The Panopticon and the Punishment of Being Watched
The feeling of being watched has the power to elicit a basic, primal fear. We all know the pressure of trying to perform when being watched by an audience, and how it can make the simplest tasks seem daunting. And we can all imagine the cold shock of fear we would feel to find out that someone had been surreptitiously watching us as we went through our daily lives.
Being watched carries a number of implications that put us into a fearful state. It evokes the feeling of being vulnerable, prey to an unseen predator that could strike at any moment. But it also places us in a position of social pressure and anxiety. When being watched by others, our instincts put us on notice that we must behave in a socially acceptable way, for we are being judged by our actions.
In fact, multiple studies have determined that we don’t even need to be watched by living humans for this effect to take hold. A simple poster displaying a person’s face or eyes, hung at eye level where it can be easily seen, is enough to greatly enhance adherence to social norms such as cleaning up after oneself in the cafeteria, or correctly paying for coffee and condiments in a setting which operates on the honor system.
This idea, that being watched contributes to reforming the morality of a person’s actions, is central to the idea we’re discussing today. The panopticon, a social construct in which all participants can be observed from a central location without knowledge of when they’re being watched, was proposed by social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The idea was proposed in a number of social settings including schools, hospitals, factories and prisons, but it has gained notoriety largely in the last of these settings.
To describe it in Bentham’s own words: The Building circular – an iron cage, glazed – a glass lantern – The Prisoners in their Cells, occupying the Circumference – The Officers, the Centre. By Blinds, and other contrivances, the Inspectors concealed from the observation of the Prisoners: hence the sentiment of a sort of invisible omnipresence. – The whole circuit reviewable with little, or, if necessary, without any, change of place.
In plain English: A large circular building with prisoner cells adorning the inner walls circumferentially. In the center, a large glass observatory where officers sit and can be totally unseen by the prisoners. But, the prisoners are aware that the officers can see them at any time and could be watching anybody.
Try to imagine the following: a prisoner in a room with a large, clear window through which they may be observed. At times, a light may come on and an observer may enter the room and watch the prisoner. During this time, the prisoner is likely to be on model behavior, unless they are choosing to actively rebel against the institutional rules.
Now, suppose that one day the prisoner awakes and finds that in the middle of the night, the transparent glass has been replaced with a two-way mirror. They are informed that the observatory room on the other side is still active, and the observer may enter at any time and watch without the prisoner ever being aware of it. There is now no longer any “safe time” for the prisoner. No indication of when the rules must be followed because somebody is watching. They must now assume that at any time they are being watched. They are now left with the ever present aura of institutional and social supervision and expectation upon them. And the prison has accomplished this now with markedly less manpower, as they no longer require that an observer be visually present for the psychological impact of observation to take effect.
The idea here is that, when one can not be sure or even make a guess at when they are being observed, the only logical option is to assume observation always and to act in compliance. The theory goes then that once a person is made to behave, they can be morally reformed. But the observation wouldn’t stop at just the prisoners. It was acknowledged that institutional power could be abused against the prisoners if there was no effective oversight. Therefore, the original design of the Panopticon also intended that the manager of the prison could be watched by members of the general public or Public officials, who themselves would be allowed free access and encouraged to come observe the proceedings. This would, in theory, act as a sort of public oversight to ensure that the institution was still focused on meeting goals of societal reform.
As I mentioned earlier, these structures were meant to create compliance and productivity in many areas of society, not just prisons. For instance, Bentham also designed an “industry house” where laborers could be overseen by a central manager. Who hasn’t had a time where they were tempted to slack off or bend the rules when they knew there were no managers around? As the voice of this, I’ll be the first to admit I’ve done it in times that seemed totally harmless to me. The knowledge that you could never be aware of when you were actually being supervised would seem to put pressure on this problem - although what it would do to morale is another question altogether.
Despite being a relatively influential concept, there are very few examples of panopticon prisons which were built true to the original designs. One of the few examples is Cuba’s Presidio Modelo, an open-celled panopticon style prison where Fidel Castro and his brother Raoul were held for several years. However, this prison ended up being far from the model for moral reform that was envisioned, and became known for poor living conditions, inadequate access to food, and general harsh treatment of prisoners, especially those of political dissent who had been held there.
Oddly, the topic of the Panopticon has become relevant again in an entirely new way. With the ever-increasing use of digital and electronic surveillance, the idea of being seen and watched at any time has given rise to fears of living under a new form of technological panopticon, where citizens may be monitored at any time. The result in some parts of the world is a truly Orwellian society where the average citizen is tracked, monitored, and even scored on their actions in society. These technologies make the idea of enforcing change through surveillance more possible, and more sinister than ever.
Social pressure may be one of the single most powerful forces for influencing human behavior. Time will only tell how this force will continue to manifest in an increasingly connected world. In the meantime, I’d like to leave you with a quote - whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching. There may come a day when that statement becomes disturbingly true.
