The trend to glorify the edited texts and ‘edited' bodies of Reality TV necessitates a consideration of how the Reality TV genre is defining a very particular version of American subjecthood. Reality TV opens up new possibilities as well as new limitations for representational politics. Unfortunately, the representational politics of makeover shows offer far more limitations, especially in relation to the representation of race, class, gender, sexuality, and (dis)ability.

Reality TV profoundly impacts what counts as a ‘normal body', as a ‘beautiful body', and shapes new realms of social power in which certain types of bodies are deemed more ‘real,' or inhabitable, than others. Of course, Reality TV effects far more than beauty/appearance standards. It also enforces ideas, stereotypes, and normalizing criteria in relation to race, class, age, abitlity, sexuality, etc. According to most Reality TV, the world is like the cast of Friends-- white, hetero, middle class, attractive by conventional standards, etc. But, unlike sitcoms and other fictional TV, the reality genre functions according to a 'reality paradigm' -- a set up that claims to show the 'truth' about people and thier lives.  This representational stance is far different as it conveys expectations and norms of normal subjecthood. In effect, it has made celebrity culture, or the obsessive watching/judging of others, something that is now done to everyone, not just to celebrities. By promoting new and increased surveillance of the ‘real individual,' reality TV has made the judicious watching and 'sizing up' of others - and ourselves - a natural (and even expected) component of everyday life. 

While many people featured on reality tv are characterized by extreme personalities and behaviors (for supposedly added extra entertainment value), this is where the extremity ends. Those featured may be bizarre personality/action-wise, but, for the most part, are 'normal' according to other criteria, such as body size, ability, appearance, age, class standing, etc. The message here seems it's ok to be a bitch as long as you are 'hot,' it's ok to be a pathological liar if you have a nice six pack, it's entertaining to be a racist, especially if you can look cute while doing it.

Worryingly, Reality TV summons us to survey others with a judgmental, all-pervading gaze in everday life. It directs us to critique private actions, beliefs, and conversations, to put others under a punitive surveillance. At the same time, it also promotes a degree of self-surveillance, a tendency to judge oneself via the standards of particular reality shows. In relation to The Swan, for example, viewers were prompted to judge their own appearance against those of the surgically altered ‘Swans.' In relation to the many hetero-romance scripts (The Bachelorette et al) viewers are encouraged to judge their own and others relationships by fairy tale standards.

This panoptical impulse that Reality TV fosters is particularly evident when one examines audience reception and fan readings of reality shows. As various web sites devoted to Reality TV evince, many people are avid viewers, watching shows with the minutest attention to detail and then reporting back with episode recaps, blogs, queries, comments and/or chat.

Further, fans seem to very closely identify with certain show participants or certain situations. For instance, fans of The Swan discussed their favorite contestants, forecasted who would win the pageant, criticized those whose makeovers they saw as less than perfect, commented on appearance ‘defects' they felt they shared with certain contestants, and continually discussed their desires to be on the show. In so doing, these viewers created a public dialogue that began to redefine standards of beauty, acceptable appearance, and desired behavior. In effect, their identifications reinforced the shows message that appearance is all and, by colluding and promoting this message on the internet (and presumably in their private lives as well), such fans worked to further inscribe and uphold the beauty imperative so rampant in contemporary USA.

One of the most common viewer responses seemed to be uncritical adoration of the show accompanied by a marked desire to become a ‘swan.' Moreover, as post after Internet post revealed, viewer responses were marked by a particularly brutal surveillance of appearance. Offering scathing critiques of contestants', such commentary seemed to have a sadistic impulse colored by envy, competition, and scorn. Worryingly, this scrutiny of the body was often then turned inwards, with posters reflecting on their own ‘ugliness,' their own need for surgical intervention.

But, what is we refused to take part in this controlling, negative gazing? What if we decided to move outside of the prison house of the panapticon wherein we are directed to discipline ourselves and others?  Well, it would mean a lot more self esteem would be flowing. And, a lot less money for the corporate machines that profit off self/body hatred.  Sounds like a good option all around to me.

***FYI, If you are not familiar with the concept of the panoptican, read Foucault (especially Discipline and Punish). Even if you are, read Foucault! His work is fabulous.There are also many good feminist theorists who respond to/further his work such as Judith Butler, Sandra Bartky, Susan Bordo...

Μία από τις σημαντικότερες μεταβάσεις αυτού του τύπου έγινε με τη μορφή των “κοινωνικών δικτύων” (Social Networks). Τα social networks είναι δικτυακές υπηρεσίες που επιτρέπουν στους χρήστες να διατηρούν μια προσωπική σελίδα και να έρχονται σε επαφή με άλλους χρήστες βλέποντας τις προσωπικές τους σελίδες και να επικοινωνούν μεταξύ τους, ανταλλάσσοντας σχόλια, εικόνες, video, links, να παίζουν μαζί παιχνίδια ή να κανονίζουν εξόδους. Τα social networks προσπαθούν να αντικαταστήσουν ένα μεγάλο κομμάτι της καθημερινής επικοινωνίας μεταξύ φίλων και γνωστών καθώς και ένα αρκετά σημαντικό μέρος των κοινών δραστηριοτήτων.

Το πιο επιτυχημένο από αυτά τα δίκτυα είναι το facebook. Το Facebook ξεκίνησε σαν μικρή εφαρμογή επικοινωνίας μεταξύ συμφοιτητών στο Χάρβαρντ το 2004¹ και μέσα σε λίγα χρόνια γιγαντώθηκε, έχοντας σήμερα περισσότερους από 80 εκατομμύρια χρήστες και τιμή εξαγοράς που εκτιμάται στα 15 δισεκατομμύρια δολάρια².

H δομή του facebook είναι απλή. Ο κάθε χρήστης δημιουργεί και επεξεργάζεται ένα “προφίλ”. Το προφίλ αυτό περιλαμβάνει μια πληθώρα πληροφοριών για το άτομό του, από φωτογραφίες διακοπών μέχρι αγαπημένα βιβλία ή πολιτικές και θρησκευτικές πεποιθήσεις. Το επόμενο βασικό συστατικό είναι το να βρει κάποιους “φίλους” στο facebook. Οι φίλοι μπορεί να είναι παλιοί συμμαθητές (το σημείο εκκίνησης λειτουργίας του facebook), συνεργάτες, τωρινοί ή παλιοί φίλοι ή εραστές κλπ. Μιας και το προφίλ είναι δημόσιο και οι πληροφορίες του αναζητήσιμες, ο καθένας μπορεί να βρει οποιονδήποτε και ο οποιοδήποτε μπορεί να βρει τον καθένα.

Το προφίλ ενός χρήστη του facebook είναι σε διαρκή επιτήρηση από όλους. Ταυτόχρονα ο χρήστης μπορεί να επιτηρεί τα προφίλ όλων των άλλων χρηστών. Η ανάλυση του Michel Foucault για το Panopticon του Jeremy Bentham ως πρότυπο μοντέλο συστήματος ελέγχου πλησιάζει αρκετά τη δομή του facebook. Ο Bentham γράφει:

“Το σύστημα τούτο είναι σημαντικό, διότι επιτρέπει την αυτοματοποίηση και την απο-ατομίκευση της εξουσίας. Η εξουσία βασίζεται τώρα πολύ λιγότερο σε ένα άτομο και πολύ περισσότερο σε μια προσχεδιασμένη κατανομή των σωμάτων, των επιφανειών, των φωτών, των βλεμμάτων· σ' ένα σύνολο από εσωτερικούς μηχανισμούς που παράγουν οι ίδιοι τη σχέση όπου παγιδεύονται τα άτομα”[Foucault,1976]³

Το facebook πάει ένα βήμα παραπέρα. Οι χρήστες του facebook έχουν δύο σημαντικές διαφορές από τους έγκλειστους του panopticon: α) έχουν επιλέξει να βρίσκονται μέσα στο σύστημα ελέγχου και β) μπορούν να μπούν ανά πάσα στιγμή στη θέση του επιτηρητή. Η δεύτερη διαφορά είναι αυτή που προκαλεί την πρώτη. Η αίσθηση της ασφάλειας που δίνει η “ισότητα” απέναντι στην εποπτεία είναι αυτή που κάνει τους χρήστες να εμπιστεύονται στο προφίλ τους άκρως προσωπικά δεδομένα που θα ήταν ακατανόητο να τα μοιράζονται στην καθημερινή τους ζωή με τον οποιοδήποτε. Ή όπως προπαγάνδιζαν και οι αφίσες στους τοίχους του υπουργείου ανάκτησης πληροφοριών του Brazil: “Happiness, We are all in this together”ⁱ.

Η διαδικασία της επιτήρησης ξεπερνά το επίπεδο της πληροφορίας που κάποιος έχει αποθηκευμένη στο προφίλ του. Η “αθώα” περιέργεια της ανάγνωσης ενός προφίλ, γίνεται διαρκής παρακολούθηση μέσα από το μηχανισμό των “stories”(ειδήσεις). Κάθε κίνηση που κάνει κάποιος μέσα στο facebook, όπως το να σχολιάσει μια φωτογραφία, να αλλάξει κάτι στο προφίλ του, να μπει σε κάποιο γκρουπ κλπ ανακοινώνεται αυτόματα στα προφίλ όλων του των φίλων. Η παρακολούθηση αυτοματοποιείται και τελειοποιείται αφού έχει την άμεση συγκατάθεση του παρακολουθούμενου. Αυτό λειτουργεί ακριβώς όπως ο μηχανισμός αυτοπροσαρμογής των εγκλείστων του panopticon.

