Foucault's excerpt from Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison called Panopticism dissects how power is used in our institutions and society.  Schools, prisons, hospitals, companies, the concept of family, and the military are all well-established institutions based off of the system of enforcing discipline as the primary function to control. Discipline is the driving mechanism of our society today, and has affected every aspect of my life since I was born. History has already set up a structured outline for which we live, and through past application we use discipline today as the most functional and useful method of asserting power; from protecting the wellbeing of others to merely enforcing power over a wide array of peoples.

The plague struck town that Foucault describes in length is an ancient equivalent to what happened during the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. In the Middle Aged plague town, either you cooperated or chose death or death. Leaving the company of one's own home could kill the person because of the sickness, or the person could spread the disease and infect others  --  why the person would be executed.  In comparison, the city of Boston was not on an official lockdown, it was legally considered a "shelter in place" request by Boston's Mayor (Time.) By no means did the request mean the people of Boston were not permitted to leave their house without facing arrest, but why would somebody want to in a situation as crucial as they were in? In both circumstances, the safety of everyone means the cooperation of everyone. The discipline needed by each town's residents in order to control the pathogen and perpetrator, respectively, is the process in which power is enforced on the people.  

And the application of discipline as a medium for power has been going on for hundreds of years, reaching back to the principle theories behind religion, slavery, divine right, and a vast variety of socio-political decisions (since  that have made the constructs that we live by, what they are today. My eighteen year upbringing has been the result of learning discipline and accepting the powers that be. For example, the traditional father-son and mother-son dynamic was taught to me first and was taught quickly. I believe that discipline is a type of self-control that acts as Foucault's social power 'bringing me down,' so to speak. 

I am a product of the American public school system, where discipline is more important than material. In the first six years (including kindergarten) children are taught very early to sit in assigned seats, speak only when spoken to, to raise their hands to speak, to stand in lines when going somewhere as a group, and a lot of other confining behaviors that restrict natural behaviors. Then suddenly, in years seven through nine, students receive a little bit more freedom. Getting to sit where they want to eat, choosing classes that they want, having a locker  --  it is seemingly liberating. Most students by this time fully understand how they expected to behave in the school setting, but school administration is more adamant and willing to issue detentions and suspensions to further enforce discipline and student cooperation. Years ten through thirteen are truly intended for education, as by this time all students should be fully disciplined. Suspensions and detentions are for those purposely trying to break the school's laws. 

Being a part of this system, I would like to see how I act have I not went through it. Would I learn things differently? Would I be more inclined to speak my mind? Would I interact with my peers less civilized? One could speculate forever. Briefly introspecting those years of my life, it is feasible to state that hundreds of years of practice have worked in taming the wild beast that is Cameron Higginbotham. 
