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Writings from Fast Fiction, Flare Politics, Flash Philosophy

COVID-19 and a Society of Control

COVID-19, an infectious disease that has infected over half a million people worldwide and have killed more than 30,000 as of March 28, 2020, has stopped the world in its tracks. International travel has plummeted, many countries have implemented travel restrictions and all forms of social activity seems to have disappeared. In the US alone, over 3.3 million people are unemployed as nonessential services and small businesses have shut down amidst the fear of COVID-19. Nearly all Colleges and Universities have moved to online learning with Amherst College being one of them. The events we are seeing now will undoubtedly change the way the world will run as we move forward. Using Deleuze and Chun’s discussions on societies of control, I will examine how COVID-19 furthers us into a more extreme stage of a society of control through increased online presence and increased surveillance.

COVID-19 has quickened the pace at which we are connected online, further entangling the entangled system we are in. Most evident is the school systems, especially those at the higher levels of education that have transitioned to remote online learning. No longer are we bound by a physical enclosure which functions, Deleuze describes, are “to distribute in space; to order in time” (Deleuze, 1). Theoretically, we can learn anytime and anywhere with online classes, disrupting the organization of time and space tied with a physical enclosure. Many classes have now switched to recorded lectures, opting out of a synchronous meeting due to time zone differences. But this has resulted in what Deleuze calls a “continuous network” (2). Students are now forced to constantly be connected to ensure they turn in assignments on time, read emails from professors, and watch the lectures. While a certain mobility is expressed as students can learn from wherever and whenever with online schooling, the systems of control become increasingly more entrenched in all aspects of our lives.

At the same time COVID-19 pushes us online, it challenges and exposes some of the vulnerabilities of physical enclosures that are historically linked to societies of discipline. Take prisons for example, in some places across the US, Fitzsimons from NBC news reports “local and state officials have begun freeing low-level and nonviolent offenders… to avoid an outbreak” (Fitzsimons, 1). Will these people still face some sort of punishment or will we see a radical shift in the way we incarcerate people (shifting from misdemeanors and nonviolent to only those who commit serious crimes)? Fears of COVID-19 have also caused ICE to release “some of the roughly 37,000 people held in immigration detention” as it has exposed ICE’s inability and lack of infrastructure to provide humanly medical care for the migrants in detention (Fitzsimons, 1). ICE’s failures signal a humanitarian deficiency and we must hold ICE and other prison institutions accountable.

Moreover, due to COVID-19, countries have begun to justify increased obvious surveillance of their citizens, becoming more entrenched with this notion as a society of control. For example, the Chinese government has drastically increased surveillance and tracking of the citizens in order to combat this virus. Lily Kuo from The Guardian writes, “Getting into one’s apartment compound or workplace requires scanning a QR code, writing down one’s name and ID number, temperature and recent travel history.” (Lily Kuo,1 ). The Chinese government has used this pandemic to justify their openly increased surveillance on their citizens, signaling a possible normalization of such intrusive actions. Deleuze’s prediction that “the numerical language of control is made of codes that mark access to information, or reject it” has become a reality (Deleuze, 2). QR codes and ID numbers are now the control mechanisms that are required for people to get into their own homes. No longer are these science-fiction, but are relevant in our lives today, purported for security reasons. Are we ushering in a new age where surveillance is no longer done underhandedly but expected so that we may live “freely” and “safely”?

In this framing, it brings us back to Wendy Chun’s fears of conflating freedom with security and control. Analogous to living in a gated community, we may believe we are living free and cushy lives within but we are truly not. Wendy Chun argues, “freedom comes with no guarantees; it breaks bonds, enabling good and evil”(Chun, 291). And it is through that vulnerability that we truly experience freedom. Nelly Richards points to what happens when Chile attempts to exert total control to separate itself from its violent past (separation implies a certain security). For Richards, the eradication of Chile’s violent yet meaningful historical memories by the “Oneness of the consensus” stripped all passion and meaning out of its past. The comforts of “the soap opera, the soccer game” or other “consumer rituals” serve as distractions, “to strip memory of meaning and focus” (Richards, 26). Like memory, freedom too loses its meaning and significance when assumed it could be controlled or reduced to simplicity. And like the gated community, we live comfortably within but do not know of the possibilities that are outside of the gates.

