"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." ~Henry David Thoreau
Benthams Panopticon
The idea behind the panopticon is that you never know whether you are watched or not. It’s thus primarily a psychological prison which works because the surveillance mechanism is internalized and does not have to be constantly reinforced externally.
Argus Panoptes – a giant with multiple eyes is a character in Greek mythology.
Unbeknownst to many Bentham (who was involved in the slave trade, as was Adam Smith) wrote an essay in favor of pederasty (i.e., the homosexual relationship between an adult male and a pubescent or adolescent male.) www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/sw25/bentham/index.html
LibriVox
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
Jeremy Bentham's Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, a classic text in modern philosophy and jurisprudence, first published in 1789, focuses on the principle of utility and how this view of morality ties into legislative practices. Bentham's ambition in life was to create a complete Utilitarian code of law. The philosophy of utilitarianism argues that the right act or policy is that which would cause "the greatest good for the greatest number of people", also known as "the greatest happiness principle", or the principle of utility.
Bentham's principle of utility regards "good" as that which produces the greatest amount of pleasure, and the minimum amount of pain; and "evil" as that which produces the most pain without the pleasure. This concept of pleasure and pain is defined by Bentham as physical as well as spiritual. Bentham writes about this principle as it manifests itself within the legislation of a society. He lays down a set of criteria for measuring the extent of pain or pleasure that a certain decision will create.
Bentham argues that certain unnecessary laws and punishments could ultimately lead to new and more dangerous vices than those being punished to begin with. He is of opinion that the concept of the individual pursuing his or her own happiness cannot be necessarily declared "right", because often these individual pursuits can lead to greater pain and less pleasure for the society as a whole. Therefore, the legislation of a society is vital to maintaining a society with optimum pleasure and the minimum degree of pain for the greatest amount of people. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia)
“Reliance on magnetic resonance imaging, surgery, and radiation is generally accepted; however, relatively infrequent chemotherapy use may conflict with published literature, and frequent use of prophylactic antiepileptic medications contradicts established practice guidelines. other practice patterns involving surgical adjuncts, prophylactic heparin, and antidepressants require further investigation to clarify appropriateness. establishing further clinical guidelines may help reduce variability in practice patterns.”
Elden, S.. (2003). Plague, panopticon, police. Surveillance and Society
“This article resituates the panopticon in foucault’s work, showing how it emerged from research on social medicine in the early to mid 1970s, and relating it to discussions of the plague and the police. the key sources are lectures and seminars from this period, only partly translated in english. what is of interest here is how foucault’s concerns with surveillance interrelate with concerns about society as a whole – not in the total institution of the prison, but in the realm of public health. this is pursued through detailed readings of foucault’s analyses of urban medicine and the hospital. the article closes by making some general remarks about situating foucault’s books in the context of his lecture courses, and about how the analysis of medicine may be a more profitable model for surveillance than the panopticon.”
Mathiesen, T.. (1997). The Viewer Society: Michel Foucault’s ‘Panopticon’ Revisited. Theoretical Criminology
“The fastener design for the transfer of concentrated transverse (out of plane, pull-out) loads to random glass fiber reinforced thermoset polymers was investigated. the elastic material properties, void content,a nd glass content of the composite were determined and a finite element model was used to analyze and compare the performance of the various washer designs for reducing the stress and strain levels near the edge of the washer at a bolted joint. experimental studies were conducted to verify the finite element model.”
