A Brief description of Panopticicsm: Panopticism relates to the idea of today's society and surveillance, institutional power is also a major factor in how society is controlled by this constant surveillance.
People not deemed 'economically' constructive, for example: the poor, criminals and homeless, were 'slammed' in THE GREAT CONFINEMENT, this happened in the the late 1600's.
The confinements hid the deviant away, bt gradually it was seen as a massive error made by society and this was later abandoned.
Then came the birth of the Asylum - 'The Panopticon'. This is what Michel Foucault writes about.
In the Panopticon:-
- Patients are treated like children
-Rather than repressing people through punishment, they correct people through MENTAL rather than the PHYSICAL. 'Controlling the mind'.
- PHYSICAL to MENTAL, makes people discipline themselves.
The PANOPTICON is discipline through surveillance.
For Foucault, the panopticon seems to persuade the people in there, that the way they are being treated and watched is normalacy. The panopticon for Foucault, illustrated that the prisoners eventually monitor their own behaviour, beginning to embody the rules, by being shaped by the power of the persuasive authority, (this being the guards in the tower, who may or may not be there).
Postcard of an American panopticon.
(The 'guards' sit in the tower, whilst people within the asylum are in rooms on their own only being able to look out and not seeing any other person. They feel watched all the time, they don't know when or IF anybody is in the tower and so behave all the time and therefore discipline themselves with no need for guards or any sort of monitoring).
NOTES.
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