Ultimately the lecture is about social control. And how institutions have power of the masses.
Institutions that have a physical presence, organised bodies of men, - police, army, prison etc.
Most important late 20th century thinkers - concept of a modern disciplinary society.
And the way the society uses its tactics to punish us, correct us and train us.
Discipline is not punitive its actually productive. Above are 2 important books.
One of the projects of Foucault was to deconstruct stick binary conventions in
society, good, bad, evil, sexuality.
There was no convention of madness in the middle ages, they were thought of quite endearingly.
There was no division between the sane and insane. This was the case until the 1600's where a new sensibility started to emerge. Particulary one that concerned a new attitude to work and the social vaule of work. Not olny to make stuff for society but to make people better. An anxziety started to emerge about all the people that could be deemed socially useless. They became a problem for society. Great houses of correction started to emerge, they were work places/prisons. They through in all the mad people, criminals, drunks, vagabondz, single mothers and the diseased. They were all made to work and beaten if they did not. They tried to make the socialy unproductive...productive. Labour is a way of moral reform they thought.
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| The sane would corrupt the insane, the criminal would corrupt the normal people. They created specialist asylums which specialised in housing the insane and correcting them. They worked on correcting the inmates using more subtle techniques than a beating. They reduced them to the state of sub minors / children. If they behaved appropriately they were rewarded. If they were behaved badly they would be chastised. Foucault saw a shift from physical violence to a more specialed form of social control. It was about subtly training people to behave. |
New experts appear and new authority figures. Psychology and Psychiatrists appear.
Paternal Figures. These institutions effect the way we think and control our behavior making
them take responsibility for there own discipline. Fed up of being told off so they behave.
The aim of punishment was to be as grizzly as possible. It had to be visible to serve as a reminder that that state has power of you if you are a criminal. This a to correct peoples behaviour. DONT TEST THE STATE!
Guy Falks punishment - Hung Drawn and Quartered
The states power to sever your head. French Revolution
New mode of disciplinary power that revolves around the mental power rather than physical.
Its more about survaliance. They want to conrtol or perofrmance, social usefull ness, beheavior etc.
Panopticism based on Panopticon Building.
Designed as a multifunctional building, school, prison, asylum, hospital etc.
Cells all round the outside.
Prison in Cuba
Mill bank prison where the tate briton is now
Each cell is totally open, would have bars. All the cells have a large window at the back. 1 person per cell.
Benson proposed this building as the perfect building for whatever function. Inmates are constantly staring at the central observation tower with a few supervisors in it. Inmates could not see each other, all they can see is the constant presence of the guards
Entirely opposite effect to the dungeon. the dungeon is where you hide / lock away the evil classes where they are forgotten about. The panopticon is light and open.
Because you are constantly reminded you are being watched by someone who expects you to behave in a certain way. Ultimately you never behave in a way that as supervisor wouldn't want you to. If you were to rebel you would be spotted and punished. So criminals started behaving. No one to share your thoughts with or talk to
Internal form of psychological torture.
Power functions automatically with this system. You don't need supervisors in the tower because eventually the people will control themselves. Blinds in the tower so the inmates can't see in. Wasn't just about control and discipline it was about surveillance and scrutiny. Functions like a laboratory, they could carry out experiments on people.
The system would reform Prisons etc. Making people more useful,
works through the power of the institutional gaze. You start to behave in the way you
think they want you to behave,
New form of targeted internal mental control. Understanding that you are always under scrutiny.
Open plan office sort of panopticon, used to be single room offices. Gets people to
share and get along...But can be constantly seen by the boss. Always awkward
because your being watched. Changes the behavior of the workers.
Humour of the program comes from the fact they know they are being watched.
They start to act up to what they think people should be like. He trys to be a good
manager but no one respects him because hes shit.
Panopticon at leeds college of art
Open plan bar, everything is visible to both the bouncers and bar staff. You unconsciously
change your behavior because you are being watched. Pubs are cosier, a place away from
scrutiny.
