The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band.
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Monday, September 17, 2012
Friday, September 7, 2012
Surveillance Culture
Of course, most of you will be familiar with the concept of Big Brother, George Orwell's anthropomorphism of totalitarian control in 1984. Keeping an oppressively close eye on your every thought, action and word in order to maintain social homogeneity and uniformity.
Less known, but perhaps more important is the panoptic theory of surveillance. Originally a hypothetical design for a new prison system proposed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the 19th century, the panopticon has since morphed and been expanded into a complex phenomenon within the modern consciousness. The idea was that prisoners organized in open blocks around a central tower with reflective glass so that the prisoners would be fully visible from any angle while the guards remained obscured from view. This produces the illusion of constant surveillance, even if there is no one physically in the watchtower, simply because there is that potential for someone to be watching. The prisoners in turn become self-disciplining and willfully complacent without the need for direct action or confrontation.
Now the reason I bring this up is that the panopticon is easily applicable as a model for our modern surveillance culture. In fact, the metaphor dominates the academic literature on the subject almost to the point of boredom. But today there is such a profusion of cameras, wiretapping, data storage, neighborhood watch programs, etc. that we are undoubtedly being continually watched by someone, somewhere who we never actually see. Run a red light, a camera snaps a photo of your license plate and one week letter there's a traffic violation fine in your mailbox. Simple as that. No faces or people involved. Shopping centers too are notorious for the number of eyes in the sky there. Most people know to behave in accordance with the particular rules and regulations of the space despite the fact that mall security guards are usually laughable buffoons at best. Even the supermarkets keeps records of everything we buy in order to tailor advertisements directly to our preferences. And while I don't have any grand conspiracy to tie all of this together, I do believe that privacy has become a thing of the past and that we are continually monitored by myriad people/organizations for a number of different reasons that they think are equally justified.
Even so, the panopticon is especially important because of that self-discipling effect on Bentham's prisoners. In case it's not yet clear: that's us. The public. We're captives of the perpetual gaze. As such, it has had profound psychological and social impacts upon us. We know we're being watched. It's no secret; we expect it. Those giant black orbs in the ceiling are less than inconspicuous. Of course, we're still not perfectly behaved as a public, and crime is still a thing same as ever. The interesting part comes when we take to watching each other. Not only are we are aware of the surveillance cameras, we also know that other citizens are watching with cameraphones and social media ready to record and disseminate evidence. This creates a nearly inescapable and omnipresent network of behavioral control. It is the panoptic culture.
The technologies that have driven this conversion to full-blown observation nonetheless represent unprecedented legal territory. In many cases, the rights of the individual to privacy is not well defined against the right of a proprietor to survey his holdings and protect his own rights to property. As these digital realities become more integrated into the social fabric, these sorts of distinctions will need to be made. At the moment we're accepting surveillance as though it has forever been a part of life. But it hasn't. At least not to the extend that we experience it now. These changes are extremely recent, even on a human timescale. And I reckon surveillance warrants a bit more thoughtful consideration by the public than it has received.
Do we really want the pathological watching that the panoptic instills within our culture? A quasi-Big Brother state where everyone is watching each other and themselves in distrust. Are we okay with our personal information being laid bare to anyone with an economic interest in it? Is this an adequate deterrent to crime, or is that issue better addressed through different social programs? Who has the right to watch and record? Where does it all end?
If you don't believe that the act of watching has become deeply pathological in modern society, just check your Facebook page.
Less known, but perhaps more important is the panoptic theory of surveillance. Originally a hypothetical design for a new prison system proposed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the 19th century, the panopticon has since morphed and been expanded into a complex phenomenon within the modern consciousness. The idea was that prisoners organized in open blocks around a central tower with reflective glass so that the prisoners would be fully visible from any angle while the guards remained obscured from view. This produces the illusion of constant surveillance, even if there is no one physically in the watchtower, simply because there is that potential for someone to be watching. The prisoners in turn become self-disciplining and willfully complacent without the need for direct action or confrontation.
Now the reason I bring this up is that the panopticon is easily applicable as a model for our modern surveillance culture. In fact, the metaphor dominates the academic literature on the subject almost to the point of boredom. But today there is such a profusion of cameras, wiretapping, data storage, neighborhood watch programs, etc. that we are undoubtedly being continually watched by someone, somewhere who we never actually see. Run a red light, a camera snaps a photo of your license plate and one week letter there's a traffic violation fine in your mailbox. Simple as that. No faces or people involved. Shopping centers too are notorious for the number of eyes in the sky there. Most people know to behave in accordance with the particular rules and regulations of the space despite the fact that mall security guards are usually laughable buffoons at best. Even the supermarkets keeps records of everything we buy in order to tailor advertisements directly to our preferences. And while I don't have any grand conspiracy to tie all of this together, I do believe that privacy has become a thing of the past and that we are continually monitored by myriad people/organizations for a number of different reasons that they think are equally justified.
Even so, the panopticon is especially important because of that self-discipling effect on Bentham's prisoners. In case it's not yet clear: that's us. The public. We're captives of the perpetual gaze. As such, it has had profound psychological and social impacts upon us. We know we're being watched. It's no secret; we expect it. Those giant black orbs in the ceiling are less than inconspicuous. Of course, we're still not perfectly behaved as a public, and crime is still a thing same as ever. The interesting part comes when we take to watching each other. Not only are we are aware of the surveillance cameras, we also know that other citizens are watching with cameraphones and social media ready to record and disseminate evidence. This creates a nearly inescapable and omnipresent network of behavioral control. It is the panoptic culture.
The technologies that have driven this conversion to full-blown observation nonetheless represent unprecedented legal territory. In many cases, the rights of the individual to privacy is not well defined against the right of a proprietor to survey his holdings and protect his own rights to property. As these digital realities become more integrated into the social fabric, these sorts of distinctions will need to be made. At the moment we're accepting surveillance as though it has forever been a part of life. But it hasn't. At least not to the extend that we experience it now. These changes are extremely recent, even on a human timescale. And I reckon surveillance warrants a bit more thoughtful consideration by the public than it has received.
Do we really want the pathological watching that the panoptic instills within our culture? A quasi-Big Brother state where everyone is watching each other and themselves in distrust. Are we okay with our personal information being laid bare to anyone with an economic interest in it? Is this an adequate deterrent to crime, or is that issue better addressed through different social programs? Who has the right to watch and record? Where does it all end?
If you don't believe that the act of watching has become deeply pathological in modern society, just check your Facebook page.
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