Works Cited Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong. Control and Freedom Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics. MIT, 2008. Deleuze, Gilles. “Postscript on the Societies of Control.” textz.com, 2008. Fitzsimons, Tim. “Coronavirus behind Bars: Prisoners Being Freed to Slow Spread in ‘Virus Vectors’.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 28 Mar. 2020, www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/coronavirus-behind-bars-prisoners-being-freed-slow-spread-virus-vectors-n1169881. Kuo, Lily. “’The New Normal’: China’s Excessive Coronavirus Public Monitoring Could Be Here to Stay.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 Mar. 2020, www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/09/the-new-normal-chinas-excessive-coronavirus-public-monitoring-could-be-here-to-stay. Richard, Nelly. Cultural Residues: Chile in Transition. University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

An Unfamiliar Thought

In aphorism 50, titled Gaps, Adorno claims that writers in the academic industry are urged to show every single step along the way to their conclusion, in the name of “intellectual honesty”. In doing so, it allows the reader to follow along and possibly duplicate the results. This, Adorno argues, sabotages the thought. He writes, “the value of a thought is measured by its distance from the continuity of the familiar”. For him, the value of a thought is inversely related to what is already familiar. By trying to meticulously record down the minutiae of a thought or the process, we lose the genuine value of that thought which comes from the “no means uniformly transparent medium of experience”. This perspectivist approach to knowledge and thought formulation suggests limitations to a universal and objective form of communication. An attempt at complete transparency reduces the complexities and subtlety that stem from the gaps, the ambiguities, the grey areas.

With this said, how can we, as a society, come to appreciate a thought that has not yet been tyrannized by the hand of the familiar? How is this useful to anyone but the individual who beared this thought? Nietzsche answers in aphorism 355, that we should “see as strange, as distant, as ‘outside us’” to better “know”. But in knowing, does it not go back to the issues of knowing, which is a reduction of something to the familiar and hence, not truly knowing? In aphorism 380 of the Gay Science, Neitzsche brings this question up again, once again suggesting the answer of rising beyond our current familiar frameworks of good and evil. But he questions the capacity to do so.

I don’t think it’s possible to ever reach that plane of existence, but I do think the journey is more important than the destination. Critically engaging with one’s familiar values and embracing the unknown, the ambiguities, the gaps seems to be the challenge and the reward simultaneously. I have a better understanding of what Nietzsche means now by dancing near the abyss. It is a celebration of life in the face of all of its uncertainties and dangers. On an ending note, if I could not find some way to communicate my thoughts and ideas in a manner understandable to others, even if it means going through the process of familiarizing, I might go crazy.

An ode to Nietzsche, The Gay Science

I felt inspired by Nietzsche’s approach to these philosophical questions and decided to do my flash posting in a similar manner.

25 - Is Nietzsche pointing out an example of the tyranny of the majority as an obstacle to new ideas? By the way he has framed ideas of truth (and how they can be old and new), it raises questions on the absoluteness of truth itself while simultaneously showing his disdain for people who are part of the “herd”.

49 - I find interesting the conclusion Nietzsche suggests: that magnanimity and revenge are two sides of the same coin and how one person has the capability to practice both or feel the power of both. It highlights a certain mercurial aspect of human behavior. I also read this section with a Christian framework. Christianity tells us to fight hatred with love and so to me, this section points to the powerful influence religion (Christianity) has on the morality of man but the end comparison to ego seems like a diss on Christians that think they are better than everyone because of their religion.

55 - Nietzsche’s definition of nobility seems attached to the emphasis on Individualization (to not care what the majority are doing). Yet, knowing the ideas of interpellation and how our “self” and the “other” are never truly separate and how language as a social construct frames the way we think. Is it even possible to be an individual, and a noble one at that?

117 - I find it really interesting the transition or change in valuation of being an individual. In our time, especially western societies place the individual at such a high level of importance. 253 - If you love what you do, you will never spend a day working. Once again pointing to an affirmation of self.

299 - Artists present their art through a medium (painting, film, poetry…) that frames the discussion in a certain way the artist wants it too. And if we want to make something beautiful / attractive, should we not too change the way we view life? We can look at life “through tinted glass”.

341 - If we were to live our life over and over again, do we want to? Was it a life worth living? With no salvation awaiting us in Heaven, and only the offerings of the World, should we not make the most of it?

355 - The way we perceive knowledge is influenced by our biases/familiarities but then how do we rid ourselves of those? To see without seeing. “To see as strange… as outside us” seems like an impossible task. How do we even attempt to do this?