Constant Scrutiny. Google maps street view. Its everywhere.
This is a lecture that was given to a bunch of wild criminal kids to educate and inform them.
Each seat has a barrier between the students. They can only see the central teacher.
The structure maximises the efficiency of education reform. You are forced to
act in certain way making people more productive.
Richard is under constant scrutiny. He has 2 cabinets full of observations
on his teaching methodes.
Constantly monitored all day
It is a mental Process with a real physical effect.
Not docile as in sleepy, but there will be no resistance. The docile body is more physically adept.
A soldier is a perfect example. Hyper efficient and productive un questioning society.
Training of the Docile Body.
Cult of the ideal body. Nazi's
Television is a kind of Panopticism
Power is a relationship between different groups. Power only exists as much as what we
let it oppress us.
Everything you do is monitored. This makes you conform a certain way.
Hand Out
Panopticism: Institutions & Institutional Power
Richard Miles 2012
The lecture introduces the work of Michel Foucault and particularly his
theoretical application of panopticism, techniques of the body and
„disciplinary society‟. Funnily enough ‘institution’ is not defined in the
lecture, but take it that institutions can exist on two levels, first, organised
bodies which have some kind of collective material physical entity, [e.g.,
hospitals, government, the police] and secondly, organised practices
which are more solidly defined around customs and practices, such as the
institution of ‘marriage’, the ‘family’ and so on.
„Literature, art and their respective producers do not exist
independently of a complex institutional framework which
authorises, enables, empowers and legitimises them. This
framework must be incorporated into any analysis that pretends to
provide a thorough understanding of cultural goods and practices.’
Randal Johnson in Walker &
Chaplin (1999)
Learning Aims:-
• UNDERSTAND THE DESIGN MODEL OF THE PANOPTICON
• UNDERSTAND FOUCAULT’S CONCEPT OF ‘DISCIPLINARY SOCIETY’.
• UNDERSTAND THE FUNCTION OF DISCIPLINARY SOCIETY AS A MEANS OF
RENDERING INDIVIDUALS PRODUCTIVE AND USEFUL
• UNDERSTAND FOUCAULT’S CONCEPT OF TECHNIQUES OF THE BODY AND
‘DOCILE’ BODIES
PANOPTICISM
‘Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a
state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic
functioning of power.’ (Foucault, 1975)
• What Foucault is describing is a transformation in Western
societies from a form of power imposed by a ruler / sovereign to A
NEW MODE OF POWER CALLED PANOPTICISM
• The emergence of forms of knowledge – biology, psychiatry, medicine,
etc., legitimise the practices of hospitals, doctors, psychiatrists.
• Foucault aims to show how these forms of knowledge and rationalising
institutions like the prison, the asylum, the hospital, the school, now
work on human beings in such a way that they alter our consciousness
and that they internalise our responsibility.• The panopticon is a model of how modern society organises its
knowledge, its power, its surveillance of bodies and its ‘training’ of
bodies
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POWER, KNOWLEDGE AND THE
BODY.
• Disciplinary Society produces what Foucault calls „docile bodies‟.
• ‘power relations have an immediate hold upon it [the body]; they
invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to
perform ceremonies, to emit signs’ (Foucault 1975)
Disciplinary Techniques
“That the techniques of discipline and „gentle punishment‟ have
crossed the threshold from work to play shows how pervasive they
have become within modern western societies” (Danaher, Schirato &
Webb 2000)
Foucault’s definition of power is not a top – down model, as in Marxist
theory, but is more subtle. Thus,
power is not a thing or a capacity people have –
it is a relation between different individuals and groups, and only exists
when it is being exercised –
The exercise of power relies on there being the capacity for power to be
resisted.
For Foucault, ‘Where there is power there is resistance’.
Bibliography
Please see yr 2 bib,
But also,
Foucault, M. (1975) ‘Panopticism’
from Hall, S. & Evans (1998) Visual Culture a Reader
Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
London, Penguin
See also web sites on Foucault of which there are plenty
