2023-09-07
32 分钟Today we talk about positive power, neoliberalism, narcissism as a reaction to modern life, how technology makes isolation easier, and some tactics to find peace in the digital panopticon. Get more: Website: https://www.philosophizethis.org/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/philosophizethis Be social: Twitter: https://twitter.com/iamstephenwest Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philosophizethispodcast TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philosophizethispodcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philosophizethisshow Thank you for making the show possible. 🙂
Hello, everyone.
I'm Stephen west.
This is philosophize this.
Thank you to all the people out there that support the show on Patreon for an ad free version of the show, sub at any level@patreon.com.
philosophizethis so the last couple episodes, we've been talking about the topic of how power operates in the world, specifically ways that people's behavior is directed, where it's not as obvious or as simple as there just being a gun pointed to your head telling you what to do.
We've talked about a digital panopticon.
We've talked about big data and surveillance.
And I want to start with a quote from the philosopher we're going to be talking about today.
And for anybody out there who may be newer to philosophy, but you've listened to the last couple episodes of the podcast.
I love moments like this, by the way, where you read a quote or you hear a passage from someone's work and you know that a few weeks ago you may not have known what they were even talking about, but after having done the work, gotten to another level in your thinking, it feels good seeing the difference, knowing what the main character this episode's talking about when he mentions something like a digital panopticon.
Today, the entire globe is developing into a panopticon.
Google and social networks, which present themselves as spaces of freedom, are assuming panoptic forms.
Today, surveillance is not occurring as an attack on freedom as is normally assumed.
Instead, people are voluntarily surrendering to the panoptic gaze.
They deliberately collaborate in the digital panopticon by denuding and exhibiting themselves.
The prisoner of the digital panopticon is a perpetrator and a victim at the same time.
Herein lies the dialectic of freedom.
Freedom turns out to be a form of control.
Those were the words of Byeong Chul han, south korean born german philosopher.
And just for some time period context, here he is alive today.