Your task is to write a paper, in which you present and discuss some of the key aspects of the panopticon structure and how it might inform

Your task is to write a paper, in which you present and discuss some of the key aspects of the panopticon structure and how it might inform

Your task is to write a paper, in which you present and discuss some of the key aspects of the panopticon structure and how it might inform our thinking about current surveillance practices. USE THE OUTLINE BELOW:

Explain Bentham’s idea of a “panopticon” building. How does he see this building as bringing safety & efficiency to prisons and other institutions such a hospitals and schools?

Foucault agrees that the panopticon is widely applicable and would be a very effective way of disciplining subjects into submission even without force. He writes e.g.: 

“He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.” (Foucault, Discipline & Punish, excerpt p. 9)

Explain this psychological result of the panopticon style surveillance and how it relates to the asymmetry of power that Foucault sees as inherent in the panopticon architecture.

Do you think that we are living in a society-wide panopticon today? (Explain why/why not/in which respects/what is different)

Can safety, efficiency and “good behavior” justify surveillance? What are you worries if any?

Answer preview for Your task is to write a paper, in which you present and discuss some of the key aspects of the panopticon structure and how it might inform

MLA

1500 Words