Last week on the podcast I mentioned Bentham's Panopticon. For those not into 18th century British radicals, Jeremy Bentham was a philosopher who, among other things, first proposed the idea of a new kind of prison where all the inmates could be watched by a single guard tower in the center of the complex but the inmates themselves could never tell exactly who was watching them or if anyone was at all. It was revolutionary -- and it was called the Panopticon.
I threw the term out last week because I think it's safe to say that these days we're living in a kind of digital, social media Panopticon -- requiring us to be vigilant at all times to the possibility that we're being watched and recorded. That everything we do is under surveillance of some kind.
Take for example the case of poor Brian Presley: C-list actor, Christian, not-so-recovering alcoholic, married man, father -- and now worldwide internet laughingstock because he seriously picked the wrong girl to hit on during a flight out of Los Angeles recently.
Get ready to cringe.
I'm Pretty When I Lie (Tumblr): Would-Be Adulterer's Entire Pick-Up Attempt Live-Tweeted/6.7.12
Bentham had no idea.
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