concept of power | Foucault’s Panopticism Model

Panopticism

By:- Bentham

Foucault’s concept of power is described by Bentham and he introduces Panopticon He says that we know the principle on which this circumambulation was based. An annular building with a tower set in its center. This tower has been installed with wide windows. Which opens on the inner side of the ring and the peripheral building is divided into cells. each of which spans the entire width of the building. They have two windows, one on the inside facing the tower windows and the other on the outside to allow light to pass through the cell from one end to the other.

Bentham describes the structure of the panopticon in this way and describes Foucault’s power based on this panopticon.

The panopticon system provides for spatial integration. Which makes it possible for continuous viewing and instant access. In short, this dungeon has three main functions:-

• To attach
• Deprive of light
• To hide

This dungeon reverses the principle of its three functions and it preserves only the first and eliminates the other Is.

This is an important mechanism as it automates and deactivates the power. And the Panopticon is a privileged place for experiments on men. can be obtained from it to analyze with absolute certainty.

According to Bentham, from this central tower, the director could spy on all the employees. under its orders Nurses, doctors, foremen, teachers, and warders, that is, it will be able to continuously order them and change their behavior or bring about changes. You can implement the methods that are best for them.  

And Bentham also says that it would be possible to observe the director himself. At the center of the panopticon is an inspector who will be able to judge at a glance. Without the director being able to measure and know how the whole establishment is functioning. 

The Panopticon acts as a laboratory of power or acquired capability. And follows the progress of power in the behavior, and knowledge of men. Discovering new objects of knowledge in all the places where power is used.

A panopticon should not be understood as a dream building. This is a graph of a mechanism of power. Which is less in its ideal form of functioning. It is multifaceted in its applications. It served as an asylum for prisoners, but also for treating the sick, instructing school children, imprisoning the insane, and supervising workers.

The panopticon mechanism is not just a hinge, it is a point of exchange between a mechanism of power and function. Bentham here presents two pictures of discipline:-

First: Discipline is the blockade established on the fringes of society, the attached institution, and prevents from doing negative actions. Breaks communication and suspends time.

Second: here the discipline mechanism with the panopticon is a functional mechanism. Which should improve the practice to make the power lighter. 

The Junctional inversion of the discipline

Previously they were expected to neutralize threats, heal idle or restless populations, and to avoid the inconveniences of large assemblies. But now he is being asked to play a positive role because he was able to do so. So that the potential utility of individuals can be increased, that is, military discipline is no longer just a means of stopping loot.

Discipline enhances the skill of each person. accelerates movement. Increases firepower. Widens the front of the attack without reducing its power, increases the capacity for resistance, etc. 

The swarming of disciplinary mechanisms

While on the one hand there is an increase in disciplinary establishments. There is a definite tendency to de-institutionalize in many systems. To recover from the closed kilo in which he once functioned, and to operate extensively in the free position. Disciplines are broken down into subsidiary methods of control, which can be transferred and adapted. 

This is seen as a proliferation of disciplinary processes. Not as attached institutions but as observation centered throughout society, in addition, religious groups and charitable organizations had long played a role in disciplining the population.

state control of the mechanism of discipline

From time immemorial it was also believed by contemporaries. Because the most direct extension of royal authority was in the sovereign the will of his own magistrate. To whom he could directly entrust his orders with his commissions and intentions and to whom he was entrusted.

But the police as an institution was definitely organized as a state apparatus. Although it was certainly linked directly to the center of political sovereignty. Police power must be exercised over everything although it is not the totality of the state nor the visibility of the state and the body of the monarch. It is the dust of events, actions, behaviors, and thoughts.

The formation of a disciplinary society is linked to a number of broad historical processes and to the economic, legal, political, and ultimately scientific ones of which it is a part. 

1. In general it can be said that discipline is the technique of ensuring the order of human plurality.  

First: To obtain the exercise of power economically at the least possible cost, 

Second: To bring about the influence of this social power to be extended as far as possible,

Third: To combine this economic development with the production of power To add (academic, military, industrial, or medical),

The panoptic modality of power

is on a primary, technical only physical level. Not under immediate dependence or direct extension of the great juridical political structures of society, yet it is not absolutely independent. 

Political power panopticism constituted the technique that was universally widespread while the jurisprudence system defined judicial subjects according to universal criteria. Categories were disciplined. typically distributes along a scale and also ranks individuals in relation to each other around a standard. 

3. There is a long history behind the techniques taken one after the other.

The growth of the individual in the 18th century regularly reinforced each other in a circular process. At this point, the subjects crossed the technical boundary first the hospital, then the school, then later the workshop. It was the proper link to the technical systems that made possible the rationalization of clinical medicine, child psychology, educational psychology, and labor within the disciplinary climate. The expansion of the discipline is inscribed in a wider historical process.