Panopticon Of Technology

In “Selections from Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other,” Sherry Turkle explores the implications of many different psychological phenomenon that humans have when reacting to computers that have life-like characteristics such as Tamagotchis and Furbies. One of the specific psychological processes Turkle describes involves a shift between “a psychology of projection to a new psychology of engagement” with these machines (Turkle, 470). In “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism,” Jonathan Lethem talks about the differences between the gift and market economies. Turkle’s psychologies of projection and engagement significantly impact Lethem’s gift and market economies.

Although there are somewhat of similarities between Weber’s and Foucault’s relations of power and dominance, how they evaluate the concepts separately and the ways these concepts are practiced in society, can be distinguished differently. Webber appears to occupy the polar opposite with the respect to his claims of how power becomes existent with bureaucratic instruments and bureaucracy itself, Foucault argues that the power relations are everywhere in society and with expansive elements; society has no option but to internalize (Shaw 2011). His explanation of power is much broader than Weber’s. Focault rejects the hierarchical models of power, and believed that relations of dominance are formations of unequal power (McClaren 2002), and over time domination may seem fixed in society’s social structure (Shaw 2011). Additionally, Foucault looks at the concept of power from a functional strategy, with the functional practices administered by authority, and emphasises that authority commonly uses discursive power and the operation of discourse to maintain the dominance (Smart 2010; Shaw 2011). What is compelling about Foucault’s concept of power are his discursive claims. Unlike Webber, he suggests that power relations are not necessarily derived from state practices, but are all under state control, and highlights that “state and hegemony is in the every area of life” (Shaw 2011). Further, to understand some of Foucault’s functional examples, he focuses on the everyday lives of

Technology, the advancement of knowledge and productivity through the application of tools, information, and techniques to create an effortless process, has ultimately lead to the declination of our society and our future. In “A Thing Like Me,” Nicholas Carr addresses the development of technology from the day it was created and how it initiated an immediate impact within the lives of humans leading to an unhealthy dependency. Carr establishes how technology, what was intended to be a tool, has become the “pacifier” of our generation. This “pacifier” causes a loss of freedom, not through the laws of the government, but rather with the values of freedom one holds within themselves. This freedom is the individuality that distinguishes each person from the next, and forms a desire for the development of oneself through the experiences of life and the wisdom that is acquired along the way. Technology has blinded man from this pursuit of self-enhancement and with the advancement of technology occurring daily, there is no resolution. Each day people are confined within themselves and the pieces of technology that will continually limit them in their lives. Freedom is more than just a concept of laws instilled by the government, it is the thought process found within each individual person and their “hunger” to become more. With technology, social media was created and immediately immersed within our lives. The society of today has

“Foucault’s work gave the terms discursive practices and discursive formation to the analysis of particular institutions and their ways of establishing orders of truth, or what is accepted as ‘reality’ in a given society” (Goldberg). Discursive formations display hierarchical arrangement and are understood as reinforcing certain already established identities or subjectivities- in matters of sexuality, status, or class for example. These dominant discourses are understood as in turn reinforced by existing systems of law, education and the media”. Foucault’s work is to show that members of society such as intellectuals, “are implicated in discourse and in the discursive regimes or systems of power and regulation which give them their livelihoods

As the Panopticon is established, a system of normalizing judgements is also at play. With this system, power does not need to actively enslave its people anymore. Instead, social norms are all subjected upon society passively. This is achievable through “micro-penalties” that Panoptic institutions -military, schools, and hospitals- construct (Foucault 178). All of these disciplines affect the “politeness...behavior...and speech” of society (Foucault 178). It is a system of punishment that makes everyone accountable, while rewarding and punishing individuals as a whole. This equality creates a minimum of how people should actively behave. Through the creation of this behavior minimum people become normalized and those who are

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.

