Control Society

From Robo Culture Wiki

(sources coming)

“…science and technology were not exempt from a will to power, and that a will to power was connected to the fundamental values of that society” ^[1]

“…the invention of something powerful and novel is not enough. Though and care must be given to its place in the sphere of human relationships.” ^[2]

Slack and Wise in their chapter on “Control” begin by addressing role that technology plays within society and the agency it creates or negates for us as its inhabitants and for itself. Scheler's quote speaks to the fundamental and supremely prevalent role that technology plays in the functioning of modern day society; a role that is enacted on many levels. Winner’s quote exemplifies the role of technology by speaking to the level of anonymity we commonly ascribe technology when really it is perhaps, according to Slack and Wise, the complete opposite. As McLuhan is cited in Slack and Wise, it is technology which becomes the appendages of our human faculties, the means or mediums that carry out our human will. ^[3] Slack and Wise then pose this question: Is technology then truly an autonomous object if it is so obviously changing the way we function as humans?

Control, in essence is that will to power on the part of humans. A will to power, like Scheler points out, that is directly related to the fundamental values of a given society. Control is something that humans as a species (the term species like genus, itself rooted in the objectification or ”control” of nature) have striven for since their beginnings. Control then, to humans appears to assume an almost fundamental role in human function; along with this is the constant attempt to control not only nature, but the populations within it. Technology by definition, according to Slack and Wise, is presented as a rational system of domination and control, which facilitates societies ability to organize and control its populations; and arguably all else connected to it. It began with the systematizing of food production and hunting in earlier centuries culminating in more contemporary complex systems of control like those of surveillance, bureaucracy, scientific management, “paper work” or data-veillence. This process of systemic development has continued on for centuries until present where a point has been reached where humans, the purposed original creators - or catalysts - of these complex “systems” now sit at the very least, one step removed from the machines and systems they so cleverly ignited.

Human ability to directly control the functioning of the complex systems within which they exist, has seemingly faltered along any primary level. With the emergence of new systems of control like surveillance, humans require the need to create new machines and systems to control other systems and machines, to the point were the layers of systemic control seem endless. Lewis Mumford explains this as the advent of mega-machines, attributed to the efforts of military developments in control, of both their own machines and systems, and populations. This goes part and parcel with the need to control the vast amounts of information generated as a result of the multitude of systems in operation, enter bureaucracy, paper work and data-veillence. Society has a reached a point were the information we generate as a subsequent result of the complex systems we enact are now generating all new systems of information sharing, and notably economy, based solely on the creation, transmission and dissemination of information.

Human civilization has become so deeply embedded with the systems and technologies we have created that, these systems have perhaps become as integral to human existence as humans themselves. Without the mega-machines we have constructed around us, and their subsequent technologies, which embody the functioning of those systems, humans truly are enveloped in a control society. As the famous character Dorothy in the film The Wizard of Oz once said, "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore".

[edit] See Also

• James Beniger on "Control Society"
• Jeremy Bentham's design of the Panopticon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

[edit] Notes and References

1. ↑ Scheler in Slack and Wise, 53
2. ↑ Langdon Winner in Slack and Wise, 52
3. ↑ Marshal McLuhan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshal_mcluhan