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Foucault's Panopticon

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The central topic of this paper has its starting point in Foucault’s seminal work regarding the discipline of bodies through punishment and surveillance, and his critique of the enlightenment which is connected to Foucault’s conception of truth and knowledge as well as his theory of power as a relational force rather than something inherent and possessed by individuals or institutions. Through Deleuze and others I will attempt to show that in some sense we have transcended this form of discipline and surveillance, moving from a disciplinary-society to a control-society, that the form of domination has changed its focus from the hierarchical disciplining of bodies to the multipolar control and reproduction of the digital self. One of the main …show more content…

The endless categorisation, classification and subjectification through forms of domination based on how science objectifies the individual as the subject of language and the discourse of truth. S. 204 Subjectification relates to the way individuals subjectify themselves (Foucault, 1984). Foucault’s idea of subjectification relates to Bentham’s idea of the ‘Panopticon’. The model of the Panopticon is a tower placed in a central location within a prison in order for the guards to be able to observe each cell and its occupants at any given time (Foucault, 1977). It was designed in a way that the prisoners would be unable to know whether they were being observed at a particular time or not. Prisoners however would know that they could be observed at any moment and so would modify their behaviour accordingly Hur subjektet skapas, en process av becoming, aldrig …show more content…

Yet, and this is what Foucault tries to show through compelling examples, these systems often remain hidden or unnoticed, precisely because they are found in the fibres of daily life, which is what makes them so powerful and ubiquitous. S. 16 Panopticon today? Through the constant revelations of surveillance and data collection since the seventies (ECHELON) it still appears on the surface that we are not aware of this surveillance. A modified version of Zizeks reversal of Marx “They do not know it, but they are doing it” becomes applicable here “They know very well that they are under surveillance, yet act as if they don’t know”. The sheer act of having knowledge of this surveillance mirrors the panoptic gaze of Bentham, forcing the individual to act accordingly, internalizing the behaviour. The appearance of ignorance as proof of

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