“Το άτομο που καθυποβάλλεται σε ενα πεδίο ορατότητας, και που το ξέρει, επωμίζεται το ίδιο τους καταναγκασμούς της εξουσίας· τους προσαρμόζει αυθόρμητα στον εαυτό του δέχεται μέσα του τη σχέση εξουσίας όπου παίζει ταυτόχρονα και τους δύο ρόλους· γίνεται η βάση της ίδιας της καθυπόταξης.”[Foucault,1976]⁴

Ο χρήστης έχοντας γνώση πως παρακολουθείται διαρκώς σε κάθε του κίνηση, αυτοελέγχεται. Στρογγυλεύει τα σχόλιά του, αποφεύγει επαφές με άτομα που μπορεί να μην συμπαθούν οι φίλοι του και προσέχει τι είδους μουσική ή βιβλία θα παραθέσει σαν ενδεικτικά του γούστου του. Η συμπεριφορά αυτή εντείνεται από το γεγονός ότι η πλειοψηφία των δικτυακών του επαφών είναι άνθρωποι που συναναστρέφεται μαζί τους καθημερινά και θα είναι σε θέση να τον κρίνουν και στην πραγματική του ζωή. Μάλιστα εντείνεται ακόμα περισσότερο όταν το προφίλ του facebook χρησιμοποιείται από ένα πιθανό εργοδότη, ή το πανεπιστήμιο που έκανε αίτηση για να τον δεχθούν.

Χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα αυτοελέγχου είναι οι φωτογραφίες στα προφίλ. Οι περισσότερες φωτογραφίες δείχνουν τον ή την χρήστη σε ιδανικές πόζες. Σχεδόν όλοι προσπαθούν οι εικόνες τους να τους απεικονίζουν με όσο το δυνατόν μικρότερη απόκλιση από τα στερεότυπα του δυτικού κόσμου. Αν δεν τα καταφέρνουν, είτε γιατί είναι τόσο μακρυά από τα πρότυπα ομορφιάς που δεν γίνεται να τα προσεγγίσουν χωρίς τη βοήθεια επαγγελματία φωτογράφου είτε γιατί απλά βαριούνται να βγάλουν μια καλοστημένη φωτογραφία, καταφεύγουν σε τεχνάσματα όπως να βάζουν φωτογραφίες από ήρωες comics, να φορούν επίτηδες πολύ παλαβά ρούχα ή αξεσουάρ που αποκρύπτουν τα χαρακτηριστικά τους, κλπ. Ομολογουμένως υπάρχει μια μερίδα χρηστών που δεν υποκύπτει σε τέτοιες συμπεριφορές αλλά δεδομένου ότι το πλέον χρήσιμο στοιχείο για τη δημιουργία εντυπώσεων μέσα σε ένα προφίλ είναι η φωτογραφία. [Evans,2008]⁵

Υπάρχει και ένα δεύτερος μηχανισμός αυτολογοκρισίας. Σε αντίθεση με τις καθημερινές σχέσεις στον πραγματικό κόσμο, στο facebook και στα περισσότερα δικτυακά μέσα επικοινωνίας μεσολαβεί ένα στάδιο επεξεργασίας της συμπεριφοράς λόγω του ασύγχρονου τρόπου επικοινωνίας που έχει το μέσο. Το να απαντήσει κάποιος σε ένα σχόλιο στο προφίλ του είναι πολύ διαφορετικό ως διαδικασία από την άμεση απάντηση σε μια ερώτηση που γίνεται σε μια κουβέντα ή από την αντίδραση σε ένα πείραγμα που θα κάνει κάποιος στην παρέα. Η επικοινωνία μεταξύ φίλων γίνεται ανταλλαγή επεξεργασμένων συναισθημάτων που προσπαθούν να χωρέσουν στις 3 γραμμές ενός σχολίου ή στο ready-made emoticon, ή mini-app.

Κατ' επέκταση οι κοινωνικές δράσεις περιορίζονται στην συμμετοχή σε κάποιο γκρουπ ή στην ανάρτηση κάποιου banner. Η άνοδος της ψηφιακής εποχής έβγαλε άλλο ένα ευμεγέθες λιθαράκι από το οικοδόμημα του δημόσιου χώρου. Του δημόσιου χώρου που από χώρος συναναστροφής, συνδημιουργίας και κοινωνικών αγώνων ήδη είχε αρχίσει να εκφυλίζεται σε χώρο μετακίνησης και πεδίο άσκησης του δικαιώματος στην κατανάλωση. Στα προφίλ του facebook μπορείς να βρείς από τα πολύ trendy γκρουπ για την καταπολέμηση του φαινομένου του θερμοκηπίου μέχρι γκρουπ για την εκστρατεία προστασίας των Σκανδιναβών γυναικείων μοντέλων εσωρούχων (με το αντίστοιχο banner). Αρκετές φορές μάλιστα συμβαίνει κάποιος χρήστης να είναι μέλος και στα δύο. Μπορεί αυτό να γίνεται καθαρά σε όρους “πλάκας” αλλά είναι ενδεικτικό της επιφανειακότητας που προωθεί αυτό το νέο είδος κοινωνικοποίησης.

Το facebook έχει επανειλημμένα βρεθεί στη θέση του κατηγορούμενου από άτομα ή οργανισμούς που ασχολούνται με ζητήματα προστασίας των προσωπικών δεδομένων. Ενώ θεωρητικά υπάρχουν πολλές δικλείδες που ρωτούν το χρήστη αν επιθυμεί την αποκάλυψη ή την προστασία διαφορετικών δεδομένων του προφίλ του, για να μπορεί κάποιος να συμμετέχει πλήρως στην "εμπειρία" που προσφέρει η υπηρεσία πρέπει να επιτρέψει την αποκάλυψη των περισσότερων από αυτά.

Ο ρόλος της εταιρείας που διαχειρίζεται το facebook είναι αντίστοιχος με αυτόν του νομοθέτη που καθορίζει τους όρους διαβίωσης μέσα στο ίδρυμα. Η βασική διαφορά εδώ είναι ότι ο νομοθέτης του facebook βγάζει και μερικά εκατομμύρια κατά τη διαδικασία. Σε αντίθεση με το νομοθέτη βέβαια, η εταιρεία δεν είναι εκλεγμένη από το “λαό” της αλλά λαμβάνει αυτόματα το δικαίωμα άσκησης εξουσίας όταν ο χρήστης αποδέχεται τους όρους χρήσης της υπηρεσίας.

Η θέση του διαμεσολαβητή που έχει η εταιρεία είναι αυτός του διευθυντή της φυλακής. Ο Foucault αναφέρει πως ο διευθυντής μιας φυλακής μπορεί να παράγει κέρδος υποβάλλοντας τους κρατούμενους σε πειράματα για να μετατρέποντας το ίδρυμα σε χώρο πειραμάτων στην ανθρώπινη συμπεριφορά, με τη χρήση της απομόνωσης των εγκλείστων μεταξύ τους και της έκθεσής τους σε διαφορετικές “εργαστηριακές” συνθήκες, ή με την επιβολή καταναγκαστικής εργασίας.

Αυτό είναι αδύνατο στην περίπτωση του facebook γιατί σε αντίθεση με το ιδεατό κατασκεύασμα του panopticon, δεν μπορεί λόγω της άυλης φύσης του να τους αναγκάσει να σπάνε πέτρες ή να γυρίζουν τροχούς. Αντιθέτως θέλει να έχουν όσο το δυνατόν περισσότερο ελεύθερο χρόνο για να μπορούν να ασχολούνται με το προφίλ τους. Ο διευθύνων σύμβουλος της Sun, Jonathan Schwartz, εξηγώντας σε μια ομιλία του την λογική με την οποία αντιμετωπίζει η εταιρεία του τα δίκτυα κοινωνικών σχέσεων στο διαδίκτυο, είχε πει πως το περιεχόμενο που παράγουν οι χρήστες μιας διαδικτυακής “δημόσιας υπηρεσίας”(φωτογραφίες, video, σχόλια κλπ) είναι αυτό που δίνει αξία στην υπηρεσία αυτή. Με απλά λόγια όσο πιο πολλά video ανεβάζουμε στο youtube, τόσο πιο πολύ ανεβαίνει η αξία του δικτύου και κατ' επέκταση η αξία της μετοχής της εταιρείαςⁱⁱ. Το κομμάτι της καταναγκαστικής εργασίας λοιπόν αντικαθιστάται με την εθελοντική, ή καλύτερα εθελούσια ενασχόληση με το site.

Η άλλη όμως δυνατότητα του panopticon να μπορεί να χρησιμοποιείται σαν ζωντανό εργαστήριο έρευνας πάνω στην ανθρώπινη συμπεριφορά δεν μπορεί να πραγματοποιηθεί στο facebook γιατι δεν απομονώνει τους χρήστες του ούτε έχει δυνατότητα επιβολής διαφορετικών συνθηκών στον καθένα ξεχωριστά. Αντίθετα κάνει ότι είναι προγραμματιστικά δυνατό για να βρίσκονται σε διαρκή επαφή και να αλληλοεπηρρεάζονται. Το πείραμα λοιπόν θα πρέπει να πάρει άλλη μορφή για να γίνει αποτελεσματικο, δηλαδή κερδοφόρο. Αυτό επιχειρήθηκε με εισαγωγή μιας νέας “δυνατότητας” που επέτρεπε σε τρίτες εταιρείες να προσθέτουν υπό την μορφή “stories” αγορές και άλλες καταναλωτικές κινήσεις ή συνήθειες ενός χρήστη που θα επισκεπτόταν το site τους. Επί της ουσίας το facebook πούλαγε ή μάλλον καλύτερα νοίκιαζε τους χρήστες του σε τρίτους για την προώθηση των προϊόντων τους. Το αντίστοιχο στην πραγματική ζωή θα ήταν η άμεση ενημέρωση όλων των φίλων και γνωστών σας για ό,τι αγοράζατε και για όποιο κατάστημα επισκεπτόσασταν. Η δυνατότητα αυτή έχει το όνομα “beacon”⁶ και τελικά οι αντιδράσεις χρηστών και οργανισμών προστασίας προσωπικών δεδομένων, υποχρέωσαν τον δημιουργό του facebook σε δημόσια συγνώμη και σε υποχρεωτική ερώτηση προς τον χρήστη κάθε φορά που κάποια εταιρεία ήθελε να προσθέσει οποιαδήποτε τέτοια πληροφορία στο προφίλ του⁷.

