“It makes it possible to draw up differences: Among patients, to observe the symptoms of each individual, without the proximity of beds, the circulation of miasmas, the effects of contagion confusing the clinical tables; among school-children, it makes it possible to observe performances (without there being any imitation or copying), to map aptitudes, to assess characters, to draw up rigorous classifications and, in relation to normal development, to distinguish ‘laziness and stubbornness’ from ‘incurable imbecility’; among workers, it makes it possible to note the aptitude’s of each worker, compare the time he takes to perform a task, and if they are paid by the day, to calculate their wages. (Bentham, 60-64)”
The significance of this one sentence by Bentham is, what I currently see as, the most idealistic use of an idea as extreme as panopticism. When put to morally good, helpful use, this idea has worlds of potential. To watch everybody on a person-to-person basis, simply to make sure that they’re doing a good job and to correct and teach a student or employee when they make a mistake could turn a society into a utopia. By the time I read the end of the statement however, I feel like when a real, present-world employer would look at his worker at the end of the day and calculate every subjectively wrong decision he/she made, I don’t see a bright reality. I just see an opportunity for employers to nit-pick and for bleak workplaces to be even bleaker and uncomfortably dystopian.
Panopticism is the idea of keeping an eye on everybody at once without actually watching somebody around the clock. Not unlike Christianity, it’s fear-based. “You don’t wanna do that.. He’s watching.” In the opening paragraphs of this reading, we see that the original plans for the panopticon were to keep a watchful eye on (hopefully) healthy citizens during the time of the plague, as a way of guaranteeing their safety. The lines get blurrier when Bentham goes into describing the work of the “crows”, whose safety seems to be irrelevant thanks either to their class-standing or potential to have already been compromised by the plague. This whole thing is just an idea right? There wasn’t an actual village that did this? I see the relevance in the idea for it regarding the current health risk and potential of a full-on plague, but my view of humanity doesn’t recognize the necessity to take precautions to an extreme this, well, extreme. I value personal freedom (to a reasonable extent, and to a more limited extent in times of health crises such as this) too much to subscribe to any means of living that align too hard with this idea. Also I see the human consumer population as a pox on the earth at this point more than anything else and the world is certainly better off with less of us.
“We know the principle on which it was based: at the periphery, an annular building; at the centre, a tower; this tower is pierced with wide windows that open onto the inner side of the ring; the periphery building is divided into cells, each of which extends the whole width of the building; they have two windows, one on the inside, corresponding to the windows of the tower; the other, on the outside, allows the light to cross the cell from one end to the other. All that is needed, then, is to place a supervisor in a central tower and to shut up in each cell a madman, a patient, a condemned man, a worker or a schoolboy.”
These two sentences do a better job of summing up the practice of panopticism rather than the reasoning behind it. This is such a dystopian idea for real and I don’t much see the relevance in it beyond that of a prison. And I still think that prisoners deserve the right to move and act undetected if they manage to be cunning enough. If, for no other reason, just to maintain some sense of hope or freedom while trapped in one of the most structurally hopeless institutions in the country.
This practice is really wack to think about and I don’t fully comprehend why we’re discussing it this week. I see the connection between the original intention of the idea and the current pandemic we’re facing, but this country doesn’t even have the funds to provide enough testing kits to the public, let alone guard towers and wooden canals to distribute bread and wine by. And I feel like even a country as well-funded and seemingly utopian from my perspective as a U.S. citizen like Finland wouldn’t be willing to take matters this far. It’s certainly interesting to think about, while not interesting enough to read 33 pages of. But like most every idea (radical or otherwise), I think there could be elements of this practice that could be pulled and put to good use. Like the periodic accounting for of house members, constantly stopping in and making sure everybody’s safe and following quarantine guidelines. And the wooden canal seems like a fun, creative strategy that could certainly give work to some local carpenters. But apart from that, I don’t think there’s much to be said in agreement with this particular way of governing in times of panic.
