The discipline-blockade model vs. the discipline-mechanism model

This last week in class, we discussed Michel Foucault's "Discipline and Punish", more specifically the section covering Panopticism. In this section, Foucault introduced the concept of power and the two categories of of control. Foucault's idea of power is that it is not sovereign, but it is more like a network or a field. He also says that individuals do not necessarily hold power, but it is more of a "power node" that a single person can hold. Following that, he says that power cannot be abolished but it can be transferred or rearranged. Power also created locations of counter-power within the systems where power is present. As for the systems of control, Foucault offers two models. The first is the discipline-blockade where the scenario is a plague town. In this scenario, the whole own and the surrounding areas are locked down and kept on strict separation from each other, with the threat of death for anyone who breaks the rule. There are also syndics who are each given a division of a town, and monitor each and every home, to ensure that the inhabitants of the homes stay indoors or face the penalty of death. In this system, there is constant surveillance of the townspeople by the syndics, who record and report everything to the intendants (who monitor the syndics), who then report to a mayor or magistrate. The discipline-blockade displays a power that is centralized with a control that is soverign. Power is administered from outside, with the people who do not hold a sovereign power knowing and feeling the control and order that is being forced on them. For the second model of control, the discipline-mechanism, discipline is more internalized. The example given for this model is the Panopticon. Originally designed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, the Panopticon was intended to be a building, with a tower located at the center with separate quadrants all coalescing into a circle around the tower. In each of these quadrants would be a separate building, group, or subject (if the quadrant is intended to be something like a prison cell or a classroom), with the only light source coming from the tower. And in this tower, because there is a constant source of light coming from it, it is impossible for the people in the quadrants to know if they are being observed or not, and so may act as if they are always being watched. This form of discipline is more decentralized, more internalized, produces a homogenous effect of power, is visible but unverifiable, where the subjects may not consciously know that they are being controlled.