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Watched VS Unwatched

  
  

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astrojax69
03:35 / 09.06.05
Of course, the counter-argument is perhaps that if that's the case, then you shouldn't be doing them at all...

but that isn't the counter agument, is it? lord henry's example is a prime case in point - with his private group he can express certain matters he is at liberty [important point] to think. surveillance curtails his perceived capacity to this expression, imposing a forced choice at self-censorship, so no choice at all... and most scarily, no-one can ever really tell him why his choice is forced. the 'why' of the watcher is rarely, if ever, well articulated.

do you not think he has every right to, first, 'think' these matters? and second, express them in a place where he should otherwise be able to feel free to do so, that is in some private space.

there is a thread about on natural rights and this example plays into that discussion - is privacy a natural right? if it is, what sort of society could ever condone relinquishing such a platform for continued [mental] health of the populace? i don't agree that 'if you don't want someone to see you shouldn't be doing it' is any argument at all....

i would certainly hate anyone i didn't want to seeing the private thoughts in my journal; similarly, i don't expect many artists (incl writers) would want 'first drafts' to necessarily be for public consumption. there is an old adage that is often at play in the creative moment of 'how can i know what i think til i read what i wrote / review what i did.. etc?'

privacy is a critical aspect of this discussion that has been only tangentially mentioned. i think it is fundamental!

hands up alll those who agree.... you, put your hand up. i can see you....
 
 
Smoothly
07:39 / 09.06.05
privacy is a critical aspect of this discussion that has been only tangentially mentioned. i think it is fundamental!

Eh? Privacy has been mentioned 35 times already. The whole thread is pretty much *about* privacy.

do you not think he has every right to, first, 'think' these matters? and second, express them in a place where he should otherwise be able to feel free to do so, that is in some private space.

is privacy a natural right? if it is, what sort of society could ever condone relinquishing such a platform for continued [mental] health of the populace?

And if it's not...?

I think I can deduce which side of the 30ft fence you're on, astrojax. But since it's so fundamental, how come we get this natural right to privacy; why privacy (of all things); what other natural rights do we have and where does privacy feature in the league?

i would certainly hate anyone i didn't want to seeing the private thoughts in my journal; similarly, i don't expect many artists (incl writers) would want 'first drafts' to necessarily be for public consumption. there is an old adage that is often at play in the creative moment of 'how can i know what i think til i read what i wrote / review what i did.. etc?'

But *why* would you hate someone to read your journal, do you think? Nothing to do with shame? Then what? (I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that old adage and don't really understand what it means)
 
 
All Acting Regiment
08:10 / 09.06.05
Smoothly: While I'm glad to see someone busy arguing, I'd like to question your position. You say that you yourself have nothing to be ashamed of, and thus don't have a problem with being watched- how much right, then, Smoothly, would you say you have to impress this culture on other people?

I think the reason so many people here are arguing against you is that your view ("I don't mind being watched 24/7 because I have nothing to hide") requires a system to be in place under which everyone else is watched, yes?
 
 
Smoothly
08:56 / 09.06.05
Thanks Legba – I hope this is an avenue you were hoping this thread would venture down.

You say that you yourself have nothing to be ashamed of, and thus don't have a problem with being watched

Did I say that? Where? If I did then I’m sorry because that’s certainly not the case. I’ve got loads of things to be ashamed of, and I don’t really like strangers making eye contact with me let alone *watching* me. I’m just asking the question: if you haven’t got anything to be ashamed of, why would you object to being watching. If.

Clearly I would expect people to argue against this ‘If you’re not doing anything wrong…’ position. I’m interested in the reasons. I’m just following up your initial question – 'A Watched society or an Unwatched society; which side do you support?'
I thought it was pretty obvious that most people would rather not be watched, and I assumed you were interested in *why*.

I think the reason so many people here are arguing against you is that your view ("I don't mind being watched 24/7 because I have nothing to hide") requires a system to be in place under which everyone else is watched, yes?

Well, yeah, for sure. That’s why I sketched out a hypothetical environment – not too much unlike our own – which would serve as an archetype of the Watched Society. It’s a model I thought could be tweaked to get to the nub of what people don’t like about it. This isn’t a switchboard thread, and that model isn’t a political proposal of mine.

