thestig, foucalt

“Our society is one not of spectacle, but of surveillance…a centralization of knowledge…that the individual is carefully fabricated in” (Foucalt 101).

Michel Foucault uses the Panopticon to show how individuals in society are drones, subject to the powerful ideological state apparatus. This is an essential feature of critical theory. After World War II, the Frankfurt school realized that it had to revisit the reasons to why individuals assimilated in society so fluently. What several theorists discovered was that humans lost their ability to ‘question authority.’ Thus, we are passive, and unresponsive. We are like puppets. We are free only to consume, and are sold on ideas that make us feel like we are individuals.

In addition to being so manipulative, this highly constructed process is ensured by the socialization effects it has on society. This is where the panopticon comes into play: we feel as if we’re always being monitored, making us even more obedient and less willing to challenge the puppeteers. The panopticon is the infrastructure used to maintain this power relationship with individuals.

This makes such a deep impact on society because it creates the notion that there is no alternative (TINA). You obey, or you are in trouble. The panopticon is the symbolic figure that keeps people in line, concluding that there is no alterative. TINA is an important concept because it compliments the “affirmative character of culture.” We have no choice but to live vicariously through a character on the screen, and individuals are given choices, but they are choices based on what to consume. In other words, we are free to make choices, but our choices are controlled. Automobile manufactures will market their cars based on optional, rather rudimentary features because it “sells:” it makes the consumer feel like he is “customizing” his new car. As individuality becomes a product, individual autonomy continues to deteriorate. Individuals no longer live the leisure filled lives they imagine themselves to be living, but are now ignorant consumers creating profits for the ideological state apparatus leadership. There is no alternative represents the extension from production to consumption, enhancing the power of the ideological state apparatus and the notion of the panopticon.