CAMRI | Undressing with the Lights On: Surveillance and The Naked Society in a Digital Era

Undressing with the Lights On: Surveillance and The Naked Society in a Digital Era

An Opinion Piece by Doug Specht, published by Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture

Abstract

After an accidental discovery of Vance Packard’s 1965s book, The Naked Society, at Abbey Saint-Benoît-du-Lac in Canada, this article reflects on the history of surveillance and privacy and questions what we might learn by examining past commentaries on the subject. It concludes that there is a danger of repetition and co-option in the academy, and calls for an increasingly reflexive approach to surveillance.

Keywords: Surveillance, Privacy, History, Digital, the State

How to Cite: Specht, D., (2017). Undressing with the Lights On: Surveillance and The Naked Society in a Digital Era. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture. 12(3), pp.78–90. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.268

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Extract
Surveillance, wrote Lyon (2015), will not be read the same way after Snowden, but really what Snowden revealed was that the War on Terror just drove the surveillance state faster and harder, the path had been travelled for some time (Jordan, 2015). Books such as Packard’s help us to see this longer trajectory, they help us to make sense of a world that has become increasingly complex, one in which affected entrapment (Gibson-Graham, 2006) can diminish our work. Instead Packard brings a new, albeit a historical, angle that lets us see things afresh. This paper has taken a complex trajectory, but there is one common theme that holds this together, the argument of light verses darkness, a duality of the human condition laid down in the bible and embodied by stories and novels through the ages. The surveillance apparatus tells us all must be illuminated, that all data must be collected, everything must be cast into the light for our safety, protection and liberty (Franklin, 2015). The counter argument says that democracy dies in the darkness, that everything must too be cast into the light for our safety, protection and liberty, hardly a counter argument at all. ‘Let there be light, and there was light’ were the actualising words of God (Genesis 1:3). So, what for a world abandoned by God, a world in which God is Dead? (Heidegger, cited inWiercinski, 2005; Nietzsche, 1978). ‘Only a [new] God can save us now’ (Heidegger cited inSchendler, trans, 1977). We have developed a new God, a new omniscient being. Google is God. Everything must be illuminated to these new digital Gods, who will urge the citizen to share ever more of themselves and their being, and to denounce themselves and each other like Adam to Eve. To convince them their sharing will protect them on one hand, and giving them their 15 minutes of fame on the other; applying the fig leaf and calling it liberty. Packard reminds us, through the words of Goethe, Es bildet ein talen sich in der stille; that talent develops in unseen solitude.

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Photo by Calvin Craig on Unsplash

About Doug Specht

Dr Doug Specht is a cultural geographer and educationalist. His research explores themes related to environmental justice, human rights, and access to education, with a focus on the production and codification of knowledge though cartographic artefacts and in educational settings. In recognition of his work, he has been appointed as a Chartered Geographer and Chartered Teacher. In addition, he has been awarded Advanced Teacher Status, alongside being a Senior Fellow of AdvanceHE. Dr. Specht has authored numerous articles and books, including Mapping Crisis, the Routledge Handbook of Geospatial Technology and Society, the Media and Communications Student Study Guide and Imagining Apocalyptic Politics in the Anthropocene. He writes regularly on ethics, environmental and human rights, education, and mapping practices in such publications as WonkHE, The Conversation, Geographical, and for Times Higher Education. Dr Specht is a member of the editorial board of the European Journal of Geography, Westminster papers in Communication and Culture, and Anthropocenes – Human, Inhuman, Posthuman. He is Chair of the Environmental Network for Central America.