Foucault Essay
Schools and Prisons Panoptic Connection
It is not surprising that prisons resemble schools in the systems they use for surveillance. The thoughtfulness of how these facilities are laid out and organized comes as a result of many years of planning, thought and technological development. The system is called the panopticon. The idea and methodology of the panopticon is not something that everyone has heard of before. The word is lost in an effort to ensure that everyone understands what is happening in places where panopticism is used. The basic idea around the fact that it is easier to watch the movements and actions of people using a panoptic model is something that has been implicated in different ways in schools, prisons and other initiations. Schools have a similar goal of keeping the people inside safe and under control. A prison is a place where this is done very effectively so modeling schools after them is one way to gain the security a school would like. While the two do not seem like they would be similar in any way, schools and prisons have huge similarities.
“In each of its applications, it makes it possible to perfect the exercise of power.” (Foucault 293). One of the main ideas that the panopticon is supposed to portray is a sort of architecture for power. What this means is that when a facility, such as a prison, school, or any kind of building for that matter, is built in a panoptic way; it is for the purpose of the administrators having power over the people that are inside through constant watching of the people inside. Over time this has been achieved with varying intensities of separation. In earlier times, the separation was harsher and forced upon many of the people it affected. The first major method that was used was the system that was used in the Plaguetown. When a person was believed to have the plague they were separated from everyone else by being quarantined in an area where no uninfected people were. By quarantining
It is not surprising that prisons resemble schools in the systems they use for surveillance. The thoughtfulness of how these facilities are laid out and organized comes as a result of many years of planning, thought and technological development. The system is called the panopticon. The idea and methodology of the panopticon is not something that everyone has heard of before. The word is lost in an effort to ensure that everyone understands what is happening in places where panopticism is used. The basic idea around the fact that it is easier to watch the movements and actions of people using a panoptic model is something that has been implicated in different ways in schools, prisons and other initiations. Schools have a similar goal of keeping the people inside safe and under control. A prison is a place where this is done very effectively so modeling schools after them is one way to gain the security a school would like. While the two do not seem like they would be similar in any way, schools and prisons have huge similarities.
“In each of its applications, it makes it possible to perfect the exercise of power.” (Foucault 293). One of the main ideas that the panopticon is supposed to portray is a sort of architecture for power. What this means is that when a facility, such as a prison, school, or any kind of building for that matter, is built in a panoptic way; it is for the purpose of the administrators having power over the people that are inside through constant watching of the people inside. Over time this has been achieved with varying intensities of separation. In earlier times, the separation was harsher and forced upon many of the people it affected. The first major method that was used was the system that was used in the Plaguetown. When a person was believed to have the plague they were separated from everyone else by being quarantined in an area where no uninfected people were. By quarantining