Class

For those QR code Hunters!

Welcome to the Waterloo Watchmen surveillance blog! Waterloo Watchmen is dedicated to researching, exposing, and discussing the prevalence of surveillance across UW. Below you will find a brief description of the surveillance technology in your immediate environment as well as a theoretical inquiry to get you thinking! To the right of your screen, you will find an archive menu of previous posts discussing a broad range of campus locations and theoretical perspectives. We invite you to explore this website and join the conversation!

Rise of the Surveilling Class

Bank machines monitor your financial worth, spending habits, and locations which you frequent in exchange for convenience. Find out how - more about this form of surveillance below!

Inherent to the dialectic of Marxism the greatest threat to the stability bourgeois class is the spark of revolution capable of uniting and empowering the proletariat mass. Therefore, it would seem counter intuitive to think of social media technologies (SMT) as a repressive force used against the proletariat in the battle between the two classes. SMT's not only achieve social cohesion, but provide an economies of distribution capable of disseminating counter ideologies. However, it has been under the deceptive veil of social empowerment and connectivity that the latest iteration of surveillance technologies have been able cover the master-narrative of "security". Testament to the success of this veiling has been the complicit self-exploitation of the proletariat class who would otherwise have revolted against the engulfment of private personal space by the public sphere. Once in the domain of the public sphere all actions, transactions and thoughts are susceptible to critical examination upon which additional repressive measures can be formulated. But how has this been achieved?

It would seem on the surface that the repression of the proletariat has been quite methodical; however, it is premature to suggest it is intentional. Regardless, the economic and technological forces conspire against the underclass in several ways.

First, the capitalist system constructs the appearance that there is no proletariat class, or that if there is, the proletariat class is not this class. Instead, there is a middle class. This illusion is achieved through appearance of social mobility. Relative to Marx's romanticized proletariat, the underclass in North American society lives within a comfortable standard of living. Within reach, is the two-car garage, the family van and seasonal retreats to the cottage. A revolution would come at the cost of this security. Additionally, the standard of living is relatively higher than it has been in the past.The bourgeois class is able to obtain several homes, the personal jet and retreats to the most remote corners of the globe. The relevance of this disparity extends beyond materialistic affordances and into the realms of private medicine and education. Most will not realise the frail ground on which the proletariat stand on except for times of financial crisis.

Secondly, one must agree to buy into this system. But, with the enticement of convenience, utility, and external validity, one is seeming left behind when one does not conform. Social engagements are now arranged in the public spaces of facebook; up-to-the-minute status of a friend is twitted in 140 characters or less over the open air; one must question why even the most basic laptops and cellphones now come with cameras. Every social and communicative act is recorded, stored and redistributed. These become social acts in themselves as they distinguish between aspects of social experience that are important and those that are not.

Of course there is an additional irony when one "chooses" to buy into social surveillance. The act of recording every subject, objectifies the observer as a part of the mechanism which collects data used by hegemonic institutions. One may feel as if they are empowered by engaging in this social activity, but one is really just the tripod for the camera collecting intelligence. This perversion of the panopticon not only disguises the socialite as the agent of the act, but also creates a buffer between the subject and the real agent. The middle class stands in the middle. One only thinks they know who is watching.

Thirdly, all of this information is aggregated and then used to create subject profiles; a reiterative act designed to construct new forms of discipline in order to keep up with modulating social tendencies. The data stream is continuous as methods of disseminating ideologies continually shift. The true genius of this system is that those who are being watched, fund the new methods of surveillance they themselves make obsolete. This is why challenging the system does not simply amount to destroying it. Replacement is already anticipated. Instead victory against the system occurs when one uses it against itself, such as in detournement, or counter-surveillance.