Panopticism Essay

Originally, Foucault described measures to take against a plague that occurred in the seventeenth century, in which stands as an image against which the idea of discipline was created. Panopticism, also referred to as disciplinary power, incorporates structures that help disciplinary power function, which include invisibility, self-monitoring, normalisation, and surveillance. As a result, the Panopticon was an architectural design put forth by Jeremy Bentham in the mid 19th century for prisons, insane asylums, schools, hospitals, and factories. The first theory of the Panopticon was a prison, in which the wardens could always see the inmates, but the inmates could not see the wardens. “He is seen, but he does not see; he is an object of information,
Described by Foucault, this was a metaphor that allowed for the exploration of the relationship between systems of social control and people in a disciplinary situation, as well as the power-knowledge concept. According to Foucault, power and knowledge came from observing others in a circular fashion, and the result of this observation was acceptance of rules and submissiveness. Foucault stated that "by being combined and generalized, they attained a level at which the formation of knowledge and the increase in power regularly reinforce one another in a circular process" (Foucault 1977). Described in his 1977 publication “Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison” invisibility could possibly be the main feature of the Panopticon, as without knowing who holds the power, inmates are conscious of behaving correctly. The fact that power is invisible is a huge deterrent for misbehaving. (Foucault, 1977). Foucault was also sited that the “Panopticon must not be seen as a dream building: it is the diagram of a mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form…. It is a model for society to come.” (Foucault,
One example of Panopticism within books is present in George Orwell’s publication titled “1984”. Foucault quotes "the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so” (Foucault, 1975) and this is directly connected to Orwell’s statement that “it was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time”. For both Foucault and Orwell, the idea of constant watch from a higher power was essential for a “perfect and effective environment”. Orwell made known the implication that an overly watched society by the government or of a similarly-heirached power was essential to having a perfect environment. What Orwell implied, Foucault actually described – “Two ways of exercising power over men, of controlling their relations, of separating out their dangerous mixtures. The plague stricken town, trans versed throughout with hierarchy, surveillance, observation, writing; the town immobilized by the functioning of an extensive power that bears in a distinct way over all individual bodies-this is the utopia of the perfectly governed city” (Foucault,