The reading this week is Michael Foucault 'Discipline and Punish', which covers the idea of Panopticism or the use of social structures (workplaces, schools ect.) as surveillance and conditioning facilities to the general population. He analogises his theories by describing a Panopticon, now a common sight in prisons and detention centres. A Panopticon is a prison facility in a circular shape with one large tower in the middle housing the guards and cells lining the outside walls, allowing prisoners to see nothing but their keepers tower at all times.
However, these ideas have made it far from the prisons cells. At my High School, Camberwell High they built a new art facility, and placed the teachers offices in a large glass-walled room in the very centre of the building with the classrooms surrounding it. We where openly told by school staff that this design was based of prisons and it was to keep a better eye on the students.
This has led me to believe that the ideas of Panoptcism aren’t as vindictive as they seem, but merely a automatic method that society develops to cohesively ingratiate people to the rules and norms of said society.
A good example of how this can be seen before post-industrial society, is the rights of passage ancient cultures took part in. Many ancient cultures would not allow their young to participate in daily activities (hunting ect.) until they had reached an age of significance and completed some kind of right of passage. This was partly due to early-man's miss-conceptions about the divine and spiritual but also as a form of cultural ingratiation. The young where not allowed to participate until they are ready to fully become a member of that society. Often by learning ancient stories and rituals that give context and order to the divine and every-day life, thus conditioning them to becoming cohesive members of society. Much the same can be said about our current educations systems.
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