Foucault\'s Panopticism

"He who is subject to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection" (Foucault). Discuss in terms of Foucault's understanding of discipline.
Michel Foucault roots his understanding of 'power' in two systems: firstly 'discipline' in his 1975 publication Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison; secondly in 'Bio-politics', a concept he introduces in his 1976 publication 'The History of Sexuality, Vol. I: The Will to Knowledge.
My essay will discuss the system of discipline. Foucault understands discipline to be 'methods' that allow "meticulous control over the operations of the body…and imposed upon them a relation of docility-utility…" (Foucault, 1991: 137). The quotation in question describes the result of the most complete form of discipline in Foucault's opinion: "Panopticism". Derived from Jeremy Bentham's 'Panopticon' design for a prison where all prisoners are in a constant state of unilateral observation from a watch tower, Panopticism is the effect the structure has on each prisoner; their behavior becomes self-correcting because the they know they are in a "constant field of visibility", but they never know exactly when they are being watched. Therefore, each prisoner must act as if they are always being observed i.e. "he becomes the principle of his own subjection." However, before I explain the Panopticon and Panopticism, I must present Foucault's understanding of discipline and how it is carried out upon the body first. I will use 'Docile Bodies', the first chapter of 'Part III: Discipline' of Discipline and Punish, to assert that Foucault's understanding of discipline, and therefore the functioning of the Panopticon, manifests itself as a tetrad, controlling Space, Activity, Time, and Component Forces, allowing those in power to achieve 'docility-utility' over a body.

'Docile Bodies' starts by juxtaposing two soldiers of different chronological disposition. Foucault describes the seventeenth-century soldier as being: "…someone who could be recognized from afar…his body was the blazon of his strength and valour" (Foucault, 135). The second part of his comparison describes the late eighteenth-century soldier: "the soldier has become something that can be made; out of a formless clay…the machine that can be constructed". Where the former describes solely the physicality of the soldier, the latter describes the composition of the soldier as a non-individual subject; the soldier is seen to be an abstract creation of power-relations, whose attributes can be applied to any body. Foucault asserts that control over the body has run throughout history, where making a body 'docile' allowed it to be subjected to use and improvement: "The classical age saw the discovery of the body as an object and target of power…the body that is manipulated, shaped, trained, which obeys, responds, becomes skillful and increases its forces" (Foucault, 136). The eighteenth century saw that docility could be implemented to all kinds of institutions to control society in general, in schools, hospitals, prisons, but also that 'utility' of the body was just as important in the concept of discipline. Foucault explains that the core to this new level of control was expressed in the "meticulous control of the operations of the body" (Foucault, 137), with three methods, which he calls 'discipline'. Firstly, the scale of control: "it was a question not of treating the body, en masse…as if it were an indissociable unity, but of working it 'retail', individually…at the level of the mechanism itself" (Foucault, 137). Then, the object of control: "the economy, the efficiency of movements, their internal organization" (Foucault, 137). Finally, the modality: "it implies uninterrupted, constant coercion…exercised according to a codification that partitions as closely as possible time, space, movement" (Foucault, 137). These three methods or bind together and instill the relation of "docility-utility" (Foucault, 137) into the body, which is the key concept I will bring forward in describing why discipline manifests itself as a tetrad to Foucault.

