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MilanPreeFirstEssay 4 - 21 Nov 2020 - Main.MilanPree
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
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| | | Introduction | |
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< | Reflecting on surveillance capitalism made me think about states’ video-surveillance of public spaces, and its potential benefits to increase safety and respect for common rules. However, the authoritarian spectrum of Orwell's 1984 appears whenever we evoke generalized state video-surveillance ambitions. But one could argue that a democratic state, concerned with ensuring citizens’ rights and freedoms, and dictated by the desire to build a better society, could legitimately promote absolute transparency of the public space in order to achieve, thanks to the deterrent effect of video-surveillance technologies, greater safety and respect for common rules. In other words, that a thoughtful surveillance conducted by a thoughtful state is legitimate. The objective of this essay is to understand why surveillance cannot be an option for democracies. | >
> | Reflecting on surveillance capitalism made me think about states’ video-surveillance of public spaces, and its potential benefits to increase safety and respect for common rules. However, the authoritarian spectrum of Orwell's 1984 appears whenever we evoke generalized state video-surveillance ambitions. But one could argue that a democratic state, concerned with ensuring citizens’ rights and freedoms, and dictated by the desire to build a better society, could legitimately promote absolute transparency of the public space in order to achieve, thanks to the deterrent effect of video-surveillance technologies, greater safety and respect for common rules. In other words, that a thoughtful yet powerful surveillance conducted by a thoughtful state is legitimate. The objective of this essay is to understand why surveillance cannot be an option for democracies. | | | The rationale for transparency of the public space | | | Conclusion | |
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< | The use of greater video-surveillance to achieve greater safety and respect for rules would not only annihilate individuals’ autonomy, rights and freedom, but would also destroy the balance, prosperity, and meaning of democratic societies. For these reasons, a thoughtful surveillance society is not conceivable. | >
> | The use of greater video-surveillance to achieve greater safety and respect for rules would not only annihilate individuals’ autonomy, rights and freedom, but would also destroy the balance, prosperity, and meaning of democratic societies. For these reasons, a thoughtful surveillance society is not conceivable. | | | | |
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< | Blinded by a desire for more security and discipline that led me to relativize rights and freedoms, I may have thought otherwise, and considered that an enlightened state could pursue an enlightened and thus positive surveillance, but without realizing the implications that such a design would have on what a society is, and what it means to live. | >
> | Blinded by a desire for more security and discipline that led me to relativize rights and freedoms, I may have thought otherwise, and considered that an enlightened state could pursue an enlightened and thus positive surveillance, but without realizing the implications that such a design would have on what a society is, and what it means to live. | | | Yet the path towards more video-surveillance is seducing an increasing number of Western democracies, rights and freedoms as well as democratic values being easily relativized when facing security issues and fears. |
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