[Reader-list] on identification and social control

[Menso Heus]

On Tue, Jun 26, 2001 at 09:19:10AM -0700, Rana Dasgupta wrote:
> Within the context of recent postings on surveillance
> I would like to ask the question: what does freedom
> look like in the networked society?
> 
> Modern surveillance and social control do not just
> begin with cameras and email censorship.  They are
> there in much older systems.  
> 
> For instance, an economy built on credit - which is
> the case in the US for all of the post-WW2 era -
> imposes a profound kind of control.  Instead of a
> period of restraint and saving followed by a libidinal
> rush of spending on a long-desired asset (a car, for
> example), this model extends that phase of restraint
> over the entirety of life.  Credit card bills and
> mortgages ensure that citizens cannot deviate too far
> from the hard work that allows them to remain
> financially afloat.  In this kind of society one's
> main social duty is to consume and thus keep up one's
> 'debt to society' - the rest (production,
> self-control, etc) will follow.  this predates more
> precise forms of surveillance that the credit system
> makes possible - your credit card bill as a map, for
> instance, of your locations and actions.

The difference between creditcards and other 'networked'
surveillance is that with creditcards *I* get to choose 
to use them and thus have somewhat more freedom.
Hence: If I want to buy porno mags and don't want my bank
or whoever to find out, I go in and pay by cash.
One could argue that getting the money from an ATM is logged 
which is true, but they will not know what I spend it on 
(unless you're one of those people who believe they track 
all notes by their serial number, which too me seems just 
too much hassle :-)

The fact that the store most likely has a cam however is 
something I can't do anything about, I cannot choose to 
not be filmed in the store or on the streets unless I 
choose to avoid those places.
I cannot choose for people not to tap my email, surely I 
can try to fix a workaround (e.g. use encryption) but since
storage is cheap they can store it now and by the time 
the next big generation of CPU's kicks in they'll decode it
in a blink then when they think it's necessary.
 
> As the system's need for growth demands an ever
> greater level of both consumption and production from
> individuals, it is clear that both activities are ever
> more closely controlled.  

Is that need really there or is it there because Nokia, Intel,
McDonalds, Nike and Foodworld supermarkets tell you so?
We have come a long way, from hunting to prevent starvation to
eating burgers sitting on our couch watching cartoon network 
while we grow fat and swallow anything that comes in a shiny 
packaging. I think Cow from the Cow And Chicken show on cartoon
network said it best when she said "I'm gonna follow my herd!"

Naturally, each herd has a leader and we have decided that big
corporations are the way to go at some point or another....

> but one should not look at this in a vacuum, as if, if
> such modes of control were not there, there would be
> no control at all, and individuals would be totally
> free.  the level of such dispersed, internalised
> control, i am sure, has an inverse relationship with
> the level of centralised, external control that is
> required in a society.  in a place like india where
> both kinds of control are at work, they are unequally
> applied: i would imagine that middle class people are
> much more subject to the former, and working class
> people to the latter.  

I wouldn't be to sure on this, eventually all is controlled by
the government and big corporations and even bigger clubs 
behind those. The internalised control is thus controlled by 
the external, governmental control (which might seem passive or
look the other way if there's good enough reasons to do so, and
there is ofcourse only one: money!)
 
> if this is the only choice, personally i'd prefer to
> be subject to a control that is abstract and whose
> workings i can anticipate than one that is personified
> and random.  and i think that within the realm of the
> actually-existing these are the only kind of choices
> we have.  here in india where we are familiar with the
> experience of society being inadequately 'managed' the
> absence of any kind of control whatsoever does not
> seem wholly romantic.

There is a big difference between saying control is bad and 
saying losing your freedom is. Funnily enough, in most groups
of people I've met these forms of control evolve naturally and
the 'group leaders' also are picked naturally instead of imposed.
The image you create of a form of control that you can anticipate 
on is a nice one but not very current I think. While governments 
and big corps want to know more and more about us they are becoming
less transparent in their own actions every day. 
Thus one could argue that the forms of control are getting tighter
and tighter, perhaps reaching Orwell's 1984 (but when it does, 
they'll have made sure the book's not available anymore and nobody
knows it, having sitcoms and cartoons about 'paranoid people' that
want some privacy, ridiculing the concept).

> if it is true - and i'm not actually sure it is - that
> all the phenomena we are looking at point only to
> changing forms of control rather than different
> amounts of it, then any ideas of 'freedom' must only
> be relative.  how do people on the list imagine
> 'freedom'?

When something like the concept of control changes the amount or
grip it has changes with it. It's a bit like a glass of water, one
full and one half-empty and asking 'Is the form of the water between 
these two glasses different or does the amount change?"

Ofcourse ideas of freedom are relative, there is no question about 
that. The amount of control society allows to be had on it though 
is not in my opinion. You see, the reason the sense of freedom is 
relative between people from different cultures or different times is 
because of the different amount of control their culture has on them. 

For example, a Turkish girl in The Netherlands might relate the idea of
Dutch girls not wearing anything to cover their head to freedom, girls
from England or Sweden however will not, since they do not know it 
any different. The Turkish girl will say "Oh, you are so free!" and the
Dutch one will reply by saying "Oh, you're so oppressed!" and the father
of the Turkish girl will say "It's the way God wants it" and is thus
again controlled by religion* and that will be the start of it: 
The girl will need to figure out if she wants to live the way her family 
and religion think is best or if she wants the freedom to go and dress
the way she wants to, and thus brake with current culture and traditions.

Herbert's Dune series show the different ways control works quite nicely,
the most famous words probably being "He who controls the spice controls
the universe!" where spice is a drug that enables people to do crazy things
like travel through dimensions and stuff, but that's not really the point
here. 

The spice for our people seems to be money, everybody wants it and the 
more the better, if not for material things than to pay holidays or 
things like that. 
The growing demand for production comes from the growing demand for money, 
thus resulting in a world where we end up with lavalamps because the 
guy at the shop convinced us we need them because they look  so damn cool, and we buy it. 
Thus resulting in a world where a popular square is hang full with 
camera's so you can feel safe, sure, the cops will never arrive in time 
when you get robbed, raped or murdered but hey, they can always sell 
the footage to some reality TV show to go along with that HappyMeal 
product we really need, can't they? 
Thus resulting in a world with bitter 19-year olds replying to emails 
about freedom while they should be out getting drunk and stoned out of 
their minds along with some nice college girls while not worrying about 
things like this. 

There is no such thing as complete freedom, even if it were just because
of our sense of obligations to the people we love and care about (e.g.
I will not have sex with someone else than my partner because I know 
it upsets him/her). There is however definately different amounts of control
and current society will need to figure out just how much it will allow
and to what purpose and how to mix up the different amounts of control 
between cultures to find a balance between them. 

GoodKnight, 

Menso

* This comment is not made to upset any religious people. I am not 
saying all religion is bad, I am however very aware of the fact that
most wars in this world had as reason: "My god is better than yours, and
if you do not agree I will kill you eventhough my religion's bible says 
it's never ok to kill someone" 

Think about it, do you really need a church or does the church need you?

** For the Indian people out there, a Quarterpounder menu is a burger 
that you can get in all McDonalds across the world, except *yours* that
have the highly irritating sign saying "No beef products sold here".
And yes, it is indeed called a "Royal with cheese" in France as the movie 
Pulp Fiction claims it is and it makes quite an ok breakfast/lunch/dinner.
One could argue that Indian culture prevents people from other cultures 
to eat beef products at their favorite fastfood joint, thus apply'ing 
more control (and leaving less freedom) to that person.... the burger
doesn't really seem worth it though ;)

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