I belong myself to that strand of US culture (only one, to be
sure, but the dominant one in many ways) which considers itself
to be eurocultural. I am not blaming Europe for inventing social
technologies of control as such! I am extending Foucault's
inquiry into my own /his own history, to ask what are the origins
of the specific institutional technologies of social control that
we are now living with in many European, American, and other
societies. I do not imagine that other cultural traditions did not
also practice social control, and some as viciously, totalizingly,
and effectively -- or more -- than in our tradition.
Personally, I have some knowledge of Asian history and institutions
from several asian cultures. I do not neglect these when inquiring
more abstractly into such matters, but here I am interested in
specific institutions. I do not believe that the formation of our
present institutional arrangements of schooling derives in many
significant ways from Islamic, Hindu, Confucian, etc. traditions
about formal education. If I am wrong in this belief from my
ignorance of historical research, I should be greatly interested
to learn.
My point was not at all Euroculture bashing (though actually I
work hard to be as critical of my own cultural tradition as I
possible can; it is a gesture of self-defense against self-delusion).
My point was to suggest common sociopolitical origins of various
technologies of control, including those of modern schooling, and
thus to suggest schooling's present-day complicity in the agendas
of privilege which are associated historically with these particular
technologies from their time and circumstances of origin (and
traceable thereafter in terms of the social forces that shaped
and supported the extension of the technologies). JAY.
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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