A Commonplace Book

"He is the object of information, never a subject in communication" Foucault points out. The Panopticon's power was "visible and unverifiable" — that is, the inmate could not see the inspector, only the looming tower: he would never know when he was actually under surveillance. This uncertainty, along with the inmate's isolation and loss of privacy, is the means of his compliance and subordination. Uncertainty becomes the principle of his own subjection. It assures that, in Foucault words: "surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if discontinuous in its action". And thus Foucault draws our attention to our own very modern condition, locked within: "a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power".