The Panoptic Transition
By Joshua Kane
It would not be fair to say that Jeremy Bentham invented the panoptic
model of domination; it was always there. Bentham was merely the
scribe; panopticism was his muse. According to the widely renowned
postmodern social critic Michel Foucault, ‘Panopticism must
be understood as a general model of functioning; a way of defining
power relations in terms of the everyday life of men... It is polyvalent
in its applications.” Polyvalent indeed. Panopticism is, in
fact, slowly subjugating the social world that we all call the 21st
century.
Postmodern society, I will argue below, is collectively in the midst
of a ‘Panoptic Transition’ driven by communications technologies
that are, at once, empowering and homogenizing. In a dialectical feedback
loop, these two paradoxical forces are unpredictably shaping society.
Can this process be unraveled so that we may clearly see its consequences?
As with all feedback loops, it is always best to start at the beginning.
For what purpose then have these information technologies arisen?
For what purposes shall they be used in the end? Answers to these
questions and more are unfolding before us, in real time. And you
my friend, are participating; whether you like it or not, you are
in The Panopticon.
The panoptic model of domination materialized, as aforementioned,
in the fecund imagination of Jeremy Bentham during his famed 18th
century quest for economic and organizational efficiency. It was
during the year 1785, while visiting his brother Samuel in Russia,
that Bentham stumbled upon his very own personal Holy Grail –
The Panopticon. Czarina Catherine the Great had solicited the architects
of her day to create for her a structural model of the perfect prison.
Bentham, already a known utilitarian at 36 years of age, studiously
applied himself to the task. The outcome was an ingenious prison
wherein subjects could be monitored at anytime, but could never
see whether they were being monitored.
The Panopticon is a structure wherein the watched cannot see the
watchers, but know they are being watched: At the periphery an annular
building, at the center a tower. By the effect of backlighting,
one can observe from the tower, standing out precisely against the
light, the small captive cells in the periphery. But this light
creates a veil placed over surveillance, for the light that illuminates
each cell also blinds each prisoner to the presence of guards, or
the lack thereof, as it may be. Each cell then becomes a stage for
an unknowable audience; each prisoner alone, individualized, at
once performing for no one and everyone; each guard capable of seeing
each cell and all prisoners at once at their will. Thus creating
an economy in surveillance – one doesn’t need many guards
in a panotpicon and they don’t need to always be there or
always be aware – the actors (or prisoners as it were) will
perform the same whether someone is watching or not, for they do
not know whether someone is watching or not.
Hence, by the use of irregularly mete out punishments, prisoners
learn to police themselves. The punishments need not be deserved
or just, for ideally, the prisoner cannot visually see another prisoner
and any communication is entirely mediated and processed through
the central guard tower. The prisoner can of course ‘rat’
on a near inmate from whose cell the sound of wrongdoing he may
(or may not) have heard. However the prisoners cannot collude and
expect to get away with it for lengthy time periods; the watchers
will watch eventually. And at all times prisoner ears are present,
ready to notify the guards of any real or imagined wrongdoings,
so that they may be spared punishment in the future.
In a general sense then, for surveillance to be panoptic, it must
be both visible and unverifiable: “Visible – the inmate
will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the central
tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable – the inmate
must never know whether he is being looked at in any one moment;
but he must be sure that he may always be so.” The panoptic
prisoner is seen, but cannot see; the panoptic prisoner is the object
of information, but never an independent subject in communication.
For Jeremy Bentham, the panopticon was the perfect schema of utilitarian
domination – a place where power was invisible, and yet everywhere
present. Surely the Czarina would be impressed. But Czarina Catherine
the Great was less modern than she might have thought. She immediately
discarded Bentham’s Panoptic Prison as impractical and overly
complex; its economizing effects were lost on her Majesty. Bentham
himself too was perhaps less modern than he may have thought. That
is to say, Jeremy Bentham was unwittingly postmodern. For modernism
was not the epoch in which panoptic forms of organization widely
captured the public imagination. In fact, even Bentham’s Herculean
efforts could not bring the panoptic prison from conception to materialization
during modernity – working models were continually plagued
by pesky technological difficulties in backlighting. Jeremy Bentham
died in 1832, and alas, interest in the idea of unverifiable surveillance
waned and faded.
Until the 1970s, that is, when Michel Foucault, famed postmodern
social critic, proclaimed the Panopticon a paradigmatic conceptual
catch all for successful late twentieth century organizational forms
of domination. The Panopticon, he argued, had seeped into the cracks
of modern capitalist society, eventually subverting it, reconstructing
it, bending it to its will, until the panoptic paradigm (unverifiable
surveillance) was conceptually, if not structurally, everywhere
present.
