Nate Dogg, Foucault

Foucault's article was disturbing to say the least. Let's begin with the Panopticon. I felt that the most obvious parallel to this panoptic "jail" was our very own Homeland Security and the USA PATRIOT act. Having people feel as though they are constantly being watched and monitored is a method of control. Fear of being seen doing something designated inappropriate or against the law will keep people from doing said transgressions, or so the Watchman hopes. The laws that our government set into place have certainly helped keep our country safe from attacks, but it's also given the USA a neurotic complex. Keeping people afraid is the best way to keep them busy, keep them in line, and keep the current rulers in power. I think that the Europeans might not have realized these steps for power at first, but it's exactly what they did when the enacted the great Confinement.

If we're going to compare theorists, the first thought is that of Althusser and the RSA's/ISA's. The Plague Society reminds me of the Repressive State Apparatuses (Apparatusi?), with all of the detail surrounding the intendents and the syndics and so forth. The fact that everything was done publicly, in front of one another, and no one did anything about it is beyond me. The same goes for Nazi Germany. Hitler and his cohorts used a very similar plan in order to rise to power. Come up with a bad guy, make that bad guy scary, pretend to be on the side that fights the bad guy and you've got control. The "disease" was Judaism, and the Nazi's did everything they could to individualize the Jew.

The Panopticon is much more like an Ideological State Apparatus, in that in functions only because of voyeurism and the fear of being constantly watched. Keeping people separated from one another and under constant supervision equals control. But I think there is an exception to the Panopticon. The rule is that the people that have been put in the panoptic jail are blind to the outside, that they cannot see who is supposedly looking at them. What if the person inside the panopticon WAS blind? If they can never see their captor nor their surroundings, what good is it that they're always being watched? If one never had the possibility of seeing the supervisor, what difference does it make that he cannot see him now? The idea that the prisoner can see but can't see everything is what scares him into submitting to the Watchman. What huge strength does the panoptic jail have over a regular jail if the prisoner is blind? The panoptic situation loses its power when the people being watched give up care that they are being watched.

I enjoyed this reading, despite its morbid subject matter. I think that deep down, most of these articles are about people gaining power over another people in some way, shape or form. The fact that there are so many ways to dupe us into acting like robots or sheep is pretty wild.