Talk:Panopticon

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 March 2019 and 10 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): BennettKnows.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:05, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Controversies over Baha'i review[edit]

The careless use of this term in the title of an academic paper on quite another subject (already treated under its proper subject) does not necessarily justify its mention here. -Soundofmusicals (talk) 22:33, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As mentioned above, I would note that the section here is "Criticism and the Panopticon as metaphor" with other metaphors included being work places like Wal-Mart and Amazon as well as municipalities in the U.K. that utilize CCTV. Juan Cole's description of control mechanisms in the Baha'i Faith in his appropriately titled essay, "The Baha’i Faith in America as Panopticon, 1963-1997," is perfectly suited for this section. The term "panopticon" is not used carelessly in the title of the article but deliberately chosen by the author to describe the Baha'i administration's method of control over members, beyond the prepublication censorship euphemistically labelled Baha'i review. — Preceding unsigned comment added by A35821361 (talk • contribs) 23:09, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Rights and wrongs of Baha'i review is not the question at point. See above. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 23:34, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree wholeheartedly that the "rights and wrong of Baha'i review is not the question at point." Dr. Cole's analogy of the Baha’i Faith in America as panopticon is more concerned with the totality of how the Baha'i administration maintains control over its members. In the analogy to panopticon, the aspect of Baha'i review is but one small aspect.
"Baha’i authorities exercise a great deal of control over discourse in the community, maintaining a virtual monopoly on mass media with a Baha’i audience. This control is felt necessary in part to prevent electioneering and coalition-forming, which are formally barred (despite the informal campaigning discussed above). It is perhaps not incidental that the controls on electioneering and other forms of communication have the side effect of ensuring that criticism of those in power cannot achieve wide circulation, and that the incumbents who exercise that control are reelected every year. Incumbents act aggressively against Baha’i owners of media who demonstrate too much independence. They monitor the speech of individuals extensively through a system of informants, and intervene behind the scenes to silence dissidents with threats of sanctions. They require prepublication censorship of everything Baha’is write about their religion. They intervene in the private businesses of believers where they think the interests of the administration are at stake. They tell private Baha’i publishers what books and even what passages in books they may and may not publish. They employ the threats of loss of administrative rights, humiliation in the national Baha’i newspaper, and even of shunning, in order to control believers.
Having Baha’is inform on their co-believers allows the administration to discover nonconformists who might not toe the party line, and to monitor their activities. The system operates so as to maintain the “orthodox” ideology in power and prevent the election to that institution of dissenters through identifying them and ensuring that they do not become visible in the community. The practice of informing creates a panopticon, as described by Michel Foucault in his discussion of Jeremy Bentham's ideas on penal reform (Foucault 1979). Bentham argued that putting the criminal constantly under observation would deter him from further criminal acts, and would even cause him eventually to internalize the sense of constantly being watched, thus becoming permanently reformed. Conventional Baha’is often never discover the informant system, since they never trip the wire that would lead to their being informed on. The independent-minded, however, usually discover it fairly early in their Baha’i careers, and then have to decide whether they wish to live the rest of their lives in a panopticon. This practice, like many other control mechanisms, discourages spiritual entrepreneurship and keeps the religion from growing in the West."
It is therefore prudent to include mention of this essay in a section titled "Criticism and the Panopticon as metaphor. - Regards, A35821361 (talk) 00:30, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Should there be mention of Juan Cole's article "The Baha’i Faith in America as Panopticon, 1963-1997," within Criticism and the Panopticon as metaphor[edit]

The consensus is against inclusion per WP:OFFTOPIC. Cunard (talk) 02:03, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should there be mention of Juan Cole's article "The Baha’i Faith in America as Panopticon, 1963-1997," within Criticism and the Panopticon as metaphor A35821361 (talk) 10:58, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • No - it's WP:OFFTOPIC, as the article is about a prison architecture. Even if this was being suggested as an example of metaphor usage for the prison image, it wouldn't seem to have due WP:WEIGHT since there are many more occurances of panopticon mention about computer surveillance, or Gaza strip as panopticon, etcetera. Markbassett (talk) 22:51, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Social Media[edit]

I would like to develop this section with more citations and more information exploring social media and pantopticism. Below is a list of the sources I will be using for this development.

Bibliography Dijk, J. V., & Hacker, K. (2003). The Digital Divide as a Complex and Dynamic Phenomenon. The Information Society, 315-325. doi:10.1080/01972240390227895Wtu1, P. B. (2015, February 25). Social Panopticism. Retrieved from https://fordhamcyberculture.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/social-panopticism/Zhang, X., & Zhang, X. (2017, May 30). Power of Panopticism in Modern Society. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@xzhan065/power-of-panopticism-in-modern-society-79ea015fab9aZukin, S., Foucault, M., & Sheridan, A. (1996). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Contemporary Sociology, 25(4), 463. doi:10.2307/2077073

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