‘The major effect of the Panopticon is to induce in the inmate
a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic
functioning of power. So as to arrange things that the surveillance
is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its
action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual
exercise unnecessary. That subjects be caught up in a power situation
of which they themselves are the bearers... Crowd and collectivity
become replaced by a collection of separated individualities. From
the point of view of the guardian, it is replaced by a multiplicity
that can be numbered and supervised; from the point of view of the
inmates, by a sequestered and observed solitude... Axial visibility
and lateral invisibility guarantee order. Dangerous plots are difficult
to hatch, contagion in ideas is difficult to spread... The panopticon
must not then be understood as a dream building: it is the diagram
of a mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form... it is in fact
a figure of political technology that may and must be detached from
any specific use... Whenever one is dealing with a multiplicity
of individuals on whom a task or a particular form of behavior must
be imposed, the panoptic schema may be used... In short, it arranges
things in such a way that the exercise of power is not added on
from the outside, like a rigid, heavy constraint, to the function
it invests, but is so subtly present in them as to increase their
efficiency by itself increasing its own points of contact.”
(201-206).
For Foucault, the failed architecture of the panoptic prison masked
a much deeper truism of domination – control is most easily
maintained if subjects police themselves. Unverifiable surveillance
removes the locus of control from outside the subject (i.e. a human
guard), and places it within the subject (i.e. the subject’s
mind,) so that power (the ability to make others do what you would
have them do) becomes automatic in its functioning. In the perfect
panoptic schema the subject is hardly aware that they are responding
to signals of their domination, as motivation seems to come from
within.
Interestingly, Foucault put into words what business organizations
had discovered long ago: the panoptic schema provides a tool of
conceptual rather than material domination. The panopticon is not
a building architecture per say. It is a state of awareness, a dimension
in that it is a form that reality can take. No wonder then that
little fanfare has accompanied our collective panoptic subjugation.
Monitoring of the deviant, the expected road, did not provide the
avenue by which panopticism entered into our systems of dominance.
By what hidden avenue did panopticism rise then? Panopticism found
its home in the crevice of the bloated late twentieth century western
corporation teetering and tottering upon a sea of increased competition.
See, it was by no conscious design that corporations discovered
the power of the panoptic schema. The panoptic corporation arose
as an unintended consequence of the application of cold war inspired
information technologies to the 1970s western Trans-National Corporate
profit recession. Increased international competition in all sectors
of mass industrial production had squeezed margins, forcing corporations
to globalize. With the spread of production processes to the far
reaches of the undeveloped world came another problem – how
to integrate the disparate parts into a corporate whole? Cold war
information technologies such as semiconductors, satellites, and
laser communications were bent and evolved in order to serve this
higher purpose. Information technologies enabling real time linkages
between dispersed corporate databases emerged, thus allowing corporations
to expand their geographical dispersion, revenue, flexibility, and
profit.
It makes sense that the information technologies most panoptic would
become the information technologies most successfully adapted to
the corporate business model of organization. As Foucault makes
clear, there is no higher form of capitalist domination than panopticism.
No other schema can integrate disparate parts so seamlessly: At
the center an informational ‘tower’ from which all the
limbs of production (and their associated data and database history)
can be accessed. At the periphery a wide array of subjects dispersed
in a manner most economical based upon all of the usual missives
that go into profit calculations. The subjects manning the limbs
communicate through the intermediary servers of the informational
guard tower; all direction is taken from there. All communication
is monitored and stored. Log-in, log-out, and batch completion times
are duly recorded. There is little if any independent communication
between the subjects at the limbs, other than that which is sanctioned
by the informational center. Independent transmissions create confusion,
anxiety, inefficiency; they are frowned upon, if not punished.
The panoptic corporation, powered with software developed by the
premiere panoptic juggernaut Microsoft, was a resounding success
(see the late twentieth century transformation of GE or IBM for
astounding bottom line proof). As the interlocking tentacles of
this behemothic and yet lithe entity spread, the word globalization
entered the national lexicon, and conceptions of austere modernism
waned. Only to be replaced by what? Well that my friend is an open
academic can of worms that I rather not eat from. I use the word
postmodernism to simply indicate a state that is past modernity,
as in different from it. Surely, the 21st century differs from the
20th. Being that the 20th century was the height of modernism, it
is only natural that the 21st century be postmodern. In my mind,
information technologies mark the break. Conceptions of postmodernity,
ultramodernity, exponential modernity, what have you are predicated
upon the seamless functioning of semiconductors and their associated
digitalized processing power. The rise of information technologies
marks the break between Modernity and Postmodernity. And in Postmodernity,
the one-time whimsy of widely dispersed schemas of panoptic domination
is becoming a reality.