This is why I think astrojax’s response is interesting. Regardless of any issue of political abuse of the instruments of a Watched Society, he thinks it’s a fundamental infringement of a natural right to privacy, a right he seems to hold very dear. And he says it’s nothing to do with doing wrong or being ashamed – so I’m keen to know what it *is* to do with. Something about mental health, I gather, and an idea that the creativity cannot flourish properly when the processes are out in the open (again, for reasons unconnected to shame). Sinteresting, don’t you think?
 
 
Withiel: DALI'S ROTTWEILER
09:29 / 09.06.05
do you not think he has every right to, first, 'think' these matters?

Of course - I was attempting to set up a sort of communitarian argument along the lines of "Yes, being constantly observed would stop you doing certain things altogether, but those things should not be done at all by the virtuous citizen. Therefore, this is in fact a justification in itself for total surveillance."

I do, however, think the above argument is oppressive rubbish - I was doing a rather crude straw man manoeuvre, I'm afraid.

On the issue of "natural rights" to privacy: Although it seems that the whole matter is on rather dodgy ground, surely the "natural rights" of the state to impose surveillance measures are on the same level as the natural rights of the individual? Or am I getting very confused here?
 
 
Unconditional Love
09:30 / 09.06.05
two areas very related to this discussion would be the proliferation of web cams and reality television, people are getting used to the idea of consuming watched culture as entertainment, via web cams some individuals are breaking the past terminology of what may have been considered previously private acts.

the very notion of privacy itself is being changed by those that enjoy and relish being watched, in what others would consider private, also take in to account the various websites that provide reality based videos.

you could argue that people are getting used to the idea of being watched by consuming entertainment based within the context of a watched culture. thou perhaps something else is happening people are making use of the medium of personal cameras for there own use, to exhibit there own behaviours above and beyond what may be considered morally or legally acceptable behaviours by some societies,in some ways by exposing there privacy they are breaking down social truthes and replacing then with personal truthes.

personal privacy, thou mediated, can be used as an effective tool to help break down socially concieved ideas of what is acceptable to watch and consume via screens.

reality television of the other hand i think is very much encouraging the acceptable notion of a watched culture and making it an entertaining view in the process.
 
 
All Acting Regiment
09:33 / 09.06.05
Certainly, we have the natural right to create an opressive state and we have the natural right to destroy it. The choice between these is decided by the issue of moral rights, yes?
 
 
Smoothly
10:06 / 09.06.05
Might it be sensible to keep discussion of natural rights to the other thread? Rights are bound to come up here, but isn’t it more relative here to discuss why the particular rights at hand (privacy, primarily I suppose) are *important* to us (regardless of their metaphysical status).
Or do I totally misunderstand the aims of this thread?

I think Gone and forgotten raises an interesting point about the expanding public arena. Does the rise of the blog say anything about changing attitudes to privacy. Will other ways be found to satisfy our urge for privacy in a world where we are more exposed. Are we reconstructing anonymity? For instance, a lot of private stuff is talked about here, but do fictionsuits make that different.

Indulge me a second: I heard an anecdote about some Cambridge students skinny dipping in the Cam one evening. As they lark about on the bank, a punt slinks into view. The group scramble to the cover their genitals with teddy bears, mortar boards, handfuls of clothing etc. One student, however, calmly drapes a shirt over his head until the gawping punters have passed. “I don’t know about you chaps,” he says, “but round these parts I’m known by my face”.

Not sure what made me think of that, but it feels relevant somehow.
 
 
Jack Vincennes
10:15 / 09.06.05
The government can not only watch, but has the means to process information and put its analyses to work. A citizen, or a groups of citizens, can watch and try to surveil the surveillors, but they will most likely fail because they don't have the resources to keep up with the data flow.

I suppose that what I was trying to get at in my post was that where the number of people in a community is small, the data flow is correspondingly small, and more people have the opportunity to observe others. Is that better or worse than a large community where observation is concentrated in the hands of the few? Is it the fact of being observed that's the problem, or is it the fact that the power to observe is concentrated amongst a few people rather than being diffused amonsgt the community?

