Panopticism

One modern day example of “panopticism” can been seen in China, where the population is too big for the country to support each individual. As a result, in the 1960s, the Chinese government enacted the ‘one-child’ policy, where each Chinese family could only have one child. However, due to culture and family conflicts, female infanticide was practiced, as families with boys were able to keep the family name and money, and also felt superior to other families with a girl. This type of panopticism separated Chinese families and also attempted to regulate the population in controlling, subtle and unseen forces. This example relates to the text as this type of panopticism “as a negative effect” (Foucault 233); as it hurt the Chinese culture more than helping the countries population issues.


Another modern day example of “panopticism” could be a hospice. A hospice is a center for patients who know they will die in a short time and need constant assistance. This type of panopticism keeps those who are fatally ill out of the modern day and in contact of the rest of the world. Also, nursing homes and prisons could be other ways to control those who could pass illnesses or harm from society and would constitute as being an example of panopticism. Nursing homes and hospices could be related to Foucault’s example of the plague, where there was a “strict spatial partitioning…and the division of town into distinct quarters, each governed by an intendant” (229). The partitioning, in this case, is the separation from the old and dying from the young and society, the division of town into distinct quarters could be the separation of the old and sick depending on their illness and state, and the intendant would be the individuals helping those in these facilities.