m, All what you have said is true, but all for a system in operation, and
also for the general fucntioning of the system. What you say does not hodl
for the initiation of the system nor for any challenges to the system.
Initiation: someone, an authority figure with sovreign powers, has to
show/convince the prisoner/subject that the guard tower has someone in it.
Second, challenges: one can assume given human nature that challenges will
be made to the system even if it is illogical. There has to be enough of a
response, of the sovreign power, to "answer" these challneges. Yes, for the
VAST majority of the time, disciplinary power operates through the subject
and other subjects around him/her -- but the sovreign power is still there
and is incorporated into the disciplinary machinery.
MArk
>I would have to disagree. The point of the Panopticon is not the presence
>of the guard. Foucault starts out by indicating the supervisor in the
>tower, and then slowly begins to elimiate this position. First he moves to
>the unverifiability of the presence of the guard: "it is at once too much
>and too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an
>inspector" (201). Then he indicates the disindividualization of power: "it
>does not matter who exercises power. Any individual taken almost at
random,
>can operate the machine" (202). Then he moves to the position that in fact
>the way the panotpicon works is not that the disciplinary gaze comes from
>the guard tower, but in fact, moves to within the prisoners themselves,
i.e.
>the external gaze becomes internalized: "He who is subjected to a field of
>visibliity, and who knows it, assumes resposibility for the constraints of
>power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in
>himself the power relation in which he simultanously plays both roles; he
>becomes the principle of his own subjection" (202-3). Thus the "guard" is
>within the prisoner themselves (as one of the "roles.") (Also note how the
>"guard" becomes "a field of visibility," thus dehumanizing this technology
>of power.)
>
>m
>
>
>
>
>****************************
>Margaret Toye
>English Department
>University of Western Ontario
>mtoye@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
Mark Jensen
wils0253@xxxxxxxxxx
oldbuck@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
also for the general fucntioning of the system. What you say does not hodl
for the initiation of the system nor for any challenges to the system.
Initiation: someone, an authority figure with sovreign powers, has to
show/convince the prisoner/subject that the guard tower has someone in it.
Second, challenges: one can assume given human nature that challenges will
be made to the system even if it is illogical. There has to be enough of a
response, of the sovreign power, to "answer" these challneges. Yes, for the
VAST majority of the time, disciplinary power operates through the subject
and other subjects around him/her -- but the sovreign power is still there
and is incorporated into the disciplinary machinery.
MArk
>I would have to disagree. The point of the Panopticon is not the presence
>of the guard. Foucault starts out by indicating the supervisor in the
>tower, and then slowly begins to elimiate this position. First he moves to
>the unverifiability of the presence of the guard: "it is at once too much
>and too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an
>inspector" (201). Then he indicates the disindividualization of power: "it
>does not matter who exercises power. Any individual taken almost at
random,
>can operate the machine" (202). Then he moves to the position that in fact
>the way the panotpicon works is not that the disciplinary gaze comes from
>the guard tower, but in fact, moves to within the prisoners themselves,
i.e.
>the external gaze becomes internalized: "He who is subjected to a field of
>visibliity, and who knows it, assumes resposibility for the constraints of
>power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in
>himself the power relation in which he simultanously plays both roles; he
>becomes the principle of his own subjection" (202-3). Thus the "guard" is
>within the prisoner themselves (as one of the "roles.") (Also note how the
>"guard" becomes "a field of visibility," thus dehumanizing this technology
>of power.)
>
>m
>
>
>
>
>****************************
>Margaret Toye
>English Department
>University of Western Ontario
>mtoye@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
Mark Jensen
wils0253@xxxxxxxxxx
oldbuck@xxxxxxxxxxxxx