Caluya, G.. (2010). The post-panoptic society? Reassessing foucault in surveillance studies. Social Identities
“Foucault’s panopticon has become the leading scholarly model or metaphor for analysing surveillance. surveillance studies scholars have recently turned away from foucault in an attempt to understand contemporary social and technological developments in surveillance and society. this article argues against this trend in surveillance studies by returning to foucault’s writing, interviews and lectures on the panopticon. it begins by reviewing the surveillance literature that supposedly goes beyond foucault. it resituates the panopticon in the broader context of foucault’s theory of power to show how surveillance scholars have misinterpreted both his analysis of the gaze and power. in the second section, it assesses the ‘Deleuzian turn’ in surveillance studies against deleuze’s own writings on foucault. by way of conclusion, it returns to foucault’s recently published lectures on security to show how these pre-empted many of the developments in contemporary surveillance studies. [abstract from author]”
Koskela, H.. (2003). ‘Cam Era’ – the contemporary urban panopticon. Surveillance and Society
Deriving from foucault’s work, space is understood to be crucial in explaining social power relations. however, not only is space crucial to the exercise of power but power also creates a particular kind of space. through surveillance cameras the panoptic technology of power is electronically extended. the article examines parallelisms and differences with the panopticon and contemporary cities: visibility, unverifiability, contextual control, absence of force and internalisation of control. surveillance is examined as an emotional event, which is often ambivalent or mutable, without sound dynamic of security and insecurity nor power and resistance. control seems to become dispersed and the ethos of mechanistic discipline replaced by flexible power structures. surveillance becomes more subtle and intense, fusing material urban space and cyberspace. this makes it impossible to understand the present forms of control via analysing physical space. rather, space is to be understood as fundamentally social, mutable, fluid and unmappable – ‘like a sparkling water’. the meaning of documentary accumulation changes with the ‘digital turn’ which enables social sorting. the popularity of ‘webcams’ demonstrate that there is also fascination in being seen. the amount of the visual representations expands as they are been circulated globally. simultaneously the individuals increasingly ‘disappear’ in the ‘televisualisation’ of their lives. the individual urban experience melts to the collective imagination of the urban. it is argued that cctv is a bias: surveillance systems are presented as ‘closed’ but, eventually, are quite the opposite. we are facing ‘the cam era’ – an era of endless representations.
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Lyon, D.. (2006). Theorizing surveillance: The panopticon and beyond. Theorizing Surveillance: The Panopticon and Beyond
“This book is about explaining surveillance processes and practices in contemporary society. surveillance studies is a relatively new multi-disciplinary enterprise that aims to understand who watches who, how the watched participate in and sometimes question their surveillance, why surveillance occurs, and with what effects. this book brings together some of the world’s leading surveillance scholars to discuss the ‘why’ question. the field has been dominated, since the groundbreaking work of michel foucault, by the idea of the panopticon and this book explores why this metaphor has been central to discussions of surveillance, what is fruitful in the panoptic approach, and what other possible approaches can throw better light on the phenomena in question.since the advent of networked computer databases, and especially since 9/11, questions of surveillance have come increasingly to the forefront of democratic, political and policy debates in the global north (and to an extent in the global south). civil liberties, democratic participation and privacy are some of the issues that are raised by these developments. but little progress can be made in responding to these issues without an adequate understanding of how, how well and whether or not surveillance works. this book explores the theoretical questions in a way that is grounded in and attuned to empirical realities.”
Spears, R., & Lea, M.. (1994). Panacea or Panopticon?: The Hidden Power in Computer-Mediated Communication. Communication Research
“The fastener design for the transfer of concentrated transverse (out of plane, pull-out) loads to random glass fiber reinforced thermoset polymers was investigated. the elastic material properties, void content,a nd glass content of the composite were determined and a finite element model was used to analyze and compare the performance of the various washer designs for reducing the stress and strain levels near the edge of the washer at a bolted joint. experimental studies were conducted to verify the finite element model.”
Karpf, D.. (2010). Macaca moments reconsidered: Electoral panopticon or Netroots Mobilization?. Journal of Information Technology and Politics
“This article addresses popular misconceptions about so-called ‘macaca moments’— high profile candidate gaffes that are captured on youtube, receive a cascade of citizen views, and contribute to some substantial political impact. since the 2006 virginia senate race, when senator george allen made the original ‘macaca’ gaffe and went on to be narrowly defeated by his chal- lenger, the term has become synonymous with the transformative influence of youtube. this article constructs a case study of that senate race through the archived blog posts on dailykos, the largest progressive blogging community in america. it compares this case study with a second high-profile candidate gaffe occurring in the 2008 election season—michele bachmann’s verbal misstep on hard- ball with chris matthews. the central argument of the article is that the impact of these high-profile moments, and of youtube more generally, must be viewed in the context of the campaigns and orga- nizations attempting to engage in partisan mobilization. youtube provides additional tools for parties and political organizations, but its influence is often overstated when academics and commentators focus on the technology in the absence of the organizations that use it.”
