Currently Listening: The Joshua Tree by U2
The rise of public digital surveillance is both a symptom of and an attempt to address a larger problem: that our own neighbors may be strangers to us. According to a Pew survey in 2018, 57 percent of Americans say they know only some of their neighbors. But among people aged 18 to 29, almost a quarter say they know none, compared to only 4 percent among people over 65. As residents turn to digitized forms of monitoring and surveillance for peace of mind, the root cause — weak neighborhood bonds — is left unaddressed.
Our new tools also habituate us to expect a level of control over others that might undermine the possibility of trust. They can encourage us to engage in new forms of ethical distancing: Viewing the behavior of members of our communities through a Ring camera feed rather than in face-to-face interactions in public space degrades not only our physical interactions but our sense of obligation to others. Healthy communities rely on the people within them to maintain order and offer help when needed. Outsourcing that to machines is an acknowledgement that we have given up on that expectation, even as the convenience of being able to see a package delivered to our doorstep while we’re away brings a sense of control and convenience.
Personal surveillance also poses new challenges to our most intimate relationships. It is not a coincidence that so many of the new domestic interpersonal surveillance technologies are marketed as tools to watch the very young and the very old, populations that require more hands-on human support, who are less autonomous and more vulnerable. Amazon markets its Astro household robot in conjunction with its Alexa Together “remote caregiving service” as “a new way to remotely care for aging loved ones.” Outsourcing the responsibility to keep an eye on others to surveillance-enabled machines brings practical benefits, but also exacts moral costs regarding our duty to care. These surveillance tools often start as surrogates, but quickly become seen as necessary to our busy lifestyles and allow us to justify not taking the time to be with those who need us most.
Christine Rosen, on how private surveillance technologies (e.g., Ring cameras, neighborhood-watch platforms, etc.) might be undermining the trust that makes real community possible:
We like to look at ourselves and to monitor others, and there are an increasing number of new technologies encouraging us to do just that. This prompts some slightly different questions [than questions re: privacy and big tech] about the benefits and dangers of surveillance technologies: What kind of people are being formed in a world of everyday surveillance? What assumptions do they make about their neighbors and communities? What expectations do they have for privacy and visibility in their own homes and in their interactions with family members? How can they build relationships of trust without the reassurance surveillance offers of the behavior of others? […]
Interpersonal surveillance technologies offer something…compelling: A sense of control at a time when many people feel that institutions and systems meant to protect them have broken down. Inside the home, among loved ones, technology-enabled surveillance is becoming the normative form of care: I track you because I love you; I watch you to make sure you are safe. Outside the home, personal surveillance technologies are becoming the unblinking eyes on the street and the neighborhood watch that dispenses with fallible human neighbors in favor of the camera’s unrelenting digital feed.
Beyond their use as practical tools for watching, however, the normalization of these technologies is changing the way we think about ourselves and others as individuals and as members of communities. As much as the ability to monitor each other brings a sense of security, it can also provoke anxiety at being the object of ubiquitous surveillance. Alternatively, becoming comfortable with constant surveillance risks eroding the possibility of trust that has always been, and remains, a pillar of healthy relationships and communities.
She concludes the piece with these sobering final thoughts:
Today we have new tools and new habits of minds around surveillance that take people out of the equation and replace them with technologies. The short-term rewards are evident — convenience, peace of mind, a feeling of security and control — but the potential long-term dangers are also worth considering. As our neighborhoods and communities become more heavily surveilled, they risk becoming more atomized. When it comes to strangers, who may increasingly include our own neighbors, we change the dictum “trust, but verify” to “record and post to Nextdoor.” Fear and vigilance are not the bedrock of healthy communities.
A world of ubiquitous interpersonal surveillance is one where our homes and families might begin to resemble not the “little platoon we belong to in society,” to borrow from Edmund Burke, but rather the atomized spawn of Jeremy Bentham, who once wrote that “it were to be wished that no such thing as secrecy existed — that every man’s house were made of glass” since “the more men live in public, the more amenable they are to the moral sanction.”
Our houses are not yet made of glass, but our use of interpersonal and private domestic surveillance technologies is slowly rendering them as visible as if they were — at least to the increasing number of people, corporations, and government entities who know how to watch what we so eagerly broadcast. Interpersonal surveillance technologies have rendered us far more visible to each other and given people a sense of security and safety when it comes to protecting their homes and loved ones. But they have not helped rebuild the one thing that human beings need to live together in peace: trust.
Holy Week is a disguised coronation, a masked victory, glorification masquerading as humiliation. This is how God becomes king, the comic reversal at the center of the world.
Photo cred goes to my wife, Kristyn
(from the CD booklet for Shut Up I Am Dreaming by Sunset Rubdown)
(Untitled, known as Christ’s entry into Jerusalem by Pietro Lorenzetti)
