It’s been a whirlwind news cycle over the past 48 hours. Welcome to the 21st century surveillance state. We’ve been living here for some time, but no one bothered to say so until now. In grappling with it all, I keep returning to a few literary classics.
Neil Postman begins his magnum opus, Amusing Ourselves to Death, by ruminating on two distinct visions of our dystopic future, portrayed in George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World:
“Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophecy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo the capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture… In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.”
(emphasis added)
On a Thursday afternoon panel at Personal Democracy Forum, Zeynep Tufecki argued that big data in campaigns is paving the way for a future that is equal parts Orwell and Huxley. The threat comes less from electoral campaigns themselves than from well-financed economic players who will replicate and enhance the new market techniques in other arenas. Our powers of monitoring and distraction are growing at an outlandish pace.
Through cosmic coincidence, the first news about PRISM broke just after her panel. Along with monitoring all of our phone calls through Verizon, it seems the NSA is also capable of accessing all communications via Google/Gmail/YouTube, Microsoft/Skype, Facebook, Yahoo, Apple, Aol, and Paltalk. According to the career intelligence officer who leaked the information, “They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type.”
PRISM is Orwell’s America. Really, what else can you call it? If, two weeks ago, Someone told me that the government was soaking up all our online data, capable of reading things while we type them, I would have backed away slowly, wondering where they left their tin foil hat. Then the Washington Post told me instead. The depth and breadth of this domestic spying program is just astonishing.
But Huxley’s vision is the reason this Orwellian architecture can be constructed. Consider:
RT @AdamKilgoreWP Friday on A1 of WaPo: The govt is reading yr email. Saturday: The Nats’ season has been a real drag http://wapo.st/15JSxGU
And it’s not just the front page of the Washington Post. Tune in to your Twitter stream tomorrow, around 9:30PM EST. I guarantee you that no one will be discussing PRISM. They’ll be talking about Daenerys Stormborn and Arya Stark. They’ll be talking about Lebron James and Tony Parker. They’ll be trading jokes about Don Draper and Joan Holloway. It’s like Kurt Cobain said, “With the lights out, it’s less dangerous. Here we are now, entertain us.”
I see room for just a bit of anti-Huxley hope. Also at Personal Democracy Forum, Sara Critchfield talked about Upworthy.com. Upworthy has only been around for a year and a half, and it already reaches 2/3rds of all Americans. Their business model is surprisingly simple: find “socially positive” stories, repackage them with more engaging headlines, and help them go viral. Eli Pariser founded Upworthy after he wrote The Filter Bubble (see my review here). It was founded on the premise that people actually want more than cat videos and celebrity gossip. Provide engaging, inspiring, thought-provoking, or enraging content and people will read it, share it, and discuss it. We just have to get better at marketing the quality content as well as we market the junk content.
Upworthy’s success gives reason for hope. Sunday night, I’ll be watching the NBA Finals and Game of Thrones. But Monday, I’ll probably see some PRISM-related content from Upworthy in my media stream, and I’ll share it and participate further in the public conversation. How much hope we should have is directly proportional to how large of a niche companies like Upworthy will eventually occupy. How widely are those diverse preferences for substantive and entertaining comments spread? Can we sustain national attention around issues like PRISM for long enough to demand answers and action from public officials, or will we quickly flip to the next story?
I don’t know. But, as we marvel at this newly unveiled Orwellian surveillance state, it’s these Huxley-esque questions that will concern me most.
We don’t arrive at this surveillance regime through a perpetual state of fear. We get there through perpetual distraction.