Life in a Panopticon

 Foucault wrote about the power humans hold over one another. It's not a power of force but an invisible power of personal censorship. The power has been likened to a panopticon, in which the prison guards have a central perch from which they can see all prisoners at all times, yet prisoners cannot know if they are being watched, resulting in a constant vigilance with the possibility of surveillance. We carry on our shoulders, everyday, wherever we go, the silent voices of what's normal and what's expected, the prison guards are always watching. These voices talk to us and remind us that what we say, wear, own, are worth, do, believe, is judged against a standard. This standard is dictated by those with financial, political, and, Foucault would argue most prominently, those in the science, claiming to determine the statistical norm. The power that society holds over individuals drilled its way into our minds. People are worried about the COVID vaccine having a microchip in it...hell, the chip's already lodged. 

Image of Panopticon Plan from 
https://fs.blog/2014/07/the-panopticon-effect/

I feel the forces of discursive power (this pervasive, invisible power of the need to be "normal") and they're heavy, even for a middle class person with white privilege, great healthcare, adequate childcare, plenty of food on the table, and access to unpolluted air. Let's imagine what it would be like if I were not heterosexual, cisgendered, and white. Let's imagine what it would be like if I were not naturally relatively "normal" to begin with. When I compare myself with the images of women in the media right now, the only ways I'm outwardly "inadequate" are physical appearance (I'm curvy with flat hair and never wear makeup), perhaps financially as a middle class person (I can't afford designer clothes, fancy cars, and mansions), and  socially (I'm awkward and introverted!). I do, however, align with the feminine gender performativity, the heterosexual binary male/female relationship...I even have a kid, I am a white person so I constantly see my race portrayed in positive ways. 

Even with my privileges and the representation I see of people who look and act like me being accepted as normal in mainstream media, I'm still constantly policing myself. Were I black, trans, gay, or disabled not only would I not see myself in the media (and therefore not be considered normal) but if I did see myself in the media, it would likely be in a token role, played up, caricatured, reinforcing my sense of being "othered." When people are marked, when the groups they are associated with don't match the mainstream-centric definition of normal, life can suck. Deficit narratives, which position those who line up with normal as "better than" those who deviate from normal, pervade society, including in schools and the workplace. So, were I anything but my normal self, I would be at risk of some serious insecurities, self-fulfilling prophecies of inadequacy, and perhaps very real physical danger at the hands of bigots. 

Beyond the extreme hatred that so many "normal" people hold for the "deviant," there are the discrete and somehow justified discriminations and micro-aggressions that those who perpetrate are unaware of. Often white/cis/hetero privileges blind those of us who naturally fit the norm to the ways our words and actions impact those who don't fit. The power society has over the non-normative in our ranks is disproportionately dolled out because, the more someone differs from the norm, the more they are noticed, the more outward the policing, and the more devastating the impacts. 

Foucault said that we can't expect to get out from under this discursive power without some cost. He pointed out that, should we move away from the current metanarrative of what counts in society, we replace it with another metanarrative, putting some other set of standards in control. If we change our current metanarrative, what would we replace it with? Can some imagined future reverse the power dynamics in society? What would it take? Are those of us in privilege willing to give it up to liberate others?