#technologies of control

[ethtropy]

The New Masters of the Universe

Paul Starrs reviews Shoshana Zuboff's new book about technology firms, power, and privacy.

Follow-Up Post - While Shoshana Zuboff rejects a rhetoric of “inevitabilism”, her book gives little basis for thinking we can avoid the new #Technologies of #Control. Paul Starr reviews "The Age of #Surveillance #Capitalism". @foreignaffairsmagazine-blog

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“The neoliberal regime deploys emotions as resources in order to bring about heightened productivity and achievement. Starting at a certain level of production, rationality – which is the medium of disciplinary society – hits a limit. Henceforth, it is experienced as a constraint, an inhibition. Suddenly, it seems rigid and inflexible. At this point, emotionality takes its place, which is attended by the feeling of liberty – the free unfolding of personality. After all, being free means giving free rein to emotions. Emotional capitalism banks on freedom. It hails emotion as the expression of unbridled subjectivity. Neoliberal technologies of power exploit this same subjectivity mercilessly. Rationality is defined by objectivity, generality and steadiness. As such, it stands opposed to emotionality, which is subjective, situative and volatile. Emotions arise, above all, when circumstances change – and perception shifts.”

— Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power

[processedlives]

From Keeping Migrants in their Place: Technologies of Control and Racialized Public Space in Arizona by Meghan G. McDowell and Nancy A. Wonder