The Schizo-Stroller

Yup I succumbed to Last.fm. Check my recent listening habits:

Although Michel Foucault’s famous book on madness is ‘Madness and Civilisation’, I was struck recently whilst reading ‘Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison’, and especially on Bentham’s Panopticon, how much the manifestation of my illness is described in it.

I’m afraid there’s going to be a fair bit of quoting in this post but please bear with me as I really was struck at it’s – how can I say? – accurateness. First of all I’ll quote Foucault’s description of the Panopticon:

“Bentham’s Panopticon is the architectural figure of this composition. We know the principle on which it was based: at the periphary, an annular building; at the centre, a tower; this tower is pierced with wide windows that open onto the inner side of the ring; the peripheric building is divided into cells, each of which extends the whole width of the building; they have two windows, one on the inside, corresponding to the windows of the tower; the other, on the outside, allows the light to cross the cell from one end to the other. All that is needed, then, is to place a supervisor in a central tower and to shut up in each cell a madman, a patient, a condemned man, a worker or a schoolboy. By the effect of backlighting, one can observe from the tower, standing out precisely against the light, the small captive shadows in the cells of the periphery. They are like so many cages, so many small theatres, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualised and constantly visible. The panoptic mechanism arranges spatial unities that make it possible to see constantly and to recognise immediately. In short it reverses the principle of the dungeon; or rather its three functions – to enclose, to deprive of light and to hide – it preserves only the first and eliminates the other two. Full lighting and the eye of a supervisor capture better than darkness, which ultimately protected. Visibility is a trap.” (Foucault, 1977:200)

The Panopticon allowed the supervisor to watch everything that the subject was doing, however as the supervisor was above in a windowed tower, the subject being observed cannot see/ him/ her/ it. However they know they are being watched, observed, studied. So in effect, the supervisor need not always be there, as the subject never knows when they are being watched and when not, and in this way engenders conformity, good behaviour, discipline. But the subject does this, in a way, themselves, as they are never sure whether they are being watched or not.

“Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of consciousness and permanent visiblity that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that is this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers. To achieve this, it is at once too much and too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an inspector: too little, for what matters is that he knows himself to be observed; too much, because he has no need in fact of being so.” (Foucault, 1977:201)

So how is this relative to my illness? As i have mentioned before my voices are always commenting on my thoughts, they can read my mind but I cannot read theirs. At anytime, when I am thinking of something my voices may suddenly spring up and comment on it. Yet this doesn’t happen all the time. Nor does there seem to be any rhyme or reason, behind when they ‘observe’, so in effect I police my own thoughts in case they are being listened to. I am in a constant state of feeling watched, even though I do not know why or what for.

However as a friend who has been in prison pointed out and as I found out in my own behaviour, this doesn’t always engender the conformity it is designed to. Prisoners often carry on in spite of the constant supervision, finding ways to do whsat they want anyway. I still think what I want, just argue back or tell my voices to fuck off if they comment. I have also developed ways of fighting back, for example, pointing out that the ‘vocies’ are evidently more boring than me as they evidently have nothing better to do than watch me. In their supervision they become inferior to me, in my eyes at least. The human spirit is stonger than any disciplinary system.

Foucault analyses this as a mechanism of power in society, how we police ourselves. And many will point out the similarities today of CCTV everywhere in public places. But it also suggests to me how the socialisation of an illness comes about, why so many schizophrenic delusions are paranoias of being watched, spied on etc.

 ”The efficiency of power, its constraining force have, in a sense, passed over to the other side – to the side of its surface of application. 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.” (Foucault, 1977:202-203)

And it makes me wonder, what sort of society it is that has paranoia and schizophrenia as reactions to it. How free are we?

Quotes taken From Michel Foucault ‘Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison’, 1977, Penguin books.