The transition from the crazy technological advances of today, to the “technopoly” in Brave New World is one that deems to be growing nearer, frighteningly. When do advances in technology begin to cause chaos and not peace, or harm and not help? It cannot be predicted when friendly intentions can bring about ill-fated ends, yet Huxley provides a thoughtful speculation. How long before the fangs of technology latch around society, and tear away the morals held to be valuable? Should this peril be distressed upon? Or embraced? As Huxley once said, “Progress is lovely, isn’t it?” (Huxley

“I used to worry that computers would become so powerful and sophisticated as to take the place of the human minds,” expresses Lewis Thomas, the author of “The Corner of the Eye” [Thomas, 83]. A large part of Thomas’s fear of computers is due to the fact that “a large enough machine can do all sorts of intelligent things beyond our capacities” [Thomas, 83]. However, computers cannot replace us; he realizes computers cannot do some of the things that we can do, like being human. We like to be equivocal, imaginative, and self-conscious. Computers are the complete opposite of the traits that define us as human; or as Thomas states it, “they are not designed, as we are, for ambiguity” [Thomas, 83]. As witnessed by history, the present, and soon the future, it would be self-evident truth that computers will not take over us or be “us”.

Within the last couple of decades, technology has become a huge part in everyone’s daily lives. Everyday we look at our phone almost every five minutes and when we get home we all hop on some other form of technology such as our computers or televisions. However, this is almost exactly what Aldous Huxley and Neil Postman fear. There are some truths and some falsehoods to the statements that Postman proposed such as the idea that we will begin to enjoy our oppression, we will be ruled by the very things that we love, and that we will eventually be thrown so many lies that we will seize to know what the truth is and we will be exploring both sides of these assertions.

By the conclusion of his paper, a reader can realize that their view of what is human and what makes a machine have blurred or even switched places. Carr’s writing explains where humans are through data, how the effects are taking place from the individual to the global world, and finally the haunting illustration of where humanity is more cruel and unfeeling than the machines. In a world with less and less deeper reading, the threat we pose to the future becomes more

Foucault's "Panopticism" (1979) is a careful piece that talks about how a panoptic framework would impact culture, society, the political, and individuals. Foucault describes panopticon is to “induce the inmate a state of conscious and visibility that assures the automatic function of power.” Foucault mentions, surveillance has a lasting effects, regardless of the fact that it is discontinuous in its activity; that the perfection of power ought to render its real unneeded practice. The Inmates are in a dominating circumstance that they are them-selves the bearers. Foucault (201, 202–3) also mentions that "He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and knows it, expect responsibility regardless of the constrains of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon

The use of artificial technology puts mankind at risk for losing control over its own creation. As autonomous technology continues to progress, self improving software enables the technology to learn and adapt throughout its life cycle. Many accredited scientists are beginning to ask, “at what point will artificial intelligence become so adaptive that it begins to overpower human thought (Price).” The largest threat of autonomous technology in 1984 and reality is the point at which technology will begin to replicate itself and mankind will no longer be capable of controlling the rate at which artificial technology is reproduced. George Orwell vividly describes how technology will one day dominate the governing forces of society by slowly learning and adapting

Brave New World, a novel written by Aldous Huxley in the early 1930’s, paints a picture of society willingly controlled by technology and the state; the science-fiction/dystopian setting paired with the ideological convictions of major characters within the novel presents Huxley’s ironic, yet thought provoking take on the direction of society. The novel, in essence, asks two questions. At what point do the benefits of technology subtract from the way one perceives others and oneself as individuals? And if a government possesses and abuses that power, at what point does one become a byproduct of government technology rather than an individual? Often compared to George Orwell’s 1984, Brave New World provides a very different interpretation of

The book 1984, written by George Orwell was a revolutionary novel about his prediction of the future, which showed people with hardly any independent power and under constant surveillance by “the party”. At the time this book came out (1949) the future Orwell described seemed like pure fiction, but as the years go by the future he envisioned is becoming more and more like a reality. The main thing that is creating this reality is today’s technology, which could be used to track or get information from people, similar to technology in 1984.

Michel Foucault is a very famous French intellectual who practiced the knowledge of sociology. Foucault analyzed how knowledge related to social structures, in particular the concept of punishment within the penal system. His theory through, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, is a detailed outline of the disciplinary society; in which organizes populations, their relations to power formations, and the corresponding conceptions of the subjects themselves. Previously, this type of punishment focused on torture and dismemberment, in which was applied directly to bodies. Foucault mentions through his literary piece, “the soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy: the soul is the prison of the body (p.30). However, today, the notion of punishment involves public appearances in a court and much more humane sentences. However, it is important to note and to understand the idea of power and knowledge; it is fundamental to understand the social system as a whole.