Michel Foucault’s concept of the Panopticon as a theory of society and power was inspired by a plan for a highly efficient model for a prison originally designed by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. This system, for Bentham, allows for a highly efficient prison in which only one guard can supervise many prisoner, and in fact even no guard since the prisoners act on their own as if they are being watched. Here’s how Wikipedia describes a panopticon prison:

Residing within cells flooded with light, occupants would be readily distinguishable and visible to an official invisibly positioned in the central tower. Conversely, occupants would be invisible to each other, with concrete walls dividing their cells. Due to the bright lighting emitted from the watch tower, occupants would not be able to tell if and when they are being watched at any given, making discipline a passive rather than an active action. Strangely, the cell-mates act in matters as if they are being watched, though they cannot be certain eyes are actually on them. There is a type of invisible discipline that reigns through the prison, for each prisoner self-regulates, in fear that someone is watching their every move.

Foucault wrote about the Panopticon as an analogy in a theory of power. Discipline works to produce individuals who act “on their own” within the interest of power. Society is structured in ways that constantly polices and disciplines your individual expression of the self whenever it deviates too much from what is considered acceptable by authority, or those that hold power. This isn’t just legal consequences, but personal. The fear of punishment means people monitor each other for deviations that might draw the wrath of the Panopticon, from challenging the established social order such as the patriarchy, to challenging wealth and power through means like union recruiting, to challenging the legitimacy of a ruling regime. The Panopticon applies in many of what we consider the organizing units of society. Schools, the workplace, out in public, around family, on social media, around your friends, all contain a set of implicit rules about how you must behave and the sense that the guards are always watching, ready to discipline you for any transgression from those rules.

The power of the Panopticon lies in the constant monitoring of ourselves. Prisoners in the Panopticon jail can’t see each other or the guard, but the guard can see everybody and in fact does not even have to be there in order to discipline the prisoners. The prisoner, not knowing if he is being watched or not, must at all times act as if he is being watched by the guard, and in time he himself becomes his own guard.

This type of power is long-lasting, anonymous and highly disciplinary. The Panopticon is an instrument for the transformation of individuals. It allows the system to observe, document and study them, and the knowledge of being documented and classified means individuals conform to categories and boundaries of what each institution of power can and cannot accept. With enough self-policing and conformance, practices become habits and habit becomes character, and the individual exists completely shaped by whichever Panopticon has had him in its gaze.