In George Orwell’s 1984, the main protagonist, Winston Smith
works for the government in the Ministry of Truth where his job
is to filter news and history in the interests of his party, led
by Big Brother, who is of course everywhere. In reality, Winston
Smith works at CNN, or IBM, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Skadden Arps,
some university, or some other informationally oriented ‘service’
corporation. He too filters news and history in favor of his party,
(typically the GOP, always something close) but not because he is
overtly commanded to do so. You see, Winston is his own Big Brother.
He filters news and history in the service of his party and his
parties’ values not because he is explicitly coerced, but
rather because he is seductively persuaded to do so. Winston’s
values serve Winston’s comfort. And Winston has many friends
– both male and female, both young and old. And they together
inhabit a comfort zone. A comfort zone called the United States.
The United States has become the informational guard tower in the
globe’s panoptic schema of domination. Or rather, Corporate
America has constructed a panoptic schema wherein the American state
serves to legitimate the corporate informational filter that creates
and recreates the material state that benefits Corporate America.
The web of this corporately rooted panoptic schema is now reaching
out across the entire nation, enveloping, persuading, seducing,
atomizing, reconstructing, recombining and reassembling us all into
a greater whole as never before. Within this greater whole, we are
all Big Brother. We are all increasingly analyzing each other’s
actions as we police ourselves with ever greater detail and precision.
Fortunately for Bill Gates, Microsoft succeeded in putting a computer
on every desk in every home in the United States. But we should
not forget that the computer remains today fundamentally a machine
that was created for and by business. Not surprisingly then, as
the computer has integrated itself into American culture the lines
between business and pleasure have blurred. But if computer technology
succeeded in the business world precisely because it enabled panoptic
surveillance from an informational center, what will it wrought
in the personal world?
A milieu wherein we all watch, govern, and monitor our actions in
real time, while adjusting our actions continually in terms of an
ever more integrated whole. That is what is new about 21st century
America. It is not that we monitor our actions in real time; everyone
has always done that to the best of their ability. It is that we
are better at doing so, and as a result do so in terms of an ever
larger and more coordinated whole. Visualize the postmodern highway
– the speed, the precision, the trust in forethought, the
annoyance and fatality that result from minor miscommunication.
Understand the reality of a mother smacking a child in an anonymous
mall parking lot, and then quickly being brought to account. Recall
yourself at a computer commenting to a friend how each website you
visit is recorded for posterity. Imagine the social spaces that
the PATRIOT Act will summon forth. These realities are now possible
thanks to the magic of the semiconductor. All semiconductor technologies
have pushed us in the direction of panopticism because ‘panoptic
corporations’ developed them. Our Panoptic Transition is simply
the result of the flourishing of informational technologies to all
spheres of personal and public life.
Perhaps it is too early to make bold sweeping statements in regards
to postmodernism (ironically true scholarly ‘postmodernists’
never actually would or could). In a relative sense, postmodernism,
what I, and some others, term informationalism, is only in its infancy.
The postmodern move towards panopticism in private life –
where everyone governs his or her personal and public actions as
if they may be on display for all to see at any unexpected moment
– might crumble and fade as quickly as Bentham’s architectural
whimsy. But I think not. And I think not because our pop art tells
us different. It tells us that panopticism is here to say.
A cursory review of the 21st century news reveals panoptic technologies
operating in nearly every American city, in nearly every public
and private place within those cities. There is neither need nor
space here to recount the coordinating mechanisms that create the
illusion of unverifiable surveillance in the United States. A more
important question to the social critic then is whether the public
mind state is changing as a result of this proliferation of panoptic
surveillance?
Absolutely. How do I know? Reality television. That is how I know.
The reality television phenomenon is a collective expression of
our panoptic transition, and in being so offers a glimpse into the
different potential futures that postmodernism can take. What is
reality television then, and what makes it so appealing? Reality
television occurs when Regular Joe People, like you or me, play
themselves on TV. Of course this alone would be boring. So reality
television consists of putting ordinary people into extraordinary
and unexpected situations. Why is this interesting to others? I
believe this is interesting to others because the watcher of reality
television performs an immediate reflexivity in which the watcher
becomes, in their own mind, the watched. The, watcher, now also
the watched, then judges themselves and the others they are watching
by the measures that govern their own personal self-worth. These
assessments are then compared with the assessments of other watchers.
Some consensus in opinion is formed. Much of the drama involved
in reality television stems from the mass formation and revelation
of this consensus. Through this process, the norms that govern the
watching community are shone in stark light. They are then analyzed,
examined, tailored, and as a result emerge strengthened.
Reality television has made one thing abundantly clear: We want
to see ourselves. Is this so that we may better know ourselves?
