Discipline

Can discipline be understood as a dead form of mediation? In social and cultural theory, the most common understanding of discipline comes from Michel Foucault's book, Discipline and Punish, in which Foucault defines discipline as a technique of power that directs the subject's vital energy into productive labor, as well as repressing this energy for the purpose of political obedience: “Discipline increases the forces of the body (in economic terms of utility) and diminishes these same forces (in political terms of obedience)” (Foucault 1995: 138).

From Discipline to Control

"The disciplinary man was a discontinuous producer of energy, but the man of control is undulatory, in orbit, in a continuous network. Everywhere surfing has already replaced the older sports." (Gilles Deleuze, http://www.n5m.org/n5m2/media/texts/deleuze.htm)

"The real situation is that we have no discipline in the popular camp, and so we have a great weakness." (Alain Badiou, http://info.interactivist.net/node/5400)

References

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Trans. Alan Sheridan, (New York: Vintage Books, 1995).