1984 Vs Panopticon Essay

Contrasted to the previous discussions of power and authority that the state or civilization commands over the individual, it must be recognized that to some degree, at least in Freud’s opinion, the liberties that would have protected individuals from their civilization must have been sacrificed at some point in order to gain protection. Whether this protection remains, although it originally appears to have disappeared in the case of the Panopticon and 1984, does not matter to Freud, only that the sacrifice was made in the first place. Freud makes this claim in the midst of his discussion about the benefits and disadvantages of the formation of civilizations, claiming, “The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization… The development of civilization imposes restrictions on

In the Panopticon, it is more implied that those imprisoned were forcibly stripped of their rights and liberties after committing a crime, though it could be argued that by committing the crime while knowing the implications of being caught, the prisoners willingly accepted the loss of their individual freedoms. An example of the loss of freedom in the Panopticon, is the essence of the entire structure, “He is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of information, never a subject in communication” (200). Bentham conspires to completely strip the individual of his or her individuality by allowing them enough information to ascertain the extent of their imprisonment, without any human contact. 1984 takes a different approach to the notion of protection, only employing the idea of constant war with Eurasia and Eastasia as a method to distract Oceanians from their own