(Foucault 234). The furtive power in America is its government "trickling down power in a hierarchical system that molds individuals and determines their choices for them, quite unlike the "land of the free and home of the brave- fazade with which it is usually attributed. However, the government that claims the idea of American citizenship equals freedom and safety failed to mention that it also means submission to its standards. .
The panoptical effects of discipline in the creation of the American dream start early in youth. In fact, taking history into perspective, the training began generations ago. The current generation of youth has been raised by a previous generation that was trained with the idealist functions of the American dream, and so on. It is a cycle that is difficult to end. Foucault describes the process in which individuals are become pawns in the panoptical machine as follows:.
Our society is not one of spectacle, but one of surveillance; under the surface of images, one invests bodies in depth; behind the great abstraction of exchange, there continues the meticulous, concrete training of useful forces; the circuits of communication are the supports of an accumulation and a centralization of knowledge; the play of signs defines the anchorages of power. . . we are neither in the ampitheater, nor on the stage, but in the panoptic machine, invested by its effects of power, which we bring to ourselves since we are part of its mechanism.
Parents, teachers, and the media combine to create an atmosphere in which most adolescents grow up, graduate high school, and aren't exactly forced to go to college; yet for so many "what is their other option? .
This idea of success "the American dream "would not possibly be feasible without an education. However, perhaps the individual would like to travel the world, hitchhike across Interstate 40, or simply work at McDonalds.