Michel Foucault And The Panopticon In The Age Of Surveillance
Foucault begins with a description of orders to be taken against the plague in the seventeenth century. The plague is met by order and aims at a disciplined community. The plague stands as a marking stone for when the idea of discipline was created. The beginning of a new set of rules and institutions for watching over these human beings brings the disciplinary measures created by the plague in to play. Foucault then begins to discuss Bentham's Panopticon. A tall building with a tower at the center of it. This is so, it is possible to see each cell where a prisoner is locked up in. Each prisoner is seen, but cannot talk with or see the men in the tower or the other prisoners. The panopticon provides a sense of permanent visibility that provides the functioning of power. The prisoners can always see the tower, but never know from where, or if they are being watched. This causes the prisoners to begin to police themselves in the fear of punishment.
The Panopticon is not a dream building. However, The Panopticon perfects the operations of power. This is because it increases the number of people who can be controlled or watched (the prisoners), and decreases the number of people needed to operate it or watch the prisoners (the watchmen). It holds power over people's minds through the architecture structure of the building. When focusing on the panopticon, Foucault adopts it as a symbol of his whole argument. The theory of discipline in which everyone is observed and analyzed is originated in a building that makes these operations easy to perform. The panopticon develops out of the need for surveillance shown in the plague. The plague measures were needed to protect society, however the panopticon allows power to operate institutions. The transition from one to another represents the move to a society in which discipline is based on observation and examination. The disciplinary society is not necessarily one with a panopticon in every street though. It would be one where the state controls methods and operates them throughout society. An example of this would include police officers, homeland security, border patrol and other organizations related to them. Foucault argues that the more smarter societies offer greater opportunities for control and observation. Foucault assumes that modern society is based on the idea that all citizens are free and entitled to make certain demands on the state. This examination spreads throughout society. Schools, factories, hospitals and prisons resemble each other. This is not just because they look similar, but because they watch their workers, patients and prisoners. They then classify them as individuals and try to make them adapt to the normal human beings in the society. To this day a modern citizen spends time out of their life in at least some of these institutions, if not at least one.
The panopticon was bound to make its way through society and in a way it did. Instead of a tall tower with a center watchmen watching over us, we allowingly give away information about ourselves through data, cameras and online servers. Also, like stated before we almost have the same structure in places like schools, hospitals, prisons, and factories. Here we have a supervisor, principle, or warden who watches over not only the prisoners, workers, or students in the building, but they also watch over the employees working for them. With only being in class for three weeks I have already learned so many things that can contribute to the panopticon. Instead of a panopticon, I learned in class that we now give out data that people can watch us through. Which I think is pretty cool and scary at the same time because i never knew how much data we actually give out about ourselves. Some examples of data I learned I give out are things like my location, who my family/ friends are, where I work, and many other personal information about myself that I would not like a lot of people to know about. So, instead of having someone sit in a tall tower to watch over us, there is someone sitting behind a computer screen watching our actions and what we do on the daily basis just without physically seeing us. To me, the impact of surveillance in society is going to continue to get stronger and we will continue to not have as much freedom as we once had. The only thing we will not know is when and where we are being watched just like Panopticon. This is unless there are visible cameras making us aware of the surveillance. This is because, like talked about in class, the United States has good technology better than other countries, however we do not have the best. Other countries already have better technology.
An easy example of what country we talked about in class was China. Today in age China’s technology is way more advanced than the United States technology. Street cameras in china can detect facial recognized, so you are not only being watched you are being watched and recognized for whatever you are doing on the cameras. For example, if you are walking across the street when you are not supposed to (j-walking) in China they will recognize your face and keep a record of your wrong doing. Eventually, this is going to be the technology we have in America and it will only continue to get better. Surveillance will continue to change, however the origination of surveillance and how it all came together will always stay the same and contribute to how surveillance continues to grow and change.
Works Cited
- McMullan, Thomas. “What Does the Panopticon Mean in the Age of Digital Surveillance?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 23 July 2015, www. theguardian. com/technology/2015/jul/23/panopticon-digital-surveillance-jeremy-bentham.