The Garden of Forking Paths as a metaphor for the Internet?

In the Garden of Forking Paths, we see an amalgamation of characters of different backgrounds, a sort of destabilizing sensation. A Chinese spy working for the Germans? An Irish for the English?

Not Only are the characters themselves a destabilizing aspect, but the story puts us right into the action, another form of confusion. Just as we are sucked into the action right away, the process of putting everything together never seems to be quite there, and this confusion gets exacerbated when the story of the Garden of Forking Paths is introduced. This is when we meet the Sinologist Stephen Albert who explains the mystery of the garden of forking paths. Our perceptions of space and time are lost within this garden, much like in a maze. Several Futures? Collinding futures? All outcomes occur?
And at the end, the narrator fulfills his job by murdering Stephen Albert to give the Germans the location of the city to bomb.

While making sense of this story is another issue, I believe this story can help us understand how the Internet is a similar Garden of Forking Paths. Where the Garden of Forking Paths has multiple futures, the Internet has multiple pages that you can “jump” “forward” or “backward”, and sometimes a link or a click can bring you back to a previous page (like futures coming together).

Using this metaphor for the Internet can help us come to terms with the destabilizing aspects that the Internet has on time and space. First, where are the pages we are browsing on the Internet? One moment, they can be there, and the next they are gone. They are not structured in something real and tangible. We can cache websites in case they go down, so time has become irrelevant. And much like the weird assortment of characters, where else can you find a bunch of different persons coming together than the Internet? And what about jumping right into the story or action? I can leave a page and come back right to it.

In the reverse, Wendy’s Chun analysis of high tech orientalism offers a framework to view this story for Orientalism ideas.

We’ve placed the Chinese person with the bad guys (WW2 Germany), placing the Chinese person as the “other” to democracy and other western values, but at the same time, we are placed into his perspective, which fights these notions of the “Other”. As we are him or seeing the world in his eyes, are we the “Other”? Or is this a form of humanization that subverts Orientalism? This subversion is also seen when Stephen Albert calls himself an “English Barbarian” (pg 124), in this story, have the roles switched? If so, do the power dynamics switch? We do see the city being bombed, meaning a successful mission but we know from historical context that eventually the Germans lose.

Let Me Take a Selfie: A Case Study of Instagram

Instagram took the world by storm when it came out in 2010. Instagram, a social media application, lets you share videos and photos to your followers where they interact with it through liking it, sharing it, and/or commenting on it. Over the years, Instagram has become one of the biggest social media platforms with a significant cultural impact. As of May 2019, over one billion users from around the world use this app. Due to Instagram’s massive popularity, it provides us a solid framework while providing nuance to the transition from public/private to open/closed ideologies and the formation of self in relation to the Other as discussed by Wendy Chun in her book, Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics. A recent trend of Instagram users to create extremely private accounts also serves as a great metaphor for an Internet where privacy is still valued. Through a careful analysis of Instagram, we can begin to pick apart the cultural influence of social media. Wendy Chun’s main argument for the supplantation of the public/private binary of the Internet for an open/closed one concentrates on the privatization of public spaces. But we can turn to Instagram to see a different interpretation. One of Instagram’s appeal is it allows users to edit and put filters on their content. This has generally served the purpose of enhancing one’s look, turning people into pseudo-models. The ability for people to engage in such activities is one of the contemporary consequences of mechanical reproducibility suggested by Walter Benjamin in his paper, “Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility”. In a discussion of the proliferation of the press, he argued “with the growth… of the press, readers… turned into writers” (262). But in our case, it is the users that turn into models. Walter Benjamin further goes on to claim “the distinction between author and public is about to lose is axiomatic character” due to everyone having access to authorship. At any point, he argues, a reader can become a writer, thus blurring the lines between the author and the public. In this sense, the open/closed binary supplants the public/private binary. The accessibility of becoming a model or making yourself look really good through photo editing has become a choice of whether or not one wants to do it (whether one wants to be open or closed). And all this is performed on the app, owned by a private corporation, where user content is publicly accessible to other users, exemplorizing Chun’s idea of open/closed. Applying Benjamin’s analyses of the public to Instagram allows us to add another layer of meaning to the open/closed binary.

