The Benthamite Panopticon: Total Observation and Surveillance over Inmates
The Benthamite Panopticon (pan= all, optic= seing) is a prison model modelled in 1791 in a way that allows guards total observation and surveillance over inmates. It consists of a circular building with a watchtower at the centre and cells around it that enables the guards to see the cells without being seen by the jailers. This architectural design which expanded to other institutions like the psychiatric asylum, the reformatory, the school and the hospital seems to fit in only one framework of power_ the disciplinary power. Michel Foucault develops this postmodern social theory of power that turns away from the traditional third-dimensional view of power. Rather than see power as localised in an individual, in a state acting or in a ruling ideological class, the French philosopher claims that power is ‘employed and exercised through a net-like organisation’ (1980 : 98). To him, the Panopticon stands for the ideal architectural model of modern disciplinary power also known as the ‘anatomo-politics of human body’ (Foucault, 1990 : 139 ). This subtle power resides in the unverifiable gaze upon the individual which creates a powerful and sophisticated internalized coercion and shapes his behaviour. The Panoptic device stands for a strong psychology of control, a ‘power of mind over mind’ as Bentham put it (Foucault, 1977 : 206). As a result, this essay will argue that Bentham’s Panoptic device is a suitable analogy for Foucault’s disciplinary power. Indeed, the building design maps out the six features of this power paradigm, those being its omnipresence or constant visibility, its dissymmetrical relationship, its examination, its close link with knowledge, its normalization and its diffusion. Yet, this essay will finally point out that, with the intensification and evolution of the form of power across time, the Panoptic schema may no longer be accepted as the best metaphor for the most recent power conception. The Panoptic limit has led to the elaboration of