Foucault argues that if the aim of discipline is to instill in the subjected body this 'docility-utility' relation, then it does so in four areas: 'Space', 'Activity', 'Time', 'Component forces'.
Space: - Firstly, disciplining a body requires the meticulous control of 'Space', which itself is managed in four ways:
'Enclosure'
'Partitioning'
'Functional sites'
'Rank'
Firstly, 'enclosure': "Discipline…requires enclosure…a place heterogeneous to all others and closed in upon itself. It is the protected place of disciplinary monotony" (Foucault, 141). An exclusive space must be set aside for the repetitive exercise of discipline on the body. Institutions had always used enclosure to exert discipline upon the subjects, hence the existence of specific locations such as schools, hospitals, barracks and factories; however Foucault claims that enclosure alone is not "sufficient in disciplinary machinery" (Foucault, 143).
Therefore the second part of using space in discipline is 'partitioning': "Each individual has his own place; and each place its individual…Disciplinary space tends to be divided into as many sections as there are bodies" (Foucault, 143). This is true of many disciplinary institutions today. In schools, one often has their own specific seat within the classroom; a hospital assigns beds to individuals; a soldier occupies a specific space in formation; the worker has his own particular workstation.
Thirdly, even when each body is in its own specific partition, the partition must be a useful space, which Foucault calls 'functional sites'. Foucault takes particular interest in the application of 'functional sites' in the naval hospital in Rochefort, France: "[the hospital] tended to individualise bodies, diseases, symptoms, lives and deaths…a real table of juxtaposed and carefully distinct singularities. Out of discipline, a medically useful space was born" (Foucault, 144).
Finally, there needs to be classification or 'rank'. Here this means that there is subdivision within subdivision. Schools are, and nearly always have been, divided into 'years' based on age; each 'year' is then usually divided according to abilities and proficiencies in subjects, with top, middle, and bottom classes/sets; within each, the teacher, through the process of tests and examination, will rank the individual students in their class. Schools are a system of meticulous and rational 'ranking' of students' ability, just as hospitals rank and tabulate illness or disease; factories a point of manufacture/production; barracks for army tactics.
Activity: - 'The control of activity' is the second way in which discipline instills 'docility-utility' in a body. Foucault splits the theme of 'Activity' into five main points.
First is the 'timetable', an old and established tool in controlling body movements and activities. Foucault asserts it is a monastic concept, which seeks to "establish rhythms, impose particular occupations, regulate the cycles of the repetition" (Foucault, 149). Success of the timetable as a model for controlling activity lies in its long-term ubiquity in disciplinary institutions: "It soon spread…to be found in schools, workshops, and hospitals" (Foucault, 149). Furthermore, Foucault emphasises how time within these timetables was becoming increasingly divided: "One began to count in quarter hours, minutes, seconds" (Foucault, 150).
Second in controlling activity is what Foucault deems "the temporal elaboration of the act" (Foucault, 150). He contrasts the abrupt seventeenth-century description of how a soldier should march with that of an elaborate and meticulous eighteenth-century description, which he concludes is not a 'timetable' as such, but "a collective and obligatory rhythm, imposed from the outside…it assures the elaboration of the act itself" (Foucault 151-152). Each instruction given to the body is broken down into its constituent parts; each part has its own position and specific timing. In doing so the body is disciplined "Time penetrates the body and with it all the meticulous controls of power" (Foucault, 152).
Third is "the correlation of the body and the gesture" (Foucault, 152). Foucault says that discipline does not exist in the teaching of an individual action or a gesture, but rather when all components of the body are brought together in unison to create the action/gesture: "it imposes the best relation between the gesture and the overall position of the body, which is its condition of efficiency and speed" (Foucault, 152). The end result is maximum efficiency and use of the body: "A disciplined body is the prerequisite of an efficient gesture" (Foucault, 152).
Fourth in controlling the activity is 'body-object articulation'. Foucault quotes another detailed account from an eighteenth-century French army ordinance, constituting the meticulous instructions for firing a gun. It commands positions for the knee, the eye, the arm, the hand, and the finger, all relative to positions on the gun: hammer, barrel, screw, notch (Ordonnance du 1er Janvier 1776, cited by Foucault, 153). He deems this "the instrumental coding of the body" (Foucault, 153), as if the body is itself a machine that can be 'coded' in sync with another machine, in this case a gun. This "body-tool complex" (Foucault, 153) is the result of power, which simultaneously constructs and regulates the operation of the tool.
