We Live in Public

As the materiality of a Control Society has been weighing heavily on my mind of late, I thought I would share this. If you have not yet seen "We Live in Public," it is with the utmost degree of simultaneity that I'd like to say, "You're welcome!" & "I'm sorry!"

http://www.weliveinpublicthemovie.com/

http://www.hulu.com/watch/192218/we-live-in-public

Hawaii May Keep Track of all websites visited...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57366443-281/hawaii-may-keep-track-of-all-web-sites-visited

Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors: documentary on the net's hidden physical infrastructure

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/15/bundled-buried-behind-close.html

sinking in and a question...

being that I feel like I'm a preschooler in the school of political theory as such, the discussions today were great and it's all slowly sinking in... so now I have a question, the answer to which may be obvious, but I am curious what others think and how both Deleuze and Foucault might think about it...

being that in the control society there is a chaotic realm of data which is presumably a-moral, does that then mean that the filters through which data passes on its way to becoming information and/or knowledge are imbued with morality/judgment and if so, does this point of filtration become one of THE critical points of control and/or resistance?

William Burroughs, Limits of Control

THE LIMITS OF CONTROL

 
There is a growing interest in new techniques of mind-control. It has been suggested that Sirhan Sirhan was the subject of post-hypnotic suggestion [as he sat shaking violently on the steam table in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles while an as-yet unidentified woman held him and whispered in his ear]. It has been alleged that behavior-modification techniques are used on troublesome prisoners and inmates, often without their consent. Dr Delgado, who once stopped a charging bull by remote control of electrodes in the bull’s brain, left the U.S. to pursue his studies on human subjects in Spain. Brainwashing, psychotropic drugs, lobotomy and other more subtle forms of psychosurgery; the technocratic control apparatus of the United States has at its fingertips new techniques which if fully exploited could make Orwell’s 1984 seem like a benevolent utopia. But words are still the principal instruments of control. Suggestions are words. Persuasions are words. Orders are words. No control machine so far devised can operate without words, and any control machine which attempts to do so relying entirely on external force or entirely on physical control of the mind will soon encounter the limits of control.
A basic impasse of all control machines is this: Control needs time in which to exercise control. Because control also needs opposition or acquiescence; otherwise it ceases to be control. I control a hypnotized subject (at least partially); I control a slave, a dog, a worker; but if I establish complete control somehow, as by implanting electrodes in the brain, then my subject is little more than a tape recorder, a camera, a robot. You don’t controla tape recorder—you use it. Consider the distinction, and the impasse implicit here. All control systems try to make control as tight as possible, but at the same time, if they succeeded completely, there would be nothing left to control. Suppose for example a control system installed electrodes in the brains of all prospective workers at birth. Control is now complete. Even the thought of rebellion is neurologically impossible. No police force is necessary. No psychological control is necessary, other than pressing buttons to achieve certain activations and operations.
When there is no more opposition, control becomes a meaningless proposition. It is highly questionable whether a human organism could survive complete control. There would be nothing there. No persons there. Life is will (motivation) and the workers would no longer be alive, perhaps literally. The concept of suggestion as a control technique presupposes that control is partial and not complete. You do not have to give suggestions to your tape recorder, nor subject it to pain and coercion or persuasion.
In the Mayan control system, where the priests kept the all-important Books of seasons and gods, the Calendar was predicated on the illiteracy of the workers. Modern control systems are predicated on universal literacy since they operate through the mass media—a very two-edged control instrument, as Watergate has shown. Control systems are vulnerable, and the news media are by their nature uncontrollable, at least in Western society. The alternative press is news, and alternative society is news, and as such both are taken up by the mass media. The monopoly that Hearst and Luce once exercised is breaking down. In fact, the more completely hermetic and seemingly successful a control system is, the more vulnerable it becomes. A weakness inherent in the Mayan system is that they didn’t need an army to control their workers, and therefore did not have an army when they needed one to repel invaders. It is a rule of social structures that anything that is not needed will atrophy and become inoperative over a period of time. Cut off from the war game—and remember, the Mayans had no neighbors to quarrel with—they lose the ability to fight. In “The Mayan Caper” I suggested that such a hermetic control system could be completely disoriented and shattered by even one person who tampered with the control calendar on which the control system depended more and more heavily as the actual means of force withered away.
Consider a control situation: ten people in a lifeboat. Two armed self-appointed leaders force the other eight to do the rowing while they dispose of the food and water, keeping most of it for themselves and doling out only enough to keep the other eight rowing. The two leaders now need to exercise control to maintain an advantageous position which they could not hold without it. Here the method of control is force—the possession of guns. Decontrol would be accomplished by overpowering the leaders and taking their guns. This effected, it would be advantageous to kill them at once. So once embarked on a policy of control, the leaders must continue the policy as a matter of self-preservation. Who, then, needs to control others but those who protect by such control a position of relative advantage? Why do they need to exercise control? Because they would soon lose this position and advantage and in many cases their lives as well, if they relinguished control.
