In a disciplinary society, however, power flows from an individual back onto that individual. It is the individual s recognition of the disciplinary society that makes its power operate upon him, for accepting himself to be placed in a perpetual field of surveillance and documentation, he will tend to adjust himself to the desired norms. Disciplines make use of individual characteristics, not of individual interrelations that exist before the examination establishes hierarchies between its subjects. The family tie can be potentially subversive in that it represents another modality of power, and can potentially cause an individual to apply resources to an effort that does not meet the efficiencies desired by disciplines. The family being so pervasive, however, tends to lead governments to invert the familial power and redirect it back to the uses of disciplinary power.
Genealogy becomes more a tool of power than an origin and haven of power.
By creating a massive corpus of knowledge that constitutes the modern individual, ideally down to the infinitesimal, and by making that body of knowledge available to the given individual, it generates a sense of division between him and others. All the intense gradations of the examination help prevent a modern individual from strongly associating himself with others, for the examination always produces for him a list of differences between him and any other person, between him and normativity. It takes the power of once strong small group bonds, and forces them to be spread, with weaker power, over much larger, much more general groupings, such as nations and corporations. Thus, discipline neutralizes and controls the potential subversion of the multiplicity of men. There is insufficient space for this paper to do them full and proper justice.