Onto question #2: I don’t think Sjursen’s report is entirely cohesive or coherent. It speaks to a lot of issues that a reader like me doesn’t have a panoramic view of and has some rather hot takes on the “New Cold War”. I think of myself as at least fairly aware of global politics and I haven’t perceived any sense of a tension between citizens of the U.S. and Russia. Our governments can’t seem to agree, especially in terms of the Ukraine issue, which I haven’t heard much about since Crimea, but we never really have. I believe I heard during those the impeachment hearings that Trump has had eight or nine meetings with Putin in the months leading up to the hearings, and even more with one of his senior advisors or correspondents or something, but I don’t know much about it beyond the shadiness of the whole issue. I like that Sjursen noted the skeezy-ness of the Democratic Party as well though. According to my dad, Trump was right to look into the money that the U.S. was flowing into Ukraine, because 2/3 of it was flowing back into the pockets of Hunter Biden, John Kerry, the Clintons, and the rest of the higher-level DNC apparatus. I only know what I was told because I don’t watch Fox News, but my dad also isn’t an idiot so I’m sure he sensed some truth to the argument that my liberal-leaning media never seemed to touch on. I’m largely confused by the whole issue, but this article didn’t do much to educate me on the source material, rather than tell me how to feel about issues I haven’t been exposed to.
In the few paragraphs leading up to his conclusion that America isn’t poised to win a potential World War III, I don’t follow his argument. He cites information from people that I’m not going to look up. His argument that we won’t win is rooted in our lack of connections in Eurasia to oil and natural resources I guess? I don’t see much significance in that. We seem to have more enough over here for the time being and I don’t get why we need more for,, war? I guess? If it came down to that, I have basically no hope for anybody regardless of allies, enemies, global bystanders, and my only sympathy goes to countries that aren’t inhabited mostly by mindless consumers who are unfortunate enough to be out of the way of nuclear threat, if that’s what we’re talking about? Maybe the issue he’s claiming is that we just aren’t ready to lose our natural resources because we won’t be on the side that other countries can/want to trade with? Even if that was the case, I’d prefer see this country learn how to live without such resources. For now, most of this seems irrelevant. To me, anyway. The whole Ukraine-Russia-U.S. issue seemed to be swept under the rug by congress by not forcing Trump out of the house, while simultaneously making Joe fucking Biden the frontrunner for the DNC. Something might bubble up but if it does I don’t think it will affect the average citizen to the point that they really realize it. And if it does come to war and we all die? We deserve it. As for what Sjursen might recommend for the U.S.? Put Bernie in power and let somebody find a solution to our world-power problem that doesn’t have a hand in Russia, Ukraine, China, or wherever else. Stop electing presidents that have baggage and monetary interests, rather than political ones, in charge of how we handle foreign policy.
I hate to say it, but the third question leaves me almost comment-less too. Virilio gives an argument to the internet that seems daunting and dangerous and likens it to nuclear power; a connection I can see, but am not swayed much by, in that it says that we created Chernobyl, so we’re working toward a disaster of similar proportions by letting our lives be run more and more by web-based technology. Which isn’t inaccurate. It just doesn’t seem super important? Or maybe it is important, but we already know it and are over it? The internet looms so large in all of our lives that we know the day it crashes, we’re all gonna be screwed until we remember how to do manual work again. And in regard to the political implications of operating on one, singular, global time zone, we already did that. He gave too much thought to different time zones in my opinion. The internet certainly makes time more fluid when communicating with one another, now that we don’t have to communicate by written letters I guess? I really don’t understand where he was going with that metaphor. If a bomb were to be dropped in New York, that doesn’t mean it happened three hours later in L.A.. Instant communication just makes things faster. And it certainly is a political catalyst when considering how fast the president has the ability to speak to all of us at once or how quickly a decision could be made that requires the instant input of thirty different world leaders, but I don’t know how often that happens or how different it looks thanks to the internet. Every article about strangeness of the digital world written in the 90s is questionable. Because they had no idea what it would look like in 25 years. They were certainly right to be sceptic and on their toes about what it meant for citizens and those who govern the people, but when you look at how slow congress continues to operate even in the age of instant information, this argument seems to have missed more than it hit.
Virilio, P. (1995, December). Paul Virilio: Red alert in cyberspace! Retrieved March 17, 2020, from https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/commentary/red-alert-in-cyberspace
America’s Newest Proxy Battle Could Spark World War 3. (2020, February 6). Retrieved March 17, 2020, from https://www.truthdig.com/articles/americas-newest-proxy-battle-could-spark-world-war-3/
Foucault, M. (1979). Panopticism. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Blog 4810 