In his “Postscript on the Societies of Control”, which was written 30 years ago in 2020, Gilles Deleuze leaves us with the diagnosis that a profound transformation of society and capitalism has taken place: having left behind the disciplinary societies, which Foucault analysed (cf. Foucault 1975), after World War II, we are now living in societies of control that are inseparably connected to a new form of capitalism (cf. Deleuze 1992: 3-4, 6). This transformation of society has led to a “generalized crisis in relation to all the environments of enclosure” (Deleuze 1992: 3-4) which were being reshaped through various reforms, resulting in “the installation of the new forces” (1992: 4), that is, the “progressive and dispersed installation of a new system of domination” (1992: 7). Apparently, Deleuze’s clairvoyant idea of the society of control seems to have come true: we no longer need to imagine science fiction, since contemporary reality is already structured by digitised control mechanisms of multiple sorts and characters. Many of our social, economic, and political actions in both public and private everyday life are at least influenced or even caused by algorithms. Several of these algorithms may make our lives more convenient, especially in terms of the possibilities of the Internet, such as deterritorialised connection, access to information, and shared technological knowledge. However, in the “age of algorithm” (Sunstein 2017: 3), most areas of digitised reality based on ‘big data’, like social media, financial markets, smart technologies, or artificial intelligence systems are characterised by anonymity, non-transparency, and undemocratic structures which appear like asymmetrical mechanisms for controlling individuals. The function of algorithms enables all kinds of political and private organisations, like companies and governments, to evaluate patterns of individual behaviour and actions and to handle them as impersonal, general, and – in the Deleuzean idiom – dividualised facets of reality (cf. Baranzoni 2016: 45-46): a reality that is rather to be calculated in capitalistic terms than to be created and to be designed by human beings themselves (e.g. as political actors).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:72856 |
| Date | 20 November 2020 |
| Creators | Allers, Lea, Martinsen, Franziska |
| Publisher | Universität Leipzig |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa2-728155, qucosa:72815 |
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