Panopticism

__Panopticism__ Foucault analyzes Bentham’s architectural creation, the Panopticon, as a metaphor for the functioning of power in society through perpetual and mutual surveillance. Residents of the Panopticon are likened to prisoners, psychiatric patients, school children, hospital patients, and workers—an humanity at large. The Panopticon is designed to isolate individuals from each other, but make them visible to a supervisor. The supervisor may or may not watch them at all times, but the point is that he //can// when he chooses. Panopticon also serves as a laboratory where one may experiment on its subjects, and where the supervisor can be judged based on the success or failure of his efforts. The Panopticon manifests power because the surveillance is made visible (by the central tower of the panopticon) but unverifiable; because the supervisor observes but cannot be oberved; because power is in the structure or system, not in an individual person; because power is manifested without coercion; because power is concentrated in the hands of one person and excersized upon many people; because the preemptive discipline of surveillance operates at all times; “because the excersize of power may be supervised by society” (p. 393); because //power is everywhere at all times.// The Panopticon //magnifies// power because power permeates every aspect of it in subtle ways. Occassional interventions of brute force or domination are less effective.