Foucault panopticism. Discipline & Punish 2019-02-11

Discipline & Punish

As behaviour becomes normalised, expectations of how one is to act in public soon translates into the private sphere where these expectations are no longer applicable. Seeing that the model of the prison could be characterized as a form of discipline-blockade, he set out to improve the functionality of the prison as well as other institutions. In his book discipline and punish Foucault clearly brings out the concept of panopticism. Observing hierarchy and normalizing judgment join together to construct the individual as the object of. The panopticon is a prison which is shaped like a circle with a watchtower in the middle. Michel Foucault Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Institutions such as asylums, schools, military and secret services also adopt a panoptic way of disciplining, with constant surveillance acting to maintain control of those within them.

What does the panopticon mean in the age of digital surveillance?

As inmates are not sure whether they are being watched at any one time, they must always act in accordance to the rules. Their family would be removed, the house would be cleaned out, perfumed, and then, a mere four hours later, people would move back in. Works Cited Bak, John S. Foucault writes his essay in 1975, describing ways that his theory of panopticism is present within past centuries and can be directly connected with society during his time. Translated by Alan Sheridan, London: Allen Lane, Penguin. Who designates the description behind being perfect. It will discuss the idea of the Panopticon and how it shaped the idea of discipline and power.

Panopticism

We are all familiar with it, as we experience some form of it every day. Foucault further highlights the function of discipline in prison, and disciplinary mechanisms in society in order to make a correlation of the role of discipline as a tool of power. It is a circular building which has a tall observation tower in the centre, surrounded by empty space and an outer wall which is made up of cells. And this in­vis­i­bil­ity is a guar­an­tee of or­der. First, a strict spa­tial par­ti­tion­ing: the clos­ing of the town and its out­ly­ing dis­tricts, a pro­hi­bi­tion to leave the town on pain of death, the killing of all stray an­i­mals; the di­vi­sion of the town into dis­tinct quar­ters, each gov­erned by an in­ten­dant. Because, in these con­di­tions, its strength is that it never in­ter­venes, it is ex­er­cised spon­ta­neously and with­out noise, it con­sti­tutes a mech­a­nism whose ef­fects fol­low from one an­other. Humans generally behave differently under conditions of anonymity and solitude versus publicity and surveillance; privacy is a condition of life which is in decay.

Panopticism Essay

In this theory of panopticism it comes out that a society that is more sophisticated present a greater opportunity for control and observation in reference to liberty and observations. Taken one by one, most of these tech­niques have a long his­tory be­hind them. We see them com­ing slowly to­gether, and it is the pe­cu­liar­ity of the nine­teenth cen­tury that it ap­plied to the space of ex­clu­sion of which the leper was the sym­bolic in­hab­i­tant beggars, vagabonds, mad­men and the dis­or­derly formed the real pop­u­la­tion the tech­nique of power proper to dis­ci­pli­nary par­ti­tion­ing. Words: 1856 - Pages: 8. The same group that is being surveyed also does the surveying which differs from the traditional panopticon. It can be spotted with cameras placed in various institutions, from street intersections to shopping malls, clearly surveying the area. Based on the arguments by Foucault in his theory, I certainly endorse panopticon as a way in which punishment and discipline should operate in prisons in our modern society.

Cultural Reader: Foucault / Panopticism: Discipline

The Enlightenment, which invented the liberties, also invented the disciplines. We are all familiar with it, as we experience some form of it every day. So it is not nec­es­sary to use force to con­strain the con­vict to good be­hav­iour, the mad­man to calm, the worker to work, the school­boy to ap­pli­ca­tion, the pa­tient to the ob­ser­va­tion of the reg­u­la­tions. Hence, too, the dou­ble ten­dency one sees de­vel­op­ing through­out the eigh­teenth cen­tury to in­crease the num­ber of dis­ci­pli­nary in­sti­tu­tions and to dis­ci­pline the ex­ist­ing ap­pa­ra­tuses. At each of the town gates there will be an ob­ser­va­tion post; at the end of each street sen­tinels.

Panopticism

The move­ment from one pro­ject to the other, from a schema of ex­cep­tional dis­ci­pline to one of a gen­er­al­ized sur­veil­lance, rests on a his­tor­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion: the grad­ual ex­ten­sion of the mech­a­nisms of dis­ci­pline through­out the sev­en­teenth and eigh­teenth cen­turies, their spread through­out the whole so­cial body, the for­ma­tion of what might be called in gen­eral the dis­ci­pli­nary so­ci­ety. The first case is an exceptional situation, where power is mobilized against an extraordinary evil. Lepers were also separated from society, but the aim behind this was to create a pure community. The purpose of such a society is so that relations between the individual and the state can be better controlled. Everyone was quarantined into their homes.

Panopticism Essay examples

The effects of surveillance are clearly discussed in Foucault's essay. Consequently, it does not mat­ter who ex­er­cises power. In ap­pear­ance, the dis­ci­plines con­sti­tute noth­ing more than an in­fra-law. The University of North Carolina at Pembroke. In the center of the building.

Foucault Panopticism Essay

What this indicates is the power of self-surveillance. Utopias, per­fectly closed in upon them­selves, are com­mon enough. As in most cases, the tormentors were part of the King's staff, or a normal citizen outraged by the act the criminal committed against his beloved King. The func­tional in­ver­sion of the dis­ci­plines. So much for the ques­tion of ob­ser­va­tion. However, when Foucault rejects the impression of the autonomous matter, what portions of independence are actually thinkable for the subject? The pub­lic ex­e­cu­tion was the log­i­cal cul­mi­na­tion of a pro­ce­dure gov­erned by the Inquisition.

Panopticism

I would need means of communicating these decisions back to the robot. And, if he moves, he does so at the risk of his life, con­ta­gion or pun­ish­ment. The idea behind this social theory that subjects, being watched by an upper power, always have either complete freedom or none at all. At a less gen­eral level, the tech­no­log­i­cal mu­ta­tions of the ap­pa­ra­tus of pro­duc­tion, the di­vi­sion of labour and the elab­o­ra­tion of the dis­ci­pli­nary tech­niques sus­tained an en­sem­ble of very close re­la­tions cf. You know that you are the only one in a room, but for some reason you get an eerie feeling that you are not alone.

Cultural Reader: Foucault / Panopticism: Discipline

Historically, the process by which the bour­geoisie be­came in the course of the eigh­teenth cen­tury the po­lit­i­cally dom­i­nant class was masked by the es­tab­lish­ment of an ex­plicit, coded and for­mally egal­i­tar­ian ju­ridi­cal frame­work, made pos­si­ble by the or­ga­ni­za­tion of a par­lia­men­tary, rep­re­sen­ta­tive regime. In each of its ap­pli­ca­tions, it makes it pos­si­ble to per­fect the ex­er­cise of power. But this ex­ten­sion of the dis­ci­pli­nary in­sti­tu­tions was no doubt only the most vis­i­ble as­pect of var­i­ous, more pro­found processes. But it must be rec­og­nized that, com­pared with the min­ing in­dus­tries, the emerg­ing chem­i­cal in­dus­tries or meth­ods of na­tional ac­coun­tancy, com­pared with the blast fur­naces or the steam en­gine, panop­ti­cism has re­ceived lit­tle at­ten­tion. No matter what you do she continues to watch your every move.