Sorry, I know we've just moved on a bit from that, but is it better to be observed by cameras that it's unlikely anyone is monitering, where it's unlikely that anyone cares what you're doing -or is it better to be observed by people around you, who are watching, and do care?
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
14:53 / 09.06.05
Gone and forgotten. - I completely agree with your line of thinking here. I'd add that I reckon most people nowadays when confronted with something/someone slightly bizarre on (say) a shopping trip, would automatically look for the Candid Camera. I'd also imagine that this shift in culture would be more apparent if we compared our discussion today with those of (for example) Orwell's contemporaries when '1984' was first published -- I'm going to do some research on this over the coming week, but if anyone has any relevant info...?


This is why I think astrojax’s response is interesting. Regardless of any issue of political abuse of the instruments of a Watched Society, he thinks it’s a fundamental infringement of a natural right to privacy, a right he seems to hold very dear. And he says it’s nothing to do with doing wrong or being ashamed – so I’m keen to know what it *is* to do with. Something about mental health, I gather, and an idea that the creativity cannot flourish properly when the processes are out in the open (again, for reasons unconnected to shame). Sinteresting, don’t you think?

Very interesting. However, my initial response would be that there are other reasons why privacy could be seen as a natural right. Let me put it crudely: ever noticed how most animals hate it when you watch them defecating?

What I mean by this is that "shame" isn't necessarily the only reason not to be totally open and public at all times. I'd argue that as animals we have the natural right to be guarded even if it's just against the possibility that those who are watching us might use such moments of "weakness" to attack. It's akin to "opening your heart" to someone only to be betrayed or deliberately attacked. Wrongly or rightly, in reality one can't open one's heart to everybody all the time; it's tiring.

Also, most animals go away to die in private. I doubt "shame" has much to do with it. But as I typed, this is an initial response, I'm very interested to see what others think of this.

Haus - re: the panopticon - I'm in the process of getting my hands on some source material for this. But in the meantime, I was wondering whether Bentham expanded his (for want of the correct term) "philosphical metaphor". i.e. did he address more political aspects of the concept such as "Who built/bulds it?", Who chooses the watcher?", "Can/should it be destroyed and replaced with something superior?"... (Please take these as genuine questions.)

(Also, sorry everyone if my writing-style seems crude or unnecessarilly evocative. As usual, I'm just trying to save time. This thread is already so bloody engaging and distracting, I've neglected my duties for a day now chewing it over, so to speak.)
 
 
Tryphena Absent
19:13 / 09.06.05
I would suggest that the technics being dscussed here mark the final transition from what Foucault named the disciplinary societies, primarily of the 18th, 19th and early 20th C into and beyond the control societies (aka self-disciplinary) of the present day. The act of our being perpetually observed, always controlled and self-disciplined by the sheer amount of useless observation we are under, is surely enough evidence of the necessity to think (as this thread asks) of the sociotechnological principles we are under as this continues to construct itself.

Of course not everyone will live within the horror - there simply cannot be the necessary storage and besides most of humanity will never gain entrance into the wealth necessary to support it and us....
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
20:02 / 09.06.05
I agree with Nina. Indeed, personally, I feel that the only way I (ahem) can avoid such constant observation is to become a kind of modern hermit. I see the same thing happening with many friends, which leads me to worry about the atomisation of society and the risks this poses in the way C.S. Forster discussed in The Machine Stops. i.e. If there is a shift occuring from personal to state control, what happens when (or if) the "machine stops", when we discover that no-one is looking? Do we all become potential ASBO candidates? Can/should CCTV become a surrogate Jiminy Cricket for each and every one of us?

I suppose one might say that ultimately the only guarantee of complete privacy is to completely isolate oneself from all other life, but I'm hoping there's a balance.

Also (if it's ever conclusively proven to exist) how does all this relate to telepathy, or for that matter, Remote Viewing? What would Professor X say? (joke)

Of course not everyone will live within the horror - there simply cannot be the necessary storage and besides most of humanity will never gain entrance into the wealth necessary to support it and us....

