Premium
The theory of Panoptical control: Bentham's Panopticon and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty‐Four
Author(s) -
Strub Harry
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
journal of the history of the behavioral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.216
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1520-6696
pISSN - 0022-5061
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6696(198901)25:1<40::aid-jhbs2300250104>3.0.co;2-w
Subject(s) - panopticon , jeremy bentham , prison , sociology , control (management) , social control , realization (probability) , philosophy , epistemology , law , computer science , social science , political science , criminology , artificial intelligence , mathematics , statistics , politics
The basic idea of panoptical control is that people will obey the prevailing rules and norms when they know they are being watched. The theory was developed by Jeremy Bentham 200 years ago when he designed an architecturally and managerially innovative model prison called Panopticon. Along with his Utopian Panopticon‐poorhouse scheme, Bentham's vast plans have been viewed as the most thorough combination of physical and social engineering ever devised. The various elements of panoptical control theory received their most systematic realization in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty‐four . The novel serves to illustrate the theory and also to suggest Orwellian overtones to Bentham's plans, which were quite antithetical to his Utilitarian philosophy.