Bentham’s Panopticon

The concept of the “panopticon” was devised by the English philosopher, jurist, and social theorist Jeremy Bentham. While the modern interpretation of the concept is generally projected against the backdrop of the technical surveillance state that in the internet and ubiquitous cellular telephony has enabled, the original, and accurate, conceptualization is truthfully benevolent in its intent. Bentham was a sharp, and mindful 18th-century social critic, famously rebutting the double-standards set forth by the American colonists in their “Declaration of Independence.” As a jurist and philosopher, he was also keenly aware of the shortcomings of the government, as well as those of his fellow citizens who had been convicted of criminal offenses, and required some form of punishment, or “social rehabilitation.” The panopticon represented a more idealized form of the standard punishment for convicted offenders, a prison. But a special prison that, although reducing the concept of privacy to almost nil, actually made it easier for the individual offender to correct behaviors and free themselves from the bonds of repetition that would otherwise surely continue binding them even after their sentences were served.