At Prophecy 2007, I argued that Rowling’s presentation of the growing arm of influence of the Ministry of Magic can be paralleled to Foucault’s concept of modern society as a Pantopticon. The Panopticon was Jeremy Bentham’s idea for a circular prison in which only one security guard could maintain surveillance over every prisoner at all times, all the while remaining unseen. Forgive my use of wikipedia, but here’s it’s summary of how Foucault employed the Panopticon idea:
The dark dungeon of pre-modernity has been replaced with the bright modern prison, but Foucault cautions that “visibility is a trap”. It is through this visibility, Foucault writes, that modern society exercises its controlling systems of power and knowledge (terms which Foucault believed to be so fundamentally connected that he often combined them in a single hyphenated concept, “power-knowledge”). Increasing visibility leads to power located on an increasingly individualized level, shown by the possibility for institutions to track individuals throughout their lives. Foucault suggests that a “carceral continuum” runs through modern society, from the maximum security prison, through secure accommodation, probation, social workers, police, and teachers, to our everyday working and domestic lives. All are connected by the (witting or unwitting) supervision (surveillance, application of norms of acceptable behaviour) of some humans by others.
I’m just beginning to delve into this idea, but today I came across the following from Henry Porter in the Observer, quoted at John Halton’s Confessing Evangelical blog (John and I both blog at The Boar’s Head Tavern as well):
…before we all shut up shop for the holidays, it is worth underlining one sentence that needs to be written in neon across every town centre: Britain is on the way to becoming a police state.
He continues:
Writing about the crisis of liberty in Britain, I have been careful not to use these words, but today I see no other conclusion to draw. Taken in the context of the ID card database, the national surveillance of vehicles and retention of information about every individual motorway journey, the huge number of new criminal offences, the half million intercepts of private communications every year, the proposed measures to take 53 pieces of information from everyone wishing to go abroad, which will include powers to prevent travel, this widening of the DNA database for minor misdemeanours confirms the pattern of attack on us all.
[See John's original post for explanations of the proposed policies mentioned.] There are several interesting things to consider here. John notes that Henry Porter “has been indefatigable in recording and protesting the gradual encroachment of the power of the state since 1997″ – which would be when Blair took office. Now, if I’m correct in saying that Rowling is an admirer of the Fabian Society, then Tony Blair must have been more than a bit troublesome for Rowling. Blair is a Fabian, and his Labour Party was created by the Fabians. If Rowling sees Britain as a police state in the making the same way Porter does, this lends credence to the idea that in Books 5-7, she’s delivering a blistering critique of Blair policy – of a Ministry that has become a Panopticon, a place where secret, silent surveillance is used to keep people in check.
Another BHT Fellow, Joel, adds the following insight, with which I shall conclude this brief reflection, and then turn it over to my intelligent commenters:
Technique not only drives the expansion of state power over liberty, it makes it possible for the policing to be inconspicuous. The populace is informed that additional surveillance of everyday activities will occur and reassured that it will be unobtrusive. Technique delivers on that promise. No one complains; therefore, the public consents to a degree of intrusiveness, which if made plain, would horrify anyone with even one functionally liberal neuron in their brain.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s been a long time since I looked at Discipline and Punish, but the Panopticon comparison seems apt up to a point. As I recall, the one factor that differentiated the Panopticon from other forms of control was that the prisoners could not see each other, nor could they see the guard. But the guard could see all of them. It wasn’t purely about observation and control of the populace, but about isolating the individual from others.
In that case, the most obvious symbolic presence is Umbridge, whose slash-and-burn through Hogwarts was an attempt to divide students from each other, and not just through their House-patriotism.
So, then, Hogwarts is the anti-Panopticon — which is ironic, considering it is supposed to be a controlled environment itself. But a building full of passwords, secret passages, hidden rooms and chambers, and secrets provides a place where the students can roam “free” because they are not always seen.
Or course, it helps that the Headmaster implicitly “encourages” a bit of misbehavior…
David the Longwinded, “Hogwarts is the anti-Panopticon”
I made the very same point at Prophecy.
I wonder if we could also say Voldemort’s ability to cause great division would fit just as much as Umbridge’s.
Well, for Foucault, the Panopticon’s function as an apparatus of the state was an important point. His whole philosophical endeavor was primarily understanding how marginalized entities and concepts were often used by within the intellectual architecture of a “state”: it’s government, culture, social norms, etc.
I think your wondering would be right on track. Did you include the idea that the Ministry is one of Voldemort’s prisoners?
There’s so much about what people can and cannot see in the books. The Ministry and Voldemort are constant presences, but they’re rarely “on the scene”. The invisibility cloak is the one Hallow that Dumbledore emphasizes as having the power for good. There are constant connections between what’s visible and knowledge acquisition in the books.
Hi Travis, thanks for the link.
I think the themes re the Ministry certain have been influenced by the developing War on Turrrr and the loss of civil liberties arising from that. However, the parallels with the MoM are not exact: the MoM’s oppressive measures are an attempt to convince people there is no threat, whereas the Blair/Brown government’s measures are intended (at least initially) to convince people that there is a threat.
But where the parallel does hold up is in a genuine threat (acknowledged in RL, denied at first in HP) being exploited for the purpose of introducing restrictions on civil liberties that had long been sought on other grounds.
Overall it is similar to the Christian themes in HP. Both the political and Christian themes are there, and are there intentionally, but in neither case is JKR setting out to write a “political” or “religious” work, and in each case the parallels are more exact. More a matter of echoes and themes rather than direct allegory.
But one result of this in each case is (one hopes!) the establishing of certain ways of thought in her readers that will then influence for the good how they behave in RL.