Skeleton Trivia for Wednesday, 2025-06-04
And so the pendulum swings once more
Hiya Skeleton Crew,
Welcome to Wednesday. It’s by far the Wedsniest day a’ the week!
Today’s Trivias
Trivia 1
Before we leave prisons behind altogether, let’s take one last look at a li’l quotation:
Morals reformed—health preserved—industry invigorated—instruction diffused—public burthens lightened—Economy seated, as it were, upon a rock—the gordian knot of the Poor-Laws not cut, but untied—all by a simple idea in Architecture!—Thus much I ventured to say on laying down the pen—and thus much I should perhaps have said on taking it up, if at that early period I had seen the whole of the way before me.
So begins a what text by Mister Jeremy Bentham that’s subtitled The Inspection-House? In it, he proposes a titular architectural layout where a single guard can sit in the middle of a big ol’ circular structure and keep an eye on ALL the prisoners at once. Super efficient!! Also: kinda terrifyin’.
The design’d go on to inspire the design a’ several real-life prisons, includin’ the Stateville Correctional Center in Illinois, Cuba’s Presidio Modelo, an’ the Casa de Detenção do Recife in Brazil.
Trivia 2
Ol’ Jer-Bear’s proposal from Q1 was picked up later by what French philosopher, who in his book Discipline and Punish said it’d be better to think a’ the concept less as a literal buildin’ an’ more of a “diagram of a mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form”. (Yikes—that don’t sound very nice at all!!!)
OK then
Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee