Michel Foucault: Power and Struggle
The only Foucault I can claim to have read is &#x27;Discipline and Punish&#x27;. In particular, the idea that stuck with me most was his description of the Panopticon, the building model developed by Jeremy Bentham - primarily for use as a prison.<p>For those that aren&#x27;t familiar with the Panopticon, the simple explanation is that it&#x27;s a circular building with a &#x27;watchtower&#x27; in the middle. The watchman is at the top of the watchtower and the windows of the watchtower are slatted  such that those being watched cannot tell if the person inside is looking at them. This means that they essentially must assume that they could be monitored and watched at any given time and have no way to determine if they are not currently being watched.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Panopticon" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Panopticon</a><p>Short bit from the Wikipedia page for the Panopticon related to Foucault:<p>&gt; Foucault first came across the panopticon architecture when he studied the origins of clinical medicine and hospital architecture in the second half of the 18th century. He argued that discipline had replaced the pre-modern society of kings, and that the panopticon should not be understood as a building, but as a mechanism of power and a diagram of political technology.<p>This idea to me extended to the modern age of digital technology and the fact that (especially after the documents that Snowden revealed) practically whenever you are using modern technology, you could be watched and you wouldn&#x27;t know it. This according to Foucault is an astounding amount of power that is being used as a lever against you - it in essence ensures that people will always behave as if they are being watched, even if they actively are not. And I believe studies have shown that people will act differently if they think they are being watched. I find the idea so fascinating that I strike up conversations in real life with people about the Panopticon every chance I have.<p>Perhaps fortunately, this model has only ever been used in one real prison in Cuba - slight aside, Fidel Castro and his brother Raul were actually imprisoned here for a period of time.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Presidio_Modelo" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Presidio_Modelo</a>