Monday, March 4, 2013

panoptic

panoptic \pan-OP-tik\, adjective:

1. permitting the viewing of all parts or elements: a panoptic stain used in microscopy; a panoptic aerial photograph of an enemy missile base.
2. considering all parts or elements; all inclusive: a panoptic criticism of modern poetry.

Thus, the technical writing embodied in these reports enabled panoptic surveillance, comparisons of operations to standards, corrections, rewards, efficient operations, the accumulation of capital, and the betterment of the human condition.
-- Bernadette Longo, Spurious Coin, 2000
…the panoptic metaphor of photography as a surveillance technology doesn't hold.
-- George Robertson, FutureNatural, 1996

First used in English in the early 1800s, panoptic comes from the Greek panoptos, which literally means "all-seeing."

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