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alrautio's review against another edition
3.0
Very interesting subject (prisons that is, especially the idea of a prison through history and looking back at past conceptions), but too dry for me; it was a bit of a grind to get through. One passage from letter x I liked in particular, however:
"'What trades may I put my men to when I have got them?' My answer is soon given. 'Any whatever that you can persuade them [inmates] to turn their hands to.'"
Inmates would then be further divided into four categories as follows: the good hands, the capable hands, the promising hands, and the drones, with the good hands having been otherwise 'upstanding' citizens of trades and the drones having no trade at all previously having been petty thieves etc.
"'What trades may I put my men to when I have got them?' My answer is soon given. 'Any whatever that you can persuade them [inmates] to turn their hands to.'"
Inmates would then be further divided into four categories as follows: the good hands, the capable hands, the promising hands, and the drones, with the good hands having been otherwise 'upstanding' citizens of trades and the drones having no trade at all previously having been petty thieves etc.
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
I love the panopticon theory. Obviously I don't think it's a good idea to have in real life, but it's a super cool concept. My friends have imposed a tariff on how many times I'm allowed to use the word per conversation, if that's any indication.
aimiller's review
4.0
I didn't feel like I needed to have read this after I read it; I think the other work you encounter that talks about the panopticon does a pretty good job of summing it up, and I will be honest that I did not really understand the fragment on ontology. But I do appreciate the return to the text, and the introduction by Miran Božovič did a good job with the framework and exploring some of the points of the writings that I probably would have missed otherwise. If you're REALLY into like returning to the original text, or have other interests in Bentham's larger work (oops I don't) then obviously it makes sense for you to read this, but if you've already read the other works and are like "great" then you are probably okay on this one.
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