Here is an excellent primer on Foucault.
The author, John Haber, poses Foucault vs Sartre: "For Sartre, a self-assured fighter who violently distrusted revolutionaries, alienation is normal. For Foucaultóa homosexual who died of AIDS in the midst of composing an ambitious, unfinished History of Sexualityóaccepting normalcy as others define it is out of the question."
"In Discipline and Punish, he finds the discovery of individuals to parallel the development of some areas not of increased freedom, but of increased authorityóprisons and scientific analysis of behavior.....see[ing] deep connections between the parallel trends that he identifies: individualism and central authority ... argu[ing] that individualism has a lot to do with the individual point of view, and I take the word "view" literally indeed."
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