I'm a Soul Man *trumpets*

In his essay Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault gets at a very important question. By analyzing the way prison systems have evolved, and especially how punishment has changed over time, he ends up reaching a very philosophical conclusion. He examines that punishment used to be a form of physical pain used to set an example of sorts. After a burst of humanism, imprisonment becomes more about the rehabilitation of a broken individual into society by using a host of psychological and other academic experts. Foucault exerts, at the end, that "the soul is the prison of the body." In so doing, the inevitable question erupts, "What is a soul?"

This question has been in the forefront of society for hundreds of years, and manifests its self in many different ways. From the most evident point of view, that of religion, the soul is some sort of separate, non-physical entity that represents the eternal self. Churches of many types have taught lessons that the soul, after death, continues while the body deteriorates.This is perhaps the basis for the perceptions that many of us have of the soul.

What does it mean to have a soul, however? We use the term to mean a wide variety of things. For example, some might contend that Bill O'Riely has no soul.  That is to say, that he is a mean person. Does this imply that a soul is inherently good? If we state that a murderer "has no soul," then does that contend that souls are tied to the very question of morality? And if so, how can we justify the subjectivity of morality? Is a soul's moral sense based off of the society of the person, or some human standard for morality?We also use the term to describe some genres of music.Perhaps this would imply that the soul is inherently upbeat and happy. It is something that we exhibit when we are feeling   uplifted or spiritual.

The soul often comes up in political debates. When we talk about abortion, we often discuss when "life" begins. Often, the argument is brought up that the "soul" exists at conception, and that a baby's life is somehow valuable because of this. So is the soul then what gives us the essential spark of life that makes us who we are? Can we exist independently from it? The same issue can come up in discussions about capital punishment. It is a moral quandary about our societal right to take the life of someone, and therefore the soul.  

I am positive that in writing this piece, Foucault had many of these questions on his mind. He was striving to figure out the relationship between a man and his conscience. He figured that in the modern prison system, a man's body is not tried as it once was, but his mind most certainly was. In describing prisoners, he says "A 'soul' inhabits him and brings him to existence, which is itself a factor in the mastery that power exercises over the body. The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body." In describing it thusly, he is starting a conversation that really asks us to consider what a soul really is and how it affects us.

The only problem is that nobody has the same answer, and the metaphysical nature of the idea itself forces debate. So perhaps a soul is impossible to define, but I think that we all should consider what our "souls" mean to us.