Monday, 17 October 2011

SEMINAR 1 - PANOPTICISM

PANOPTICON - Jeremy Benson - not to torture or hide away

He came up for the design of this building in 1791 which was designed to be used for prisons, lunatic asylums, schools etc, it was a design for an
There were lots built; Cuba, The USA

KEY POINTS -

  • Constant visibility 
  • Under surveillance
  • Circular
  • Institutional gaze
  • Invisibility (of the guard)
  • Isolated 
  • Binary Division - Mad Vs Sane
  • Productive
  • Shift from PHYSICAL to MENTAL discipline 
VISIBILITYMakes the prison inmates visible and reminds them that they are constantly in view
If you cant see an individual guard but you know you are being watched - then you have to generalise your behaviour to the general idea to the ways of the institution

Every individual has to be isolated - to stop people conspiring, if you can talk to someone else you can measure your experience against someone else e.g. if there is actually a guard there. 
If you keep everyone separate it is like a laboratory - you can experiment with some people. 
It then allows you to to have a system, individualising people increases the physiological effect. 

ISOLATED - Self-regulating - you start to control yourself just because of the idea that you may always be caught out

BINARY DIVISION - You cant do much for them - you are not doing anything for the community - socially unproductive
It was mentally torturing 

PRODUCTIVE - It is designed as a machine that is producing productivity - it makes people work harder - you don't know how hard anyone else is working so you work 
Eventually you train the deviants 

Inventing disciplines which design to make people more productive; e.g. PSYCHIATRY - fundamental aim of the understanding of why people go insane so that they can correct and train the people to be able to work. 

All of Frauds theories are run on about 5 cases - with these people he had theses theirs in place which he found people to prove these theories for. 

Madness and Sanitary should NOT be thought of as binary opposites - they should be thought of as on a SPECTRUM (like it used to be)

SHIFT IN DISCIPLINE - operating as disciplinary society - modern world has got more sophisticated with the apparatus of control rather than just punishing them, its where social control (especially mental) are woven into every aspect of our lives (the more you think about examples the more you find)

The principles echos the way modern society controls their society

We live in a total surveillance society
EXAMPLES;
  • FACEBOOK - you behave as you want people to see you as rather than what you are. You are not the one in control of these social network - system of Panoptic control. Classed by the number of followers/friends. 
  • SCHOOLs - measuring students against each other against a specialist standards, ignoring human individuality - training and regulating people - forces you to compete against fellow students, automatic deference to other people. Is high achievement getting higher? If people start to teach themselves then it poses a danger for government.
  • HOSPITAL
  • Increasingly all aspects of life
  • MEDIA - TV, Film, News. Seeing how people are behaving. Advertising - Shows you an image of perfect life - eventually you get an idea that that is how it should be and you feel the need to get that to have a perfect life. News - examples of how you should behave and the consequences of what happens to those who don't - similar to a head teacher
DOCILE BODY - Not just a mental process, you correct your body for someone else. Fitter, stronger, healthier body - better for work. The ultimate subject of disciplinary society. 

POWER
It is a relationship between control and acceptance of the power,  dialog
Philosophy gets closer to the truth of it
Where there is power, there is the possibility to resist. 

e.g. teacher has control/rights/status - they have power over the students but it only works if the students let the teacher have power over them. E.g. student is given detention but the student doesn't have to turn up to detention, they could totally ignore the power they placed on them. 

When people start thinking about the power they do have - they start to let themselves be controlled. 

IT AFFECTS THE CONTROLLERS AS WELL AS THE CONTROLLED
The head teachers are as scrutinised
It makes it as possible to scrutinise the scrutinisers as much as possible once panopticism is in place

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