Henry Imler October 10th, 2006

Besides his very practical advice on the polemicist, Foucault’s most intriguing concept is the Panopticon. Upon first reading, Foucault and Bentham’s Panopticon is a terrifying construct. Anytime power is wielded with such cool efficiency and detachment, one is reminded of the dehumanizing effect on the subjugated and as a consequent on those that administrate this power. The idea of the Panopticon as a laboratory is an especially heinous notion as the idea of human lab-rats it the highest expression of dehumanization.

However, the Panopticon differs from the more overt uses of force and control that one is used to. It is easy to rally against a tyrant-king or a slave master, but the Panopticon is quite different from these concepts. Instead of constant brute force enthralling a subject, the Panopticon trains the subject to be one’s own master; it grafts the tyrant-king onto the vassal, creating a compound subject. This is done, by my understanding, by the constant threat of supervision, via the transparency of the subject’s surroundings. The unverifiability of the Panopticon serves to make the system feasible, since it would be impossible to actually monitor for deviance and administrate force to correct deviations.

Before investigation, this process smacks of oppression. In Bentham’s version of the Panopticon, this is surely the case. However, one does need to ask if the subjects in Bentham’s Panopticon are deserving of this oppression. If they are prone to violent acts and have injured members of society, then perhaps is it perfectly justifiable to mold their behavior and graft onto these individuals the tyrant-king. Panopticon is really terrifying when Foucault projects the idea of the Panopticon onto all of society. It strips one of their humanity and reduces one to a potential lab-rat. It also strips one’s spouse, one’s mother, one’s brother, all of one’s friends into lab-rats; a very sour notion indeed!

Once this machine of molding has been discovered, the first question one is lead to ask is, “Who is doing or benefiting from this power over me?” In Bentham’s Panopticon, it is the owner or operator of the prison/lab that wields the power and can have an array of uses, from the beneficent to the treacherous. When applied to society at large, as Foucault does, there is no one that one can point to as wielder of the power. It is diffused throughout society; it is present everywhere with no centralized nexus of power and administration. Therefore, no one can point to the oppressor. If there is no oppressor that can be pointed to, how can one be oppressed? Likewise if there are no actors or agents to morally evaluate, how can the system be judged from a moral standpoint of just or unjust?

Foucault describes this network of discipline as a physics of power. This physics of power can be likened to the force of gravity that binds us all to the earth. Just like gravity serves as a bind on all of humanity, stripping them of certain freedoms. It is inescapable and there is no way to rebel against it. Even in jumping and flight, one is still bound to its ruses and is using the rules of the game to play in another way. Similarly, Foucault’s Panopticon is a description of the new physics of power that has developed. No one is free from the system nor can they be set free. There is nothing to be set free from, as any change, political, personal or relational is merely a change in speed or location, not a change in the way power is administered. Therefore, this method of power administration is not to be evaluated morally, as it is merely a statement of condition.

• Philosophy
• Comments(0)