Living in a Panopticon

Hii peeps… hope you’re all doing well!

Hmm… what am I ranting about today? Nothing dramatic, just a concept that caught my attention a long time ago and still randomly pops into my head. So I thought I’d share my thoughts, and maybe (if you’re willing) I’d love to hear your take too.

The concept comes from Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish : the idea of the Panopticon.

Now, a bit of history first (this part might sound boring, but I promise the concept itself is too cool, so bear with me).

The Panopticon actually begins with Jeremy Bentham, an 18th-century philosopher. He designed it as a prison where a single guard could observe all prisoners from a central tower, without the prisoners ever knowing when they were being watched. The trick? They’d behave as if they were always being watched.

So how does this connect to Michel Foucault?

In the 1970s, Foucault wasn’t really interested in the prison design itself, but in what it symbolized. In Discipline and Punish, he uses the Panopticon as a metaphor for modern power - how schools, hospitals, armies, offices, and even society as a whole make us regulate our own behavior.

Interesting, right?

Basically, our entire lives revolve around this idea. Religion, morals, principles, you name it. We live and behave the way we do because we know we’re being watched, judged, and possibly punished.

Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not.
It’s necessary to keep humankind functioning. But at the same time, it’s scary how much freedom we quietly lose because of it.

In today’s world, the Panopticon doesn’t even need towers or guards. We carry it in our phones. Likes, views, algorithms - all subtly reminding us that someone is always watching. CCTV cameras? Everywhere. Technology has made this kind of regulation easier and stronger. If you step out of line, you’re done for. That’s power.
Let’s agree to take this as a mostly positive thing… for now.

Moving on ...algorithms.
We’ve all felt like victims of them at some point. I talk to people about this all the time, and almost everyone agrees: it feels like we’re being eavesdropped on 24/7. You casually mention a product over coffee and boom — it’s on your FYP, Facebook ads, Instagram ads. Mind-boggling. Crazy. And honestly? A little terrifying.

Then there’s religion.

I actually started thinking about this concept more deeply because of how religion works in a very similar way. We’re told we’re being watched all the time, and through belief and fear, we regulate ourselves and stop ourselves from doing things that are morally or legally wrong.

So the real question is:
Are we behaving because we believe in these rules… or because we’re afraid of what happens if we don’t?

As a Buddhist, we talk about merit and sin. Good actions bring merit, wrong actions bring sin, and the balance of these determines future lives. Of course, Buddhism is far more complex than this (please pardon the oversimplification), but I’m just getting at the basic idea.

I often ask myself:
Would I be who I am today if I hadn’t grown up with these teachings, morals, and principles?
How much of “me” is actually me, and how much of it is just the version of myself I’ve learned to perform?

That’s probably a question with no clear answers.

Still, I’m grateful for this system. I genuinely can’t imagine a world without some form of regulation. Every day would feel like doomsday. The ironic part is that even with all these systems of control, there are still people who refuse to submit to them, and when they run wild, I don’t see that as freedom. I see it as dangerous.

So, the Panopticon isn’t evil — but it isn’t innocent either.
It keeps order, yes, but it also quietly limits how free we dare to be.

Then again… too much freedom is scary too, don’t you think?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. I don’t know if I sound funny or overly curious, but this concept genuinely fascinates me. And I think it’s best to end with this line:

“The guard tower may be gone, but the gaze is everywhere.”

(P.S. I’m still reading the first two or three pages of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, and I genuinely only know a little about the Panopticon. I hope that when I finish reading it, maybe an eternity from now, I’ll be able to write a more structured and philosophical piece on it. Fingers crossed!)