Η υπόθεση αυτή είναι σημαντική όχι μόνο γιατί αποτελούσε μια από τις πιο απροκάλυπτες παραβιάσεις των νόμων περί προστασίας προσωπικών δεδομένων κάθε κράτους που έχει τέτοιου είδους νομοθεσία, αλλά και γιατί ήταν ενδεικτικό της σύνδεσης μεταξύ της δικτυακής προσωπικότητας του χρήστη, όπως αυτή καταγράφεται μέσα από το προφίλ του, και της πραγματικής του προσωπικότητας, όπως αυτή καταγράφεται μέσα από τις καταναλωτικές του συνήθειες. Πολλοί χρήστες λόγω νοοτροπίας δεν συνειδητοποιούν ότι οι κινήσεις τους στο διαδίκτυο μπορούν να έχουν αντίκρυσμα στην πραγματική τους ζωή.

Η δυνατότητα του facebook όμως που αποτελεί την επιτομή της εισβολής του ηλεκτρονικού χαφιεδισμούⁱⁱⁱ στην καθημερινή ζωή είναι το “tagging”. Καλύτερος τίτλς θα ήταν και πάλι από μια αφίσα του Brazil: “Don't suspect a friend, report him!” Το tagging είναι η δυνατότητα καταγραφής πάνω σε κάθε εικόνα που αναρτάται, της πληροφορίας του προσώπου που απεικονίζεται. Σε κάθε φωτογραφία που αναρτά κάθε χρήστης έχει τη δυνατότητα να ορίζει περιοχές πάνω στην φωτογραφία που να περιλαμβάνει ένα πρόσωπο και να συσχετίσει τη φωτογραφία με το πρόσωπο αυτό. Ο χρήστης που μαρκάρεται δεν έχει τη δυνατότητα να ελέγξει το αν θέλει να συσχετιστεί το πρόσωπό του με τη συγκεκριμένη φωτογραφία. Δημιουργείται έτσι ένα διαρκές άγχος στις offline κοινωνικές δραστηριότητες. Έχοντας κάποιος στήσει το προφίλ του με προσοχή για να δείχνει αυτό που θέλει, αναγκάζεται να είναι σε ετοιμότητα κάθε φορά που μπορεί να βρεθεί κάπου με κάποιον από τους δικτυακούς του φίλους, έτσι ώστε οποιαδήποτε φωτογραφία τυχόν τραβηχθεί, να αντικατοπτρίζει ορθά το δικτυακό του προφίλ.

Δημιουργείται μια σύνδεση μεταξύ της εικονικής και της πραγματικής προσωπικότητας και συμπεριφοράς που δεν υπάρχει, τουλάχιστον σε τόσο έντονο βαθμό, με άλλες μορφές ηλεκτρονικής κοινωνικοποίησης όπως τα chat, τα forums και τα blogs. Η σύνδεση αυτή επιδιώκεται από το facebook σε κάθε ευκαιρία. Ενδεικτικό της διαφορετικότητας στην προσέγγιση της δικτυακής κοινωνικοποίησης είναι το ότι στους όρους χρήσης που αποδέχεται ο/η χρήστης περιλαμβάνεται η υποχρέωση του να χρησιμοποιήσει το πραγματικό του όνομα και τα πραγματικά του στοιχεία και ακόμα παραπέρα, να τα ανανεώνει τακτικά⁸. Μπορεί αυτό να συμβαίνει για την προστασία διαφόρων δημόσιων προσώπων (πχ ηθοποιοί, πολιτικοί, δημοσιογράφοι κλπ) από τη δημιουργία πλαστών προφίλ, αλλά ταυτόχρονα είναι πρωτοφανές για τα δεδομένα του δικτυακού κόσμου όπως τον ξέραμε μέχρι σήμερα. Επί της ουσίας όσο πιο αξιόπιστα είναι τα στοιχεία του προφίλ του facebook, τόσο πιο ακριβός είναι ο χώρος διαφήμισης που μπορεί να πουλήσει η εταιρεία, μιας και οι διαφημίσεις στο διαδίκτυο είναι στοχευμένες.

Μέσα από αυτή τη σύνδεση, ο πανοπτικός μηχανισμός ελέγχου του facebook περνά από την διαδικτυακή στην πραγματική καθημερινότητα και διαμορφώνει συμπεριφορές και συνήθειες προχωρώντας το μοντέλο του panopticon του Bentham ένα βήμα μπροστά. Το στοιχείο που έλειπε από το panopticon του Bentham επιτέλους συμπληρώθηκε. Πλέον ο επιτηρούμενος έγκλειστος αυτοφυλακίζεται και αυτοεπιτηρείται μέσα σε μία παράδοξη σαδομαζοχιστική κατάσταση όπου ο χρήστης ανταλλάσσει την ιδιωτικότητά του με το δικαίωμα να παραβιάζει την ιδιωτικότητα των υπολοίπων.

“Όλα τα συστήματα ελέγχου προσπαθούν να κάνουν τον έλεγχο όσο το δυνατόν πιο ενδελεχή, αλλά συγχρόνως αν πετύχουν απολύτως δεν θα έχει μείνει τίποτα πια να ελέγξουν. (...) Είναι πολύ αμφισβητήσιμο αν ο ανθρώπινος οργανισμός θα μπορούσε να επιβιώσει κάτω από ολοκληρωτικό έλεγχο. Δεν θα είχε μείνει τίποτα, καμιά προσωπικότητα να ελεγχθεί. Η ζωή είναι θέληση, κίνητρο, και οι εργάτες δεν θα είναι πια ζωντανοί, κυριολεκτικά ίσως.”[Burroughs,1978]⁹

9 William S. Burroughs, “The limits of control”, 1978[2000], μτφ.: Γιώργος-Ικαρος Μπαμπασάκης,

[The "reformatory" of Mettray, north of Tours, France]

[Continues "The Panoptic Society (of Surveillance)"]

Despite (modal/technological) changes in the way that power is exercised—despite, that is to say, the (systemic/structural) change in the regime of power—one function/element remains central to society: namely, penality. This is true even of the panoptic society (of surveillance). The disciplinary regime, like previous regimes, had to figure out (given the modality of power operative in it) how it can punish (this time heavily based on (the results of) surveillance) certain individuals (whom it branded delinquents) in the group (a group, all groups, the organization, the institution, society, the nation, the world, . . .) legally (i.e. under the auspices/discretion of the State). The disciplinary society executed this function in its own—individual(izing) economic disciplinary—way, making disciplinary penality a specifically disciplinary exercise (of power).

Consequent with this change in penality is the change (in face/mode) in the subject (to be) punished. That is to say, the subject constituted by disciplinary penality is different from the subject of other regimes. Different aspects/capacities of this subject are focused on, in line with (according to) disciplinary power’s own demands. Testifying to the coherence of the disciplinary regime (as a system), however, is that fact that this subject is no different from the subject seen elsewhere in the same (disciplinary) regime. It is the same subject found in other activities in which disciplinary power is exercised, i.e. the same subject in other institutions (other “disciplines” such as the school, the hospital, the economy, the military, the government . . .) (performing other functions) (and even non-institutions) exercising the same technology of power.

Foucault describes this new penal subject:

What is now imposed on penal justice as its point of application, its ‘useful’ object, will no longer be the body of the guilty man set up against the body of the king; nor will it be the juridical subject of an ideal contract; it will be the disciplinary individual (227) (my emphasis).

(Even in penality,) The same disciplinary subject, in other words: the subject that is both a docile body and a disciplining soul—individualized.

This subject (to be) punished, then, is suitable—suited—to disciplinary power’s mechanisms and objectives. This subject has been molded (trained) well for (disciplinary activities, reaching its height in) (disciplinary) penalization. The subject’s constitution, in effect, (was done in such a way that the subject so constituted) is apt/ready for punishment. It is known (in the disciplinary regime) how to deal with this subject (potentially to be penalized) because it is the same subject on whom, in other aspects of life (for other objectives, in other (non-)institutions), (disciplinary) power is (already) being exercised—well and economically. Thus the measures/mechanisms in place in the disciplinary regime ensure that its subject—the disciplinary subject—is ready to be, is ripe for, can be punished (disciplinarily).

Foucault lays down the characteristics—or the ideal, at least—of disciplinary penality, characteristics that are consistent with (if not echoing) the workings of disciplinary power in general. Foucault writes:

The ideal point of penality today would be an indefinite discipline: an interrogation without end, an investigation that would be extended without limit to a meticulous and ever more analytical observation, a judgment that would at the same time be the constitution of a file that was never closed, the calculated leniency of a penalty that would be interlaced with the ruthless curiosity of an examination, a procedure that would be at the same time the permanent measure of a gap in relation to an inaccessible norm and the asymptotic movement that strives to meet in infinity (227) (my emphases).

A truly economic exercise of power, in other words (true to the disciplinary ideal).

Thus power—in its disciplinary mode—is exercised in all (or at least the vast majority of) social institutions (and non-institutions)—especially and reaching its height in penality/punishment. Thus (the exercise of) disciplinary power ensures the coherence of its structure (in different (non-)institutions, in different functions), gives coherence to the regime. Thus the disciplinary regime secures/perpetuates itself as different institutions/functions in it employ a unified mechanism of power (i.e. disciplinary power), in fact even feeding back, supporting, and reinforcing this form in each other. Thus is society—in a very real sense—panoptic/disciplinary. (Disciplinary) Penality thus proves to be but one of disciplinary society’s functions (or at least this ancient function can be appropriated such that it becomes essential to (the exercise of) disciplinary power), in fact, (not having lost its potency) (even as surveillance now comes side by side with it) proves to be one of the most important. Hence the title of the book in the French original: Surveiller et punir.

