File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_1996/96-07-25.211, message 33


From: brehkopf-AT-nexus.yorku.ca
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 00:17:05 -0400
Subject: Re: Re[4]: what is bio-power?


In your message of 13:20 Jul 8 1996, you write:

> Speaking of the Panopticon, and the Utilitarian dream of perfect correction 
> that this dream building supposes, I was watching "60 Minutes" a couple of 
> weeks ago and I saw something interesting.  Apparently there is a new "model"
> prison in California predicated on the idea that if surveillance and discipline
> are complete enough, then correction/rehabilitation is possible
>  (sound familiar?).  When one looks at the design of this new model prison,
> Bentham's Panopticon could have easily been the model.  The prison's interior
> is circular, with layers of wide open cells, all easily viewable from a central
> tower which is located in the center of this tube of cells.  To increase 
> surveillance, each cell is equipped with a video camera, where every action of
> \the inmate is watched.  Also, the Warden has put in place techniques of
> control and correction, including: ten  hours of schooling per day, meticulous
> time schedules for eating, sleeping, recreation, etc., as well as a system of
> rewards and deprivations designed to control the behavior of inmates.  The
> Warden claimed, in the interview, that this prison will succeed, where others
> have failed, because the connection between punishment and unacceptable 
> behavior is total and complete.  It seems that the Utilitarian dream of
> perfect rehabilitation (domination?) via meticulous tactics of control and
>  surveillance, is not just a remnant of the distant past, but is also the "new"
> dream of a contemporary group of penal reformers.  Some dreams die hard, I
> guess.
> 
> Greg Coolidge
> Univ. of Calif., Riverside


I think I saw this also. Interesting, though as you probably know there
is a picture of an actual penitentiary that predates this one -- I
think, anyway -- shown in Discipline and Punish (the Vintage edition)
that is in Stateville, U.S.

Anyway, I just wanted to ask this general question...might it not be
true that "we" are already such disciplined creatures that we ought not
to be so concerned with the supposed disciplining of prisoners as a form
of rehabilitation?  That is, I wonder if we in the West have become so
used to the forms of surveillance that they are somehow not as insidious
as they perhaps once were when "optical freedom" was taken for granted.

I don't know about you, but I pretty much assume that I might be under
some form of electronic surveillance at any time.  On my university's
campus, there are cameras watching over the parking lots, for instance.
I know they are there, and live with that, and it wouldn't surprise me
if there were cameras in other places on campus.  There are also cameras
in both lobbies of my apartment building -- and what's more, the tenants
voted almost unanimously that they be so installed.  Hey: the tenants also
voted for a "roving camera" that can be placed in whatever location is
desired, and it is known that it will be hidden!

And following Rodney King, who isn't aware of the possibility of
unexpected videotaping?

My point is that we are now so accustomed to this that we welcome it.
I'm not saying that that's a good thing, but I don't think it's so easy
to say it's a bad thing, either.  It just is the case; there is a
certain comfort in such surveillance for modern subjects.

Now of course prisoners don't have as much say in the whole thing; but
then again, they also, in these prisons at least, don't have to
guess when they are and when they are not being watched, whereas we in
the outside world do have such concerns.  But then again, the thing is
that it doesn't give us the creeps to know that this is the case,
whereas it would have been quite a different experience prior to, say,
the last few decades.

Okay, I guess my point is this: that I would think the disciplinary
efficacy of panoptic surveillance in such locations as prisons has been
decreased due to the fact that we are already such highly disciplined
creatures.  So...I'm not sure that we ought not to be wondering what
other form of power besides disciplinary power is now being used, i.e.,
a form of power that we are not aware of.  I know Deleuze talks about
some of this stuff, but I just wondered what others think.

I suppose that I'm concerned that we are now so adept at recognizing
disciplinary power, thanks largely to Foucault, that those of us "in the
know" about such things are in danger of thinking we've solved the
problem of power.  

And, being a student of F's, of course that concerns me.  We have
learned to surveil disciplinary power; so no doubt power has morphed.


Blaine Rehkopf
York University
CANADA  
-- 



   

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