Lecture Three - Panopticism.

• social control
• the way society affects our unconscious
• the power institutions hold over us - prisons, army, police or family, marriage etc

Lecture aims

• understand the principles of the panopticon
• understand michael foucault's concept of 'disciplinary society'
• consider the idea that disciplinary society is a way of making individuals 'productive' and 'useful'
• understand foucault's idea of techniques of the body and 'docile' bodies

Michel Foucault (1926 - 1884)

• books
• 'madness and civilaisation'
• 'discipline and the punish: the birth of prison'

The Great confinement

• late 1600's
• 'houses of correction' to curb unemployment and idleness
• mad people were seen as the fabric of society, no separation (before 1600's)
• new sensibility started to emerge, new attitude to work and social usefulness towards work
• anxiety started to emerge around the people who were said to be 'socially useless'
• houses of correction started to be built.. prisons/factories
• criminals, drunks, diseased, single mothers
• were assigned to work and if they didn't they were physically beaten
• a way of making the unproductive, productive
• making them better people through the honesty of work
• 18th century, houses of correction were started to be seen as a massive mistake
• people inside would influence each other: sane to insane, criminal to non criminal
• special institutions then came about to correct the insane, the birth of asylum
• correcting the inmates in a very different way to the houses of correction
• no physical violence but more subtle techniques, like being treated like chill dren
• if they behaved appropriately they would be given awards and if bad they would be chastised
• shift from premodern society - physical control to modern society to social control
• modern form of discipline
• new forms of institutional specialist knowledge, therefore legitimising them. psychology and psychiatry
• new group of experts
• these institutions affect the way we think and control our behaviour
• start to take control of our own discipline

The Pillory

• visible reminder of the power of the state
• visible and disgusting punishments
• reminder to not test the power
• based on fear

Disciplinary society and disciplinary power

• modern form of discipline
• mental rather than physical
• infuses every aspect of our lives
• 'The Panopticon' designed by Jeremy Bentham in 1791
• proposed by Bentham as a multifunctional building: workhouse, prison, asylum etc
• circular building, with cells along the walls, number of floors, each cell is totally open from the front, large window at the back
• has a very strong mental effect
• Bentham believed it would function perfectly
• inmates constantly staring into the centre where the guards would be. Inmates could not see each other but just the constant surveillance of the supervisors
• opposite to the dungeon - hide, lock away deviant classes, forgotten about
• panopticon - light, visible, everything can be seen, object of scrutiny and study
• constantly reminded that you are being watched by someone who expects you to behave in a certain way
• never behave in a way your supervisor wouldn't want you to as you would be spotted and punished
• permanently isolated, no one to look at or talk to 
• psychological torture
• 'the panopticon internalises in the individual the conscious state that he is always being watched'
• 'induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permeant visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power'
• no longer needed guards, people controlled themselves
• Foucault believes this building is like an analogy for our society
• system for classifying and scrutiny
• reforms prisoners, helps treat patients, helps instruct school children, helps confine and study the insane, helps supervise workers, helps but beggars and idlers to work
• start to behave in the interests of the institution
• what foucault is describing is a transformation in western societies from a form of power imposed by a 'ruler' to a new mode of power called 'panopticism'

Modern examples

• open plan office
• social
• workers in open plan offices can always be seen by the boos
• less social because alway being watched
• open plan bars
• everything is visible to bouncers and bar staff
• socially awkward because you're always on display
• change your behaviour
• google maps
• every single street in the world can be viewed
• live in a surveillance society
• every aspect of lives is recorded
• lecture theatres
• lecturer can see everyone
• students limited view
• Pentonville prison - lecture, barrier between seats
• registers
• able to keep tabs
• form of surveillance
• gyms
• open plan
• windows
• demonstrating your health
• social media
• you are aware everything is observed and monitored
• makes you behave in a certain way
• you can almost shape an identity for yourself

Relationship between power knowledge and the body

• disciplinary society produce what Faucault calls 'docile bodies'
• self monitoring, self correcting, obedient bodies
• e.g soldier
• disciplinary techniques - e.g 5 a day, the ideal body

Foucault and power

• his definition is not a top-down model as with Marxism
• power is not a thing or a capacity people have - it is a relation between different individuals and groups and only exists when it is being exercised
• the exercise of power relies on there being the capacity for power to be resisted
• 'where there is power, there is resistance'