‘Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility 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 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. ‘ Michel on the Panopticon in ‘Discipline and Punish’.

The Panopticon described by Foucault was designed by Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century, and was, apart from anything, a tax-saving idea. It’s design was such that from a single viewing post, prisoners could always be seen but could never see the seer. Thus being the case, it would be possible to have no guards on duty as the inmates must constantly presume they are being watched, as described above.

I first read this chapter, which becomes a broader critique of power through surveillance in hierarchical societies,  in my second year at university. Strangely, in Japan, I’ve had cause to revisit it, and within the seemingly rather dull context of the staffing of public services.

 As I may have mentioned before, there is a change around every April in all the schools, hospitals and local authorities in Japan. Not all the staff change; rather, a chosen few will be moved to a different department or a different school, no teacher being allowed to remain in one position for more than 15 years. Fifteen years is, in fact, exceptionally rare; usually people will be moved within 3-4 years.

In the case of education, this decision is made by a small group of big cheeses at the Board of Education, the final decision resting with the kyoikucho, the chief of, in my case, Hikari BOE. This year has seen my supervisor become Vice Principal for a different BOE at a school about 2 hours’ drive from here (about which he was not best pleased), and between 6 and 8 teachers have moved from each of my junior high schools (bringing, I must say, some very interesting new faces into the staffrooms).

When I first heard about this system, my immediate reaction was to see the positive side: surely through the annual circulation of people and ideas, public services can evolve and remain dynamic without the stagnation we see in some UK public sectors? Yet upon reflection, I see how this very move maintains the very specific social hierarchies for which Japan is so renowned and in fact makes large-scale changes, for the most part, rather slow.

This annual change in staffing serves as a kind of panopticon. Authority figures like kyoikucho remain in authority without ever really exercising his disciplinary power, and it is not  for the purposes of his authority alone that such a system is maintained. Rather, it is for the maintenance of a collective and simultaenously oppressive power system through which the group is at once self-governing and self-sacrificing (’self’ has rather a double meaning here). Through the constantly moving eyes and ears of ever-diligent personnel, digression from the norm or challenges to authority seem unattractive options and the instigation of large changes (e.g. to curriculum) seems impractical to an instigator who is not certain whether they will be around long enough to see them through. Discipline rarely needs exercising, and the head honcho(s) need not always monitor the behaviour of their subordinates (which, for the record, they really don’t - my last kocho-sensei spent 80% of his time smoking fags and gardening), as omniscience is dispersed and workers do not know for certain that they are being watched, but that it is always a possibility.

 It’s difficult to put into words the thoughts I’ve had about the workings of power in Japan. I suppose the staffing example is just another example of what it is to live in a such a very collectivist society, Panopticon metaphor or no Panopitcon metaphor. This has been the biggest privilege of my Japanese experience, and the hardest to describe. Collectivist societies are by their very nature self-regulating, and the questions that living here has raised about the relationship between the group and the individual have at once provided enlightenment and have sent my head into a giddy orbit without any hope of ever being un-flummoxed. 

But then everyone needs a good flummoxing once in a while.

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