Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Foucault's Panopticon

     Panopticon is a metaphorical prison where punishment is made on individuals based on increasing surveillance in society.  Foucault describes it as the state of being constantly watched through the effects of increased technology.  "Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power" (Applerouth & Edles, 2016, 56).  The effect is to increase power over individuals in a more subtle way (mentally, via society) than the former bodily submission by an authority figure.

    I think of the Panopticon as a fitting metaphor, especially its extension: the disciplinary society.  In a disciplinary society, knowledge grows so profusely that discipline, surveillance, and society's power multiply with it.  It seems that the more technology progresses, the more ways there are to watch people.  There are programs now that can track your every move, something I think Foucault would use to demonstrate our own disciplinary society.

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