“Panopticism”

1. “Panopticism” From Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1975)

2. Michel Foucault1926-1984One of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th Century • At the Collège de France, he was Chair of "The History of Systems of Thought." Interested in: • Epistemology (study of origins/nature of knowledge)“How did we come to know what we think we know?” • Relationships between knowledge and power • How institutions claim and exert power • How we internalize mechanisms that discipline/punish • Wrote about history of sexuality • He struggled with his father about his homosexuality • Also sought help from depression through psychology, which fascinated him. • He became licensed in psychology himself. Had previously attended a Jesuit college.

3. BIOGRAPHIES • Why is it important to have a little background about a philosopher’s life?

4. Discussion Questions • Describe the orders for responding to plague in the late 17th Century. • 1) Quarantine/division,each street under surveillance by syndic2) Everyone locked indoors3) Food hoisted up to them4) Every day must do an accounting5) Every observation goes up ladder6) Day 5 or 6, house purified • This order becomes positioned as opposition to the horrors of contagion, rebellion, disorder. • Why is he telling us about this? • “All this constitutes a compact model of the disciplinary mechanism” (2) • Rulers had to dream/imagine what the plague was in order to envision how perfect discipline would function.

5. Comparison to Lepers • How does Foucault contrast the treatment of lepers to plague protocol? • “Pure community” (binary) vs. disciplined community (intricate, in-depth surveillance and control) • Sometimes elaborate systems were also built around binary groups (mad/sane, dangerous/harmless, normal/abnormal—controlling who he is, where he is, how he is to be characterized/recognized, how he is to be under surveillance, etc.).

6. What was Bentham’s Panopticon? • The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell if they are being observed or not, thus conveying a "sentiment of an invisible omniscience." In his own words, Bentham described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example."

7. What does Foucault say about the Panopticon? • How does it compare to a dungeon? • Like a dungeon, it confines, but unlike a dungeon, it is light and there is high visibility (p. 5). • In what situation does the person under surveillance find himself/herself? • “He is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of information, never a subject in communication. . . . And this invisibility is a guarantee of order” (5). • “Visibility is a trap.” The invisibility of the surveyor guarantees order, “assures the functioning of power” (6).

8. How the Panopticon Automates Power • How does the Panopticon become a “machine”? Read page 6, paragraph 2. What does it mean?NOTE: Bentham was surprised that people no longer had to be restrained to be subdued—they just had to told they were being watched (invisibility important). • How does the panopticon automate power? Read page 6, paragraph 3. • Overall, individuals are caught up in a system of surveillance that assures power structures apart from the individuals in power: “A real subjection is born mechanically from fictitious relation” (7).

9. Our Panopticon • How is our world a panopticon? • School/students, work/workers.Berger (we will be reading)

10. Merchants of Cool • How does “Panopticism” relate to Merchants of Cool?

11. Questions?