Thesis Statements/Questions

1. Should models be required to maintain a minimum weight to be allowed to work in the modeling industry?


Models should be required to maintain a minimum, healthy weight because of the effect it has on society, especially pre-teens and teenagers.


2. Should cell phone use be illegal in the US while driving an automobile?


Cellphone use in today's society is out of control; the use of a cellphone while driving in an automobile should be made illegal because it poses as a safety hazard to everyone on the road, and is a distraction to the driver.


3. What is the effect of the violent video games on aggression in children?


The popularization of violent video games in today's society has been cited as the reason for increased aggression in today's youth.


I could not come up with the other two, as I am still trying to decide what would be other appropriate topics for the research paper.

Foucault Summary of Panopticism

Foucault begins this section of his book, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by introducing the readers to the measures that had to be taken during the end of the seventeenth century when a plague appeared in town. He continues on to inform of us of the standard procedure. After everyone is closed off in their house from the rest of the town they are to show themselves in the window, so that syndic can keep track of all the people in the town during the time of the plague. He later goes on to give us Bentham's Panopticon and the principles that it was based off of: "at the periphery, an annular building; at the center, a tower; this tower is pierced with wide windows that open onto the inner side of the ring; the peripheric building is divided into cells, each of which extends the whole width of the building" (225). The Panopticon, used in prison, is to instill the feeling that the inmates will always be watched, but will not know when or by who, giving the inmates the incentive to always be on good behavior. Foucault claims that "It (Penopticon concept) can in fact be integrated into any function" (233). Functions that are mentioned as schools, hospitals and prisons. The Panopticon can show the relationship between power and discipline, and it can be infused into our modern day society.