Perhaps one of the biggest cultural influences of this ability to distort ourselves is it has caused Instagram to become a platform where jealousy reigns supreme. We are constantly being bombarded by the highlights of others, and naturally we compare our lives to theirs. Wendy Chun’s analysis of paranoid knowledge can help us better understand why this is the case. In Chun’s analysis of MCI’s “Anthem”, she points out the jealous and paranoid logic behind the advertisement. She says “You should want it because all these other people already want or have it” (250). When we see others on Instagram having a great time and they seem to be living their best lives, a certain comparative jealous logic causes us to desire those things and as a result, we seek to emulate and put our highlights on Instagram as well. Chun goes further to speak of this jealousy logic as one way of self-formation. She quotes Jacques Lacon who says, “the human ego is the other” (251). We form our egos and identities through our relation with “the Other”, through internalizing the Other’s desire as our own desire.

I would like to also argue that this subconscious internalization of the Other’s desires also stems from the constant content users consume when on Instagram. Benjamin argued that the appeal of the cinema lies in the distracting ability of successive changes of scenes. He complains, “I can no longer think what I want to think. My thoughts have been replaced by moving images.” (267). Instagram, eerily behaves in this certain manner, perhaps not as successive as a film, but scrolling through hundreds and hundreds photos per day can provide that same distracting ability. Our thoughts are replaced by the content we see and when we are constantly consuming content, there is no time for contemplation.

On another note, a recent trend of Instagram users creating a more private account, called finstas (a portmanteau of fake and Instagram) suggests a contemporary desire for privacy and anonymity as a result of the anxiety and jealousy inducing “real Instagram”. Merriam Webster describes a “finsta” to contain “the images… that users don’t want associated with their own name or public account”. These “finsta” accounts usually contain more candid and honest photos of users, like ugly selfies or embarrassing pics that the user only allows a select people to see or no one to see at all, like a digital diary. This trend of having a finsta possibly signals a desire to revert back to times of more privacy. Perhaps it is signaling a desire to revert to the earlier stages of the Internet which Chun, described as a “freedom frontier” (2) where we were not constantly consuming media and the Internet was not commercialized.

Ironically, “Real Instagrams” (the opposite of “finstas”) are anything but real. These accounts are usually carefully picked out, filtered, edited, photoshopped to embellish oneself and show how purportedly happy one’s life is. This type of curated presentation of one’s self extends Wendy Chun’s analysis of the internet as a way to free oneself from one’s body. In her book, Wendy Chun points to how the Internet was marketed as a way for minorities or marginalized communities to attain equality in their lives because on the internet, “race, gender, age and infirmities… disappear” (132). The user, seemingly, is in control of what others see and thus have the potential to erase the bad parts of their lives on social media, comparable to the Internet’s fantasy with race, gender, and sex erasure. Through erasing the “lowlights” and through showing the highlights, Instagram has become an inducer of anxiety and depression in the users. For instance, a study conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health found that Instagram ranked the most negative in terms of mental health in social media sites. The report states, “Seeing friends constantly on holiday or enjoying nights out can make young people feel like they are missing out while others enjoy life… these feelings can promote a ‘compare and despair’ attitude.”

Examining these various ideas through a case study of Instagram is only the beginning in analyzing the cultural impact of social media. We cannot ignore the the ability for monolithic social media sites, such as Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, to influence the way we socialize and form relationships. Social media platforms, like Instagram or Facebook, have the potential to spread awareness on civil rights issues or connect with old friends, but can be a place that fosters feelings of inadequacy or anxiety. We must engage in these conversations about social media in order to create a healthy relationship going into the future.

Works Cited

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility.” Harvard University Press. 2003

Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong. Control and Freedom Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics. MIT, 2008.

Royal Society for Public Health. “Instagram Ranked Worst for Young People’s Mental Health.” RSPH,https://www.rsph.org.uk/about-us/news/instagram-ranked-worst-for-young-people-s-mental-health.html

Cancel Culture and Wendy Chun

Cancel Culture, the practice of “withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies” after they have done something wrong, occurs frequently in today’s world where news of wrongdoings is disseminated around the globe extremely fast. Due to the prevalence of cancel culture in contemporary media, it presents itself as a wonderful case study using the contemporary theoretical frameworks that Wendy Chun supplies in her book Updating to Remain the Same. Using Chun, cancel culture can be seen as a symptom of neoliberalism, a network made up of individuals, and as a community based on hate.

Cancel Culture embraces and perpetuates the neoliberalism emphasis of the individual. Neoliberalism, Chun describes, is “an epoch that emphasizes individual empowerment and difference” (xi). She goes on to point out that “neoliberal subjects are constantly encouraged to change their habits-rather than society and institutions” (xi). Cancel culture bases itself off this notion of individualistic action. We choose to no longer support the celebrity or purchase their stuff and we let others know in hopes they cancel as well. By canceling someone, it beautifully illustrates our response as consumers to change our habits instead of the institution or celebrity figure. This can also be viewed as empowering as we have the agency to choose what we consume or who we associate with in a time where many people feel like they do not have much power.

Moreover, cancel culture effectively illustrates Chun’s analysis of networks as producing aggregated unique individuals rather than an anonymous collective “we”. In her argument, Chun points out “networks rely on asynchronous yet pressing actions to create interconnected users” (3). We see this clearly in canceling someone as it does not take place in a singular temporality like reading the daily newspaper but occurs when an individual hears of the information and responds in their own time. This, Chun asserts, “generates a YOU rather than a we” (27). We are connected in the sense that we partake in this act of cancelling but it is done through an emphasis on the individual. Instead of a singular ‘we’ like you would see in a community, Chun suggests it is instead a bunch of YOUs.

While cancel culture can be seen as aggregated YOUs, it can also be viewed as conducive to forming communities of hatred using mainly economic means. Chun argues that “those who hate excessively need their objects, because they become part of a community through this attachment” (157). The mass cancellation of a certain celebrity figure places us into a community of aligned hatred. And this form of hatred manifests itself most tangibly through economic means. Cancel culture often involves a refusal to not purchase anything related to that person they are cancelling, illustrating Chun’s argument that “in a neoliberal society, the logic of the market has become its ethics” (10). By voicing our hatred and frustration through our purchasing power, it has the capacity to cause change outside of our habits as well. For instance, Laura Lee, a YouTube beauty guru, made some racist tweets which led to public backlash and ultimately lost her partnership with Ulta Beauty (TheBlast Staff). Through a collective cancellation of Ms. Lee, it led to her losing a valuable sponsorship and Ulta Beauty realized, by associating with Laura Lee, their brand would be tarnished which would undoubtedly affect their revenue.

While cancel culture can be described as a network made up of YOUs or a community formed from hate, it reiterates that the value of information does not depend on its novelty. Chun finds that “newness alone does not determine value” but repetition does (118). No matter how long ago someone said some racist remark or did something unethical, we are then called by this crisis as individuals to respond in our own time. But the cancelling of someone only has value if it has a mass response (Ms. Lee losing her sponsorship when there was massive public backlash), pointing to the YOU as both singular and plural. Value is thus generated through a big enough group of individual choices.

With all this in mind, it is crucial to reflect on what it means to partake in the epistemology of outing, “a mode of knowledge production that focuses on the exposure of secrets” (150). While canceling someone usually occurs when something extremely heinous has occurred, this desire for exposure and outing secrets impacts more than just celebrities and public figures that have done wrong. We are all susceptible to being called out or exposed for a spectrum of activities that range from morally sound to morally unsound if there is some trace of it left on the internet. Chun argues for the right to loiter on the internet using the example of slut shaming but do those rights extend to everyone, especially those who do terrible things and have not dealt with the consequences?

Cancel culture remains prevalent in contemporary media and serves as a striking example of the ideas and issues Chun works with in her book. Through cancelling and changing their habits, an individual conveys a certain agency and form of self-empowerment. And if enough people, through a community or network, cancels someone, it makes possible for changes that occur at the institutional/celebrity level, rather than just the individual level. At the same time, we must consider the consequences that stem from outing information from any time. No matter how long ago the wrongdoing was committed, as long as it was captured, there is always the possibility for it to resurface and this extends to everything we do on the internet, from the embarrassing selfies to the immature posts from our early adolescent years. People who do wrong things should still face the consequences but cancel culture’s constant scrutinization and surveillance might be the wrong approach. Chun concludes by saying “rather than “consent once, circulate forever, “ we need to find ways to loiter in public without being attacked” (172). Even if the attack (cancelling) is justified, we must seek new forms of reproach and reparation because, at any point, the tables can turn, and we will be the next one getting cancelled.

Works Cited

Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong. Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media. The MIT Press, 2017.

Staff, TheBlast. “YouTuber Laura Lee Dropped From Major Sponsorships Over Racist Tweet.” The Blast, The Blast, 10 June 2019, theblast.com/laura-lee-dropped-partnerships-ulta-racist-tweet/.