Page 158 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Western Political Thought

Notes Bentham recommended “Big Brother” supervision with 14 hours a day, long hours on the
treadwheel accompanied by martial music, totally rejecting solitary confinement as abhorrent and
irrelevant. In his utilitarian mission to prevent crime, he advocated punishments like castration
for rape and mild kebabbing for arsonists Subsequently, he applied the principles of the panopticon
to poultry devising the first battery farm.
Foucault presented the panopticon as the quintessence of the disciplinary apparatus of the bourgeois
state. He assailed the oppressive totalitarianism that supported self-seeking liberalism. It epitomized
repressive rationality. This assessment was far from true. Bentham’s proposal never really
materialized for it to be considered a prototype of the illiberal capitalist state. He did not prescribe
systematic solitary confinement for long-term convicts. He was not the sole ideological father of
Victorian social engineering, for the Victorian conception of prison differed considerably from
that of Bentham’s plans. While Bentham proposed public inspection of the Panopticon, the Victorians
wanted the gates of the jails to be closed. He was also against state-run prisons, for they would
only lead to corruption and jobbery. Contract prisons, on the contrary, managed by tender and
private initiatives would ensure efficiency and profitability. Though he pondered over the rationale
for punitive measures, he accepted punishment as long as it served the high goals of utilitarianism
(Semple ibid).
Bentham welcomed the French Revolution and sent his reform proposals, though none were
adopted. But he was made an honorary citizen of France in 1792 for his Draught of a New Plan for
the Organization of the Judicial Establishment of France (1790). In the early 1800s, his reputation
started to spread, attracting attention even in far-off places like Russia and countries in Latin
America.
In 1809, a close relationship between Bentham and James Mill (1773-1836) began, with Mill being
convinced of the urgency for reforms. Under Mill’s influence, Bentham became more radical. In
1817, Bentham published Plan of Parliamentary Reform in the form of catechism. In 1819, he completed
the draft proposals of the Radical Reform Bill. Ari attack on the established church came in Church
of Englandism in 1818. The codification of law became his primary concern from the 1780s to the
1830s.
Even in his old age Bentham remained in good health. He became financially well-off, with the
English Parliament compensating him with £23,000 in 1813 for the non-implementation of the
panopticon. He led a simple life, never seeing anyone except for some specific purpose. He relaxed
by listening to music, and his favourites were Handel and Corelli. His main hobby was gardening,
for that gave him supreme pleasure. He played badminton for physical fitness. He continued with
his lifelong devotion to legal reform, looking upon it as a game. In 1819, he wrote:
[W]hat sacrifice did I make ...? None at all. I followed my own taste. Chess I could not
play without a partner ... codification was a little game I could play at alone ... codification,
when I am dead, who can say how many other persons may be the better for.
Bentham invented devices like primitive telephones, suggested reforms for the London police, the
London sewage and drainage systems, devised a central heating system, ran a law school from his
home, worked on schemes for lowering the national debt, secured low interest loans for the poor,
planned a national public education system, a national health service, and a national census,
conceived a refrigerator for storing goods at low temperatures, and recommended a canal to be
dug through Central America to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He called himself “The
Hermit of Queen’s Square Place”. Because of his simplicity, he attracted many disciples and
followers. A modern counterpart of Bentham was Gandhi. His disciples venerated him as their
spiritual leader and teacher. Though he led an ascetic life himself, he regarded asceticism with
contempt, for saints were idlers. Bentham scorned spiritualism, for it glorified unhappiness and
distrusted pleasures. Spiritualism negated his unflinching belief in happiness as the goal of all
individuals.

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