PicoBlog

Every single aspect and form of human life functions within its confines, overseen by intricate systems of control. As reasoned by Gilles Deleuze in “Postscript on the Societies of Control”, the system of control is subtle and ingrained into the daily operations of life - the methods of domination, in which citizens are monitored, are not perceived as instruments of control but rather as exercises of freedom. When you buy an iPhone, create a Facebook account, swipe a credit card, take a DNA test, or enter airport security, you do so out of your own will, yet those acts of freedom increase the institutional power over you, relinquishing data or capital to already powerful institutions.

If you transgress your so-called freedoms, it is easy for the governing institutions to inhibit your freedom or place prohibitions upon you. This is the subtle genius of a controlled society, instead of using camps or violence as primary control mechanisms as seen in the historical disciplinary society identified by Michel Foucault, it employs mass surveillance and mass media, functioning as agenda-setting institutions to shape the types of information that reaches the public.

Propaganda to democracy is what violence is to a dictatorship. Instead of censorship, the public is overwhelmed by media products financed by obscure interest groups. Media entities select topics, distribute concerns, and decide the framing of issues while filtering information and binding the debate to certain limits. In 1983, 90% of American media was owned by 50 companies. In 2011, 90% of American media was controlled by only 6 companies.

Supplying mass-consumable cultural products, the media corporations conjure a shared experience. As Jean Baudrillard argued, the simulations of society compose the collective consciousness and understanding of the world, hyperreal simulations are so realistic that they cannot be determined whether real or not. With a focus on the so-called ‘hyperreal’, these forces influence and create our realities. Postmodernity consists of expressive imagery and simulations but behind lies nothing good or divine.

We are fed a biased form of history and told that with hard work and virtue, good will manifest - it is the American dream narrative, enforcing the ideal of maximal individual responsibility, led by our free agency. Marketing campaigns tell us that by buying Nike sneakers, we will bring about social justice, and through the consumption of fairtrade organic chocolate, we resolve mother earth’s ecological issues.

Consumption is the economic support of the status quo, administered under the illusion that we can fight against social ills. By the market’s logic, social change is instigated by shopping around for brand ideologies; just like the apparel infused with pseudo-ideology, our political parties take on the form of superficial brand images. Politicians will propose reforms but neglect systemic issues, and even if a social reform alleviates the struggle of the working class, it is eventually dismantled.

With lives of distraction, pacification, and labour, we are separated from any meaningful social interaction with our community; therefore we take to social media for social capital and conflate the likes and comments with social validation. Our profiled identities are now drawn with commodities as commercial signifiers. On mass, people seek uniqueness and identity through consumption, handing over their capital and data to establishments of control.

We willingly accept the terms and conditions, there is no need for Big Brother. The phone in your pocket has eyes and ears, the search engines know your inner troubles, and the calendar knows your future while personal smart devices track your body’s biological processes, e.g. heartrate monitor, step counter, blood pressure, sleep schedule, etc. Whereas the disciplinary society called for its citizens, like factory workers, to step in line and obey straightforward orders, the society of control makes life a function of constant availability and measured performance.

Even when we have left our workplace, we must be on our phones, answer emails, and prepare projects during time off. Technology enhances the system of control while media corporations set the agenda and local news stations follow along. The dominant hegemonic powers, that have been embedded into our culture, form the curriculum of public schools and send our soldiers to war. We are convinced that war is necessary, that immigrants are taking our jobs, and that the ruling ideology makes us free.

The freedom that technology was supposed to give us, confined us evermore. There is no need to wire our phones, we accept the strings attached to the convenience of our smart devices. There is no need for Big Brother to exist, our personal devices watch us, complete with big data packages, containing location coordinates and lifestyle preferences.

Before the age of control, the prisons of disciplinary society consisted of barred jailhouses, now our surveillance societies will give you an ankle bracelet or set you on probation, keeping you tethered to the system. In a similar way, the society of control manipulates us and keeps us tethered to a system while we are oblivious to its instruments and consider ourselves free as long we are exempt from the barred confinements, factory lines, and brutal oppressors.

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