Michel Foucault: The Panopticon and Panopticism
During the “Great Transformation” from 1760 to 1840, human society largely abandoned public displays of torture, punishment and overt surveillance and adopted more subversive forms of surveillance that are more difficult to detect.
Although never built, Bentham’s Panopticon included a tower housing supervisors with a ring of cells housing inmates surrounding it. One unique aspect of the Panopticon is that one can see out of the tower but cannot see into it from the ring, and one can see into the ring but cannot see out from it. The basic purpose of the Panopticon is to enclose and discipline any group that requires supervision. In effect, one can constantly see any and all aspects of those in the ring of cells without ever coming into contact with them and without their knowledge.
According to Foucault, “this invisibility is a guarantee of order.”
The invisible watcher and consistent isolation are the key concepts of the Panopticon. By isolating those under surveillance completely, no matter what type of group is being supervised, a number of negative effects can be avoided. Without contact with others, convicts cannot plot escapes, prison riots, or future crimes; patients cannot spread contagious diseases; nor can schoolchildren cheat, copy or waste time. Essentially, by eliminating any and all contact with others, each inmate must focus on the task at hand since any disobedience would be seen from the tower. However, the real advantage of the Panopticon is that the omnipresent tower makes the inmates believe that they are constantly under surveillance even if no one is watching. As Foucault states, “the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in is action.” Bentham held that if the inmates believed that they were under constant surveillance, they would act as if they were, even if surveillance was non-existent. By making the surveyor both invisible and unverifiable, it also rendered him virtually unnecessary. Simply because the inmates believed and acted as if they were being watched, the actual watching was no longer required.
During the Great Transformation, the idea of the invisible, unverifiable watcher leaped from the Panopticon into a panoptic society. A panoptic society is defined as one in which individuals feel as though they could be under surveillance at any time and therefore act as if they were, even in the absence of surveillance. Most individuals in this type of society discipline themselves, since they believe that there is always a chance of being watched and disciplined by an outside source. These sources range from schools and the workplace to courts and prisons. However the move of panopticism from the utopian Panoticon to the real world did not occur overnight.
The Panopticon proved to be a more efficient form of control and discipline than prior forms, such as public trial and torture. This increased efficiency is what made panoptic discipline so appealing to entrepreneurs, governments, and other entities. First, panopticism was introduced into military organizations, the workplace and schools by shifting from merely disciplining poor behavior such as stealing or cheating to watching and guiding in order to increase the skill of the individual. Foucault termed this movement “the functional inversion of the disciplines,” basically changing the focus of discipline.
The second stage, which Foucault called “the swarming of disciplinary mechanisms,” occurred as disciplinary institutions became larger, more flexible and somewhat “de-institutionalized” (or decentralized) than prior models. In the example of the Christian School, the school realized that the children they taught were vastly influenced by their parents, therefore they, too, must be surveyed. The third stage, “the state-control of the mechanisms of discipline,” led to government institutions, such as the police force, to incorporate the ideas of panoptic discipline. Eventually, the collective of various institutions have come to have the ability to survey almost every portion of society in one way or another. So, while society lacks the isolation of the Panopticon, it includes the invisible and unverifiable watcher that guides individuals into disciplining themselves.
Today’s society is even more panoptic than ever. The internet, for example, is well known for its utter lack of privacy and ease of acquiring information on anything and anyone. And, while it is difficult (if not impossible) to detect if one is being watched while surfing the web, many people realize that someone could be watching them, which could influence what content they browse. Similarly, security cameras watch silently in malls, parking garages, offices, elevators, possibly anywhere as an invisible supervisor. And at the other end of the line from those cameras, is anyone really watching or are they there just to keep people in line?
Foucault, Michel. Discipline & Punish : The Birth of the Prison. Random House. New York: 1977.
