Basically the panopticon is a prison. Not any prison though, it’s a deeply thought concept.
The idea comes from the philosopher Jeremy Bentham and was developed in 1785, and consists in a circular structure with its internal perimeter full of cells facing the centre.
At the centre of this structure is a tower, a “control post” with windows open on all sides, so as to permit one guard to virtually control all inmates constantly. In an even more radical view, the central control tower should be publicly accessible, allowing a “democratic” form of control and an exemplary lesson to citizens…
The concept of the panopticon is studied and analyzed very well in Michel Foucault’s Discipline and punish, a book that describes the passages that brought to our actual conception about prison, discipline and illegality. Its importance lies in the historical period that saw its birth.
The disciplinary structure of the time was still based on the one that was in use in the middle-ages, with exemplary punishments, as cruel as they were rare and publicly attended by hundreds of people, cheering and screaming. A ceremony with a strict ritual displaying the power of the king, and the fate of those who attempted to his power by defying his law, but also a surprisingly common reaction of sympathy toward the criminal and against the king’s display of power.
Reformers like Bentham and Beccaria ride the winds of change; a world who can control the population much better than a medieval king, like the one they live in, has no necessity for an exemplar punishment.
For the first time cruel and inhuman tortures start being considered unworthy of progressive and modern countries, and a reform of justice begins.
Foucault describes how this reform brought the hands of the “disciplinary power” to go deep into the flesh of our society, aiming at a form of total control, mutual control, everyone is guard and inmate at the same time, and the more the structure is diffused and has no centre, the more it’s power on the people grows.
The panoptical concept is the first attempt in this direction, it is possible to build any kind of disciplinary structure in this way: prisons, hospitals, schools, …
There’s no need to be inhuman or violent, if people know they are potentially always being controlled they will never think of acting against a power that is so invisible yet capillary. (can you smell a hint of Orwell here?)
There seems to be no alternative to this kind of phenomenon, especially since it brings control without violence, and that’s a thing many people seem to want.
But after reading Discipline and punish you can’t help feeling somewhat unsettled. The birth and growth of disciplinary power is all there…
Here are a few links to more information on this topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
http://foucault.info/documents/disciplineAndPunish/foucault.disciplineAndPunish.panOpticism.html
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/rant/panopticon-essay.html
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