During one of my lectures on subliminal advertising and marketing, I mentioned how having the ability to influence the human unconscious is an immense source of power, and how skilled marketers and advertising specialists should be extremely responsible with this power. I also highlighted the importance of ethics when it comes to using marketing tools such as subliminal messaging. During the Q&A, I was asked the following question:
"How do you design things that are meant to kill people, but design them ethically?"
It is indeed an interesting question and it reminded of Michel Foucault's work, Discipline and Punish, which speaks in detail about the evolution of capital punishment, namely executions. Now, the notion of ethics when it comes to executions is a bit, well, questionable. And that is precisely why I will not be delving into it here. However, it is impossible to deny the fact that the design of execution devices has become more "ethical" over the years, hence the topic of this article.
This is something that you probably have not noticed until someone has pointed it out, or you have noticed but never really wondered why.
Why do we no longer draw and quarter people in public? How come the spectacle of the guillotine is a thing of the past? What triggered the less bloody nature of modern execution, in which lions and slicing were replaced by gas and lethal injection?
Did our society collectively choose to become more humane and ethical? Or did we transcend into a whole other level of human depravity?
Let me introduce you to the Panopticon.
In its basic sense, the panopticon is a type of architecture. It was developed by theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century and was thought to be the model of a "perfect prison." The panopticon is a circular building with a diameter of 100 feet.
There are prison cells around the perimeter of the circle, each one 9 feet deep and housing a single prisoner. The entire structure is made up of 48 cells per each floor, with 6 floors in total. The cells are equipped with a toilet, and a bed. Surveillance corridors are placed on every other floor, each including a guard who can keep an eye on two floors of prisoners. An iron and glass frame, similar to a tower, rises from the middle of the circle all the way to the top. Around the frame, there is a circular auditorium which prisoners are brought to for lectures. Between the auditorium and the cells, there is a wall of screens which separates them, and obstructs the view.
The prisoners cannot see the people in the cells next to them and in front of them, on the other side of the iron and glass frame. They are in total isolation.
To do the simple math, we are dealing with a 6 story building with 48 cells on each floor, amounting to 288 cells. Each cell has one prisoner inside, which amounts to 288 prisoners.
We have three surveillance corridors with one guard on each, amounting to three guards in total.
What does that tell you? The guards are far outnumbered 3 to 288. How does chaos not break out in this seemingly ideal prison?
Well, according to Bentham, the answer lies in the power of sight. You see, while the guards can always monitor the prisoners, the prisoners cannot see the guards from their cells. They do not know when they are being watched.
This creates a subconscious illusion that there MIGHT always be a guard, ergo leading the prisoners inside the cells to always "behave," because, well, you never know!
In reality, in a prison system like the panopticon, the prisoners are guarding themselves, with little to no effort on part of the prison management team. Their mental projection of a guard who could be anywhere at any time, makes them alert and less likely to commit a crime within the prison.
However, that begs the age-old question:
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
Who guards the guards? Who makes sure they are doing their job and are not planning a break-out with one of the prisoners?
Later models of the panopticon solve this issue perfectly by adding a circular room to the very top of the iron and glass tower, right in the middle of the entire prison structure. There is always a light in the room and the windows are heavily tinted. The room has a bird's eye view of all the prisons...and the guards.
The same principle which works for the prisoners is now working for the guards as well. They can clearly see the room (but not who is inside), and they are always under the illusion that there is someone there, monitoring their work. Even though the room itself may actually be empty.
You have just been introduced to the panopticon as an architecture which serves to surveille. It is more than a building. It is a system of control. And if it is a system, it means it can be applied everywhere, even outside of prisons.
I remember the sentence "Jafari is watching" during my first years as a schoolboy. Mr. Jafari was the angry headmaster at my school whom everyone was afraid of. That sentence was used by teachers to keep all of us in line, when in reality Jafari was definitely not wasting his time spying on us through the vario
us fixtures and objects in the classrooms which we always thought were cameras. In fact, we had turned “guessing the camera” into an amusing game.
It was all a panopticon-based system, allowing us to be controlled with minimum effort on part of the school disciplinary team.
The same system applies to other institutions. Take the Louvre museum for example. Not all of the cameras there are functional. They are merely there to create the illusion of being watched, prompting visitors to behave. Even if a visitor is aware of the panopticon, they will still not act out, because...what if? You never know!
With the age of digitalization, the panopticon remains as strong as it ever was. Is there really someone somewhere accessing the small front camera on your laptop or phone? Probably not. But what if there is? All those Snowden videos really do send chills down your spine.
That CCTV camera at your office, is it actually working? What about the tracking software on your devices? Is someone going to berate you for spending your day off at home, when you told them you were going to the bank to carry out errands?
That boss who always says "I'm watching you," is he really watching? He probably has a ton more to do in perfecting his business than staring at a screen and watching you all day.
What about Santa Claus and his omnipresence? To generalize even further, what about God?
Bentham managed to create a system which albeit not always working ideally, has remained a powerful tool for controlling society. Is it perfect? Certainly not. But, hey, it works, and you and I have definitely fallen prey to it more than once.
So, here is the question: is keeping society under the illusion of constant control ethical? We certainly have come a long way from tearing people apart in public, but what have we replaced that with? The panopticon is omnipresent. How and why did we end up here? What happened which led us to collectively surrender our right to privacy? I do not know the answer to that question, but Foucault has interesting ideas in Discipline and Punish which I highly recommend to anyone who wishes to read more on this subject.
What did you think about this article? Have you experienced the panopticon? Have you used the panopticon to control others? Let me know in the comment section! Thank you for reading!
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