Michel Foucault 's Theory Of Discipline And Punishment

From the concrete walls, the schematics of Architecture and even the way that we are taught, school can remind us of a type of prison. We are taught by repetition and to regurgitate information rather than actually go in depth to understand the topic. We are ready to absorb information and not question said info. We are like fishes swimming in a bowl, unable to comprehend what exists outside of our own sphere of learning. In an essay written by Foucault, he talks about the idea of the Panopticon. When reading his essay, it becomes clear there are striking similarities between the Panopticon and the schooling system. It is my intent to show how both the schooling system and the Panopticon strip Individuality away because of mechanical teaching. This will be conveyed by showing the comparisons of the Panopticon and the schooling system through the topics of how describing the similarity of the two locations and lead into the course of Surveillance on both subjects. I will then lead into the topic of Discipline shaping behavior and will finalize with discussing how the general architecture of schools and the Panopticon are similar.

Change over time; that is a common theme with everything in the world. The concept of punishment is no different in that regard. In the 16th and 17th century the common view for punishing people was retaliation from the king and to be done in the town square. In what seemed to be all of a sudden, there was a change in human thinking, the concept of punishment changed to a more psychological approach compared to a public embarrassment/torture approach. The following paragraphs will discuss the development of prisons and what in fact gives people gives people the right to punish; as well as the overall meaning and function of prisons. The work by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison will help with the arguments

Crime is inevitable in society, whether it be in traditional societies or in modern society. However, with an action, there are always has to be a consequence, however when breaking the law, the consequences are rather bad, and sometimes harsh. This is called punishment. Discipline is enforcing acceptable patterns of behaviour and teaching obedience. In an excerpt called Discipline and Punish, contemporary theorist Michael Foucault explains these two concepts. This paper will summarize the author’s main points; provide a comparison with a theorist previously lectured on in class, as well as a personal interpretation of Foucault’s arguments.

Panopticism is a social theory named after the Panopticon, according to Foucault, his describes a watch tower in a prison and he thinks Panopticism is how people act different when they’re being watched. Rayner perspective on Panopticism is how we can use social media to our advantage. In this essay, I will analyze both Foucault and Rayner perspective on Panopticism and will determine the rhetorical appeals of both writings.

Foucault in a few short words does not like the implementation of the panopticon or the idea of

To start, is Foucault 's Panopticism. Panopticism uses the idea of Bentham’s Panopticon to elaborate the disciplinary ideas that he is trying to explain. The Panopticon is an “all seeing” structure that makes observations without the people ever knowing when they were being watched, even though it is clearly visible (Foucault, 204). Its gaze can be upon anyone, from a “madman, a patient, a condemned man” (Foucault, 200). These features allow Panopticism to be a passive power, rather than an active one. With this in mind, power is shifted from the hands of the individual to the anonymous “supervisor” of the Panopticon (Foucault, 200). This method of observation facilitates the transformation of individuals to controllable individuals (Foucault, 205).

Foucault began to compare this new idea of surveillance, power and punishment of the Panopticon to the power during the Middle Ages by the King which was more public in contrast to the Panopticon. The Panopticon was more discrete. It was not a show or form of entertainment when someone was punished unlike when someone is punished with the King. By exploring this, Foucault demonstrated how surveillance has changed overtime.

In his essay “Panopticism,” Michel Foucault introduces the Panopticon structure as proof of modern society tending toward efficient disciplinary mechanisms. Starting with his example of the strict, intensely organized measures that are taken in a typical 17th-century plague-stricken town, Foucault describes how the town employed constant surveillance techniques, centralized a hierarchy of authorities to survey households, partitioned individual structures to impose certain behavior, and record current information about each individual.

The final sentence reveals the Panopticon’s true purpose: a political tool. The previous sentences break down the previously configured definition of the Panopticon and with this final piece, Foucault finishes redefining the term. Understanding that limiting the definition of the Panopticon would eliminate its functionality, Foucault chooses to interpret it loosely without assigning a set meaning to it. Thus, allowing the concept of the Panopticon to be used in other subject areas and not just as a tool for prisons. John Berger also addresses a similar issue through the example of artwork in his text, “Ways of Seeing”. Berger’s description of present day reproductions of images from the past explains how past processes can find use in the present through interpreting the essence of its meaning. More specifically, Berger believes that we can assign several different uses to objects of the past because the information that they provide remains the same even if the actual, physical object does not. “It is not a question of reproduction failing to reproduce certain aspects of an image faithfully; it is a question of reproduction making it possible, even inevitable, that an image will be used for many different purposes and that the reproduced image,

According to Foucault, power does not belong to the individual, but to the system, to the institution. In his essay on Discipline and Punish, Foucault presents his idea of the panopticon mechanism, a mechanism in which visibility is a trap. With little importance over the actual individual in the role of the observer or of the observed, the object of the system is total power over the observed. Due to the unique shape of the panopticon, there are no corners and thus no blind spots for the observed to hide in. The private space is replaced by the public one. Furthermore, as final evidence of total control, the observed never knows for sure if they are being watched or not, as they can’t see the observer (Foucault 200-205). Foucault further argues that this system is followed by any government institution, placing the society under permanent observation. Individuals might try to evade the system, but achieving liberation and freedom is not something that anyone could do. Dostoevsky’s famous novel, Crime and

Panopticism is a social theory named after the “panopticon”, which was originally developed by the French philosopher, Michel Foucault. Panopticon was first mentioned in his book, Discipline and Punish. In his book, he refers "panopticon" to “an experimental laboratory of power in which behaviour could be modified.” Foucault considered panopticon as a symbol of the “disciplinary society of surveillance” (Panopticism). In the two novels, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Frankenstein, panopticism is an element shown greatly. Though these two novels have many differences, this similarity shared between the two is equally important.

Michel Foucault wrote a book called History of Sexuality. In Part five of the book Right of Death and Power over Life, he discusses about the historical “Sovereign Power” where one is allowed to decide who has the right to live and who has the right to die. The sovereign uses his power over life through the deaths that he can command and uses his authority to announce death by the lives he can spare. Foucault then moves on to Disciplinary Power where he came up with the “Panopticon” where one is to believe they were under surveillance at all times. Such surveillance is still used in our everyday life such as schools, prisons, offices, hospitals, and mental institutes. Later in his life, Foucault discovered Bio-power. This bio-power

     The Panopticon, a prison described by Foucault, “is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing” (321, Foucault). This literally means that in the formation of the panopticon those who are being seen can not see one another and the one who sees everything can never be seen. That is the most important tool of the panopticon. Foucault makes this assumption about today’s society by saying that we are always being watched whether we know it or not. One always keeps an eye over their shoulder as a

Originally derived from the measures to control “abnormal beings” against the spreading of a plague, the Panopticon is an architecture designed to induce power with a permanent sense of visibility. With a tower in the center, surrounded by cells, the prisoners can be monitored and watched at any given time from the central tower. The goal of this architectural plan was to strip away any privacy and therefore create fear induced self-regulation amongst the prisoners, with an unverifiable gaze - The prisoners can never

The main ideas of Discipline and Punish can be grouped according to its four parts: torture, punishment, discipline and