to Mermaids

In 1791 Jeremy Bentham gave the name Panopticon to a circular structure designed to permit a few guards to watch a multitude of prisoners. His design for the Panopticon, or Inspection House, incorporated a ring of single-room cells several stories tall. Each cell was open toward the interior of the ring and had a window in the wall on the outside of the ring.  In the center of the ring stood a watchtower occupied by observers who were completely concealed from the prisoners. The principle behind the Panopticon was that each single-room cell offered its inhabitant no place to hide, while outdoor light coming through the window on the outside wall provided the watchers in the tower with a well-lit silhouette of the inmate's every move. Knowing that any observed misbehavior would bring punishment, but not knowing when any behavior actually was being observed, the thinking inmate had no choice, in Bentham's opinion, except to behave as if always watched. The inmate would monitor his own actions.Although Bentham's intent was to provide humane and unfettered order to institutions that sometimes used brutal methods to control and intimidate residents, to many modern eyes he devised a surveillance machine so cunning it verged on the diabolical.—Patricia Kellogg (National Geographic)