"Who can say it's any different than the guard in the tower looking at
her prisoners?"
Talking past one another is annoying, but it can also be fruitful when
the other person finally says something that makes you go "Ah ha - so
that?s why we don?t understand one another". This is why after reading
your reply several times I?ve started with this quote ?cos the
unstartling answer is - me.
Symptoms and causes. We both agree pretty well much on the symptoms but
we clearly disagree on "what it means" and therefore its reasons for
happening.
In some ways the Panopticon was the most strategically unwise idea that
Foucault had. The problems with it are that its brilliant, its graphic,
its easy to understand the mechanisms "unseeable guard in tower, seeable
prisoner in box", it splits the world into good-prisoner, bad-guard,
them and us. For all these reasons I am unsurprised to find the
Panopticon ubiquitous, over-used and badly used.
The Panopticon is a machine for creating and controlling spaces of
enclosure. It worked in and created (the two are inseparable) C19th
prisons, factories, schools. You can still find instances of
Panoptically organised spaces of enclosure, but not as many and they are
not as important an organising and controlling machine as the ones that
now operate. Think of the description of the plague city in D&P. In
order to control it what is necessary? that everybody should be locked
up in their houses. Panoptic control mechanisms are absolutely incapable
of controlling exteriorised (spaces which you can get out of) spaces -
such as streets. They work, partially because you cannot get out of them
- Panoptic control of the factory ceases the moment the whistle blows
(and also ceases in every space where bodies cannot be seen). Think of
"the spectacle" - one of the reasons, in a multitude, that Foucault puts
forwards for the ending of spectacular public executions is that they
started causing the very trouble they were meant to be cowing. So what
happened? the executions, the whole punishment apparatus - moved
indoors, into a space of enclosure that because it was enclosed, could
be controlled.
The one thing that Panoptically organised structures (of spaces, bodies,
whatever) are not is "self-policing" - whether there is a guard in the
tower or not is not the point, as Foucault and Bentham acknowledge - but
you need the tower. This is why it is a huge mistake to talk of "the
internalisation" of the Panopticon. That there is such self-policing I
do not deny.
During the "Age of Reason" whether you were mad, or not had *nothing to
do with wether you foamed at the mouth, or not, but was a simple
function of whether you were inside or outside of an asylum*.
This is a claim that I can imagine you (well, somebody I?m sure) may
have a lot of problem with. It certainly runs counter to the whole trend
of objectivism & positivism - being mad is a clinically accessible
*fact*. (what would a madness that was not clinically accessible be?)
Here and now this spatial location of madness is something that we find
bizarre, unbelievable. But it was the case. Read Erving Goffman?s
totally ground breaking work on the way that absolutely all behaviour
was and had to be characterised as insane if it took place by an asylum
inmate. Now we use chemistry instead of geography; its for all intents
and purposes a different episteme.
"Not only has the classificatory scheme gotten obviously much more
refined, intense, and precise" - clearly I don?t think that this is an
accurate portrayal of what has happened; this kind of explanatory schema
is homologous with claiming that the prison regime has got gentler -
well possibly, but that totally misses the point of D&P.
The shift from "geography" to "chemistry" (please don't take these terms
literally, they are just the most covenient given the focus of our
discussion) is not confined to madness but also covers prisons, schools
and more significantly areas that were not controlled by the Panopticon.
Jon.
______________________________________________________
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her prisoners?"
Talking past one another is annoying, but it can also be fruitful when
the other person finally says something that makes you go "Ah ha - so
that?s why we don?t understand one another". This is why after reading
your reply several times I?ve started with this quote ?cos the
unstartling answer is - me.
Symptoms and causes. We both agree pretty well much on the symptoms but
we clearly disagree on "what it means" and therefore its reasons for
happening.
In some ways the Panopticon was the most strategically unwise idea that
Foucault had. The problems with it are that its brilliant, its graphic,
its easy to understand the mechanisms "unseeable guard in tower, seeable
prisoner in box", it splits the world into good-prisoner, bad-guard,
them and us. For all these reasons I am unsurprised to find the
Panopticon ubiquitous, over-used and badly used.
The Panopticon is a machine for creating and controlling spaces of
enclosure. It worked in and created (the two are inseparable) C19th
prisons, factories, schools. You can still find instances of
Panoptically organised spaces of enclosure, but not as many and they are
not as important an organising and controlling machine as the ones that
now operate. Think of the description of the plague city in D&P. In
order to control it what is necessary? that everybody should be locked
up in their houses. Panoptic control mechanisms are absolutely incapable
of controlling exteriorised (spaces which you can get out of) spaces -
such as streets. They work, partially because you cannot get out of them
- Panoptic control of the factory ceases the moment the whistle blows
(and also ceases in every space where bodies cannot be seen). Think of
"the spectacle" - one of the reasons, in a multitude, that Foucault puts
forwards for the ending of spectacular public executions is that they
started causing the very trouble they were meant to be cowing. So what
happened? the executions, the whole punishment apparatus - moved
indoors, into a space of enclosure that because it was enclosed, could
be controlled.
The one thing that Panoptically organised structures (of spaces, bodies,
whatever) are not is "self-policing" - whether there is a guard in the
tower or not is not the point, as Foucault and Bentham acknowledge - but
you need the tower. This is why it is a huge mistake to talk of "the
internalisation" of the Panopticon. That there is such self-policing I
do not deny.
During the "Age of Reason" whether you were mad, or not had *nothing to
do with wether you foamed at the mouth, or not, but was a simple
function of whether you were inside or outside of an asylum*.
This is a claim that I can imagine you (well, somebody I?m sure) may
have a lot of problem with. It certainly runs counter to the whole trend
of objectivism & positivism - being mad is a clinically accessible
*fact*. (what would a madness that was not clinically accessible be?)
Here and now this spatial location of madness is something that we find
bizarre, unbelievable. But it was the case. Read Erving Goffman?s
totally ground breaking work on the way that absolutely all behaviour
was and had to be characterised as insane if it took place by an asylum
inmate. Now we use chemistry instead of geography; its for all intents
and purposes a different episteme.
"Not only has the classificatory scheme gotten obviously much more
refined, intense, and precise" - clearly I don?t think that this is an
accurate portrayal of what has happened; this kind of explanatory schema
is homologous with claiming that the prison regime has got gentler -
well possibly, but that totally misses the point of D&P.
The shift from "geography" to "chemistry" (please don't take these terms
literally, they are just the most covenient given the focus of our
discussion) is not confined to madness but also covers prisons, schools
and more significantly areas that were not controlled by the Panopticon.
Jon.
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com