Foucault, the Panopticon, and the Eye of Sauron

I found much of Foucault’s Discipline & Punishment to be incredibly interesting, but also at times equally disturbing.  I see his incorporation of “the soul” into his arguments as an evolution in historiography and something we have not yet encountered in our readings.  I also see Foucault as continuing the tradition of the Annales School by being very interdisciplinary and blurring the lines between history and other social science disciplines; however Foucault seems to take historiography to the next level by including such ethereal and intangible concepts such as the soul.  I also see his work as an extension of the Marxist perspective in that much of his work revolves around reforming or shaping the individual into a disciplined, docile, and productive member of society and the economy.

I have heard more than a few of my students refer to school as a prison, but I never really gave their statements much thought until I read Foucault’s discussion of discipline normalizing by creating uniformity and conformity (182) and the idea of knowledge through observation as a source of power (187-200).  In particular, I found his examination of Bentham’s Panopticon to be unnerving – even more so than his graphic descriptions of torturous executions.  Even though Bentham is depicting an ideal scenario where someone (the sovereign power or a person of power and authority) is able to look down on all the patients/criminals/workers/students in a benevolent manner and observe them in order to gather information which will best help reform/mold/shape that individual, I think Foucault is warning us of the hidden dangers inherent in this system.  Bentham claims that there is no risk of the Panopticon paradigm degenerating into corruption or tyranny because the building is open to supervision by the society (207), but I think Foucault is cautioning us to look behind the Panopticon’s façade and see that in this paradigm only a few people of privilege hold the power and that power is produced through knowledge of the individual; knowledge of the individual opens the door to manipulation, corruption, and tyranny by the person in power for self-serving purposes.  While reading the Panopticon section, I kept envisioning the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings, I kept recalling all the post-apocalyptic dystopian novels I’ve read from Orwell to the more recent Hunger Games and Divergent trilogies, I even thought of the Johnny Depp movie “Transcendence” and even a few scenarios from “The Walking Dead” (shout-out to Tony!).  All of these examples have persons in power claiming to have the well-being of the individual in the forefront, but in actuality the persons in power use information about the individuals to control and manipulate the society for their own purposes.

Discipline & Punishment has caused me to think a lot about our modern school systems and how they exemplify the Panopticon paradigm.  I collect and record information about my students and for my Supervising Administrator.  My Supervising Administrator collects and records information about me for our Principal, who in turn collects information for the Superintendent…….My brain has been working overtime going over all kinds of conspiracy theory scenarios  - needless to say I have not slept well this last week and I have been looking askance at all the “security” cameras around my school!

While I applaud the inclusion of the individual and a greater emphasis on the individual at this point in historiography (especially compared to Bloch), I think Foucault is still essentially a cautionary tale of the dangers regarding power relations and knowledge which can be used by sovereign powers/societies/organizations/ and corporations to manage and control the individual.