Re: Panopticon Reversed

It is not often discussed that Bentham's design included an elaborate
tunnel system whereby people from society could come into the structure
and emerge in the central tower to watch the prisoners and also the guards
watching the prisoners). Not sure whether this connects functionally with
the ritual display of the mad for profit that Foucault talks about in
chapter 2 of Madness and Civilization, but my sense is that the gaze was
never understood to be unidimensional (hence "panopticon reversed"
doesn't work for me as a descriptor). I like Lynn Fendler's concept of the
"ricochet of the gaze" here as a way of underscoring that Bentham's plan
was to govern *all* of society through architectural technology, not
merely the imprisoned. Does this mean that the new 'feral' media forms
that evade politico-military censorship and give possibility to new
economies of gaze are a sign of post- or retro-panoptic society, or maybe
rather a sign of panoptic work par excellence?






"max neill" <meneilu2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: owner-foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
10/05/2004 05:34 AM
Please respond to foucault


To: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
cc:
Subject: Panopticon Reversed



Any opinions on the apparent reversal of the 'Panopticon Effect' at Abu
Ghraib, where now the gaze of the world is focussed on the jailers?

"We speak and the word goes beyond us to consequences and ends which we
had
not conceived of" Gadamer





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