Manipulation by Madness!
The UK has long observed the tradition of social control through surveillance. In 1785 the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham came up with the concept of the Panopticon. The Panopticon refers to the theory wherein architecture could be designed to give those in control a complete (pan) view (optic) of those under control. A later philosopher, Michel Foucault, expanded Bentham’s theory to include more subtle forms of social manipulation.
Early prisons and educational lecture halls were designed to facilitate this theory. A literary example of the Panopticon is evident in George Orwell’s 1984, a book about a totalitarian government that controlled their population almost entirely through surveillance and censorship. Panoptical architecture is characterized in two ways. First, the structure is usually round, with those in control in the centre, having a complete view of those under control. Second, it is characterized by soft power.
Soft power is how modern societies are ruled and basically what the UK has been implementing.
If you were to drive up to a deserted red light or stop sign at 2am, would you still stop?
The large percent of your average law abiding fellow extraordinary citizens would answer yes, they would stop. But how much logic is actually behind stopping at a red light on a deserted road in the middle of the night? Social controls, however, have convinced us that this is not only expected, but encouraged. Unfailing discipline in following societal controls is expected- without rewards, while even the slightest deterrence from the social system is punished severely.
And now, in the era of unending preaching about democracy and freedom, Britain is carrying out the Panopticon on its own citizens. In Middlesbrough, a town in the North of England, loudspeakers have been installed in the closed circuit television surveillance cameras. These speakers allow a camera monitor to speak to people in the area of a security camera. This is what Orwell referred to as the telescreen, a modern panopticon- a wild theory of social manipulation and control—come true!
Don’t allow yourself to be ruled by social and societal panoptical pressures. You have a right to privacy and can achieve that by donning a guise. A hoodie that not only masks your features from the surveillance systems in the UK in protest, but a political statement that flips a big middle finger to Big Brother – chances are, they are going to see it. ‘I protest this abasement to human freedom!’ I would rather bow to logic and reason, than social controls aimed at conformity. So all I can say is, “Cover it up.”
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