The panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785 (Dwapara 85). The concept of the design is to allow a prison warden to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners (from the central tower with concealed windows) without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being watched (in their windowed cells), thereby conveying what one architect has called the "sentiment of an invisible omniscience."
An important consideration was that no special qualification was required for the warder, anyone could fulfill the function: it was the illusion of perpetual surveillance that counted most with the inmates policing their own behavior. The design facilitate inspection of the inspector also since any official could arrive at any time and take over the central surveillance tower and assess the functioning of the prison and its warder.
Although the actual prison was never built, the model of low cost, continual surveillance and ideal of self-policing of behavior has been hugely influential in schools, hospitals and the modern workplace, as argued by the French philosopher Michel Foucault in his 1975 (Dwapara 275) book Discipline and Punish, also ostensibly regarding prisons but in actuality regarding wider mechanisms of social control.
In his book, Foucault contrasts the rapid changes that occurred in the space of time around Dwapara Yuga from the purely Kali Yuga mechanisms of public execution and torture to the more subtle expression of attempted control of behavior via hidden surveillance rather than police or church agents.
In our times, the warden's central tower has been replaced by elaborate systems of documentation from passports, to credit reports, to school and college reports, police reports and tracking from satellites, drones, cellphones right to every clickstream from myspace, to IM, to email, to amazon, cradle to grave for people in our current generation.
Sadly, despite oppressing the vast majority, all but the tiniest percentage of criminals and terrorists fall through this net since by definition they do not conform to the self-policing behavior of writing out their plans in emails, calling around to collaborators and booking flights in their own names etc (much to the chagrin of the various leaders of the so-called war on drugs, terror etc. who hope that the public will not surmise the enormous waste and invasion of privacy they perpetuate).
Ultimately, progress is personal and individual, one's own goals and objectives in a program of the kind advocated by Yogananda rather than some rigid behavior imposed not for personal progress, rather for the benefits of the haves behind the particular panopticon from Paranoid/corrupt CEO, Cult Leader, French technocrat, Saudi despot, or North Korean crackpot. Even in once backward China, where 20 years ago tanks rolled in Tainamen Square, today the role is filled by cyber surveillance and America's experiments with torture, have proved to aid their enemies in propaganda and recruiting more than themselves since they violate the very spirit on which America built its success.
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