The instrument that carried out this task of punishing—i.e. the instrument that fulfilled the task of disciplinary penality—is none other than the (modern-day) prison. It was in the prison, Foucault claims, that “the theme of the Panopticon [. . .] found [. . .] its privileged locus of realization” (249). The Panopticon (the model, the design, of (the exercise of) disciplinary power in general and disciplinary penality in particular), in other words, found its realization—actualized itself (into an actual, concrete structure) in the prison. The prison actualized the Panopticon. (Some prisons, of course, actualized the Panopticon better than others, based on how meticulously they followed the (intensive) framework.)

Now, as this happened, i.e. as the Panopticon was actualized, Foucault suggests that the prison, from being a mere instrument of penality (i.e. an instrument for enclosure and punishment) (as in its pre-modern form), became an instrument of penitentiary (i.e. an instrument capable of making (bodies) docile, of fulfilling the disciplinary goal). The prison, true to the (new) regime that it’s in, thus became an instrument for (the exercise of) (disciplinary) power (251). Thus the (pre-modern) prison, at its appropriation (by the disciplinary regime), was given a specifically disciplinary form/actualization—turned, that is, into a true disciplinary instrument: the penitentiary.

As mentioned earlier, power in the disciplinary regime does not operate alone. It is intertwined with knowledge, which it reinforces and reinforces it: power/knowledge. The prison (the disciplinary actualization of the most economic individuated exercise of disciplinary power, the Panopticon) is not exempt from this. Thus, the prison, as a means for penality/punishment (in the form of enclosure), mixed the exercise of (penitential) power (on the outlaw as his/her body is made docile) with the additional (yet inextricable (truly economic!)) mechanism of (through surveillance) the formation of knowledge (about the delinquent). True to the French title: surveillance/knowledge and punishment/power.

Knowledge thus comes to play an important role in (the exercise of) power (specifically, in the disciplinary prison). In Foucault’s description:

The prison, the place where the penalty is carried out, is also the place of observation of punished individuals. This takes two forms: surveillance, of course, but also knowledge of each inmate, of his behavior, his deeper states of mind, his gradual improvement; the prisons must be conceived as places for the formation of clinical knowledge about the convicts (249) (my emphases).

Thus, at the same time that s/he is punished and made docile, “the offender becomes an individual to know” based on what is (attempted to be) surveyed about him/her (25). Not just a subject surveyed, then, but “an object of possible knowledge” (251).

Foucault foresees in this additional mechanism (which builds up on but goes beyond mere surveillance)—the formation of knowledge about the subject (in prison)—the constitution of another (aspect of the) subject (so as to better intervene, do something with him, exercise more economically (disciplinary) power). As Foucault says,

From the hands of justice, [the prison] certainly receives a convicted person; but what it must apply itself to is not, of course, the offense, nor even exactly the offender, but a rather different object, one defined by variables which at the outset at least were not taken into account in the sentence, for they were relevant only for a corrective technology” (251) (my emphasis).

This object “relevant only for a corrective technology”—i.e. the object to be intervened with, developed, improved (i.e. the second meaning of the term docile)—that the prison must apply itself to (as a penitentiary apparatus) is none other than the delinquent, a specifically disciplinary penitentiary character (251).

Foucault describes it:

The delinquent is to be distinguished from the offender by the fact that it is not so much his act as his life that is relevant in characterizing him. The penitentiary operation, if it is to be a genuine re-education, must become the sum total existence of the delinquent, making of the prison a sort of artificial and corrective theater in which his life will be examined from top to bottom. The legal punishment bears upon an act; the punitive technique on a life; it falls to this punitive technique, therefore, to reconstitute all the sordid detail of a life in the form of knowledge, to fill in the gaps of that knowledge and to act upon it by a practice of compulsion. It is a biographical knowledge and a technique for correcting individual lives (251-2) (my emphases).

In constituting the delinquent, (the exercise of) disciplinary power—in the actual instance of the penitentiary prison—thus works on—corrects, improves, knows, subjects—a whole/unified biographical individual life—an unprecedented focus on what can be called a “person.”

This person/life is then related to the act/crime committed. As Foucault continues,

The delinquent is also to be distinguished from the offender in that he is not only the author of his acts (the author responsible in terms of certain criteria of free, conscious will), but is linked to his offense by a whole bundle of complex threads (instincts, drives, tendencies, character). The penitentiary technique bears not on the relation between author and crime, but on the criminal’s affinity with his crime (252-3) (my emphases).

Knowledge, thus, not only of the total person but of the totality of everything that affects this person (the “complex threads”) and that this person affects (e.g. the criminal acts, behavior in prison . . . (Has there been any improvement with this subject? Should we parole him/her? What do you think, Doc?)). The target is of course (pertaining both to acts and characteristics) deviance, anomaly, difference. As Foucault explains, “The correlative of penal justice may well be the offender, but the correlative of the penitentiary apparatus is someone other; this is the delinquent, a biographical unity, a kernel of danger, representing a type of anomaly”" (254) (my emphasis). In other words, the strayings from the norm of the total individual person.

This character, it must be remembered, is constituted as a tactic not only of knowledge but of power/knowledge. The delinquent is thus constituted not only to be known—but to have a subject to be known—and intervened (i.e. exercised power on). Power (with the help of knowledge) creating its own object—subject—as it were. As part of its (mutually-reinforcing (in terms of power/knowledge), ever-improving (in terms of the exercise of power)) economy.

In Foucault’s words:

Although it is true that to a detention that deprives of liberty, as defined by law, the prison added the additional element of the penitentiary, this penitentiary element introduced in turn a third character who slipped between the individual condemned by the law and the individual who carries out this law. At the point that marks the disappearance of the branded, dismembered, burnt, annihilated body of the tortured criminal, there appeared the body of the prisoner, duplicated by the individuality of the ‘delinquent,’ by the little soul of the criminal, which the very apparatus of punishment fabricated as a point of application of the power to punish and as the object of what is called today penitentiary science (254-5) (my emphases).

Thus a subject of power/knowledge is constituted: the delinquent.

Moreover, with the addition of knowledge on power, another soul (even though, as established earlier, the focus of disciplinary power is on the body) emerges: the delinquent’s soul (to be known). Thus, in the penitentiary, the soul undergoes a further transformation: it becomes no longer merely the disciplining soul (as in the Panopticon)—but (on top of that) a soul to know—which, as mentioned above, feeds the disciplining of the soul (through the exercise of power). Thus power/knowledge combines the disciplining soul and the soul of social reformist power. A soul to be known that disciplines itself (to be known, to discipline itself . . .). The soul thus becomes an even more economic prison of the body. Contributing to the further mutually reinforcing working of power and knowledge—contributing to the ever more economic exercise of (disciplinary) power.

This delinquent (capable of being known, on whom (disciplinary) power is conveniently exercised) was constituted (as is the trademark of disciplinary power) uniquely and flexibly to make possible this economic working of power/knowledge (under the disciplinary regime). This intermingling of power/knowledge then comes under the banner of that lethal word known as truth. Foucault explains:

The penal justice defined in the eighteenth century by the reformers traced two possible but divergent lines of objectification of the criminal: the first was the series of ‘monsters,’ moral or political, who had fallen outside the social pact; the second was that of the juridical subject rehabilitated by punishment. Now the ‘delinquent’ makes it possible to join the two lines and to constitute under the authority of medicine, psychology or criminology, an individual in whom the offender of the law and the object of a scientific technique are superimposed—or almost—one upon the other. [. . .] In fabricating delinquency, it gave to criminal justice a unitary field of objects, authenticated by the ‘sciences,’ and thus enabled it to function on a general horizon of ‘truth.’ (256) (my emphases).

In this way, the prison (as penitentiary)—following the “truth,” improving individuals (who have become delinquents (who have strayed from the norm and whose lives can be known/understood))—fulfills the demand of disciplinary power to justify itself as it remains out of sight. In Foucault’s words:

The prison [. . .] is the place where the power to punish, which no longer dares manifest itself openly, silently organizes a field of objectivity in which punishment will be able to function openly as treatment and the sentence be inscribed among the discourses of knowledge (256).

Thus the assertion that the prison (as the replacement of public execution) is not so much a “massive enclosure [. . . as a] carefully articulated disciplinary mechanism” (264). The prison, in other words, as the actual (material) fulfillment not only of the Panopticon but of the (rigorous) exercise of disciplinary power itself.

The prison—like the adaptive sophisticated economic regime (of power) it is a part of (i.e. of which it is an actual instantiation)—has its way of incorporating elements that seem to resist it—in fact produces its own (ostensible) resistances as part of its systemic mechanism. This is particularly true, Foucault asserts, in the “critiques” of the prison (which, Foucault claims, “are today repeated almost unchanged”) (265). Critiques of the prison, Foucault notes, did not arise following the prison’s establishment (i.e. when sufficient time has passed and its mechanisms have been observed) nor out of its shortcomings/failings—but rather developed at once, simultaneous with the prison’s establishment (264). Rather than a challenge to the prison, these critiques were, in truth, part of the workings of the system (of prisons). This is the reason, Foucault argues, that the answer to these critiques is (never the abolishment of the prison but) always the improvement—i.e. the making more effective, more economic—of the prison system.

In Foucault’s words:

The answer to these criticisms was invariably the same: the reintroduction of the invariable principles of penitentiary technique. For a century and a half the prison had always been offered as its own remedy: the reactivation of the penitentiary techniques as the only means of overcoming their perpetual failure; the realization of the corrective project as the only method of overcoming the impossibility of implementing it (268) (my emphasis).