Finally, Foucault says these meticulous controls must result in 'Exhaustive use' of the body. Traditional applications of the timetable had "negative principles" for the body of "non-idleness; it was forbidden to waste time…a moral offence and economic dishonesty" (Foucault, 154). Foucault claims that discipline changed the principle of the timetable to a positive one of "a theoretically ever-growing use of time; exhaustion rather than use" (Foucault, 154). 'Exhaustive use' provides a "positive economy…it is a question of extracting, from time, ever more available moments and, from each moment, ever more useful forces" (Foucault, 154). Discipline allowed and maintained the most efficient use of the time, where activities would be carried out at maximum speed and with minimal inconveniences.
Time: - the third theme in Foucault's discipline-tetrad, which he head under 'The organization of geneses'. Foucault explains that progression through the eighteenth century meant there were variances in how time was arranged, and this meant that discipline was a device that could measure and capitalise time, in four main ways.
Foucault says that if time is to be implemented in a disciplinary sense, one must "Divide duration into successive or parallel elements, each of which must end at a specific time" (Foucault, 157). Secondly, these threads must relate to a plan, with each stage subtly increasing in complexity: "Organise these threads according to an analytical plan – successions of elements as simple as possible, combining according to increasing complexity" (Foucault, 158). Thirdly, these threads of increasing in complexity should be consummated by a form of test or examination for Foucault writes that this has a three-fold effect: "showing whether a subject has reached the level required, of guaranteeing that each subject undergoes the same apprenticeship and of differentiating the abilities of the individual" (Foucault, 158). Finally, divide the series and subdivide again and again: "Draw up series of series; lay down for each individual, according to his seniority, his rank, the exercises that are suited to him".
Foucault concludes that the linear seriation of activities with specific times meant that "…detailed control and a regular intervention…in each moment in time" (Foucault, 160) was now possible, and that this seriation is centered upon exercise "Exercise is that technique by which one imposes on the body tasks that are both repetitive and different, but always graduated" (Foucault, 161). Foucault asserts that exercise in the ascetic life of the military and religion were "tasks of increasing complexity that marked the gradual acquisition of knowledge and good behavior" (Foucault, 161) i.e., exercise is a method that makes us behave and also useful; it instills 'docility-utility'.
Component forces: - Fourth in his understanding of discipline, Foucault asserts with reference to Karl Marx's Capital, that component forces create an efficient machine and that the resultant productivity/power is greater that the sum of its individual component parts: "…the sum total of the mechanical forces exerted by isolated workmen differs from the social force that is developed, when many hands take part simultaneously in one…operation" (Marx, Capital, vol. I, 308; cited from Foucault, 164). Foucault splits 'Component Forces' into three parts.
Firstly, Foucault asserts that each individual body is a cog that is 'inserted' into a machine, like a soldier within a regiment: "…an insertion of this body-segment in a whole ensemble" (Foucault, 164).
Secondly, each specific time, Foucault affirms that to acquire the maximum quantity of forces and obtain the optimum outcome, the time of the individual bodies must be adjusted in relation to the others (Foucault, 165). Foucault explains the seventeenth-century concept of mutual improvement schools: "the oldest pupils were entrusted with tasks involving simple supervision, then of checking work, then of teaching; in the end all of the pupils all of the time was occupied…The school became a machine for learning" (Foucault, 165). The end result was that all the pupils would be learning/improving a great deal more than if there was one master doing all the teaching; the productivity becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
Thirdly, arrangement and timing of a machine become organized under a successful command system: "All the activity of the disciplined individual must be punctuated and sustained my injunctions whose efficacity rests on brevity and clarity…it must trigger off the required behavior…"(Foucault, 166). For Foucault, a successful command is a concise phrase or word that simultaneously defines the entire manoeuvre and instantaneously initiates this manoeuvre in the component bodies.

