The Panopticon

The Panopticon is an institutional building imagined by Jeremy Bentham. The purpose of the Panopticon is for subjects to be observed without being able to see their observer. This, in turn, will make all of the subjects behave as if their being watched even though they can never be sure whether or not someone is watching them. While most people see the idea of the Panopticon as the perfect prison system, Bentham originally imagined the Panopticon as an institution that could be used for multiple things. Even though no one has ever officially built the Panopticon, the idea of it is something that we use everyday. In various aspects of our lives authority figures instill a fear of doing the wrong thing by using a few people as examples of what will happen when you do the wrong thing. This makes sure that even when people are not being watched, they still behave as if they are because they can never be sure whether or not someone is waiting to reprimand them.