Tim recently posted something about some guy he was sat next to on a train journey home from a fishing trip. This dude was the type who manages to drown you in his whole life story in a remarkably short time. Usually the asshole you'd rather just slap around the face. Anyway, the discussion got onto surveillance and Tim pointed out that this guy probably couldn't give a shit whether he has to show ID everywhere, whether his kids have RFID's in their heads, or whether or not he had a camera intently watching him and his partner performing some intricate sex position. After all, he's not doing anything wrong so what does he have to worry about?
This question has plagued me for a while, and Tim also admits to doing what I used to do all the time; trying to convince people that their liberties are at stake, blah, privacy, blah. So now it's time to de-plague myself and sort out a few other issues aswell.
First off, let's look a little closer at that statement:
"I'm not doing anything wrong, so I have nothing to worry about."
Clearly, the interpretation of this statement depends on your ideas surrounding what's right and what's wrong. For example, Mr Eco W. Arrior will be extremely pissed off that his handy lampost mounted cam has alerted the authorities to the fact that he has broken the laws by spraying too much water on his garden. Mr Arrior is infuriated because he needs this water to keep up the health of his crops, which currently make up a large part of his diet, thus allowing him to neglect evil transglobal corporations like Walmart. He is also annoyed because he knows that what his government has told him about water shortages is bullshit; it's just another scheme to make more cash for water companies. Mr Dick Head (I'm not biased, honestly) walks over from across the road and tries to calm Mr A down: "Look man, it's the law! You don't need that much water for your lawn anyway. If you want your fruit and veg, the Walmart down the road has a huge selection." This further infuriates Mr A. The point is that the whole statement is full of absolutes and is completely down to interpretation. If you have view A, as opposed to view B, you're going to deduce completely different meanings from the statement. Another statement (which reminds me of a friend's outlook) is: "I've been hurt before, so I'll never get with anyone again." That's stupid. Nearly as stupid as "I'm going to die anyway, so I'm not going to bother looking as I cross the road."
So the statement is pretty much useless. It distracts us from our individuality and denies us our beautiful ability of being able to hang loads of meanings on different symbols or concepts. Time to look at some more interesting concepts regarding surveillance and why it gets to some people and not others.
As Jeremy pointed out, in what I feel is a relevant post, technology always expands to fill it potentialities. So then, what if we allowed it? What if every single one of us agreed to have cams pretty much everywhere? I guess the open people like the train guy wouldn't have much of a problem. He's already open about who he is and what he does. But what would surveillance cameras be watching? It wouldn't be us at all, only what we come across as; our societal representations. In Tim's post on the Data Body (discussed later), he brings up the idea (via a reader) of the ego being a representation of the Self. Then we're hit with this analogy:
"Interpreting Carlos' suggestion though, the ego serves as the representative of the self. It is sort of a projection or a vehicle for the self to act upon the world. But many people get into the situation where they mistake the vehicle for the reality of the self. This happens while driving too. If someone backs into you in a parking lot, you say, "That bastard hit me!" You don't say, "That bastard hit my car!" You sort of naturally extend your self-consciousness to include your vehicle. And it's not a bad thing; it helps you operate more seemlessly. So imagine if you were always in your car your whole life, and that was the only way you'd ever experienced the world (Sort of Plato's allegory of the cave, but with updated imagery)."
This bears a cool resemblance with what Jung once said while discussing the relationship between the ego and the unconscious:
"The office I hold is certainly my special activity; but it is also a collective factor that has come into existence historically through the cooperation of many people and whose dignity rests solely on collective approval. When, therefore, I identify myself with my office or title, I behave as though I myself were the whole complex of social factors of which that office consists, or as though I were not only the bearer of the office, but also and at the same time the approval of society. I have made an extraordinary extension of myself and have usurped qualities which are not in me but outside Me."
This is where it is important to distinguish between the Self, and the projection of the Self that people around you see. Now, regardless of your terminology or concepts, there is no doubt that what constitutes the Self is not the same as what everyone sees you as because 1) there are differences between the Self and projections and 2) because different people interpret the projection differently.
A nice article that Jeremy referred to in his post on Real ID was The Mythologies of Terrorism on the Net by Critical Art Ensemble. This is an interesting piece which looks at why some people believe it is possible terrorize digital abstractions. Here's an awesome segment:
"From an existential point of view, the record, optimized by the electronic information apparatus, has taken the form of horrific excess. Each one of us has files that rest at the state's fingertips. Education files, medical files, employment files, financial files, communication files, travel files, and for some, criminal files. Each strand in the trajectory of each person's life is recorded and maintained. The total collection of records on an individual is h/er or her data body - a state and corporate controlled doppelganger. What is most unfortunate about this development is that the data body not only claims to have ontological privilege, but actually does have it. What your data body says about you is more real than what you say about yourself. The data body is the body by which you are judged in society, and the body that dictates your status in the social world."
Now I don't think that the data body and Carlos' idea of the Self-representative ego are the same things, but they both point to what the Critical Art Ensemble put so well:
"What we are witnessing at this point in time is the triumph of representation over being. The electronic file has conquered self-aware consciousness."
I think a crisis of representation over being is why there is such a divide between people on surveillance. I think the main manifested reason for the triumph of representation is in the consumer based society in which we live. But then you could link it back further to the first ideas of "wealth" (the origins of agriculture) and thus civilisation itself. Or you could go even deeper and link it to human design and the way in which we work. I'm talking along the lines of the ego, and the fact that most people are confusing their ego with their Self. They think their cars are themselves.
So in light of that view, it seems that police-state style surveillance merely re-ignites issues that are inherent in our human makeup and always have been. Those at different psychological stages are the ones who are disagreeing. But I still don't think this justifies the surveillance. There's one more issue, which I think explains why our rulers want this surveillance and why we must "neutralise" it.
Fear.
I very much doubt that the authorities care what they're gonna see on these cams. Police state surveillance is an incredibly effective psychological operation, which gives the rulers a sense of control, thus fulfilling their psychopathic needs, while at the same time pushing most of us into a state of fear. Fear is the hoofprint of the Archon, and fear is the way in which we further empower authority, or any appropriate Archonian manifestation. This is what's wrong with surveillance, the fear part, but it's also what will allow us to break free of it. When there is no fear, there is no point in the surveillance; by not fearing, you rip the heart out of the psy-op and thus render it useless.
So how do you rid yourself of fear? There is no simple mono-applicable answer to this, but Taoist insight of the soft overcoming the hard might help us out. Wise sages used to teach that the reason China survived its multiple invasions was by succumbing to the invaders. The soldiers were seduced by China's fruits and thus China's culture and people emerged victorious time and time again. The concept of the soft overcoming the hard has application on many levels, including the woman (soft) overcoming the man (hard) in sex. But in the context of surveillance, this would mean either completely accepting the new "improvements" or just not caring about them. By succumbing to the surveillance and "going with the flow", we will begin to dismantle this psy-op.
So I think I'll take a page from the train guys book and not even give surveillance a place to dwell in my already busy and over abused mind.
[Check out Jeremy's great follow up to this post]
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