Panopticonic
Panopticonic.com is an international news, commentary and analysis website dedicated to watching those surveilling us.
Panopticonic: is a call to action to fight back against the decay of personal privacy under the eyeing thumb of those that surveil us on a daily basis.
Here's a brief history of the Panopticon from the OED:
Panopticonic: is a call to action to fight back against the decay of personal privacy under the eyeing thumb of those that surveil us on a daily basis.
Here's a brief history of the Panopticon from the OED:
1. An optical instrument or device; spec. a mechanical peep-show offering views of European capitals, etc., for public entertainment. Now hist. and arch.We'll take on all of each and every definition.
1742 in J. H. Macmichael Story of Charing Cross (1906) 282 (advt.) That celebrated and well-known Tri-angular Musical Machine, the Panopticon; with six moving Pictures, which is universally allowed, from..the vast Variety of its Motions..to be the first Piece of Mechanism of its Magnitude in Europe. 1752 C. MACKLIN Covent Garden Theatre (1965) 4 This Universal Rendevouz of all the Monsters produced by wagish Nature & fantastic Art, here Panopticons, Microcosms, Bears, Badgers..Enthusiasts, and Fire Eaters..Tax the Public. 1768 B. FRANKLIN Let. in Wks. (1887) IV. 176 Mr. Martin, when I called to see his panopticon, had not one ready. 1790 J. BENTHAM Let. 2 Sept. (1981) IV. 193 Panopticon is already in use as a name for I forget what optical instrument or raree shew in or by means of which you may see everything as the name imports. 1871 Routledge's Every Boy's Ann. Mar. Suppl. 1/1 Statham's 'Panopticon'..a powerful achromatic Telescope and Microscope combined. 1984 Listener 11 Oct. 30/3 We encounter a shaman with a 'phosphorescent eye'..and women who have liberated themselves from a panoptikon. 1995 B. MILLER Amer. Silent Film Comedies 135 W. K. L. Dickson..invented the Panopticon projector. The first public showing of the Panopticon occurred April 21, 1895, in New York.
2. A circular prison with cells arranged around a central well, from which inmates can be observed at all times. Also in extended use.
The design was first proposed by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) in 1787. A scheme for a penitentiary on these lines was accepted by Parliament in 1794, and a site at Millbank, London, was chosen, but in the event the new penitentiary (which opened in 1816) was not built to Bentham's plan. Among later prisons constructed on the panopticon principle, the Stateville Penitentiary at Joliet, Illinois, is still in use.
1790 J. BENTHAM Let. 2 Sept. (1981) IV. 193, I have given it as you will see in the title page a particular name in a single word, viz: Panopticon or the Inspection-House. 1791 J. BENTHAM Panopticon I. Postscr. 86 In a Panopticon prison..there ought not any where be a single foot square, on which man or boy shall be able to plant himself..under any assurance of not being observed. 1813 Edinb. Rev. 22 19 The Panopticon was to be open at all times to every magistrate; and at certain hours to the public generally. 1818 W. HAZLITT Eng. Poets (1870) v. 128 He..superintends, as in a panopticon, a select circle of rural malefactors. 1954 A. HUXLEY Themes & Variations (ed. 2) IV. 197 The real horror..an industrial or administrative Panopticon. 1977 Listener 15 Dec. 802/4 The craving for total control found technological expression in Bentham's design for the Panopticon. 1987 P. CONRAD Song of Love & Death (1996) 297 Searchlights glaringly inspect the panopticon of a concentration camp.
3. gen. A place where everything is on display; a public exhibition hall or showroom. Also fig. Now hist. and rare.
Freq. in names of public venues; spec. designating the Royal Panopticon of Science and Art on Leicester Square, opened in 1854 as a scientific exhibition hall and lecture theatre (see quots. 1850, 1885), but closed in 1857 (after which it became the Alhambra theatre and, later, the Odeon). 1836 Brit. Critic Jan. 27 It may still be urged, with regard to the proposed panopticon of the Church, that, although we do not possess it, we can do quite as well without it. 1850 Deed of Settlement of Royal Panopticon of Sci. & Art 1 Royal Panopticon of Science and Art. An institution for Scientific exhibitions and for promoting discoveries in arts manufactures. 1851 J. HAMILTON Royal Preacher xix. 231 Whey stood forth so many beautiful and Divine ideas, and from this panopticon of all the possible, His holy wisdom chose the best. 1885 Dict. National Biogr. at Ansell, George Frederick, He gave lectures in chemistry at the Panopticon in Leicester Square, London, but that institution did not last long. 2001 R. KENNA Glasgow Pub Compan. (ed. 2) 114/2 It closed in 1903 but was reopened as The Panopticon, a 'rough' hall where the patrons did not suffer mediocre 'turns' with equanimity.
