In his essay Panopticism, Michel Foucault discusses power and discipline, their manipulation, and their effect on society over time. He also discusses Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon and other disciplinary models. However, after reading Panopticism, the question that baffles everyone is: what is panopticism anyway? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayAn exceptional disciplinary model are the measures taken by a 17th century city when the plague appears. First of all there is a rigid spatial partition which involves the closure of the town and its subdivision into neighbourhoods. Each street is assigned a mayor who keeps the street under surveillance. This mayor locks the door of every house on his street from the outside when the quarantine begins and gives the key to his supervisor, the superintendent. There is one steward per quarter. To supply each house, wooden channels are set up between the streets and houses to distribute rations of bread and wine to residents, thus allowing everyone to receive their own ration without communicating with suppliers and other residents. (314) Only the stewards, the mayors and the guards can circulate on the streets, outside the homes. No one else is allowed to leave their home because it is a crime punishable by death. Each individual is fixed in his place. And if he moves he does so at the risk of his life. (315)Secondly there is incessant inspection. A large militia, commanded by good officers and men of valour, guards the gates of the city. (315). This rigorous supervision serves to ensure the prompt obedience of the citizens and the absolute power of the magistrates as well as to observe every disorder and every action. Every day the mayor goes to the street under his jurisdiction, stops at every house, calls the inhabitants to the window and keeps watch. If someone does not look out the window they are presumed sick or dead. This constant surveillance is based on a system of permanent registration and reports that are transmitted from mayors to intendants to magistrates. At the beginning of the quarantine, the name, age and sex of each individual are recorded. Every observation made - deaths, illnesses, complaints, irregularities - is recorded on these documents and communicated to the entire hierarchy. Magistrates have complete control over citizens' medical care. They select a doctor they trust to treat patients. No one else is allowed to visit a sick person without a written note, to avoid hiding and treating the patient without the knowledge of the magistrates. Recording is constantly centralized, and each individual's relationship with their illness and death passes through the same power hierarchy, which makes every decision based on it. A few days after the quarantine begins, the purification process begins. One house at a time, all inhabitants evacuate the house for this process. Furniture and goods are lifted off the ground or suspended in the air; the scent spreads throughout the room; after carefully sealing the windows, doors and even the locks with wax, the perfume is set on fire. Eventually the entire house is shut down while the perfume is consumed. Four hours later, residents can return to their homes. (316)This closed and segmented space is a disciplinary mechanism. The whole area is under strict surveillance. Each individual has his designated place where the smallest movements are monitored and all events are recorded. Power is exercised according to a hierarchical figure, in which each individual is constantly placed and examined. (316)The other great disciplinary model presented by Foucault is Bentham's Panopticon. The Panopticon isa large circular architectural figure. It is a ring-shaped building with a high tower in the center. This tower has large windows that match the windows on the interior side of the main building. The ring is divided into cells that extend across the entire radius of the building. Each cell has a large window to the outside of the building; this window corresponds to the internal window in such a way as to allow light to pass through the cell at all times. The entire cell is then visible to a supervisor in the tower due to the backlighting. (318)A madman, a sick person, a condemned person, a worker or a schoolboy would be placed in the cell. (319) Confined to his cell, this man would be constantly watched and afraid of being observed. He would never know when he was being watched and when he wasn't. Whenever a man is visible he feels exposed, as if his every move is being watched. Visibility is a trapHe is seen, but does not see; he is an object of information, never a subject of communication,(319) this being the main effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the prisoner a state of conscious and permanent visibility which ensures the automatic functioning of power.