(My knowledge of computer science is basic and my faith in humanity at an all time low, but) Isn't it theoretically possible that one day everyone could live "within the horror", that the technology could exist where all anyone would have to do is type "Joey Bloggs" into a super-computer and get a fully detailed report on Joey's entire life history, physical description, and day to day activities, etc? i.e an ultra- sophisticated panopticon, or '1984' technology with shiney new strings. One day, won't we probably be able to store as much raw data as we like (?), and all it will take is a few programmed protocols to do our sifting for us? Tech-heads, how far off am I?
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
20:15 / 09.06.05
Oops... I meant E.M. Forster of course... Oh well, don't I look stupid?
 
 
astrojax69
21:34 / 09.06.05
points well made smoothly, though i usually don't feel 'shame' as the primary driver for not wanting others to read my journal (though of course we all have our moments of weaknesses we are none too proud of); more often it is a tactic to avoid the need to expend any energies defending my position to those who i do not feel have the right to invade my space and ask personal questions. i like to think i am free to operate on a need-to-know basis.

i am sure we have all refused to answer - or would refuse to answer - deeply personal questions [say on your medical history, sexual practices, etc] if approached at random in the street. and who of us have not railed at the impertinence of media thrusting cameras and microphones in the faces and doorways of 'innocent' media personalities [or their unwitting relatives] who have asked civilly for them to fuck off? who decides on 'the public's right to know'? should it be the media themselves??

maybe this thread can also discuss the method we, as a society - including we as an on-line community - might best go about making the decisions that affect either our privacy or our 'right to watch'..?

more significantly though - getting back to smoothly's question - i enjoy the personal space i can create for myself by establishing an arc of privacy. this allows me the freedom to express myself - in the 'don't know what i think til i've read what i wrote' school. and i certainly want to be the first to have the chance to edit or censor myself!

g&f's point about the proliferation of webcams and other methods of freely relinquishing privacy to offer entertainment is interesting and shows that our society is keen to see others' lives and so probably spawns people who are extraverted. i am not an introvert by nature, but neither am i keen to relinquish privacy willy-nilly: and certainly i am not likely to allow for some authority (government, employer, etc) to force me to relinquish any aspect of my privacy without an excellent reason and secure safeguards.

again, i want to know 'why' the watcher wants to watch and not just be peter sellers in 'being there': "i like to watch" (very funny film! actually, probably quite a propos of this thread!)

being constantly observed would stop you doing certain things altogether, but those things should not be done at all by the virtuous citizen. Therefore, this is in fact a justification in itself for total surveillance.

yes withiel, this argument is oppressive rubbish... as smoothly points out, my side of the 30ft fence is well defined. i am very much a [radical] small 'l' liberal (by australian political nomenclature, anyway) and like to hold that as long as what you do doesn't adversely or unwantedly affect others then there should be no barrier to expressing this behaviour. there should be no reason at all to back up the statement 'these things should not be done at all by the various citizens'. i would find it hard to justify any legislation that impinges on such behaviour.

therefore, it follows there must be many possible instantiations of possible human behaviour that fall outside the juristiction of such a legislative framework and so are clearly 'permissible' - but might cause offence if to some members of the community were they to be made public. so blanket surveillance potentially curtails this behaviour simply and solely through its operation; and in no manner due soley to the behaviour itself, which is what would be the catalyst for consternation and outcry... this is where i draw the line at surveillance.
 
 
paranoidwriter waves hello
23:04 / 13.06.05
more significantly though - getting back to smoothly's question - i enjoy the personal space i can create for myself by establishing an arc of privacy. this allows me the freedom to express myself - in the 'don't know what i think til i've read what i wrote' school. and i certainly want to be the first to have the chance to edit or censor myself!

I'm much the same. Indeed, I agree with what has previously been mentioned, that this could all be seen to be about "trust". (IMHO) If we could all trust eachother to be open, accepting, patient, and willing to explore without violation, then maybe everybody watching everybody all the time is akin to global consciousness marrying "the other half". I don't know if it's a good idea, I'm just conjecting.

