Central to any culture is core set of shared values and beliefs. The Virginia Military Institute’s culture endures through traditions that have prevailed since the Battle of New Market to our most recent Breakout that emulated their sacrifice. If there are any resonating virtues of a keydet then discipline, honor, and civility are amongst those we hold in highest regard. Freedom, control, and punishment were some of the key concepts discussed throughout the semester; the latter two being most relevant to keydets.
Control is an everyday expectation at VMI. There are many levels of control at the institute, from our restrictive demanding schedules to the fact that they offer permits to leave for weekends as incentive to attend basketball games. Michel Foucalt outlined extensive levels of control throughout his novel Disciple and Punishment. Intrigued especially by the idea of the panopticon, I decided to make my research paper and Prezi an in-depth on the conception and application of the panopticon. In accordance with my research, Jeremy Bentham first conceptualized the literal panopticon as a psychological means of surveillance within prisons. The panopticon as an architectural design demands that subjects assume that they are under surveillance at all times because of the placement of the sentinel at the center of the subjects. The hope was that subjects would be more likely to conform to the expected social standards for fear of being caught. The power of surveillance for control is present in every institution. Grocery stores evoke a panoptic surveillance in the form of those spherical mirror cameras that are ambiguous as to what direction they are actually recording.
In my Prezi on panopticism I displayed the parallels between panoticism and its parallels with modern philosophy. The social atmosphere was one of revolution and new world order. The early modern era is characterized with the conception of sovereign states and sentiments of freedom and enlightenment ideals. As is human nature, instruments of control were invented to keep in check the trends of freedom. As the democratic world was taking root in the Western world, so would Communism and totalitarianism across Eastern Europe in desperation. The industrial revolution gave rise to factory systems that took to heart panoptic ideology confining their workers to redundant assembly line lifestyle with little reward. Public school systems even adopted the all seeing panoptic control by controlling students’ lives with routines and the enduring bell schedule that conditions individuals to go onto serve as cogs in the machine of industry. Studies were also done showing that students will instinctively react to bell schedules after free time because that is when there teacher will return and therefore surveillance returns and they become accountable for their actions.
Today, surveillance is as omniscient as ever what with the dawning of the Internet. Literally everything is monitored and archived, as is the nature of digital media. There have been several controversies in regards to the extent of surveillance that the powers that be have exhibited especially in the last decade. In what is supposedly the land of the free, the Patriot Act and domestic drone surveillance have been particular points of concern. The question becomes whether it is worth to pay the price of security with our freedom.
Speaking of freedom and security, it seems ironic to me that those men and women that fight for our freedom almost never enjoy any freedom. With this equilibrium of freedom and security in mind, the Virginia Military Institute is an epitome of a case study for the matter. The barracks are literally panopticons, sentinel boxes at their centers discouraging conduct unbecoming of a cadet. Moreover, our every action is victim to some sort of record keeping. Within the confines of our routines, activities such as Breakfast Roll Call and Supper Roll Call at the beginning and end of each day respectively demand accountability checks where which if late or absent to result in at least five hours of our lives marching the bricks. Leaving post is also recorded in the permit system. The institute takes everything away and as a result we eventually adopt a perspective that we are not products of an imposed learned helplessness but apparently we are better for it. I will refrain from whether or not I agree wit the ideology but will site that it is apparently once again for our safety and security, because God forbid a keydet goes MIA between breakfast and their first class period of the day.
Despite the woes of a keydet, we do have a lot to be proud of. The Institute’s has a proud rich culture and no, they did not brainwash me between the time I wprte the last paragraph and am now writing this one. Honestly, the corp. of cadets is a living legacy of men and women who are the product of a high stress environment, to say the least, and still manage to be successful. Not only have we faced commandant’s staff’s wrath over the years but the Newmarket cadets fought for their native state and the only way of life they had ever known. Not to justify entirely what the South was fighting for but it was a simpler time and the North was arguably coercing them. As such, the archetypal graduate of the institute has since been citizen-soldiers.
Our expectations are clearly defined in several institutions. The Rat Disciplinary Committee is the indoctrination into military discipline that every keydet must endure as a rat. Discipline is crucial in conditioning civilians to adopt a citizen-soldier’s mantle of responsibility. The General Committee is in place to uphold the standards of the institute as well as the contentious class system at VMI. The General Committee is responsible for the image of the corps. As such, their job demands a self policing corps. therefore instilling a panopticon within the populace itself.