In Michel Foucault’s groundbreaking 1975 book, “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison,” he explored how those who violated the laws of the royal sovereign were subject to torture as a form of punishment. Reform meant the goal of punishment had to evolve from sovereign revenge to the correction of deviant or abnormal behavior, so the one needing discipline could be aligned with societal norms.
Foucault reintroduced the reader to the prison model of the Panopticon, designed in 1785 by philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832). Foucault sought to demonstrate how power no longer needed to be enforced through consistent brute force.
Panopticon was designed by placing the guard tower in the center of the prison, so the guard could gaze at all the prisoners housed in their individual backlit cells. The prisoners, due to the darkening of the tower, were unable to return the guard’s gaze.
“The perfect disciplinary apparatus,” Foucault reminded us, “would make it possible for a single gaze to see everything constantly. . . a perfect eye that nothing would escape and a centre towards which all gazes would be turned.”
If the inmate trespassed the expected norm, discipline would be swift and severe. Punishment was not solely for the offending inmate, but a warning to all the others that they too should not stray from the norm. Fear of violent and brutal punishment was sufficient to motivate compliance.
The violence of ethical uniformity is manifested by institutional and societal equilibrium. Rather than instigating punishment to reestablish ethical uniformity, punishment simply reactivated power. This punishment, meted out to an inmate for an infraction, is symbolically directed at all potential violators of the norm, all those who are potentially guilty.
The gaze replaced a physical punishment, which struck the body. Now, it strikes the heart, thoughts, will and inclinations. In short, it strikes the soul.
Foucault continued, “By this very fact, the external power may throw off its physical weight; it tends to the non-corporal… it is perpetual victory that avoids any physical confrontation.”
Because the guard’s gaze could not be returned, the inmate could not know when they were being gazed upon. The guard could be absent or dead.
They could be a child or even blind. Regardless, the prisoner would still not know if they were being watched.
The guard’s gaze conferred power to the observer while becoming a trap to those being observed, even when the surveillance was not constant. The mere possibility of being watched, coupled with the fear of punishment if caught violating the norm, reduced the inmate to an object that internalizes the power relation.
Because the gaze normalizes and legitimizes the official societal narrative, non-corporal oppression of those relegated to the margins is standardized. This disciplinary control is maintained and sustained through the techniques of hierarchical observation. The mere act of gazing corrects deviant behavior, leading the one being observed to self-discipline.
The one who knows they are being subjected within a field of visibility assumes responsibility for the constraint of power and thus polices themselves to conform. Think of how you do not speed up when the light turns yellow because of the possibility that a surveillance camera might be present.
Panopticon’s principles are not limited to prisons. Constant surveillance coupled with the inability to know when one is being watched reduces the possibility of inmates rebelling against the norms, since they are always fearful of being caught.
While Panopticon as a model has been fitting when understanding political structures, it seems more apropos when trying to understand President Trump’s current political actions. We are witnessing how U.S. citizens are internalizing the norms constructed by Trumpish governmental officials, as they learn how to monitor their behavior under the hierarchical gaze to conform to whatever has been deemed normal within a Trump worldview.
Power, when exercised through coercion, is most effective when it appears entirely natural and neutral. Whether from a prison or presidential administration, disciplinary power is forged when the docile body becomes subjected, used, transformed and improved through the creation of a religious domain without the religion — a domain organized around a pure white Christian nationalist morality striving for ethical uniformity.
One reason why so many executive orders are being signed by this present administration is to accustom the domestication of bodies to a new worldview without the need of physical force. Obedience is maintained through the gaze instituted by standard, boring bureaucratic procedures. Justice is relieved of its responsibility through so-called common sense administrative procedures, which conceal discipline, thus institutionalizing state violence.
The power of the present administration to inflict scars on the docile body resides in a multitude of networks and initiatives (removal of DEI, immigration crackdowns, weakening education) interwoven with the political economy of Christian nationalists. Like a punishing prison guard who effectively used violence in the past and can now simply employ a ubiquitous gaze to illicit conformity, Trump’s revenge tour effectively uses violence now so that tomorrow’s citizens learn conformity through the ubiquitous gaze of the state.
Here is the irony: The autonomy of Trump’s disciplinary structure, designed to punish any abnormality, will just as quickly punish those for whom the structures are designed to privilege (white Christians) in the event they too become “abnormal” or are seen as obstacles to the prevailing Trumpish worldview. Note how federal jobs or the Medicare benefits of Fox viewers, who are most likely to support Trump, are just as vulnerable as everyone else.
We are all inmates in Trump’s Panopticon. Fear of his gaze has been sufficient for many — congresspersons, elite law firms, universities, multi-national corporations, other sovereign nations — to self-discipline.
Physical violence is not needed for them (us) to conform. Either we submit because resistance is futile– or, even amid the futility, we plan a prison break. May we learn to bake cakes that conceal files.
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Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