Foucault sums up this (State) systemic (prison) mechanism:

One must not, therefore, regard the prison, its ‘failure’ and its more or less successful reform as three successive stages. One should think rather of a simultaneous system that historically has been superimposed on the juridical deprivation of liberty; a fourfold system comprising: the additional, disciplinary element of the prison—the element of ‘superpower’; the production of an objectivity, a technique, a penitentiary ‘rationality’—the element of auxiliary knowledge; the de facto reintroduction, if not actual increase, of a criminality that the prison ought to destroy—the element of inverted efficiency; lastly, the repetition of a ‘reform’ that is isomorphic, despite its ‘idealism,’ with the disciplinary functioning of the prison—the element of utopian duplication (271) (my emphases).

The third element that Foucault mentions—the deliberate duplication of the object/subject on which power is exercised (i.e. criminality)—especially reveals the intent of the exercise of (disciplinary) power (in this case, in the prison; more broadly, in disciplinary mechanisms in general). Briefly said, it reveals a basic mechanism of (disciplinary) power: its creation of the object/subjects on which it can be exercised—for the sake (i.e. with the intent) of exercising (disciplinary) power. The exercise of (disciplinary) power, in other words, for the exercise of (disciplinary) power (in which, in the process, a subject (in this case, the delinquent) is constituted). Foucault uncovers this stunt of (disciplinary) power:

The prison, and no doubt punishment in general, is not intended to eliminate offenses, but rather to distinguish them, to distribute them, to use them; that it is not so much that they render docile those who are liable to transgress the law, but that they tend to assimilate the transgression of the laws in a general tactics of subjection (272) (my emphases).

The prison thus itself maintains the delinquency it creates and is supposed to quell—to make use of it, render it useful (to itself), render it docile—so that (more) (disciplinary) power can be (further) exercised. In this way, the prison’s failure (to eliminate delinquency) (as expressed in its critiques), as Foucault brilliantly argues, in truth constitutes its success.

It is not only its critiques—resistances/objections to it—that are part of the (disciplinary (penitentiary)) system, however. Foucault’s even more important insight is that the very object/subject that is the ostensible target of (i.e. supposed to be solved/eliminated by) (the exercise of) (disciplinary) power is tolerated—in fact, forged—to continue existing so that (the exercise of) (disciplinary) power is itself perpetuated. Resistance to the system—in a very real sense—as itself part of the system—indeed deliberately constituted by the system so as to perpetuate itself. Thus (disciplinary) power’s very purpose—what it is supposed to eliminate, what legitimates its exercise in the first place, the reason it is exercised in the first place—as itself perpetuating (disciplinary) power’s exercise and the (disciplinary) system (of power).
Foucault calls this mechanism (of power creating its own object/subject to exercise (and at the same time legitimate) more power) as the carceral system. In his words:

It is this complex ensemble that constitutes the carceral system. [. . .] The carceral system combines in a single figure discourses and architectures, coercive regulations and scientific propositions, real social effects and invincible utopias, programs for correcting delinquents and mechanisms that reinforce delinquency (271) (my emphases).

Both the delinquent’s correction and reinforcement—for the perpetuation of (the exercise of) (disciplinary) power.

There is a class element in this carceral system (i.e. in the constitution of delinquency (pursued as a “truth”) that (rather than being eliminated) is maintained so as to perpetuate the exercise of (disciplinary) power). Foucault makes the observation that one effect of the disciplinary regime with “the new forms of law, the rigors of the labor regulations, the demands either of the state, or of the landowners, or of the employers, and the most detailed techniques of surveillance”—with the prison at the center—is that “criminals, who were once to be met with in every social class, now emerged ‘almost all from the bottom rank of the social order’” (274, 275).

The prison, in addition, is able to make economic use of this social filtering. As Foucault notes, the prison “isolates, outlines, brings out a form of illegality that seems to sum up symbolically all the others [i.e. delinquency], but which makes it possible to leave in the shade those that one wishes to—or must—tolerate [i.e. those who commit acts distinguished from delinquency]” (277). By thus creating, sustaining, and targeting delinquency (which are often constrained to the bottom class and whose definition can be modified as deemed appropriate), the disciplinary penitentiary system gets to brush aside—thus tolerating—other illegalities (usually committed by those belonging to the upper classes). In thus focusing on delinquency, other (upper class) illegalities are tolerated.

Thus Foucault demystifies “delinquency” as a conceptual tool of (disciplinary) power:

One should not see in delinquency the most intense, most harmful form of illegality, the form that the penal apparatus must try to eliminate through imprisonment because of the danger it represents; it is rather an effect of penality (and of the penality of detention) that makes it possible to differentiate, accommodate and supervise illegalities. No doubt delinquency is a form of illegality, certainly it has its roots in illegality; but it is an illegality that the ‘carceral system,’ with all its ramifications, has invested, segmented, isolated, penetrated, organized, enclosed in a definite milieu, and to which it has given an instrumental role in relation to the other illegalities. In short, although the juridical opposition is between legality and illegal practice, the strategic opposition is between illegalities and delinquency (277) (my emphases).

A tool of disciplinary power in which the prison—disciplinary power’s actual instantiation—plays an important part. Foucault continues:

This process that constitutes delinquency as an object of knowledge is one with the political operation that dissociates illegalities and isolates delinquency from them. The prison is the hinge of these two mechanisms; it enables them to reinforce one another perpetually, to objectify the delinquency behind the offense, to solidify delinquency in the movement of illegalities. So successful has the prison been that, after a century and a half of ‘failures,’ the prison still exists, producing the same results, and there is the greatest reluctance to dispense with it (277) (my emphasis).

Testifying that it is connected not only with the (virtual) mode of power (i.e. disciplinary power) but also with that mode’s (intensive) individuation (i.e. the Panopticon), the (actual) prison, like the Panopticon, disciplines not only its object/subject proper, the delinquent. Taking Mettray as the concrete example (“a prison in that it contained young delinquents condemned by the courts; and yet something else, too, because it contained minors who had been charged but acquitted [. . .] and boarders held [. . .] as an alternative to paternal correction,” “the limit of strict penality,” “the completion of the carceral system”), Foucault notes not only that it bore the hallmarks of the (“complete and austere”) disciplinary institution but also the presence of what he calls the “technicians of behavior” (296-7, 293). These so-called technicians, i.e. those that supervised/administered the convicts/inmates, Foucault points out, were themselves trained and observed—themselves disciplined. Reminiscent of the Panopticon perfecting itself.

Foucault marks this mechanism as the point in which disciplining itself became a discipline. In his words:

[Mettray] was the first training college in pure discipline: the ‘penitentiary’ was not simply a project that sought its justification in ‘humanity’ or its foundations in a ‘science,’ but a technique that was learned, transmitted and which obeyed general norms. The practice that normalized by compulsion the conduct of the undisciplined and dangerous could, in turn, by technical elaboration and rational reflection, be ‘normalized.’ The disciplinary technique became a ‘discipline’ which also had its school (295) (my emphases).

Simultaneous with this was another development: the formation/emergence of the carceral continuum. Foucault explains:

If the apparatus of the great [neo]classical form of confinement was partly (and only partly) dismantled, it was very soon reactivated, rearranged, developed in certain directions. But what is still more important is that it was homogenized, through the mediation of the prison, on the one hand with legal punishments and, on the other, with disciplinary mechanisms. The frontiers between confinement, judicial punishment and institutions of discipline, which were already blurred in the classical age, tended to disappear and to constitute a great carceral continuum that diffused penitentiary techniques into the most innocent disciplines, transmitting disciplinary norms into the very heart of the penal system and placing over the slightest illegality, the smallest irregularity, deviation or anomaly, the threat of delinquency. A subtle, graduated carceral net, with compact institutions, but also separate and diffused methods, assumed responsibility for the arbitrary, widespread, badly integrated confinement of the classical age (297) (my emphases).

In the same way that society has become disciplinary/panoptic, the “disciplines” that compose it—as a direct consequence (they are, after all, the actualization of the same virtual mode of power (i.e. discipline) and intensive schema (i.e. the Panopticon))—became components of the carceral continuum as borders between them are broken down and they each take on the mechanisms of the prison (the, as it were, prime actualization (of discipline and the Panopticon)). Hence carceral continuum: continuum because everything—all (non-)institutions—are connected (in the disciplinary regime/society) in their carceral function, i.e. because they all—each of them—function like prisons. Societal (non-)institutions as a set of prisons to be entered and exited (to enter another one . . .). Society as a prison—the carceral continuum. Thus “the prison transformed the punitive procedure into a penitentiary technique; the carceral archipelago transported this technique from the penal institution to the entire social body” (298).

This great continuity contributes to the economy of (the exercise of) disciplinary power as it gets to apply its vague catch-all term/trap—delinquency—to the whole (continuous) social field. The continuity throughout the social field, as Foucault describes, “made it possible to pass naturally from disorder to offense and back from a transgression of the law to a slight departure from a rule, an average, a demand, a norm,” making the field of illegalities and delinquency fluid and continuous (focused on selectively by the law (of the State), of course (which determines which delinquencies to punish)) (298). “As a result, a certain significant generality moved between the least irregularity and the greatest crime,” thus making it easier to deal with (the amorphous set of) individuals and exercise (disciplinary) power (299).

The basis for the category of delinquency is none other than the norm, the same standard by which (the exercise of) disciplinary power measures individuals (in other activities in which it is operative). Thus, in the penitentiary disciplinary system, the criteria became “no longer the offense, the attack on the common interest [. . . but] the departure from the norm, the anomaly” (299). The norm, in other words, becomes the criteria for (disciplinary) power’s exercise (in this case, to incarcerate), a criteria broad and vague—the more so, the better to make disciplinary power’s exercise more convenient. Thus, as Foucault describes, “With th[e] new economy of power, the carceral system, which is its basic instrument, permitted the emergence of a new form of ‘law’: a mixture of legality and nature, prescription and constitution, the norm” (304).

