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diff --git a/books/sociology/counterrevolution.md b/books/sociology/counterrevolution.md index cd50051..273dad4 100644 --- a/books/sociology/counterrevolution.md +++ b/books/sociology/counterrevolution.md @@ -1191,3 +1191,72 @@ Counterinsurgency goes domestic: are: outwardly you must treat every civilian as a friend; inwardly you must consider him as a rebel ally until you have positive proof to the contrary.” 2 This mantra has become the rule today—at home. + + [...] + + In Exposed, I proposed a new way to understand how power circulates in the + digital age and, especially, a new way to comprehend our willingness to expose + ourselves to private corporations and the government alike. The metaphors + commonly used to describe our digital condition, such as the “surveillance + state,” Michel Foucault’s panopticon prison, or even George Orwell’s Big + Brother, are inadequate, I argued there. In the new digital age we are not forcibly + imprisoned in panoptic cells. There is no “telescreen” anchored to the wall of our + apartments by the state. No one is trying to crush our passions, or wear us down + into submission with the smell of boiled cabbage and old rag mats, coarse soap, + and blunt razors. The goal is not to displace our pleasures with hatred—with + “hate” sessions, “hate songs,” “hate weeks.” Today, instead, we interact by + means of “likes,” “shares,” “favorites,” “friending,” and “following.” We + gleefully hang smart TVs on the wall that record everything we say and all our + preferences. The drab uniforms and grim grayness of Orwell’s 1984 have been + replaced by the iPhone 5c in its radiant pink, yellow, blue, and green. “Colorful + through and through,” its marketing slogan promises, and the desire for color- + filled objects—for the sensual swoosh of a sent e-mail, the seductive click of the + iPhone camera “shutter,” and the “likes,” clicks, and hearts that can be earned by + sharing—seduce us into delivering ourselves to the surveillance technologies. + And as the monitoring and marketing of our private lives changes who we + sharing—seduce us into delivering ourselves to the surveillance technologies. + + And as the monitoring and marketing of our private lives changes who we + are, power circulates in a new way. Orwell depicted the perfect totalitarian + society. Guy Debord described ours rather as a society of the spectacle, in which + the image makers shape how we understand the world and ourselves. Michel + Foucault spoke instead of “the punitive society” or what he called + “panopticism,” drawing on Jeremy Bentham’s design of the panoptic prison. + Gilles Deleuze went somewhat further and described what he called “societies of + control.” But in our digital age, total surveillance has become inextricably linked + with pleasure. We live in a society of exposure and exhibition, an expository + society. + + [...] + + And that’s what happened: taxpayers would pay the telecoms to hold the data + for the government. So, before, AT&T surreptitiously provided our private + personal digital data to the intelligence services free of charge. Now, American + taxpayers will pay them to collect and hold on to the data for when the + intelligence services need them. A neoliberal win-win solution for everyone— + except, of course, the ordinary, tax-paying citizen who wants a modicum of + privacy or protection from the counterinsurgency. + + [...] + + In my previous book, however, I failed to fully grasp how our expository + society fits with the other features of our contemporary political condition— + from torture, to Guantánamo, to drone strikes, to digital propaganda. In part, I + could not get past the sharp contrast between the fluidity of our digital surfing + and surveillance on the one hand, and the physicality of our military + interventions and use of torture on the other. To be sure, I recognized the deadly + reach of metadata and reiterated those ominous words of General Michael + Hayden, former director of both the NSA and the CIA: “We kill people based on + metadata.” 20 And I traced the haunting convergence of our digital existence and + of correctional supervision: the way in which the Apple Watch begins to + function like an electronic bracelet, seamlessly caging us into a steel mesh of + digital traces. But I was incapable then of fully understanding the bond between + digital exposure and analog torture. + + It is now clear, though, that the expository society fits seamlessly within our + new paradigm of governing. The expository society is precisely what allows the + counterinsurgency strategies to be applied so impeccably “at home” to the very + people who invented modern warfare. The advent of the expository society, as + well as the specific NSA surveillance programs, makes domestic total + information awareness possible, and in turn lays the groundwork for the other + two prongs of counterinsurgency in the domestic context. |