Panopticism By Michael Foucault

Louis XIV, Peter the Great, and Tokugawa Ieyasu all considered their own power and strengthened their states in many different ways but their actions were all similar. They united their states, introduced reforms and assessed their power and the effect that they could have on others. Although their techniques were different, the ways these monarchs ruled their states show great similarities.

Power is the ability to manipulate and control whatever one desires; to do what one pleases to do without answering to authority. The power that corrupts the characters plays an extensive role throughout Shakespeare’s play, King Lear. Goneril and Regan are corrupted by the power that Lear offers them. Edmund’s corruption comes from the trust of his father. Absolute power corrupts absolutely with the characters, because once have full control, they are so cold that they will do anything to keep the power – or to gain more. The quest for power corrupts, but when absolute power is attained, treachery and deceit is the only path to take.

From a towering architectural manifestation stationed in Saint Petersburg, a television surveillance system labeled “Big Brother,” and the everyday global positioning system located in handheld devices, the Panopticon in all forms has been an attempt at total surveillance. In order to understand the literal and metaphorical panopticons as concepts of total surveillance, we must first define their most prominent features and components, which include geography, cost and benefit. This can be done by examining the generality of the Panopticon’s nature, the concept behind the making, how people can better understand concepts, and both the literal and metaphorical forms of the panopticon.

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

Harry L. Watson’s book, “Liberty and Power, The Politics of Jacksonian America”, takes an analytical look at America and her politics during the Age of Jackson. Watson uses the economy and the ideological mindset of the people, to support a powerful argument about the beginning of American political parties and their importance in defining the political direction of the country. Watson argues that economic inequalities caused by the “Market Revolution” and a threat to American liberty caused Americans to organize politically in support of a

Foucault once stated, “Our society is one not of spectacle, but of surveillance; under the surface of images, one invests” (301). By this, he means that our society is full of constant supervision that is not easily seen nor displayed. In his essay, Panopticism, Foucault goes into detail about the different disciplinary societies and how surveillance has become a big part of our lives today. He explains how the disciplinary mechanisms have dramatically changed in comparison to the middle ages. Foucault analyzes in particular the Panopticon, which was a blueprint of a disciplinary institution. The idea of this institution was for inmates to be seen but not to see. As Foucault put it, “he is the object of information, never a subject in

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).

People want power because it gives them control and dominance over others. Power gives the person who has it the ability to do whatever they want, say whatever they want and make people do what they want. In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller the whole plot revolves around the theme of power. There is a never ending conflict of characters to keep, assert and acquire power. The most prominent characters that ultimately hurt the community the most due to their greed and lust for power are Deputy Governor Danforth, Reverend Parris and Abigail Williams. Although their relationship with power is different from one another they all have one thing in common. Parris, Danforth and Abigail all contribute to the demise of Salem because of their

Power and corruption are concepts that are difficult to fully understand. Several controversies occur within these topics. There are both conventional and unconventional ways of viewing power. In an attempt to make a claim contrary to common belief, David Brin stated, “It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible.” This statement is not accurate because power is the corrupting device responsible for a plethora of downfalls leaders have experienced.

The body, mind, and soul of an individual are capable of becoming corrupted by power. Power makes one feel as if that person was a God, which is a sign of the corruption in that individual. According to Lord Actin, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely," states that power can make an individual vulnerable to corruption. The second portion of Lord Actin?s quote discusses absolute power corrupting absolutely which implies that absolute power can corrupt an individual as well as the individual?s surroundings. This idea of corruption can be located in fictional novels such as Animal Farm by George Orwell. Animal Farm is a story about animals dictated by a former animal comrade. The dictator in the novel, Napoleon,

In the world we live in today the roles of power and leadership are often confused. Although they have similar meanings, they can be distinctly defined between the latter. The key difference between the two is the term of effect. Power is the exercise of leadership, and leadership is only defined if you have power. Leadership always involves attempts on a leader to affect behavior or a follower in a situation, whereas power is not equivalent with influence on another person’s behavior. Although power and leadership have similar meanings, they are certain differences that can point out what makes

During the late 1400s and 1500s, many rulers took great measures to centralize political power and place it in their own hands. This lead to the occurrence of absolute monarchies, some of which I thought were overall very effective. In absolute monarchies, theoretically the monarch is all-powerful, with no legal limitations to his or her authority. Absolutism in Europe was characteristically justified by the doctrine of divine right, according to which the monarch reigns all-powerfully by the will of God. The intention of absolute monarchs is to utilize his or her power in an effective, better-organized way, despite its weaknesses or negative consequences; and from my perspective, I would have to say

Panopticism is the main element of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it shows the dystopian life where the government, or the Party has all the power, and they carefully monitor their citizens 24/7 with the use of telescreens, which is a television and a security camera (Orwell 5). The Party monitors the inner party and outer party only because they are what is important, unlike the proles whom the Party does not monitor at all. Winston mentions numerous times “If there is hope it lies in the proles” (Orwell 80). The proles take up 85% of the population of Oceania, therefore if there were to be a revolution the proles could destroy the Party.

     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

Despite the dehumanizing effect of Panopticon as an disciplinary mechanism based on constant observation and examination with every movement supervised and all events recorded. The Panopticon system as one of the most effective and economic models of exercising power and control over an constantly increasing population, soon became a formula, wide spread throughout our society. Along with the growing ethnology and capitalist economy, various methods of Panopticon through mass surveillance soon earned it’s place in numerous regimes, becoming one of the most infinitely expandable Panopticon of the contemporary society.