THE PANOPTICON AS A POTENTIAL THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: AN EXPLORATION OF CENTRALIZED POWER STRUCTURES

Abstract

Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon is a theoretical prison that was developed in 1787 as a way to punish and reform people convicted of crime. It involved a circular building with a central guard tower, from which an omnipresent and omniscient warden would constantly surveille the inmates who were kept in solitary confinement. Although the prison was never physically constructed, elements of the panopticon are present in many aspects of our social structure and power systems. This paper explores Bentham’s original work, the post-modern responses to it, and present day manifestations of the panopticon through a bioethics lens in order to develop a metaphorical tool that can be used examine and explain how power is systematized and functionalized by those who control it, the effects on those who are subject to it, and how the systems are exploited to the point of dysfunction.