Now examine the reasons by which control is exercised in the lifeboat scenario: The two leaders are armed, let’s say, with .38 revolvers—twelve shots and eight potential opponents. They can take turns sleeping. However, they must still exercise care not to let the eight rowers know that they intend to kill them when land is sighted. Even in this primitive situation force is supplemented with deception and persuasion. The leaders will disembark at point A, leaving the others sufficient food to reach point B, they explain. They have the compass and they are contributing their navigational skills. In short they will endeavour to convince the others that this is a cooperative enterprise in which they are all working for the same goal. They may also make concessions: increase food and water rations. A concession of course means the retention of control—that is, the disposition of the food and water supplies. By persuasions and by concessions they hope to prevent a concerted attack by the eight rowers.
Actually they intend to poison the drinking water as soon as they leave the boat. If all the rowers knew this they would attack, no matter what the odds. We now see that another essential factor in control is to conceal from the controlled the actual intentions of the controllers. Extending the lifeboat analogy to the Ship of State, few existing governments could withstand a sudden, all-out attack by all their underprivileged citizens, and such an attack might well occur if the intentions of certain existing governments were unequivocally apparent. Suppose the lifeboat leaders had built a barricade and could withstand a concerted attack and kill all eight of the rowers if necessary. They would then have to do the rowing themselves and neither would be safe from the other. Similarly, a modern government armed with heavy weapons and prepared for attack could wipe out ninety-five percent of its citizens. But who would do the work, and who would protect them from the soldiers and technicians needed to make and man the weapons? Successful control means achieving a balance and avoiding a showdown where all-out force would be necessary. This is achieved through various techniques of psychological control, also balanced. The techniques of both force and psychological control are constantly imimproved and refined, and yet worldwide dissent has never been so widespread or so dangerous to the present controllers.
All modern control systems are riddled with contradictions. Look at England. “Never go too far in any direction,” is the basic rule on which England is built, and there is some wisdom in that. However, avoiding one impasse they step into another. Anything that is not going forward is on the way out. Well, nothing lasts forever. Time is that which ends, and control needs time. England is simply stalling for time as it slowly founders. Look at America. Who actually controls this country? It is very difficult to say. Certainly the very wealthy are one of the most powerful control groups, since they are in a position to control and manipulate the entire economy. However, it would not be to their advantage to set up or attempt to set up an overly fascist government. Force, once brought in, subverts the power of money. This is another impasse of control: protection from the protectors. Hitler formed the S.S. to protect him from the S.A. If he had lived long enough the question of protection from the S.S. would have posed itself. The Roman Emperors were at the mercy of the Praetorian Guard, who in one year killed many Emperors. And besides, no modern industrial country has ever gone fascist without a program of military expansion. There is no longer anyplace to expand to—after hundreds of years, colonialism is a thing of the past.
There can be no doubt that a cultural revolution of unprecedented dimensions has taken place in America during the last thirty years, and since America is now the model for the rest of the Western world, this revolution is worldwide. Another facfactor is the mass media, which spreads all cultural movements in all directions. The fact that this worldwide revolution has taken place indicates that the controllers have been forced to make concessions. Of course, a concession is still the retention of control. Here’s a dime, I keep a dollar. Ease up on censorship, but remember we could take it all back. Well, at this point, that is questionable.
Concession is another control bind. History shows that once a government starts to make concessions it is on a one-way street. They could of course take all the concessions back, but that would expose them to the double jeopardy of revolution and the much greater danger of overt fascism, both highly dangerous to the present controllers. Does any clear policy arise from this welter of confusion? The answer is probably no. The mass media has proven a very unreliable and even treacherous instrument of control. It is uncontrollable owing to its need for NEWS. If one paper or even a string of papers owned by the same person makes that story hotter as NEWS, some paper will pick it up. Any imposition of government censorship on the media is a step in the direction of State control, a step which big money is most reluctant to take.
I don’t mean to suggest that control automatically defeats itself, nor that protest is therefore unnecessary. A government is never more dangerous than when embarking on a self-defeating or downright suicidal course. It is encouraging that some behavior modification projects have been exposed and halted, and certainly such exposure and publicity could continue. In fact, I submit that we have a right to insist that all scientific research be subject to public scrutiny, and that there should be no such thing as “top-secret” research.

