Essay On Panopticism

During the entire “Panopticism” essay the one picture which every reader had put in their mind was the picture of the central prison tower being circled by hundreds of cells. Throughout the entire essay Foucault keep giving example of prisons and towns which were in quarantine to prevent the spread of diseases. However at the end of the essay Foucault made a conclusion which may have caught a few people of guard; he asserted that prisons are not the only structures which symbolize or work like panoptic structures, but all structures like schools, offices and factories also perform the same function. Though most of the structures don’t exactly resemble the central tower being surrounded by cells, they still match the basic principles. Some of …show more content…
The reason for this wide spread use of the panoptic structure is due to the drastic change which society underwent in the later part of the 19th century. We went from being people who only wanted to correct mistakes, like punishing people for crimes so they don’t do it again or quarantining people so that they don’t spread a disease. To now wanting to prevent the mistake before it even takes place. So we prevent people from committing crimes, by having schools put in place guidelines and values at a very young age hoping to deter future criminals. This same principle applies to the spread of diseases, now even when there is no outbreak of an illness people will get shots, visit the doctor, and stay indoors even when they only have cold. Thus society has gone from containing to preventing; which in turn has led to the development of panoptic structures, thus it should not be a surprise. We are the reason why Panopticism has spread to the degree it has. Society’s need to control everything from weather to air quality to the actions of other human beings has fostered an environment which help the growth of such a system and now once it has become so big people are questioning how did it happen, when they themselves are the ones to