(319) The man in the cell knows that there is someone in the tower watching him at all times. Not being able to see the observer in the tower he is forced to assume that he is always under observation and therefore must follow the rules established for him in order not to be punished. (319)It is the invisibility of the observer that guarantees order and power. Power should be visible and unverifiable. It must be visible so that the inmate always knows that in the center there is a tower with an observer. It is from this tower that he is always watched, so if the tower is always visible from his cell, he is always visible from the tower, at all times. The power must be unverifiable so that the prisoner never knows if he is being observed at any given moment but lives with the awareness and fear of being observed. With the observer out of sight, the inmate never knows when he is being observed and when he is not. Through this arrangement, He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously on himself; it inscribes within itself the power relationship in which it plays both roles simultaneously; becomes the principal of his own subjection. (323) In such a situation the prisoner will discipline himself to behave as the rules established for him say; since he could be observed when he does not follow the rules and therefore be punished. As a disciplinary mechanism, the Panopticon automates and deindividualizes power. (321) It is an easy machine to use. Anyone can use it. All it takes is for the inmates to know that there is someone in the tower potentially watching them. Any individual taken at random could operate the Panopticon; and when he was on holiday anyone could replace him. The purpose of having such a machine and exercising such power is irrelevant. Whether for treating the sick, teaching school children, performing experiments on humans, or for the sheer pleasure of observing people, the Panopticon is still an easily operated mechanism. The Panopticon can be used as a laboratory of power instead of a house of power. certainty. It can be used to conduct scientific experiments on people instead of forcing the convict to behave well, the madman to calm down, the worker to work, the student to apply himself, the sick person to observe the rules. (323) Foucault discusses the possibility of raising different children according to different systems of thought. Some children would be taught that two plus two does not equal four. Another group of children were taught that the moon was a large piece of cheese. Then, when these peoplethey will become adults and be twenty-five years old, they would be asked to discuss these things and it would be a more valuable conversation than any sermon or lecture. The Panopticon is an ideal architectural mechanism for experiments on humans; they don't even need to know it's happening. (324)At first, panoptic institutions were rare events, like the plague city. It wasn't something that actually happened but a plan, in case the plague appeared in a city. However, Bentham's Panopticon took the panoptic scheme to a whole new level. The plague city project aimed at the immediate salvation of a threatened society, it was a desperate situation that required desperate measures. However, in the Panopticon the panoptic scheme is used to strengthen social forces and for economic growth. The panoptic scheme was taken to the extreme, creating the plan of the Panopticon, a general formula derived from extreme measures. (326-27)There are two forms of discipline. One extreme is the blocking of discipline and the other extreme, together with panopticism, is the mechanism of discipline. In the disciplinary block there is a closed institution, located on the periphery of society, which is intended to arrest evil, cut off communications and stop time. But at the opposite extreme, the mechanism-discipline, where there is panopticism, we have a functional mechanism that must improve the exercise of power by making it lighter, quicker, more effective, a design of subtle coercion for a society that will come . How does something like panopticism go from one extreme to the other? Through a process that depends on the formation of a disciplinary society, on the progressive expansion of disciplinary mechanisms throughout the social body; a disciplinary generalization and the diffusion of disciplinary institutions. The process involves three phases. First of all, the functional inversion of disciplines. Second: The swarm of disciplinary mechanisms. And thirdly, state control of the mechanisms of discipline. (328-330) The first step concerns the first use of discipline; to neutralize dangers, to accommodate useless and disturbed populations, to avoid the inconveniences of too large assemblies. Subsequently it is asked to increase the positive utility of individuals. For example, military discipline is no longer used to prevent war and theft, but is used on the shop floor to enforce regulations and prevent theft and loss. (328-329) The next step that allowed this transition from one extreme to the other to occur was the swarming of disciplinary mechanisms. As the number of disciplinary institutions increased, the mechanism was deinstitutionalized in such a way that it was no longer seen as something irregular, but rather common. The third event, state control of the mechanisms of discipline, leading to complete control by an organization, as in the Panopticon, is the transition of social discipline tasks from one organization to another. Functions originally performed by the church were now performed by the police. The police were seen as the most direct expression of royal absolutism. There was then constant surveillance, a visible but still unverifiable power. Society was permeated by panopticism. (330-331) Discipline is neither an institution nor an apparatus; it is a type of power. The use and manipulation of this power is a technology called panopticism in which it is the function of the state, or some other leader, to cause discipline to reign over society as a whole; and the formation of a disciplinary society, or social quarantine. Even though this appears to be a technological solution, it is not, an entire society emerges from it. Modern age society People are now focused on the individual and the.