Excerpt from Foucault's Preface to Anti-Oedipus.

During the years 1945-1965 (I am referring to Europe),there was a certain way of thinking correctly, a certain style of political discourse, a certain ethics of the intellectual. One had to be on familiar terms with Marx, not let one's dreams stray too far from Freud. And one had to treat sign-systems—the signifier—with the greatest respect. These were the three requirements that made the strange occupation of writing and speaking a measure of truth about oneself and one's time acceptable.

Then came the five brief, impassioned, jubilant, enigmatic years. At the gates of our world, there was Vietnam, of course, and the first major blow to the powers that be. But here, inside our walls, what exactly was taking place? An amalgam of revolutionary and antirepressive politics? A war fought on two fronts: against social exploitation and psychic repression? A surge of libido modulated by the class struggle? Perhaps. At any rate, it is this familiar, dualistic interpretation that has laid claim to the events of those years. The dream that cast its spell, between the First World War and fascism, over the dreamiest parts of Europe—the Germany of Wilhelm Reich, and the France of the surrealists—had returned and set fire to reality itself: Marx and Freud in the same incandescent light.

But is that really what happened? Had the Utopian project of the thirties been resumed, this time on the scale of historical practice? Or was there, on the contrary, a movement toward political struggles that no longer conformed to the model that Marxist tradition had prescribed? Toward an experience and a technology of desire that were no longer Freudian. It is true that the old banners were raised, but the combat shifted and spread into new zones....

Whence the three adversaries confronted by Anti-Oedipus. Three adversaries who do not have the same strength, who represent varying degrees of danger, and whom the book combats in different ways:

1. The political ascetics, the sad militants, the terrorists of theory, those who would preserve the pure order of politics and political discourse. Bureaucrats of the revolution and civil servants of Truth.

2. The poor technicians of desire—psychoanalysts and semiologists of every sign and symptom—who would subjugate the multiplicity of desire to the twofold law of structure and lack.

3. Last but not least, the major enemy, the strategic adversary is fascism (whereas Anti-Oedipus' opposition to the others is more of a tactical engagement). And not only historical fascism, the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini—which was able to mobilize and use the desire of the masses so effectively—but also the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us. I would say that Anti-Oedipus (may its authors forgive me) is a book of ethics, the first book of ethics to be written in France in quite a long

time (perhaps that explains why its success was not limited to a particular "readership": being anti-oedipal has become a life style, a way of thinking and living). How does one keep from being fascist, even (especially) when one believes oneself to be a revolutionary militant?

How do we rid our speech and our acts, our hearts and our pleasures, of fascism? How do we ferret out the fascism that is ingrained in our behavior? The Christian moralists sought out the traces of the flesh lodged deep within the soul. Deleuze and Guattari, for their part, pursue the slightest traces of fascism in the body.

Paying a modest tribute to Saint Francis de Sales,* one might say that Anti-Oedipus is an Introduction to the Non-Fascist Life. This art of living counter to all forms of fascism, whether already present or impending, carries with it a certain number of essential principles which I would summarize as follows if I were to make this great book into a manual or guide to everyday life:

• Free political action from all unitary and totalizing paranoia.

• Develop action, thought, and desires by proliferation, juxtaposition, and disjunction, and not by subdivision and pyramidal hierarchization.

• Withdraw allegiance from the old categories of the Negative (law, limit, castration, lack, lacuna), which Western thought has so long held sacred as a form of power and an access to reality. Prefer what is

positive and multiple, difference over uniformity, flows over unities, mobile arrangements over systems. Believe that what is productive is not sedentary but nomadic.

• Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable. It is the connection of desire to reality (and not its retreat into the forms of representation) that possesses revolutionary force.

• Do not use thought to ground a political practice in Truth; nor political action to discredit, as mere speculation, a line of thought. Use political practice as an intensifier of thought, and analysis as a multiplier of the forms and domains for the intervention of political action.

• Do not demand of politics that it restore the "rights" of the individual, as philosophy has defined them. The individual is the product of power. What is needed is to "de-individualize" by means of multiplication and displacement, diverse combinations. The group must not be the organic bond uniting hierarchized individuals, but a constant generator of de-individualization.

• Do not become enamored of power. It could even be said that Deleuze and Guattari care so little for

power that they have tried to neutralize the effects of power linked to their own discourse. Hence the games and snares scattered throughout the book, rendering its translation a feat of real prowess. But these are not the familiar traps of rhetoric; the latter work to sway the reader without his being aware of the manipulation, and ultimately win him over against his will. The traps of Anti-Oedipus ate those of humor: so many invitations to let oneself be put out, to take one's leave of the text and slam the door shut. The book often leads one to believe it is all fun and games, when something essential is taking place, something of extreme seriousness: the tracking down of all varieties of fascism, from the enormous ones that surround and crush us to the petty ones that constitute the tyrannical bitterness of our everyday lives.

