In the article "Panopticism", Michel Foucault expressed an idea about discipline. Discipline is the way to strengthen the physical power in society. It is an important part to keep Panopticism work and force it work. 

"A whole disciplinary generalization----the Benthamite physics of power represents an acknowledge of this----had operated throughout the classical age. The spread of disciplinary institutions, whose network was beg inning to cover an ever larger surface and occupying above all a less and less marginal position, testifies to this: what was an islet, a privileged place, a circumstantial measure, or a singular model, became a general formula; the regulation characteristic of the Protestant and pious armies of William of orange or of Gustavus Adolphus were transformed into regulations for all the armies of Europe; the example set by strum, provided the outlines for the general forms of educational discipline; the ordering of the navel and military hospitals provided the model for the entire reorganization of hospitals in the eighteenth century."(Foucault 251)

The first function of discipline is use to avoid dangers. It set several rule to prevent useless activities, and increase the efficiency of all work, such as military discipline. These rules were created by people who have experience about war. They understand what they should and should not do in the battlefield. It increases the skill of each individual, and it tells them how they can cooperate with their teammates. The second function for discipline is that it can give all people a public measurement. This is making the society become mechanical, because that everyone have same viewpoint about the things that is happening. For example, most of people know that killing people is evil and saving people is good. This idea is built by discipline, the rules or laws that people meet every day. The last function is "state control" which is extended by the second function. Everyone knows that something is bad, so they will know what they should do when face these things and the official organization can easy to prevent the happening of some horrible things, such as crime. This will make official organization easy to maintain the country and  make it become better. Discipline is the core of panopticism, because everything which executed in panopticism is based on rules. For example, in the plague city part, everyone need follow the rules and stay in the supervision of guards. Following the rules is the only way to help them survive in the city. The discipline is the thing which is maintaining the existence of panopticism. 

The panopticism is keep happening in our daily life. School should be the best example to prove the importance of discipline for student. We need to follow the rules to make us have good score, and the discipline will provide help to us when we have trouble. For example, part of the score is based on our attendance. In the school rules, it shows that we have to attend every class which we have. This warns us to follow the school rules, even we do not like it. The typical example for helping of discipline is when we are bullied. We can report this to office and ask teacher to help us. The concept of Michel Foucault makes me think about the existence of discipline. It makes me to think our rules, and it is the first time I am glad to have rules to maintain our daily life. Normally discipline is positive because it can provide help and maintain our reality, but it will become negative when someone who set the rules have problems. For example, tyrant can express this, even we cannot see it now. Tyrant build horrible rules to destroy the balance of society. The discipline will never be useful when something like this is happening, because the rules is not rule anymore. It is a toy for these high level official people in this situation.  The supervision is very important for discipline, such as American government. Every organization supervise other organizations in the America, and it makes the better connection between low society level people and high society level people. 
