this new perspective a few questions arise. Why does it exist, how does it work, why do we follow it, and what does it tell us about us?  Thanks to Michel Foucault we still have much to figure out.