ChittyChittyBangBang 4/15

Discussing Foucault was a very graphic class experience. Imagining the plague was intense but a great representation of Foucault's points about our government. It was crazy to think about the Panopticon. The fact that authority is able to scare people into doing what they want through deception really makes me think. What else do we abide by just because we are told something by an authoritative person or group? There are certain norms created in our society such as that we have to do what our teacher tells us to and that we definitely have to do anything a police officer tells us to do. These authoritative figures have power over us and there is certain validity to everything they tell us...but why?

"Induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power" (98. It is interesting to think that society basically prisons themselves because we assume that what the government tells us is truth and we are afraid of consequences. They don't necessarily need to tell us exactly what to do all the time, it becomes engrained in our culture and we restrict ourselves from acting in certain ways that are "unacceptable".
"A real subjection is born mechanically from a fictitious relation" (99). How do we really know the truth? How do we really know there is a Sky Marshall on the plane? How do we really know that the police officer's gun is loaded? How do we really know anything? The system has to be built on a level of trust. Such as during the plague inspections, officers had to believe that you were telling the truth about how many people and/or dead people you have in your home. People are mostly honest though because they are afraid of the system. As Dr. Rog said in class, if you don't subscribe to the system, you die.

All of these quotes and examples really make me feel like our whole society is behind bars. We are constantly watched. Although is all of this necessary? There are more of us than them, why don't we rebel? Although, if we didn't have this cloak of rules, this system, wouldn't all hell break loose?