A lot of people think that in 1984 Orwell was more focused in the control of the people by the state. Independently of what the author originally had to say, my reading of the book was always more focused in the control of the people by the people, and this was always the most scary part of the prognostic of the future.
The Panoptic, as described Foucault, is the model of social control where the subject lives under a constant surveillance, at the same time as the watcher can "see without being seen". What means is that the survaillance is amplified by its potentiality, you never know wether you're being watched or not, then you have to presume you're being watched all the time.
This is a very serious "disciplinement" process, and, as says Foulcault, at a certain point, the subject will absorb the "disciplinement" to an extent that the "indisciplinated" behavior ceases existing.
To fight the over-surveillance by the state is not a new issue, 1984 is an over-60-years-old book. What changes is the perspective of the reading. Today there's no doubt that the Big Brother is actually "virtual" and that we could understand it as the hegemonic moral principles in our society. We're entering in a critical time for self-censorship and self-regulation.
The Big Brother, now, is ourselves. Everybody exposes their private lives in the social networks, publish the pictures of the weekend for everyone to see. And this news I saw today only shows one more aspect of this contemporary "auto-disciplinement". Fortunally this is still an example of perceived "auto-disciplinement", but as the things go, this will also become normal, and people will push you to be present there as well.
Anyway, the news: Lancaster, Pa., keeps a close eye on itself
