Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
Other than the first chunk of reading being on the bit disturbing side, this was actually intensely interesting reading and discussion. As a class we discussed some hard hitting topics, ranging from historical transition described in the text to social mechanisms to education (of course). At one point, we even took a turn to discussing the various crimes CSI and other popular shows fail to consider. Ultimately, it seemed like everything connected to or tied in with the idea of the panoptican, whether personal or actual.
The idea of the panopticon is quite interesting, especially when you consider how we, as a society, construct our personal versions. We keep our society from slipping into utter chaos by internalizing the power structure-- the idea is that someone is always watching us, no matter what. So if I'm in a candy store by myself and I steal something, someone will hunt me down and make me pay for whatever I stole. We reinforce it in our pop culture. Take a look at an episode of CSI and consider the fact that the bad guys are almost ALWAYS apprehended. In real life, not so much. But we continue to craft this idea that it happens, which creates self-regulation and prevents chaos. Cool, right?
Of course, we ended up getting into education eventually... let's leave it at this: I hate normalized testing and the way we ineffectively use them as a basis for AYP. Seriously.
Next week? MARXISM. This should be interesting!
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