This criteria is applied not only to the prison or one carceral institution but—being a continuum—the whole carceral continuum, thus (like the Panoptic mechanisms, like the carceral structure) generalizing what Foucault calls “the activity of judging” (304). Everyone thus starts to judge—no longer just him/herself but also others: all. Even greater tasks, in other words, for the disciplining (and known) soul. Foucault describes this mechanism:

Born along by the omnipresence of the mechanisms of discipline, basing itself on all the carceral apparatuses, it has become one of the major functions of our society. The judges of normality are everywhere. We are in the society of the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the ‘social worker’-judge; it is on them that the universal reign of the normative is based; and each individual, wherever he may find himself, subjects to it his body, his gestures, his behavior, his aptitudes, his achievements. The carceral network, in its compact or disseminated forms, with its systems of insertion, distribution, surveillance, observation, has been the greatest support, in modern society, of the normalizing power (304) (my emphasis).

At the same time, “replacing the adversary of the sovereign, the social enemy was transformed into the deviant, who brought with him the multiple danger of disorder, crime and madness,” all linked to each other continually in an equally continuous (social) field—consistent with the total individuality of the person of the delinquent (299-300) (my emphasis). Thus “the carceral network linked, through innumerable relations, the two long, multiple series of the punitive and the abnormal” (300).

At the same time that the total person (i.e. the delinquent) is examined in the totality of his/her alleged/potential “abnormality” (both in terms of health and the law), since what is involved this time is not simply a prison but the whole of society as a carceral continuum, the totality of the social becomes subject to the operations of disciplinary penitentiary power, among whose operations (as explained above) is the constitution of its own object/subject (the delinquent) on which it is exercised. This is the sense that Foucault wants to give when he says that in the carceral continuum there is no outside. In his elaboration:

The carceral network does not cast the unassimilable into a confused hell; there is no outside. It takes back with one hand what it seems to exclude with the other. It saves everything, including what it punishes. [. . .] In this panoptic society of which incarceration is the omnipresent armature, the delinquent is not outside the law; he is, from the very outset, in the law, at the very heart of the law, or at least in the midst of those mechanisms that transfer the individual imperceptibly from discipline to the law, from deviation to offense. Although it is true that prison punishes delinquency, delinquency is for the most part produced in and by an incarceration which, ultimately, prison perpetuates in its turn. [. . .] The delinquent is an institutional product [of that which is supposed to cure/assimilate him . . .]. It is not on the fringes of society and through successive exiles that criminality is born, but by means of ever more closely placed insertions, under ever more insistent surveillance, by an accumulation of disciplinary coercion. In short, the carceral archipelago assures, in the depths of the social body, the formation of delinquency on the basis of subtle illegalities, the overlapping of the latter by the former and the establishment of a specified criminality” (301) (my emphases).

Another thing that the continuity of this carceral network achieves is by connecting all “abnormalities”—from the health to the law—the exercise of (disciplinary) power in all aspects (and not just the law) is legalized, justified, legitimated. The exercise of (disciplinary) power thus loses its arbitrary nature an comes to acquire an almost natural authority—no matter how arbitrary its effects may be. In Foucault’s words:

The great continuity of the carceral system throughout the law and its sentences gives a sort of legal sanction to the disciplinary mechanisms, to the decisions and jugments that they enforce. Throughout this network, which comprises so many ‘regional’ institutions, relatively autonomous and independent, is transmitted, with the ‘prison-form,’ the model of justice itself. The regulations of the disciplinary establishments may reproduce the law, the punishments imitate the verdicts and penalties, the surveillance repeat the police model; and above all these multiple establishments, the prison, which in relation to them is a pure form, unadulterated and unmitigated, gives them a sort of official sanction. [. . .] How could the disciplines and the power that functions in them appear arbitrary, when they merely operate the mechanisms of justice itself, even with a view to mitigating their intensity? (302) (my emphases).

Thus it seems that

the prison does not [. . .] represent the unleashing of a different kind of power, but simply an additional degree in the intensity of a mechanism that has continued to operate since the earliest forms of legal punishment. Between the latest institution of ‘rehabilitation,’ where one is taken in order to avoid prison, and the prison where one is sent after a definable offense, the difference is (and must be) scarcely perceptible. There is a strict economy that has the effect of rendering as discreet as possible the singular power to punish. [. . .] Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline. By means of a carceral continuum, the authority that sentences infiltrates all those other authorities that supervise, transform, correct, improve. [. . . Thus,] in its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating. It receives from them, and from their lesser, smaller task, a sanction from below; but one that is no less important for that, since it is the sanction of technique and rationality. The carceral ‘naturalizes’ the legal power to punish, as it ‘legalizes’ the technical power to discipline. In thus homogenizing them, effacing what may be violent in one and arbitrary in the other, attenuating the effects of revolt that they may both arouse, thus depriving excess in either of any purpose, circulating the same calculated, mechanical and discreet methods from one to the other, the carceral makes it possible to carry out th[e] great economy of power (302-3) (my emphases).

The carceral continuum thus constitutes a univocal field in which everything (all activities, no matter the differences in nature) is connected, in which (disciplinary) power is exercised in the same way (as in the prison)—naturalizing the ways of discipline (both surveillance and punishment), ensuring/fulfilling the efficient and effective—economic—exercise of (disciplinary) power.

Foucault ends the book (in some ways, a punishing survey) by describing the society he considers discipline to have produced—the society that has remained since its inception (in the modern (Neoclassical) age) and despite its supersession (by later regimes)—the society that he calls the carceral society:

At the center of this city, and as if to hold it in place, there is, not the ‘center of power,’ not a network of forces, but a multiple network of diverse elements—walls, spaces, institution, rules, discourse; that the model of the carceral city is not, therefore, the body of the king, with the powers that emanate from it, nor the contractual meeting of wills from which a body that was both individual and collective was born, but a strategic distribution of elements of different natures and levels. That the prison is not the daughter of laws, codes or the judicial apparatus; that it is not subordinated to the court and the docile or clumsy instrument of the sentences that it hands out and of the results that it would like to achieve; that it is the court that is external and subordinate to the prison. That in the central position that it occupies, it is not alone, but linked to a whole series of ‘carceral’ mechanisms which seem distinct enough—since they are intended to alleviate pain, to cure, to comfort—but which all tend, like the prison, to exercise a power of normalization. That these mechanisms are applied not to transgressions against a ‘central’ law, but to the apparatus of production—‘commerce’ and ‘industry’—to a whole multiplicity of illegalities, in all their diversity of nature and origin, their specific role in profit and the different ways in which they are dealt with by the punitive mechanisms. And that ultimately what presides over all these mechanisms is not the unitary functioning of an apparatus or an institution, but the necessity of combat and the rules of strategy. That, consequently, the notions of institutions of repression, rejection, exclusion, marginalization, are not adequate to describe, at the very center of the carceral city, the formation of the insidious leniencies, unavowable petty cruelties, small acts of cunning, calculated methods, techniques, ‘sciences’ that permit the fabrication of the disciplinary individual. In this central and centralized humanity, the effect and instrument of complex power relations, bodies and forces subjected by multiple mechanisms of ‘incarceration,’ objects for discourses that are in themselves elements for this strategy, we must hear the distant roar of battle (308).

Bibliography

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1977.

From the Democrat and Chronicle - June 21, 2008

Police Officer Daouda Kamagate [LIE - an astute commenter on democratandchronicle.com noticed that the man pictured IS NOT A POLICE OFFICER, rather he is an unsworn security guard. Technicality? I think not] zooms in on a scene caught by one of the new surveillance cameras around Rochester. Twelve of the cameras were operating on Friday, and 38 more will be ready later this summer. (VICTORIA FREILE staff photographer)

Locations - Cameras are operating already at the following spots in Rochester: 

Avenue D and Baumann Street.

Redwing Plaza at 
1415 N. Clinton Ave.

Jefferson Avenue and Champlain Street.

Plymouth Avenue and Lorimer Street. 

South Plymouth Avenue and Violetta Street.

Woodward and Scio streets.

Chili and Post avenues.

North Clinton and 
Scrantom streets.

North and Durnan streets.

Parsells Avenue and Greeley Street.

Charlotte Street.

Emerson Street.
Two additional cameras were being installed Friday and were expected to be operational this weekend. Those are at Dewey Avenue and Driving Park and Dewey and Electric avenues.

The political establishment in city after city is putting cameras in and the people are told that it is going to make us all safer. Now it's Rochester's turn to get cameras and they want us to buy the same lies. I don't think that we the people are this gullible. The evidence that this is a farce is in London, UK, where not only have the millions of CCTV cameras not been able to stop a rise in crime, but they are also not able to solve crimes that occur under their watch. Here are a few articles for reading:

CCTV boom has failed to slash crime, say police - guardian.co.uk

Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.

Tens of Thousands of CCTV Cameras, Yet 80% of Crime Unsolved - thisislondon.co.uk

 

London has 10,000 crime-fighting CCTV cameras which cost £200 million, figures show today.

But an analysis of the publicly funded spy network, which is owned and controlled by local authorities and Transport for London, has cast doubt on its ability to help solve crime.

 

Lonon: Panopticon Cracks - defensetech.org

Londoners are seen on the city's vast amalgam of surveillance cameras an average of 300 times a day. Which means that the terrorists behind yesterday's bombings almost certainly knew they'd be caught on tape -- and went ahead with their attacks anyway.

Cameras 'fail to reduce crime' - Independent, The (London)

Researchers at South Bank University have monitored the effect of introducing the cameras in Sutton, south London. Crime fell by 13 per cent in the area where the cameras were installed. However, it decreased by 30 per cent in the borough as a whole.

More articles can be found, but the consensus is the same. The statistics are so overwhelming that the cameras aren't doing anything to stop crime that it should be obvious what path we need to avoid here. Who really wants to feel like we're living in a prison?

