CMCstudent, Foucault

This reading was really interesting. It was great to learn the history and organization of the dominant elite during the time of the plague in the 17th century. I suppose they had to have such strict rules to keep the death toll down as much as possible. This article shows that order can be made even out of the most difficult of times. I also was able to see the connection of those dominant in 17th century and those dominant today. When taking a step back, and examining, one can see that after these few centuries some RSA’s are still functioning on the exclusive power of visibility and unverifibility. Bentham describes “visible” as “the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon” (98). Today we can compare this to cameras in a prison which detect every movement an inmate makes. He describes “unverifiable” as “the inmate must never know he is being looked at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so” (98). This can be exemplified when a jail inmate appears in court. No one directly eyes him down the entire time, but he knows that all eyes are on him and does not need to see them to know they are on him.

The Panopticon reminds me of the notion of “the man.” We the people are totally seen but “the man” never shows himself. It is like a one way mirror. Although we do not exactly know who “the man” is, we are subjected to his and the dominant elite’s ideologies everyday. If someone was asked to draw “the man” could they? Who is “the man” that controls the world we live in and is there only one, or many? Bentham says that “any individual can operate the machine,” the Panopticon. Does this mean if “the man” gets sick “the man’s” assistant steps in to take his place for the day? By simply calling the government or dominant ideologies “the man” the power ultimately becomes unverifiable.