Foucault says that the function of the panopticon is a “machine
for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is
totally seen, without ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything
without ever being seen.” (202) Foucault lays out his idea of the panopticon
much different than Bentham. He believes that it is intend to segregate those
who are in need of segregation but also those who are not. That this ‘machine’
like building is going to be used in order to keep people apart and make them
self-aware of their aloneness. While Bentham views the building as a type of
community setting where those who live there must be watched, but also
participate fully in the running of the building, such as with the water systems
they plan to incorporate. Both authors seem to be similar in the beliefs of
needing a central building in order to keep a close watch on those obtained.
Foucault and Bentham both agree that the power of the inspectors should be, “visible
and unverifiable.” (201) By that Bentham means that, “Visible: the inmate will
constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the ventral tower from
which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is
being looked at at any one moment, but he must be sure that he may always be
so. In order to make the presence or absence of the inspector unverifiable, so
that the prisoners, in their cells, cannot even see a shadow.” (201)
I believe both authors are laying the ground work for how we
run our prisons and hospitals today. The main idea that, “the Panopticon also
does the work of a naturalist. It makes it possible to draw up differences: among
patients, to observe the symptoms of each individual, without the proximity of
beds, the circulation of miasmas, the effects of contagion confusing the clinical
tables,” is how we treat and observe patients of all kinds (mental health,
operation, inmates) now-a-days.
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