The Book "ways of Reading" by Bartholomae

According to the book "Ways of Reading" by Bartholomae, Petrosky, and Waite, panopticism in Foucault's paper is the all Seeing Eye. He starts his essay of by talking about the plague in the seventeenth century. There was a closing of the town and its outer lying districts. Each street was placed under the authority of a syndic, who keeps it under surveillance. Each house was watched over by the syndic who would come to lock each door from the outside of the house. Everyone was quarantined into their homes. The severity of this lack of freedom was expressed in Foucault's essay when he said inspection functions ceaselessly. The gaze is alert everywhere, and a considerable body of militia, commanded by good officers and men of substance, guards everyone, everywhere, to prompt the obedience of the people. Foucault discussed the rise of lepers, which also gave rise to disciplinary projects. Rather than separating people into groups, like they did during the plague, multiple distinctions were used to separate people. The plague-stricken town was, as Foucault states, traversed throughout the hierarchy, surveillance, writing, the town immobilized by the functions of extensive power. In order to have the perfect disciplinary functioning, one would put themselves in the place of the syndic during the plague. This control over people functioned to cut them off from all contact with each other.

According to the reading, Foucault talked about the Panopticon, a building that was separated into cells. There were two windows corresponding to the window of the tower that was in the center. There was a supervisor placed in the tower to watch over the mad men in each cell. What the inmates could see was limited, while the supervisor in the tower could see everything. The major effect of the panoptical, according to Foucault, was to induce the inmate into the state of consciousness and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. The inmate would always have the view of the central tower, but would not know if he was being looked at any given moment. He would not know if there was a gun pointed at him. This functioned to make the inmates fearful, to make them believe they were being watched at all times, which was a form of power and hence control over the inmates. Fear that they would be the next target of the men watching over them. They were, basically, threatened by the unknowingness of what could happen if they did anything. It gives, as Foucault says, power of mind over mind.

Foucault defined mostly of the disciplinary processes, arguing that the power and structure of society resembles that of the panopticon. In Foucault's essay, he discussed how religion is one of the disciplinary processes. He maintained that religious schools teach children that only some things are right, and that there is a choice between right and wrong. The range of what they can do and can't do is very narrow. Religion and those who administer it are inspectors or observers that also watch over the people, and keep a permanent account of their behavior. In religious schools, children are watched to make sure they don't make bad decisions. They are monitored to make sure they were following the ways of God.

Similarly, Foucault discussed how the role of police also resembles that of the panopticon. In the reading, Foucault talks about how police are engaged in an unceasing observation of people's behavior. The police have undercover spys making reports about certain victims or problems going on in society. They have many ways to find out the simplest things about people, having access to all of their records and know everything about their lives,including their background and even their family lineages. Policing societies have people observing at every turn. You may never know if you were being watched at any second. People are being watched over by the all Seeing Eye around society. Every person could be seen as a victim. The policing system can relate to the system of the panopticon. The disciplines that are served to people for 'not doing the right or choosing wrong can relate. The allusion that you are always being watched over is there. I would argue that is even more true today with the advent of surveillance cameras everywhere, and increased government monitoring of citizens phone calls and email records in the name of Homeland Securituy. Prisons are the ultimate form of this kind of discipline and social control, and ultimately power, where the cost of wrongdoing is the loss of freedom. The police and our government have the power over them to put people in prison if they make the wrong choices. With a cause there is always an effect.

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