The Concept Of Power May Always Be Debatable

Foucault introduces the modern police force as an example of Panopticism. He explains that the development of a more centralized police force in the late eighteenth century stemmed from the need of sovereigns to maintain a sort of surveillance over all miniature details. With a mobilized, invisible force stretched from even the most “extreme limits”, it becomes possible to extend constant supervision “to reach the most elementary particle” (Foucault 386). The organization of the police became the vehicle in which political power could keep a “permanent, exhaustive, omnipresent” gaze on the entire population; a regular Panopticon for the city. Beyond duties of surveillance, the police would also pursue and punish criminals, plotters, and opposition movements as a way to demonstrate the consequences of bad conduct; fear would then keep the population as pure as possible and “accustomed … to order and obedience” (Foucault 387).

Foucault himself uses the example of the watchtower in prisons when he describes what the panopticon is. From the tower, you can see all of the prison cells, but the prisoners cannot see the guards, and hence cannot see if they are being watched at any given time. They do know that there is a possibility, and therefore, they self-monitor and restrict their behaviors accordingly. This way, the power becomes as much of an internal factor in the prisoners as it is an external factor from the guards.

Modern day power originates from the mind in that we give certain figures power based upon man-made forms of value or worth like money. The definition of power has fluctuated throughout time, and while the past may have emphasized the more violent aspects, today, we have shifted towards a more control based interpretation. Both Michael Foucault and John Berger delve into the idea of power and its functionality. Based on their texts, in our current socio-cultural setting, power is best exploited when the concept behind the power is deindividualized for many purposes, internalized by the people, and integrated throughout society to the point that its origins is mystified.

The fiction book I’m reading is titled The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. It’s the story of a young girl named Frankie who attends a boarding school and the misadventures she gets into with her boyfriend and the other members of the Basset Hounds secret society. One of the classes Frankie takes presents a very interesting topic, a concept known as “The Panopticon”- an idea for a circular prison thought up by Jeremy Bentham. It was designed so that the inmates could be observed at all times but would not know when. Although it was never built, the idea was so that the prisoners would be so afraid of constant surveillance that they would behave, in fear of being caught. That way, they wouldn’t actually need to keep an eye on anyone because they would essentially

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 Panopticon is designed to entail a central tower where there can be main surveyor that keeps watch on the subordinates. Foucault describes it as, “He is seen, but he does not see” (Foucault 244). This quote describes the concept of the concrete Panopticon structure where the central power can see everyone; however, the subordinates cannot see each other nor can they see the central power. Foucault also states, “the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power” (Foucault 245). This quote is describing the purpose of the Panopticon and that is for the subordinate of the structure to internalize discipline due to the idea of possibly being watched, but not knowing when you are watched.

The author of the essay “Panopticism”, Michel Foucault gives his opinion on power and discipline in Panopticism. He describes Jeremy Bentham’s “Panopticon”, a tower in the centre of a room which has vision to every cell, generalized for prisoners. In simple words, it functioned in maintaining discipline throughout the jail. It’s most distinctive feature was that; prisoners could be seen without ever seeing. Prisoners would never really know when they are watched and when not. They are always under the impression that someone is keeping an eye on them continuously and if anything goes wrong, or they make mistake, they would be punished severely. Since, a prisoner would never know when he/she is watched, they have to be at their best. In a

     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

In Michael Foucault’s “Discipline and Punish”, the late eighteen century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham's model of Panopticon was illustrated as a metaphor for the contemporary technologies of mass surveillance.

In Foucault’s chapter on Panopticism he outlines different power structures and how they have been executed in society over different time periods. This change in power structures to a new, more effective use of control is one of the main underlying points that Foucault focuses on in this chapter. In this essay I will explain Sovereign power and how Foucault explains the ways this is power is used to control the population. I will show the change in power structures from sovereign to disciplinary, and relate this to the Panopticon before then explaining the structure of the Panopticon and how it operates. From here my analysis of the text will look at the ways that this Panopticon model encourages self-surveillance through its structure and

(Foucault 145). As the quote illustrates, the panoptic model of surveillance suggests a kind of hierarchal observation that both evaluates and elevates the individuals’ performances in this social system. Bearing on the datum that this hierarchal observation is provocative. It endows subjects with the illusion of an everlasting eye-watch. As a result, the illusion is constituted as an inner reality that leads the masses to self-policy as the only logical option to avoid chastisement.

In “Panopticism”, Foucalt describes the architecture of a Panopticon, and how it makes it so unique and efficient. A person in the middle is watching at all times, yet the people can never know if they are being watched or not. Also, the prisoners cannot communicate with one another, which prevents the threat

Jeremy Bentham, a leading English prison reformer of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, developed an architectural plan for an ideal prison that he called the Panopticon. Such a prison would consist of a ring of individual cells encircling an observation tower. Each of the cells would open toward the tower and be illuminated by its own outside window. So, by the effect of backlighting, a single guard in the observation tower could keep watch on many prisoners--each of whom would be individually confined--without himself being seen. And because the prisoners could not see their supervisors, they would have to assume that they were being watched at all times--even if they were not. The Panopticon was

Sandra Bartky begins her piece by explaining Michel Foucault’s ideas about modern power dynamics. Unlike in the past, power in modern society focuses not only on controlling the products of the body but, rather, on governing all its activities. In order for this power to continue, people are disciplined into becoming “docile bodies” which are subjected and practiced (Bartky, 63). This discipline is imposed through constant surveillance in a manner similar to the Panopticon. Inmates in said prison are always visible to a guard in the central tower, so they mentally coerced into monitoring their own behavior. In the same way, individuals become their own jailers and subject themselves to the society’s whim due to being in a “state of conscious and permanent visibility” to its all-seeing eye (65). Bartky, however, breaks from Foucault’s theory by claiming that there is a clear difference in the disciplines imposed on men and women that are ignored in the latter’s writings.

In this essay I shall compare James Scott’s theory of power and resistance with Michel Foucault’s, as in what similarities do they share in their structure of theories; and contrast the difference as in their understanding of power, position they take to look for/into power, exercise of power and resistance in response. By contrasting the two approaches on the subject of power and resistance, I shall argue, if one wish to look for the powerful and the weak, Scott’s approach is the go to. But for now, I find Foucault’s idea more plausible that we are surrounded by or inescapable from power, and that by any means, are not necessarily forced to submission; rather as freedom the same time.