Boyne, R.. (2000). Post-panopticism. Economy and Society
“This paper considers the current status of the concept of the panopticon, and its relevance both for contemporary social theory and for the analysis of recent trends in the public and private surveillance of individual lives. the origins of the concept from the nineteenth century onwards are examined. a description of the space opened up for panoptical practices and aspirations, by the development of the welfare state and of anthropological categories in the field of crime, helps to explain the continuing importance of the categories of the criminal and the vulnerable for the legitimation of contemporary surveillance, at work, in commerce and on the street. the theoretical arguments in favour of abandoning the concept of the panopticon (from bauman, bogard, latour and others) are considered under five headings: ” displacement of the panoptical ideal by mechanisms of seduction ” redundancy of the panoptical impulse brought about by the evident durability of the self-surveillance functions which partly cons…”
Coombs, W. T., & Holladay, S. J.. (2013). The pseudo-panopticon: The illusion created by CSR-related transparency and the internet. Corporate Communications
“Purpose – the purpose of this paper is to examine how corporate social responsibility (csr) transparency claims are propagating a belief in a modern panopticon for ensuring responsible corporate behavior. corporations use transparency claims to cultivate the impression of full disclosure. the paper aims to explore why people believe transparency ensures responsible behavior from corporations as well as the negative effects of this pseudo-panopticon. design/methodology/approach – the paper explores transparency in relation to csr, csr reporting, the internet, and activism and describes how their confluence produces pseudo-panopticon. findings – the paper finds that the pseudo-panopticon allows corporations to claim transparency in csr communication and for stakeholders to accept that claim. the reality is that a minority of activist stakeholders bear the burden of ensuring true transparency by questioning disclosure. social implications – transparency should be seen as a process, and it fails if activists cannot create public awareness of csr shortcomings. the challenge is to find ways to make transparency as a process work in a world where apathy and self-deception, in part facilitated by the pseudo-panopticon, work against the process. originality/value – the paper builds on the process view of transparency by developing its implications for csr communication. the result is a novel approach to csr reporting and transparency that contributes to other critical voices concerned about the value and effects of csr communication.”
Bentham, J.. (1791). Panopticon or the inspection house. Postscript
“PANOPTICON ; ot, . the inspection-house: containing the idea of aniwfimcirli of conjtroction applicable to any sort of establishmint, in which persons of any description are to be kept under inspection: and in paeticoiae to penitentiary – houses, prisons, . …”
Bentham, J.. (1995). Panopticon. In The Panopticon writings
“As the california borderland newspaper where they work prepares to close, three reporters are oddly given assignments to return to stories they ve covered before each one surprisingly personal. the first assignment takes reporter aaron klinsman and photographer rita valdez to an abandoned motel room where the mirrors are draped with towels, bits of black tape cover the doorknobs, and the perfect trace of a woman s body is imprinted on the bed sheets. from this sexually charged beginning on land his family used to own klinsman, rita, and their colleague, oscar medem understand that they are supposed to uncover something. they just don t know what. following the moonlit paths their assignments reveal through the bars, factories and complex streets of tijuana and otay, haunted by the femicides that have spread westward from juarez, the reporters become more intimately entwined. tracing the images they uncover, and those they cause and leave behind, they soon realize that every move they make is under surveillance. beyond this, it seems their private lives and even their memories are being reconstructed by others. panopticon is a novel of dreamlike appearances and almost supernatural memories, a world of hidden watchers that evokes the dark recognition of just how little we can protect even our most private moments. it is a shadowy, erotic novel only slightly speculative that opens into the world we all now occupy.”
