Panopticons: The Prisons Designed to Imprison Prisoners in their Mind
You know how Santa sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake. And yet, you never ever get to see him. That’s because he was once a guard in a panopticon prison.
Jail cells lined along a circular perimeter.
Guards posted in a watchtower in the centre of the ring.
A 360 degree vantage point with a clear view into each and every cell.
The interior of the watchtower, however, is veiled. And prisoners are unable to see the guards inside.
The Hawthorne effect: when people behave differently because they know they are being watched.
The (potentially) watchful eye of a panopticon prison is designed to shackle both the body and the mind. Prisoners know they could be being watched at any given moment, but they can never know when.
Santa likely knew when they were being bad or good, so they were more likely to be consistently good. Not for goodness’ sake. But for the sake of a paranoid sense of internalized authority — the fear of being watched by the disapproving eyes of someone in power.
Jeremy Bentham, the social theorist and philosopher who invented the concept of the panopticon prison believed that power should be visible and unverifiable.
Just like our almighty Santa Claus.
Ever wonder how a prison designed to shackle both the body and the mind would work? 👇
