“an inspection house” had become a model of relationship between people in society: “The Panopticon … must be understood as a generalizable model of functioning; a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday life of men. No doubt Bentham presents it as a particular institution, closed in upon itself … But the Panopticon must not be understood as a dream building: it is the diagram of a mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form ….” (205)
Observation now diffused throughout society
According to Foucault, observation as a means of control had become diffused throughout society. It was no longer the sole purview of the state: “One also sees the spread of disciplinary procedures, not in the form of enclosed institutions, but as centres of observation disseminated throughout society.” (“Panopticism” 212)
In Orwell’s 1984, the state disseminated information, ran the telescreens and supervised the intelligence gathering work of the Thought Police. These days, the state has plenty of help: “The seeing machine was once a sort of dark room into which individuals spied; it has become a transparent building in which the exercise of power may be supervised by society as a whole.” (“Panopticism” 207)
Closed-Circuit TV
One way that observation is diffused throughout society is in the use of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras. CCTV cameras can now be found in most public places throughout the developed world including most colleges and universities. In the interest of security, any institution, business or property owner can install cameras in and around the perimeter of their establishments. This is being done we are told, in the interest of safety. Security cameras have a deterrent effect on crime. In the event of criminal wrongdoing, footage from security cameras can be used in a court of law.
Data collection
In addition to what Foucault termed “hierarchical surveillance,” there was “continuous registration, perpetual assessment and classification” or what we would characterize as data collection. (220) Institutions need to know certain information to deliver goods and services and to collect payment. Businesses what to know what you are buying so that they can sell you more of it. If you have two children, you may need life insurance. If you make a certain amount of money, you might be in the market for a leather briefcase.
Some of this data collection may appear harmless enough and it probably is. But when this type of information is cross-listed with other sources of information it can become a database for registering what Foucault notes are forms of behaviour, attitudes, possibilities, suspicions – a permanent account of individuals’ behaviour.” (“Panopticism” 214)
Delivery of new technologies for observation and control
Both Orwell and Foucault predicted that the technologies of the future would increase the panoptic effect on individuals. In the nightmare world of 1984, “technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. In all the useful arts the world is either standing still or going backwards.” (Orwell 198) Television was one example: “With the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end.” (Orwell 211)
Curiously enough, Foucault died in 1984. Since that time, another “ensemble of minute technical inventions” has arrived to “increase the useful size of the multiplicities” of power. (“Panopticism” 220) Now we have technology that Orwell and Foucault could only have had nightmares about. Anyone with the latest computer can “receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument.” Search engines like Google and Yahoo collect an enormous amount of data on individual behavior that can be cross-listed in endless ways. GPS and SIM card technology can pinpoint a person’s whereabouts any day of the week. Google Street View has got the house and the neighborhood covered. Most cellular phones come with a camera function. Many have video and Internet capability. Anyone with the latest generation cellular phone can become an instant photojournalist, a paparazzi, or one of Orwell’s amateur spies.
Observation as entertainment today
Thus far, I have presented some ways in which the observation principle as defined by Bentham, fictionalized by Orwell, and developed by Foucault is functioning in modern society. Now I would like to suggest that the panoptic effect is being delivered as entertainment and that this is by far the most disturbing trend.
Suffering as mass entertainment is nothing new. The most well known example in antiquity is the coliseums of Rome. Large numbers of people enjoyed the spectacle of throwing people to the lions. Things were not much better during the Elizabethan Age when the “sport” of bear-baiting was widespread. In the 18th and 19th centuries, as mentioned earlier, visiting insane asylums was a popular recreation. Public hangings were not outlawed in the U.K. until 1868. Although illegal, lynchings were common quasi-public events in many parts of the United States well into the 20th century.
In Orwell’s 1984, it was the state that packaged and marketed suffering as entertainment: “April 4th, 1984. Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him. first you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea around him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water. audience shouting with laughter when he sank.” (8)
The main difference today is not that people enjoy watching suffering – we’ve always enjoyed that - but that so many of us are becoming the unwitting purveyors of it. We’re on the air and we’re broadcasting suffering and ridicule.
Cell phone cameras and amateur video
Today, anyone with the latest cellular phone can overtly or surreptitiously capture images of people in what they regard as entertaining or compromising (the two are fast becoming synonymous) situations. In a matter of seconds, images can be posted on websites and platforms such as YouTube that will enable millions of people to see what they have seen and hear what they have heard in the way that they have framed it. What happened or was said before or after they got the shot is immaterial. Seldom is there any background or context. There’s no footage of the dogs harassing the bear. The dogs are off camera. The important shot is the one of the bear lunging forward gnashing it’s teeth or falling to the ground. That’s the shot that we want to see on television and that’s the shot that we want to see on the Internet. Go and get it – stage it if you have to – but get it.
CCTV surveillance cameras as entertainment
According to one security guard interviewed for Rubert Sheldrake’s The Sense of Being Stared At, there’s a humorous element to viewing footage from CCTV cameras: “’… some people know they’re being watched, mostly crooks. They look at the camera. They get fidgety; they walk back and forth. They try to get out of the eye of the camera. They look up. It’s kind of comical sometimes.’” (144)
Other than signage that alerts the public that there are surveillance cameras in the area, there are no assurances given that the footage taken by CCTV cameras will not be utilized for other than security purposes. In other words, anyone behind the monitor of a CCTV camera can review a person’s actions for what they consider to be anomalous behavior. If they regard it as funny, they can laugh at it with their co-workers and – if the security is porous enough – their family and friends. If they wish to risk breaking the law, they can even put the footage on YouTube.
In Orwell’s 1984, it was the anomaly that drew attention: “A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself – anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face … was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime it was called.” (64)
Social networking sites such as Facebook
As with some routine data collection and
CCTV camera surveillance, much of the information available on social networking sites may seem harmless enough. Often times, it is just a question of exhibiting bad taste. Still, there is a tendency on these sites to focus on the weird, the strange, and the outlandish.
For some reason, the world wants to see you with your finger up your nose. It’s funny to see someone with their finger up their nose. Unfortunately, they also want to see Olympians doing bongs, politicians doing cocaine with or without prostitutes, anyone with anyone not their husband or wife. It’s entertaining to witness the humiliation and degradation of someone else, especially if they’re someone of stature.
In the days of the asylum galleries, nobody was “tagged.” Whatever people saw when they visited Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane, they could talk about, but that was all. The image usually died before the subject did because a person sleeping quietly in a corner is not nearly as entertaining as watching someone throw their own excrement against a wall.
Today, the image never dies. You can comment on it, print it, save it, send it to a friend. It makes no difference if it’s fair. Fairness doesn’t enter into it. What matters is