D. Haggerty, Richard V. Ericson, K.. (2000). The surveillant assemblage. British Journal of Sociology
“George orwell’s ‘Big brother’ and michel foucault’s ‘panopticon’ have domi-nated discussion of contemporar y developments in surveillance. while such metaphors draw our attention to important attributes of surveillance, they also miss some recent dynamics in its operation. the work of gilles deleuze and félix guattari is used to analyse the convergence of once discrete surveillance systems. the resultant ‘surveillant assemblage’ operates by abstracting human bodies from their territorial settings, and separating them into a series of discrete ows. these ows are then reassembled in different locations as discrete and virtual ‘data doubles’. the surveillant assemblage transforms the purposes of surveil-lance and the hierarchies of surveillance, as well as the institution of privacy.”
Philo, C., Parr, H., & Burns, N.. (2017). The rural panopticon. Journal of Rural Studies
“As a contribution to both rural theory and a geography of rural disability, this paper tackles the idea of the ‘rural panopticon’. inspired by empirical research on mental ill-health in the scottish highlands, the authors specify certain workings of the rural panopticon, stressing interconnections between visibility, observation, surveillance, chatter and interiorised senses of self-disciplining (particularly for those with fragile mental health). there are suggestions that bentham regarded his institutional brain-child, the panopticon, as most logically and properly an urban phenomena, even calling it ‘panopticon town’, but there is a supplementary argument that identifies a rural vision – of a virtuous, self-regulating farming community – present in the margins of his panopticon thinking. through the figure of the ‘glass palace’ in the countryside, emphasising the pervasive watching, judging and censuring of conduct, a further link is made from bentham’s panopticon to the rural panopticon. the paper explores this link both textually and though the highlands case study, concluding by examining foucault’s dual attention to both bentham’s panopticon and a rural colony for delinquent boys, mettray, as twin exemplars of ‘panopticism’ in the disciplining of troublesome and troubled populations (those with disabilities included).”
“This book contains the complete panopticon letters, selections from panopticon postscript i, and fragment on ontology, bentham’s fullest account of fictions.”
Bain, P., & Taylor, P.. (2000). Entrapped by the “electronic panopticon”? Worker resistance in the call centre. New Technology, Work and Employment
“This article presents a thoroughgoing critique of fernie and metcalf’s perspective, that the call centre is characterised by the operation of an ‘electronic panopticon’ in which supervisory power has been ‘rendered perfect’. drawing on evidence from a telecommunications call centre the authors analyse the significance of emerging forms of employee resistance.”
Mitrou, L., Kandias, M., Stavrou, V., & Gritzalis, D.. (2014). Social media profiling: A Panopticon or Omniopticon tool?. Proc. of the 6th Conference of the Surveillance Studies Network
“Online social networks and media indicate and incorporate the shift to interpersonal, horizon-tal, and mutual communication and, thus, information aggregation. online content (namely youtube videos and comments or tweets) along with online relations (friendships, followings, mentions, comments etc.) may be crawled and utilized for a variety of purposes including u-ser/usage profiling and behavior prediction. in our previous research we have demonstrated that it is possible and even potentially trivial (by utilizing a simple personal computer and a broad-band internet connection) to extract sensitive, personal information such as political beliefs, psychosocial characteristics (narcissism and predisposition towards law enforcement) etc. abo-ut social media users in an automated manner via data crawling, data aggregation, machine learning and graph and content analysis of the collected dataset of youtube and twitter open source intelligence. web 2.0 technological features combined with voluntary exposure to an indefinite audience in social media give rise to traditional surveillance as government is enabl-ed to connect the dots, combine information about political beliefs and every-day activities and generate mass user profiles on the base of identifying patterns. despite the lack of centralized control over the internet, its platforms and applications allow multilevel and latent surveillance, thus pose new risks for individuals by forming new power relations and asymmetries. our re-search highlights how web 2.0 and social media (youtube and twitter) may become a topos of participatory panopticism, an omniopticon in which the many watch the many, and can re-construct sensitive information out of seemingly anonymous data/content. individuals may be confronted with social exclusion, prejudice and discrimination risks both in their workplace and in their social environment. in our paper we focus on the results of this type of surveillance which facilitates the exculpation of such penetrating and privacy-violating technologies and amplifies the threshold of societal tolerance towards a panopticon-like state of surveillance.”