The Panopticon God

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading Derrick Jensen's book, Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control. Rather than being an investigative piece, it is largely a polemic about the culture of control that pervades our civilization. After letting it percolate for awhile, I find myself most drawn to the model he uses to focus his ideas: the panopticon. First proposed by philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), the panopticon is a prison designed to maximize the asymmetry between the observer and the observed:

The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell if they are being observed or not, thus conveying a "sentiment of an invisible omniscience"

...

The architectural figure "incorporates a tower central to an annular building that is divided into cells, each cell extending the entire thickness of the building to allow inner and outer windows. The occupants of the cells [...] are thus backlit, isolated from one another by walls, and subject to scrutiny both collectively and individually by an observer in the tower who remains unseen.

The panopticon as larger metaphor is nothing new. Michel Foucault was one of the first to suggest the panopticon as a model for contemporary (post-Enlightenment) society, emphasizing the power asymmetry inherent in many of our institutions.

Jensen reflects on the God we've subsequently created in our own image. His first paragraph sets up the spiritual dimensions of surveillance:

When I was a child, I was taught -- as a fundamentalist Christian -- that while the devil could not read my mind, he watched everything I did, scanning for the slightest shift of my body or expression that would reveal my thoughts. He did this, I was told, because he wanted to know me. And he wanted to know me not because he loved me -- as God did, who watched me also and who knew in addition what went on in my head and in my heart -- but because he wanted to tempt me and even control me.

However, the God that is worshipped in mainstream Christianity often resembles something more sinister than the loving father for which so many of us long. Why does this God so often, instead, become the abusive alcoholic parent? The message given to us by purveyors of acceptable religious discourse is that God loves you, but if you don't do what he says he'll punish you severely, maybe kill you, or maybe even kill somebody close to you.

This God sounds much like the description of Ialdaboath, the Demiurge, the false deity who (according Gnostic beliefs) interposes between humanity and true divine wisdom. From the The Apocryphon of John:

Now the archon who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas, and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, 'I am God and there is no other God beside me,' for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come.

I think it's important to keep some perspective on how we imagine God, for two reasons. The first is that, as we march towards a form of theocratic fascism, Dominionism, we need to be aware of the overarching meme that is driving this social current. Dominionism is about control, not only over what one does, but also over what one thinks. The second reason is that the extent to which we enjoy stewardship over our own mental real estate is directly related to the character of the God we worship. As Jensen seems to suggest, it is irrelevant whether or not you explicitly worship any form of diety: your brain is formatted in a way that produces a comfortable residence for some god.

Zac at Alchemically Braindamaged talks about culling your inner cokehead. In particular, he focuses on quieting the part of your brain where your controlling ego resides. This urge towards control, which is a response to the fear we all experience in the face of the utter annihilation that comes with death, is the genesis both of our often dysfunctional egos and their associated neuroses, and of the need for surveillance and control that is currently our collective experience. The seat of the ego is the McMansion in our head wherein resides the Demiurge.

Perhaps you are an atheist, you say you don't believe in God. That's okay, you probably worship Him in His other form: the rational spirit of science. The central doctrine of science and technology is that of control. Francis Bacon (1561-1626), often called the "father of modern science," advocated a vicious control of nature, often using the language of the existing penal system:

Much of the imagery Bacon used in delineating his new scientific objectives and methods derives from the courtroom, and, because it treats nature as a female to be tortured through mechanical inventions, strongly suggests the interrogations of the witch trials and the mechanical devices used to torture witches.

Interestingly, Bacon advocated such ruthless treatment of nature in order to serve God against the technological devices of the Antichrist:

An important figure in the development of modern Western science is Francis Bacon. But for Bacon, science meant primarily technology and mechanical arts - not for any esoteric purpose but for utilitarian goals. One interest of his was that the Antichrist not be in sole possession of technological tools in the coming apocalyptic battles. He wrote that:

"Antichrist will use these means freely and effectively, in order that he may crush and confound the power of this world... the Church should consider employment of these inventions because of future perils in the times of Antichrist which with the grace of God it would be easy to meet, if prelates and princes promoted study and investigated the secrets of nature."

Bacon also believed, like others, that technological know-how was an original birthright of humanity which had simply been lost in the Fall. Writing in his Opus Majus, he suggested the contemporary gaps in human understanding stem directly from Original Sin: "Owing to original sin and the particular sins of the individual, part of the image has been damaged, for reason is blind, memory is weak, and the will depraved."

So for Francis Bacon, one of the early lights of scientific rationalism, the pursuit of knowledge and technology had three reasons: First, so that the benefits of technology would not be the sole province of the Antichrist; second, in order to regain power and knowledge lost after the Fall in Eden; and third, in order to overcome current individual sins and achieve spiritual perfection.

Torture in the service of God, for the purposes of control over the other, victory over the devil. We must come to expect the Inquisition, which to me represents the mature fruit of the consolidation of Christianity under the Nicean Creed, the product of The First Council of Nicaea, convoked by Emperor Constantine I. Since that time, Christianity has served the interests of the state, almost always assisting the powerful against the powerless, and often resorting to physical force and violence. So much for a loving God.

The central purpose of the panopticon is that of control. However, there is another important aspect of the panopticon: that of alienation. To repeat the quote above, "The occupants of the cells [...] are thus backlit, isolated from one another by walls." The panopticon God seeks to keep us alienated and isolated from each other. As we advance into late modernity, we find ourselves more alienated from each other, more isolated within our hi-tech entertainments, distractions, and simulacra. The spirit of technology seems to seduce us with toys, while the old Judeo-Christian god punishes us for straying outside proscribed boundaries of social interaction. We hear the Dominionists speak of "traditional family", yet the impoverished family structure they promote bears little resemblance to the large multigenerational families of yesterday (and of the developing world).

The God to which we pay homage, either explicitly through intentional prayer, or implicitly by way of habituated thought patterns, determines the architecture of the space where our private thoughts happen. If our God is the Demiurge, the panopticon God, then all we perceive will be placed in the context of a prison: islolating ourselves from other human beings, and alienating our consciousness from our inner selves.

If we wish to be free, we must free our minds from the internal panopticon God who enforces what ideas are acceptable and what ideas are not and we must free ourselves from perceiving the world as divided between those that are worthy (in the inner ring of the panopticon) and those that are unworthy (in the outer ring of the panopticon).

We must oppose the panopticon God.