Foucault Fo Sho

“He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.” (99)

I found this passage from Foucault particularly interesting. He goes on to talk about how many different types of social institutions use the Panopticon principle of power to create/maintain social order and discipline. When reading these excerpts, I could not help but think about religion.

Religion keeps order by creating the identity of its followers. The dogma assigns a particular relationship between the practitioner, and the ultimate power: God. The concept of God is the same as the idea of the guard in the central tower, and relies on the same principles to create order. With God, all people are constantly visible; God is omniscient and omnipresent, he knows where you are and what you are doing at all times.

The concept of God one-ups the Panopticon mechanism, because God’s vigilance is not unverifiable. In a prison, it is important that the inmates do not know when they are being watched. The presence of surveillance must be unverifiable. God does one better: God is always watching. There is no guess work with God, you don’t wonder—you ARE being watched.

Practitioners of a religion are the ones always in the field of visibility. Because we know that we are being watched by the ultimate authority at all times, we internalize the “will of God” (as outlined by the dogma of our religion), and we thus become the principle of our own subjection. We do all that we can to avoid offending God. The desire to remain part of the dominant binary opposition (of those going to heaven, as opposed to those going to hell) also provides us with incentive to follow the rules. The fear of being outcast by the other members of our religious community further fuels our fear and encourages us to remain disciplined and behave “properly.”