Probably. Theoretically, the worst thing that can happen to a prisoner
in a panoptic prison is to have all of the other prisoners turn
on them. Then the guards would be hearing of your real and imagined
exploits whether they were paying attention or not, thus insuring
your continual punishment. The panoptic schema that is ensnaring
the 21st century United States is different than a prison, and yet
similar. As stated above, panopticism seeped into the cracks of
capitalism not by way of corrections, but through a corporate desire
to integrate processes over large geographical dispersions. Unverified
surveillance was an unintended consequence of the need to document
all business processes in real time. The surveillance technologies
that are driving our panoptic transition are therefore largely integrative;
they make it such that all subjects may monitor the actions of all
or any one other subject at any particular time.
Granted, this does not first appear as a schema of domination. A
milieu wherein everyone is there by choice and has the same observational
capabilities does not necessarily lend itself to power asymmetries.
As a result, we have not seen a majority of Americans, shall we
say, running for the door. However, recall the power of the informational
guard tower in the panoptic schema of capitalist dominance. This
is the headquarters where all potential action is reviewed before
it occurs. This is the site where disparate parts become integrated
into a seamless whole. It is the informational guard tower that
determines what that whole is and does.
Clearly the American state, and its ever more associated and cuckolded
mainstream media, is the informational guard tower in the globe’s
emerging panoptic schema. This corporately governed ‘entity’
determines which information is legitimate, which information will
be concentrated upon, and when. It determines how this information
will be assimilated and understood, at both the grand and individual
level. And it determines whether and what actions will, or will
not be, taken as a result. By the very nature of panopticism, power
at the center increases dramatically if the subjects in the schema
are unaware that information is being strictly policed at the center.
Even more so if subjects in the schema wrongly believe that they
democratically control the personage of any potential informational
guards. For this imbues the informational center with the ability
to implement technologies and environments that serve to subjugate
while convincing subjects that the technologies of their subjugation
are motivated from within.
Is this necessarily a bad thing? I offer no answers, I merely point
to an emerging situation: The proliferation of business technologies
into the social world is causing American norms to conflict, coalesce,
coordinate, and in turn strengthen. If Americans collectively decide
which norms to coordinate and strengthen, then the Panoptic Transition
may very well be a glorious thing. Problems will come however if
Americans remain unaware that they are embarking upon a process
of greater coordination and strengthening in norms. This naiveté
opens the way for a more sinister path. A path governed by the same
powerful entity that first developed and applied panoptic technologies
– the corporate-capitalist state nexus.
Yes then there are two generally divergent paths confronting Americans
today; i.e., two divergent paths that the Panoptic Transition can
take (I would hazard to say that it is already too late to stop
the transition itself). One leads to a milieu of acceptance. One
leads to a milieu of judgment. Both paths are collectively expressed
in reality television today. The first path is best represented
by MTVs The Real World. The Real World, a truly unexpected and runaway
hit, was the first consciously constructed reality entertainment
enterprise. In being so, it serves to best express Americans first
and initial realization of collective panopticism. The Real World
has no contests. The show is undoubtedly most appealing when close-minded
children emerge as open-minded non-judgmental adults. Acceptance
drives entertainment in the Real World.
Nearly a decade after the Real World’s success, austere modernistic
television networks finally caught on. Surprisingly, media arms
of flexible postmodern corporations were slow to realize the cultural
impact that the proliferation of business technologies into the
personal sphere would have; slow to realize that reality television
was an expression of rapidly changing American culture. Postmodern
corporations did of course eventually realize, and when they did
they were quick to act. Their actions changed the face of reality
television.
Reality television on non-pay network TV is the consequence of the
Real World gone through the corporate mill. In network reality television
there is always an unseen power over and above the contestants (more
visible in Fox’s ‘American Idol’, less in CBS’
‘Big Brother’). The goal is to consistently please this
unseen power. Failure to please the unseen power is sure to lead
to dismissal. Nonetheless, the motivations for any one dismissal
seemingly come from the subjects themselves. This effective illusion
is created by information manipulation at the site of the unseen
power. The norms of the game (the rules) are subject to changes
at the whim of the unseen power, during the game even. Subjects
are powerless to counteract changes in norms that occur at the center,
and they therefore consent to the new rules, and play based upon
the new options. Whereas the Real World brought us little in the
way of power asymmetries, Survivor hails them, glorifies them, revels
in them, and most importantly consents to them.
All reality television creates drama through dismissal. Thus conveying
an emerging social reality: In an increasingly coordinated and integrated
society, banishment is ever more frightening. Fear of personal banishment
is driving the reality television phenomenon. The question we are
collectively posing is this: By whose norms do we banish? This question
has yet to be fully answered, but the answer is unfolding before
us. Will American culture place itself on the re-invigorated path
of acceptance, best exemplified by the popularity of MTV’s
riotous and relatively counter culture ‘The Osbournes’?
Or will the United States take the path of Survivor – a path
leading to a milieu wherein the only norms that we judge by are
those that survive the grist of the corporate mill. Watch the ratings
in real-time, perhaps it will be possible to find some answers there.