And yet, only weeks into their operational duty, the Democrat and Chronicle has kissed butt and declared success for the cameras. The headline reads:

Police cameras lead to 7 drug-related arrests in 3 weeks in Rochester

Wow, really? Seven whole arrests? In only 3 weeks?!?! That's about (52/3*7=121.333) drug arrests a year!

Oh wait a minute....SO WHAT. Think about it. Most drug users and dealers are non-violent and criminalizing drugs and going after them in the so called 'War on Drugs' has only given further incentive to the remaining dealers to become more violent by increasing the money to be made in drugs. The scarcity causes the trade to become profitable causing gangs to rise up and territory to be fought after. If you want to see the whole story, then you need to see this movie:

(American Drug War - trailer)

This movie exposes the American Drug War for the scam that it is. The government ships in the drugs, sells the drugs, busts you for drugs, puts you in private prisons owned by the banks and then the banks reinvest their money to do it all over again.

Official website: americandrugwar.com

This brings me to my next point. Even if the cameras around the city did lead to more 'drug-related' arrests, is this what we were promised? Weren't we promised a reduction in violent crimes? How about property crimes? This was a classic bait and switch. Although we were promised that these cameras will reduce violent crime the Democrat and Chronicle is more than willing to sound the victory horn over a few drug arrests.

Underlying all of this is my fundamental believe that a surveillance society cannot be a free society. If you truly want liberty then you must be opposed to police-state surveillance. Not because you've done anything wrong or are planning to, but because you have your human dignity. It is ultimately the social fabric of society, the bonds between neighbors in neighborhoods and a respect for life that will reduce crime in our city, not endless surveillance.

I'll end with a quote from Duffy himself:

"It's a great deterrent"... Some people have moved down the road, then out of the camera's range, the mayor said.

So what you're saying is that it has deterred people from selling drugs on that corner, but now they've just moved down the road? Wow I bet a child could have seen that one coming.

MySpace Is The Trojan Horse Of Internet Censorship
Media elite's last gasp effort to save crumbling empire

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com | March 16 2006

MySpace isn't cool, it isn't hip and it isn't trendy. It represents a cyber trojan horse and the media elite's last gasp effort to reclaim control of the Internet and sink it with a stranglehold of regulation, control and censorship.

Since Rupert Murdoch's $580 Million acquisition of MySpace in July 2005, it has come from total obscurity to now being the 8th most visited website in the world, receiving half as many page hits as Google, despite the fact that on first appearance it looks like a 5-year-old's picture scrap and scribble book.

MySpace is the new mobile phone. If you don't have a MySpace account then you belong to some kind of culturally shunned underclass.

What most of the trendy wendy's remain blissfully unaware of is the fact that MySpace is Rupert Murdoch's battle axe for shaping a future Internet environment whereby electronic dissent, whether it be against corporations or government, will not tolerated and freedom of e-speech will cease to exist.

MySpace has been caught shutting down blogs critical of itself and other Murdoch owned companies. They even had the audacity to censor links to completely different websites when clicking through for MySpace. When 600 MySpace users complained, MySpace deleted the blog forum that the complaints were posted on. Taking their inspiration from Communist China, MySpace regularly uses blanket censorship to block out words like 'God'.

Earlier this week Rupert Murdoch sounded the death knell for conventional forms of media in stating that the media elite were losing their monopoly to the rapid and free spread of new communication technologies. Murdoch stressed the need to regain control of these outlets in order to prevent the establishment media empire from crumbling.

MySpace is Rupert Murdoch's trojan horse for destroying free speech on the Internet. It is a foundational keystone of the first wave of the state's backlash to the damage that a free and open Internet has done to their organs of propaganda. By firstly making it cool, trendy and culturally elite for millions to flock to establishment controlled Internet backbones like MySpace, Murdoch is preparing the groundwork for the day when it will stop being voluntary and become mandatory to use government and corporate monopoly controlled Internet hubs.

The end game is a system similar to or worse than China, whereby no websites even mildly critical of the government will be authorized.

The Pentagon admitted that they would engage in psychological warfare and cyber attacks on 'enemy' Internet websites in an attempt to shut them down. The fact that the NSA surveillance program spied on 5,000 Americans tells us that the enemy is the alternative media and that it will be targeted for elimination. Google has been ordered to turn over information about its users by a judge to the US government.

The second wave of destroying freedom of speech online will simply attempt to price people out of using the conventional Internet and force people over to Internet 2, a state regulated hub where permission will need to be obtained directly from an FCC or government bureau to set up a website.

The original Internet will then be turned into a mass surveillance database and marketing tool. The Nation magazine reported, "Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out."

The original Internet will deliberately be subject to crash upon crash until it becomes a useless carcass of overpriced trash and its reputation will be defiled by the TV and media barons cashing in on the perfectly streamlined Internet 2, the free for all network that just requires you to thumbscan in order to log on! Those with a security grading below yellow on their national ID card will unfortunately be refused access. Websites that carry hate speech (ones that talk about government corruption) will be censored for the betterment of society.

For the aspiring dictator, the Internet is a dangerous tool that has been seized by the enemy. We have come a long way since 1969, when the ARPANET was created solely for US government use. The Internet is freedom's best friend and the bane of control freaks. Its eradication is one of the short term goals of those that seek to centralize power and subjugate the world under a global surveillance panopticon prison.

Rupert Murdoch's MySpace and its ceaseless promotion by the establishment media as the best thing since sliced bread is part of this movement. In saying all this we do encourage everyone to set up a MySpace account, but only if you're going to use it to bash MySpace, Rupert Murdoch and copy and paste this article right at the top of the page! See how long it is before your account is terminated.

Il potere simbolico è quel tipo potere di ascendenza coloniale, nel quale il cittadino si sente “naturalizzato”, perché partecipe di una circolazione di immagini, segni che lo legittimano apparentemente e lo rendono schiavo,o meglio ancora, incapace di “intendere e volere” dinnanzi a tali segni. La mondializzazione ha lavorato in tutti questi anni oltre ai mercati finanziari, abbeveratoi dei potenti e delle grandi società, sul sociale, investendo consumi, stili di vita, costruiti attorno ad un’immagine preparata “scientificamente” ed edificata sul benessere.

Questa colonizzazione dell’immaginario mossa dai media e dalla comunicazione, muove milioni di migratori che fanno le spese con il loro carattere illusorio tra legittime aspirazioni, trovandosi così al centro della grande sala del consumo. Non potendo vivere nelle piazze centrali delle città, oramai il modello orwelliano richiesto dai cittadini, assuefatti ai controlli, alla dominazione e al bisogno di essere spiati, rafforza anche la periferia, che a sua volta, avvistata la distanza, alza muri di granito, comodi al centro.

Il centro vive di talmente alto benessere che non ha bisogno di entrare nel gioco dei mercati e il taglio di forbice aperto con la periferia lo porta all’ isolamento maggiormente augurato , ma anche all’ossessione convinta dell’altro; alla paura. Di conseguenza si sviluppa un clima di imbastardimento versole razze inferiori provenienti dalla periferia. Si ricrea così un modello ottocentesco incentrato sul determinismo razziale. Si, perché la periferia è la colonizzata vera al consumo, quella attraverso cui i mercati finanziari, riempiono le loro casse ecc.. E nelle periferie si formeranno tutti quei “popoli discariche”, quelle generazioni di rifiuto da smaltire che fanno così piacere perché diventano depositi di energie manuali. Nelle grandi città possono vivere tranquillamente più civiltà disparate tra loro, affinché vi siano le dovute distanze e soprattutto sia potenziato il controllo. E proprio Carl Marx ne il Capitale rivelò quanto la merce sia un modo per giustificare la propria alienazione: un’illusione nata e sviluppatasi con la stessa forza degli dèi. Essa da un illusione di un rapporto sociale diretto tra gli uomini, come i sacramenti danno un’illusione diretto e mistico tra divinità e futuro.

I corpi nelle periferie perdono la loro originalità, perché adombrati alle marci ed al loro carattere di feticcio che li investe pienamente. La metamorfosi che il corpo subisce va oltre il make up, il trucco. Il corpo nelle periferie è marchiato da vere e proprie segnature, diventa frammentario, avido di un marchio identitario e di gruppo. I corpi mostrano così una loro illusoria protesta, ma soprattutto una forte incapacità di resistere, di combattere. Il corpo è semplicemente incanalato nel flusso coloniale del XXI secolo.

Alessandro Dionisi

The book focuses around the fact that the people you're trying to market to are, in fact, people, who are talking amongst themselves. They are having meaningful conversations and are using the internet to connect to more people who want to be in that conversation. This resonates incredibly strongly today, when so many companies are trying to be part of The Conversation.

The Cluetrain Manifesto starts by setting out 95 Theses, each one more insightful than the last. They are full of such simplicity in their brilliant logic that they elicit the 'well I could have written that. If they hadn't. 10 years ago.'

The thesis that stands out most poignantly to me is number 21 "Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humour". This little nugget of wisdom succintly sums up that element of fear that companies have when participating in social media. If you don't lighten up, you will be found out. People will realise that who they're actually talking to is not a person at all, but a not so well oiled marketing machine. Pretty soon they will lose interest and won't want to talk to you again. Except maybe to make fun of you. By lightening up and losing that fear you will be actually be able to talk with your markets and the value of this should not be overlooked.

While I agree with the theories in the Cluetrain Manifesto, I think that one argument can be developed further. Christopher Locke states that in the 18th Century, Jeremy Bentham developed the idea of the panopticon - a circular prison in which the inmates could always be seen, but couldn't see their jailers. He states that now, the overseer (the media) is "mounted on a pin for all to view". I take a different stance on this. The purpose of the panopticon was on self-regulation, since you never knew when you were being watched, you behaved all the time. So what happens if we take Locke's interpretation of the panopticon, and invert it, placing the user, previously the inmate as a slave to media, as the overseer? Now, the inmates have the power - they can download the annual reports or read the disgruntled customer's blog. Companies are then forced, more than ever, to self-regulate. Since they can never be sure who's watching them, they must be faultless. Only when you realise that you are being watched all the time and that secrecy is not an option, do you begin to learn that there really is nowhere left to air your dirty laundry. You have to be clean or, even better, admit your faults and ask your market for help. It's scary, but it's good.

inside-flap-b
*У меня нет и намёка браваду или желание посоревноваться.