But again, it's about the right tool in the right hands, like the idea of a One World Government.

In my opinion, "the powers that be" (being another leviathan which is constitued by members who never acknowldege their true roles and see it almost as an "it") have A LOT more work to do before I can trust them. The irony is that they may even really believe that all this Big Brother-type technology is to safe-guard us from eachother, so that we can ALL trust each other enough to feel confident enough to go to the shops at night-time.

Wheels within wheels within wheels?

e.g "YOU are Big Brother!" (?)
 
 
astrojax69
02:40 / 14.06.05
if it we could all trust one another and live in the utopia you describe, pw, it would be wonderful but we wouldn't need surveillance!

i always thought that the greatest indictment of the human frailty was ..... locks.
 
 
Chill
15:52 / 24.08.05
I think a keynote from MeshForum 2005 by Jamais Cascio entitled "Participatory Panopticon" may interest readers of this thread.

In it Jamais Cascio discusses what he sees as the almost inevitable emergence of a "Watched Society", not by state imposed top-down surveillance but by bottom-up sousveillance from the citizens themselves, just wanting to record and share their lives.

In the land of the blind invisibility is a right. We have privacy because it is not possible for everyone to know what everyone else is doing. People are not able to obtain information about what other people are doing and people are able to deny access to information only they know. What happens when technology starts to remove these restrictions? In creating laws and processes to protect this 'right' we will have to answer a number of difficult questions like; What information is purely owned by you and is yours to control? When does protecting your information infringe on another's right to gather information? How can you prevent others from capturing or inferring information from your actions?

We all enjoy the freedom that we think privacy provides us, but I wonder if the time is fast approaching where technology is going to make the upkeep of an illusion of privacy too difficult and costly (and possibly impossible) to maintain.

Why the watcher watches?
To learn.

Why does the doer hide?
 
 
All Acting Regiment
11:35 / 25.08.05
With regards to these ideas:

We all enjoy the freedom that we think privacy provides us, but I wonder if the time is fast approaching where technology is going to make the upkeep of an illusion of privacy too difficult and costly (and possibly impossible) to maintain.

...that this could all be seen to be about "trust". (IMHO) If we could all trust eachother to be open, accepting, patient, and willing to explore without violation, then maybe everybody watching everybody all the time is akin to global consciousness marrying "the other half". I don't know if it's a good idea, I'm just conjecting.

Or, in other words, technology is approaching a level where we will soon all be able to watch eachother all of the time: from the top via security cameras and from below via personal webcams and videoblogs: and this is equivalent to attaining some kind of "universal consciousness" (as spoken about in Hinduism: "Universal Consciousness is one's own nature...not knowing the UC as one's own nature is bondage").

I agree that the advance of technology is moving in this direction. What I disagree with is the idea that this is how UC can or will be obtained. I give two reasons which you may and can disagree with:

Reasons why technology will not grant us the UC #1: Technology is limited to certain people and groups.

Not everyone can afford technology. In fact, it would really only be the first world that was capable of acheiving or obtaining the level of technology mentioned above. Therefore we do not have a Universal Human Consciousness- we have a shared 1st world consciousness, if that. This does not encompass the extent of humanity.

Further to this, though the populace can watch each other on webcams, can they watch the state on CCTV? No, because the technology is limited to the power groups.

Reasons why technology will not grant us the UC #2: Technology can only assess outer actions and recorded thoughts.

I'd like you to think about the full range of information it is possible to obtain via technology, and the limits of this range. What becomes obvious is that technology cannot view or acess the thoughts in a person's head- at least not yet.

What technology can do is look at the visual, aural and written materials a person can produce: you can watch someone walk into a building with guns on CCTV, or find a plan they'd stored on their hard drive.

However, this is still a flawed consciousness: true UC regards the knowledge of the inside, the thoughts and impulses of the alien/other entity. You wouldn't know exactly what thoughts were going through the gunman's head other than the ones he'd written down. Technology cannot yet get us there, can only so far give us a slightly expanded version of what we already have.

So:

If technology is to grant us a true UC it must a) be equally available to all people and groups, and b) must be able to asess more than outer signs.
 
  

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