Harcourt

As Foucault made abundantly clear in his genealogical work on the prison—a book he aptly subtitled “Birth of the Prison”—and as Nietzsche emphasized throughout his writings and mindful life, the genealogical impulse was oriented toward praxis, toward action, toward willful transformation of self and others. Foucault wrote his book on prisons for users, for actors, for those who seek to change the world. “The little volume that I would like to write on disciplinary systems,” Foucault explained, “I would like it to be of use for a teacher, a warden, a magistrate, a conscientious objector. I don’t write for a public, I write for users, not readers.” 13 J’écris pour des utilisateurs, non pas pour des lecteurs. The book was intended to spur action in the finest tradition of Nietzsche’s intervention on history. It was the written accompaniment, the textual complement to the organizing and activism of the Groupe d’information sur les prisons (“GIP”). 14 It was intended to augment action by exposing the Western “carceral archipelago” by contrast and as a parallel to the “Gulag Archipelago.”15

Bernard E. Harcourt