Michel Foucault was a French philosopher who looked at institutions that everyone thought were nice and good (schools, hospitals, prisons) and said: “Hold on. Why the fuck do they all look the same?”
He observed that the modern prison, the modern school, the modern hospital, and the modern military barracks all share the same architecture. They are all designed to discipline bodies. To arrange them in space, control their schedules, monitor their behavior, and punish deviation. This is not a coincidence (the French love their coincidences).
Discipline and Punish (1975) traces the history of punishment from public torture (the king showing off) to the modern prison (the state managing your soul). In the middle of the book, Foucault describes the Panopticon, a circular prison design where a single guard can see every cell but the prisoners cannot see the guard. The prisoners internalize the surveillance. They police themselves. They become their own jailers.
Foucault’s point is that we live in a Panopticon now. CCTV cameras, social media monitoring, workplace surveillance, the knowledge that someone might be watching. The point is not that someone is always watching. The point is that you never know when they are, so you behave as if they are (look at your phone. Look at your laptop. You know I am right).
Starter book: Discipline and Punish (1975).
no relation but i like this meme