Если я прохожу по улице мимо страшногочеловека, то опускаю голову вниз, чтобы не встретиться с ним глазами, и по-быстрому прошмыгиваю в сторонке.
*а вверх, вверх её можно опускать?
**альсо, да, "встретиться глазами" -- без вариантов крута

1
пришли они, неся черные облака войны.
*так ставите вы ё, али нет?

2-3
эдитор: Джедай_SN, Proton
*един в двух лицах, не иначе

4
XI век, территория королевства франков.
*да, просто "королевство франков" -- это не по-пацански
**и не ставят точку в таких облаках, не ставят

5
пэнг
*вай, няшненько

8
*"стройся", но "готовьсь"

10
Отступление!!!
*это кто кому кричит?.. "отходим", да, понятно; "отступаем" -- тоже понятно; даже "отступают" -- и то понятно... а "отступление"? это чья-то извращённая радость так проявляется, или чего оно вообще выражает?..

11
Если все горожане объединятся,
*кто, говорите, "корректор"-то?..

Угх...
*ы-ы-ых, ду ю андерстенд май барбариан рашн?

Озеро защитит нас с тыла.
*какбэ оно в виде "С тыла мы прикрыты озером." много приличнее смотрится

12
Нападающие отступили.
*"Осаждающие" ужо не в моде... Устарело слово, быстро язык меняется, ничего не поделаешь...

14
Мы присоединимся к битве.
*Чу?!.. де битва? отступили все?.. то есть нет, я помню, что слово "осада" уже не в моде... но битва-то где?

15
"Ваши тактика и стратегия достойны жалости!
Я не могу больше смотреть на них".
"Тем не менее, наша армия желает помочь.
Это ваша великая удача. Мы откроем вам дорогу к победе."
"Утром, когда крепость падёт, мы заберём половину добычи.
Завтра утром атакуйте ещё раз."
*"Ваши тактика и стратегия просто убоги! Даже смотреть противно. Но мы вам всё же поможем. Вам крупно повезло, потому что мы откроем вам путь к победе. Утром крепость падёт, половина добычи -- наша. Атакуйте на рассвете."
**это я к чему... а хз, запамятовал...

16
Ты знаешь, чего я хочу, Аскеладд.
*ну, не в первый раз встречается, но тем не менее... какбэ это не Аскольд, часом?..

Я просто сострил.
*идиотский подбор слов для этой конкретной фразы

18
Есть тут говорящие на скандинавском языке?
*чую я, что анлейт готовит нам много открытий чудных...

21
...что лобовая атака на ворота не даст ничего кроме трупов.
*уж на что я пунктуацию не люблю и не умею, однако ж...

У обороняющихся меньше людей.
*Ага, прозреваю ещё одно устаревшее слово -- "осаждённых"... цепочка устаревания, гы

К этому озеру на лодке не проплыть!
*Все татары кроме я!

22
Единственный путь, ведущий в озеро, -- река, вытекающая из неё. Она порожистая и с водопадами.
*три раза ы
**так "в" озеро, или "к" озеру
***река, вытекающая из самоё себя... чудно, чудно... "кто, говорите, "корректор"-то?.." (с)
****завершение, нутром чую, не менее лулзово...

23
Хмф.
*ду ю андерстенд май барбариан рашн?

Я убью тебя, если твои слова окажутся ложью.
*ай эм алсоу капабле оф спикинг ингриш.

Но если они правдивы, я клянусь Иисусом Христом, что поделю победные трофеи поровну.
*не, был, конечно, Иисус Навин, спору нет... И в средние века Библию, предположительно, знали так, что от зубов отскакивало... но...
**альсо, "победные трофеи" -- а бывают другие какие-то?.. "о сколько нам открытий чудных..." (с)

Могу я получить назад свой клинок?
*уж простите мне моё скудоумие, но "клинка" у него два... со вторым что?.. галлы ноги приделали, а паренёк, доселе принципияльной, сделал вид, что так и надо?..

24
О-о да. В этом месте.
*ай эм алсоу капабле оф спикинг ингриш. (с)

Может их всего и 100, но это лучше, чем быть их врагами.
*мало того, что шрифт нечитабельный, а меж слов интервалы уёбищные... так тут ещё и цифры скукожились... мдя...

25
Башка огромна!
*ужс=ужс
*и букву "Б" зажевало малость

26
Есть, сир!
*вот любопытно, в анлейте действительно "sire"?..

27
Они атакуют на рассвете.
*см. выше

Хорошо, этого времени нам более чем достаточно.
*вот нутром чувствую, что здесь что-то не так... не запятые, но что...

49
Гребите!!! Полная скорость!!!
*спидометр подкручивают, что ли?..

53
80 человек на правый фланг, к причалам! Не дать им высадиться!
*во-первых, положим, "не дайте", а не "не дать"... или "не давайте"
*во-вторых, здесь незаметное убожество задействованного в лейте шрифта -- цифирьки усохли напрочь
*в-третьих, здесь незаметное убожество задействованного в лейте шрифта, но ещё одно -- восклицательный знак сливается с буковками... неприятно выходит, чесс слово

Отряд арбалетчиков, двигайтесь! Быстро!!!
*"Арбалетчики, бегом! Бегом!!!"

56
По возможности используйте весь боезапас!
*а теперь остановитесь на секундочку и подумайте, насколько идиотское это распоряжение

59
Они прекратили стрельбу...
*"Короче говоря, канцелярит – это мертвечина." (с) известно чей

67
Они отправились преградить путь кораблям и не вернулись!!!
Они не возвращаются!!!
*г-да лейтоделы... вы свой лейт читать пробовали?.. или всё в перерисовку звуков ушло?..

68
Тут должно быть не менее 200 обороняющихся воинов!!!
*про "цепочку устаревания" я ужо писал
**что странно -- здесь цифирьки-то нормальные

70
Тот крысёныш сделал это?
*я бы, будь я менее сдержан, означил сие исчерпывающей характеристикой данного лейта
**но не буду

Даже такого ребёнка...
*ужс=ужс... трудились-трудились, звуки перерисовывали, а такое зевнули :D

71
Вдобавок, они будут нагружены и, значит, замедленны всем тем добром.
*нн?
**каким ещё тем?.. нет пока никакого

75
Жулики!!!
*Не верю!

77
Ты крепкий орешек, ты знаешь?
*ужс=ужс

78
Так ты всё-таки сделал это.
*иногда они возвращаются

81
Но ты же видел их, Фэнгс...
*без анлейта я бы ничего утверждать не стал... но уж больно похоже на лулзы...

84
В течение трёхсот лет, с VI века...
...жил северо-европейский народ, славившийся драконьими головами на своих судах.
*"Настоящим программистам не нужны комментарии — код говорит за себя сам" (с)

85
Западная Европа, Русь, Северная Африка, Византия, Малая Азия и даже Средний Восток...
Они появлялись во многих землях, где сражались, грабили и отступали.
На старо-франкском их звали норманнами.
В Англии - данами, в Византии - русами или росами.
*"...код говорит за себя сам" (с)

86-87
Позднее они станут известны как викинги.
*"...код говорит за себя сам" (с)

Imagínense que están siendo vigilados. Imagínense, mejor, que podrían estar siendo vigilados. Podrían también no estarlo. ¿Quién sabe? Si usted, pongamos que en el trabajo, fuese plenamente consciente de esta posibilidad... ¿Se permitiría hacer aviones de papel? ¿Robar bolígrafos? ¿Tomarse más de cinco minutos de descanso para fumar? ¿Hablar mal del jefe?

Sobre una premisa parecida nace el concepto del Panóptico (o Panopticón), un modelo de prisión inventado en 1791 por el filósofo británico Jeremy Bentham que disponía las celdas de los prisioneros de manera que pudieran ser permanentemente vigiladas por un solo guardia. Permanentemente vigiladas. O quizás sólo unos minutos al día. O quizás no estuvieran vigiladas en realidad...

La cárcel de Bentham, que en su día surgió como un invento eminentemente práctico (podía reducirse el personal de vigilancia de las prisiones al tiempo que el riesgo de fuga de los reos) suscitó siglos después un apasionante debate en el seno de la Filosofía contemporánea. El principal responsable de la teoría filosófica del panóptico fue el francés Michel Foucault, quien en su obra Vigilar y Castigar rescató casi dos siglos más tarde el Panopticón del filósofo británico e intentó imaginar como sería su aplicación en contextos diferentes al de la prisión, como el sistema educativo o el laboral.

Hoy día, en el mundo de las firmas electrónicas, las cámaras de videovigilancia, la comunicación por satélite o la piratería virtual, esta idea cobra un sentido de vital trascendencia. Así, diferentes disciplinas humanas, como la Literatura, la Filosofía o el Arte, se han acercado a la realidad del panóptico para estudiar aspectos tan esenciales del ser humano como la dignidad, la privacidad o lo público.

Inauguramos con esta explicación el especial de este mes de junio. Si el mes pasado WEGO dedicó una sección especial al Espíritu del 68, con motivo del 40º Aniversario del mayo francés, en esta ocasión trataremos de acercar a nuestros visitantes a la realidad de este fenómeno a través de diferentes experiencias realizadas por artistas e investigadores.

La redacción de esta revista espera conseguirlo. Si no es así, no duden en hacérnoslo saber haciendo uso de su libertad de expresión. Nadie les estará vigilando...