Since
the attacks of September 11th, surveillance has expanded
exponentially. The amount of technology at the disposal
of Big brother has also grown. From biometrics, facial recognition,
phone tapping, camera's that analyze your walk, to
shouting CCTV cameras, the west is rapidly slipping into a
surveillance society. An often neglected question is
this: What sociological and psychological effects will the
trend toward an expanded surveillance apparatus have on
our social interactions?
"If we know we’re
being watched and know there is an expected mode of
behavior, how does that change our actions?"
Duke is referring to a
term coined in 1988 by Harvard psychologist Shoshana Zuboff called
"anticipatory conformity." Duke quotes Zuboff in her
explanation of the term,
“I think the first
level of that is we anticipate surveillance and we
conform, and we do that with awareness,” she says.
“We know, for example, when we’re going through the
security line at the airport not to make jokes about
terrorists or we’ll get nailed, and nobody wants to
get nailed for cracking a joke. It’s within our
awareness to self-censor. And that self-censorship
represents a diminution of our freedom.
Applying that
concept to the post-9/11 era, Zuboff says she sees
anticipatory conformity all around and expects it to
grow even more intense."
Duke comments,
"We
self-censor, she says, not only to
follow the rules, but also to avoid the
shame of being publicly singled out.
Once anticipatory conformity
becomes second nature, it
becomes progressively easier
for people to adapt to new
impositions on their
privacy, their freedoms.
The habit has been set."
The Panopticon
In a Panopticon style
prison - designed by philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1785
-, inmates are set up in a circle surrounding a central
tower, which is constantly manned by security guards.
The shape of the prison allows for continuous
surveillance of prisoners, who never know whether or not
they are being watched. The psychological effect of this
omniscient, oppressive and unpredictable gaze of
overseers causes inmates to regulate their own behavior.
A Panopticon
The United Kingdom has
become a model society for a Panopticon style prison
expressed in the form of electronic surveillance.
Shouting surveillance cameras ensure that deviants and
"anti-social" behavior is kept in check by an
embarrassing scolding from an invisible voice. With a
generation grown up with these cameras watching and
shouting, how will their behavior be shaped as a result?
George Orwell
foresaw such an oppressive surveillance system, which he
describes in 1984,
"The telescreen
received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound
that Winston made, above the level of a very low
whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long
as he remained within the field of vision which the
metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as
heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether
you were being watched at any given moment. How
often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged
in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even
conceivable that they watched everybody all the
time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire
whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live,
from habit that became instinct - in the assumption
that every sound you made was overheard, and, except
in darkness, every movement scrutinized."
The surveillance
apparatus in America has been given increased attention, attached to the idea that the watchful eye
of big brother is there for our own good. As time goes
on, the surveillance society will no doubt expand, and
awareness of this apparatus will increase (whether
through positive press or negative). How will our
society react? Will we maintain the free spirit that
made America, or effectively become our own jailors and be cowed
and corralled into an obedient people ever aware of the
gaze of big brother?
