from kate maxwell
So I had question for the Antonio’s group, but my side of the room
seems to be off the grid and it just won’t appear on Blogger…and I
don’t expect you guys to answer it now…so in response to the
questions about the cards…
In terms of RFID technology, it doesn’t seem to me as through
the physical swiping of the card has massive theoretical
implications to an extent that if the medium of the tracking/ID
network changed drastically, these would as well…in other words,
it seems as though the idea of the system and its organization of
private members would be hugely altered by the disappearance of
the actual cards. Sure, radio frequencies (pls bear in mind I’m not
very familiar with the technological specifics of RFID) would be
much more difficult to falsify or co-opt/steal from their proper
“owners”, and certainly more subtle in the sense that the
individuals would not be physically reminded of the system, which
of course would still concern hierarchical movement within
restricted spaces. However, despite arguments for increased
security and convenience, it seems to me as though these
justifications simply strengthen the link between the ideal panoptic
institution and ID cards, for they simply encourage less resistance
to the network, and more alienation of those who wish to exist
outside of it. Sure, who cares if you’re being watched unless you’re
doing something wrong, but those kind of moral judgments are not
always best entrusted to State legal jurisdiction. Increases in
invisibility, convenience, and amount of personal data within one
overarching system seems to my paranoid self to indicate a much
greater threat of conformity and control by some automated
authority…especially when one runs down the slippery slope to,
say, nationally-mandated chips placed into the neck at birth,
tracking interstate travel, secretly recording conversations or
chemicals placed in the body, and on and on, you get the idea..
(duh duh DUM).
In terms of discrimination based on physical appearance, the
incident involving the arrested students seems to me to be
indicative of the idea that the authority of the private university is
enacted over “public” space (such as the main green) in much the
same way that civil government legal enforcers tend to patrol
public streets…for example, loitering laws tend to be enforced
when a there exists some ulterior, usually less legal and more
biased, motivation…ie nicely dressed college students are rarely
arrested for loitering on Thayer Street, even though the crowds of
drunk kids sitting on the corner for hours, deciding on the next
party, are far more obtrusive than the guy trying to sell some
charcoal sketchings on the sidewalk. Probable cause almost
invites racial profiling, and certainly the private authority of Brown
security is not above that. The difference lies in that in some ways,
the Brown ID will inevitably provide the victim of such partial
judgements more possible avenues to contest the charge –
eventually the two kids were released, once their identity as
members of the private community were confirmed, whereas in the
practical realities of our modern day justice system, the bum on the
corner might not get such a chance to erase the vagrancy charge.
As for physical exceptions to the tracking system, these seem
to correlate to the physical weaknesses that come with physical
cards, something that will decrease with improvements in
technology. While we did notice the black boxes outside many
general use buildings such as the Watson Institute, we did not
enquire as extensively after the correlating info systems, as these
are primarily used by police and security to provide them with easy
and uniform access all over campus (similar to a skeleton key).
However, it is very possible that the systems do include similar
tracking devices. And with more advanced and more invisible ID
systems (ie aforementioned chip), there would be less physical
cause to exempt members of the system.
posted by whkc at 2:23 PM
Since my group only had one question, from Rajiv, I will try to briefly cover one aspect of it. He stressed, and I think appropriately, that Habermas. sees “private” individuals coming together to form the “public sphere,” which was essentially not dependent on funding. However, our argument was not simply that the sphere was private because it was privately funded, but instead was that the idea of the classroom as a “public sphere” has some serious flaws. For one, not all lettered “bourgeois” persons can participate in our critical rational debate; access to the classroom is highly restricted and even electronically surveyed (as the brown card group mentioned). When a bourgeois private person wanted to go to the coffee-house for some critical rational discourse, he did not have to present his “coffee house ID” or otherwise prove that he was worthy of entry. Now, it’s true that he would have had to have been literate, wealthy, male, etc., which leads us to question whether or not “bourgeois public sphere” is somewhat of a contradiction in terms to begin with. But in any case, to answer Rajiv, I think that private funding is not the essential point of our critique of the classroom as bourgeois public sphere.
I’d be interested to hear feedback on how the classroom (as bourgeois public sphere or in general) would be affected by surveillance of the sort our intervention suggested.
posted by Jackie at 7:51 PM
This question is regarding comments made by the first speaker in the first presentation. He suggested that being inside Antonio's places one in the position of the central tower in the panopticon. Perhaps I missed some of his argument, but I'm a bit unsure how the metaphor of the central tower applies to the experience of either walking inside, or even walking past, Antonio's. The occupant of the central tower is someone in an omniscient position, who has a distinct advantage over others in that he is able to observe their movements simeoutaneously, while those subject to his gaze can barely, if at all, see this all knowing figure. It seems to me that walking in Antonio's is like being inside the panopticon, but on the ground. You are able to observe the movements of your fellow workers, or inmates or whoever, in this open and revealing space, yet you are just as subject to their gaze as they are to yours. You are not in the aloof and advantageous position afforded by the central tower. The speaker's analogy to the panopticon was a constructive comparison, but his selection of the central tower as the specific metaphor seems to overstate, or at least inaccurately depict, the panoptic experience of walking in or past Antonio's.
posted by Anonymous at 8:57 PM 