Classroom Change

The class is now going to be held in Webster 102. This will give us access to media if we wish to us it.

Cinematic thinking

If you are trying to envision control society I think it is to be found in the mundane conflict that escalates to life and death in a film like Michael Clayton. The problem with dystopian films like V for Vendetta or even to some extent Children of Men is that they rely on a very conservative that is outdated totalitarian aesthetic. To limit one's imagination to the grey austere uniforms of 1984 or the George Lucas' fascination with Nazi fashion obscures Deleuze's point. Control can accomplish all of the same exploitation, war, without the disruption or extremity of state fascism. So think less Brazil or futuristic dystopia and think more soldiers having to sit through what sounds like a Jamba Juice 'find your full potential' seminar before they go into Fallujah.

My soundtrack to this weeks readings

Listen at your risk...

after class what-have-you...

So, it seems that we're going to have the chronic problem of engaging in stimulating, yet hanging, discussions, which is compounded by only having 2.5 hours, this semester. In the spirit of fostering dialogue and building commensality, I'd like to offer up a suggestion to gather informally after class for some drinks and a bite to eat, perhaps not every week, but often enough that it feels intentional, if not regular.

It just so happens that one of the finest purveyors of tacos on this island has a regular gig at the Ward Farmer's Market on Wednesday evenings. If you've yet to experience the culinary delight of Zaratez Mexicatessen, then you're in for a treat (google it). Transportation might be an issue, but maybe enough of us have wheels, in various forms, to make something off campus work. For future gatherings, something in Manoa likely makes the most sense, but I'm certainly open to a variety of locales.

Translation: I'm going to get tacos after class on Wednesday and as I think you're all very smart and cool, I was wondering if anyone from class wants to come and talk about stuff?

Thinking About Biopolitics- Michael Miller

It has been stated that biopolitics is concerned with population as a political and scientific problem. This can be understood in the context of population density and the duration of life.
These two factors are the driving forces of biopolitics. These two factors have created the complexity of what we perceive as simultaneity.

Biopolitics is a problem of state power. State power is concerned with the life and death of the social body. Life and death do not constitute a dichotomy in this context. The social body is conceived in the sense of the collective. It is the collective life and death. The problem
of the collective life and death has emerged as being “affected with a public interest.” It is in the collective interest that the one should perish for the people, rather than the many. This is sometimes referred to as the Caiaphas maxim (John 18:14). This is a maxim of preemption. Life and death have become “affected with a public interest.” This is our modernism. The issue is who shall determine the public interest.

Any form of governance in which the few stand-in place of the many creates the locus of
power in the hands of those who decide the exception. “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception” (Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, 1922). Sovereign are the few who decide what is “affected with a public interest.” Representative governance is a system of the few standing in place of the many. They decide the exception that is “affected with a public interest.”

The public interest is interwoven with the state interest. That which is “affected with a public interest” also becomes a “corporate responsibility.” The many become responsible for the actions of the few. The many have the responsibility and the few have the power. The driving force of judicial power is fostered by the state. The persistence of the law as a social construct is linked to the continuity of the state. The law and the state are the forces that protect against chaos. It is here that the two concepts merge in purpose. The idea of the corporate responsibility shared by the social body and that it is in the interests of the social body that the better is that one man should perish for the people share the same social reason.

“The whole group, including its past, present, and future members, might function as a single individual through any one of those members conceived as representative of it. Because it was not confined to the living, but included the dead and the unborn, the group could be conceived as living forever.” H.Wheeler Robinson. “The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality.” In Corporate Personality in Ancient Israel. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, rev. edn., 1980, 25-26]. See: Joel S. Kaminsky. Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible. Sheffield Academic Press, 1995.

This merging becomes operative within the internal and external contexts of state power. State power depends upon two things, fear of the masses and obedience of the masses.

If biopolitics is concerned with the problemization of life and death politics, as I think it might be, it is bound up in governance as the arbiter of life and death. The “governmental reason” (Michael Foucault) is the question. The avoidance of collective disobedience or the promotion of collective liberty are governmental reasons of a kind. Each is dependent upon state power and the persistence of law. We view state power through the illusion of an “equitable equilibrium” created by the myth of representative (stand-in) governance. Test the state power and learn the meaning of biopolitics that is embodied in life and death. The crucial concept is that state power involves two aspects, one of simultaneity and one of succession. We can only perceive of state power in the present state of our motion through the lens of collective action of obedience.