After Foucault explains his abstract understanding of the four areas of discipline in 'Docile Bodies', he then gives body to this hypothesis in the chapter 'Panopticism'.
'Panopticism' derives from Jeremy Bentham's eighteenth-century concept for a prison the 'Panopticon' which itself originates from the ancient Greek words 'pan' – 'all', and 'optos' –'to see' (in Greek mythology there existed a hundred-eyed monster called Panoptes). The Panopticon is an annular building of individual cells with each cell's walls running from inside the outside to the inside, so each individual cannot see into the cell next to his. The building allows light to pass from the outside to a central watchtower in which guards are posted; blinds and partitions mean these guards cannot be seen by individuals within the cells, whilst the unilateral manipulation of the light means the guards can see everything within each individual cell, what Foucault calls 'the seeing/being seen dyad' and this is the key point of interest, for each prisoner knows he can always be seen, but never knows exactly when, which is both the essence and the source of power in the Panopticon: "Visibility is a trap" (Foucault, 200). Therefore each must act as if he is being watched all the time, and this means his behaviour becomes self-correcting, or as Foucault puts it: "he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection" (Foucault, 202-203). 'Panopticism' is the whole effect created by Bentham's mechanism, where behaviour becomes self-correcting due to the certain uncertainty of being observed: "Permanent in its effect, even if it is discontinuous in its action" (Foucault, 201). Foucault succinctly describes the Panopticon's affect: "it automatises and disindividualises power" (Foucault, 202). The power within the Panopticon cannot be attributed to any authoritative individual because the power is the result of the mechanism and it's meticulous setting; Foucault says that it is so efficient that changing the person in the central watchtower would not change anything: "Any individual, taken almost at random, can operate this machine" (Foucault, 202). This is because the mechanism itself in its arrangement of the cells, its lighting, its unilateral visibility and the certain-uncertainty of being observed, creates the power over the individual inside, hence it is 'disindividualised'. Secondly, this power is inserted into the individual by the mechanism and continuously kept inside them, thus 'automatising' the power, so much so that Foucault wrote: "[the Panopticon]…can reduce the number of those who exercise [power], while increasing the number of those on whom it is exercised" (Foucault, 206). One of the most fascinating things for Foucault about the Panopticon is this inverse relationship between degree of power and those who exercise it; Bentham's Panopticon would work without anyone in the central watchtower: "[power] tends to the non-corporal; and, the more it approaches this limit, the more constant, profound and permanent are its effects" (Foucault, 203).
For Foucault, Bentham's Panopticon is the simultaneous optimisation of the discipline-tetrad – Space, Activity, Time, and Component Forces – that I explained earlier: "It is a type of location of bodies in space, a distribution of individuals in relation to one another, of hierarchical organisation…" (Foucault, 205). Foucault sees the shift from physical exertion to mental exertion as a step into modernity for humans. Where power used to be exerted publicly and physically on the body to exemplify wrongdoers and thus control society, discipline, as we have seen in the functioning of the Panopticon, seeks to exert 'automatised' and 'disindividualised' power over the individual's mind in order to establish order and control in society. This is 'Panopticism' for Foucault, a transferable concept, not exclusive to the Panopticon, used by disciplinary institutions but more importantly by the powers that be to control society: "The Panopticon…must be understood as a generalisable model of functioning; a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday lives of men…[the Panopticon] is the diagram of a mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form…it is in fact a figure of political technology that may be attached from any specific use" (Foucault, 205). Foucault claims it is "…polyvalent in its application" (Foucault, 205), giving examples of hospitals, schools, sanatoriums, barracks and places of work: "Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?" (Foucault, 228). Foucault claims that modern society sees the proverbial 'Panopticon' personified in the Police, defined as "The state-control of the mechanisms of discipline" (Foucault, 213). George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World describe and explore this concept with chilling precision in predicting modern life; 'Big Brother' really can be said to be always watching in the twenty-first century! Foucault writes 'Police Power must bear 'over everything'", and that it achieves this in "the dust of events, actions, behavior, opinions" (Foucault, 213). In my opinion this is exactly the case for modern society, at least in civilized societies. One only has to walk in any town or city to feel the automatised power at work on one's self; the simultaneous ubiquity and invisibility of the police is like a mist that hangs in the air that keeps the street in order and under control.


Word Count: 3070

Reference List
Foucault, M. (1991). Discipline & Punish: The Birth Of The Prison. (A. Lane, Trans.) Penguin Books.


Word Count including Reference List: 3088


University of Manchester James Joyce
SOCY60221: Identity, Power & Modernity ID: 9555957


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The University of Manchester School Of Social Sciences