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Panopticons

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Panopticons

When I first encountered the Panopticon, I was reviewing Michel Foucault's Discipline &

Punish: Panopticons. Despite its small role in the story's plot, the topic quickly drew my

attention. The Panopticon's general concept is that it is the perfect jail; the Panopticon was

initially made up of numerous cells creating a central guard tower. The soldiers could see the

inmates from the watchtower, but the inmates couldn't see the police, so they were continually

afraid of the security personnel capturing them and sentencing them for their misbehavior

(Manokha, 2018). Fear was the only thing that kept the inmates in line. In his book Discipline

and Punish, Michel Foucault discussed the concept of the "new Panopticon." He made the

connection between the Panopticon as a prison and the civilized society, claiming that

civilization was a Panopticon created to keep individuals in line by fear tactics.

For the sake of maintaining order and discipline in today's society. The author draws on current

precedents, such as the prevalence of webcams in schools and public places generally, putting

people under continuous supervision. This definitely emphasizes Foucault's key point about

Panopticons. Where pan denotes everything and positivity denotes the ability to see. This

translates to the notion that we are constantly being scrutinized. In culture today, Foucault is

implying that the mere fear of being monitored will always keep people in line. The emergence

of a disciplinary society is linked to a number of historical processes: one, rules are ways for

ensuring the order of humanity populations through the development of economic and covertly

operating power tactics (Manokha, 2018). The goal of these strategies is to make all aspects of

the system more docile and useful. This corresponds to a growth in the population and the

number of people who need to be watched. As a result of the establishment of a capitalistic

society, these strategies are now applicable to a wide range of regimes. The panoptic power
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paradigm is not self-contained. Professions and panopticons are the polar opposites of a right-

guaranteeing procedure.
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Reference

Manokha, I. (2018). Surveillance, panopticism, and self-discipline in the digital

age. Surveillance & Society, 16(2), 219-237. https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v16i2.8346