Habitual Interaction Estranged

Packard, Noel

doi:10.20472/ss2018.7.1.005

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Like an earlier publication about alienation, titled, "Habitual Interactive Estranged" (Packard 2018a) which imposes Marx's alienation theory (Marx, 1844(Marx, /1978 on a contemporary context, this article is Marx inspired, historical comparative in method and adheres to Marx's idea that each new epoch is pregnant with the one that will forcefully replace it (Marx, 1867(Marx, /1990. This article is my own hypothesis imposed on US militaryindustrial-complex history, to explain a kind of alienation that Internet inventors experienced from knowing and also having to pretend not to know national security secrets.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…No matter if the Internet user is a spy or someone engaged in free speech, there is an obvious split between the on-line and the off-line life experience, a contradiction that is also a driving force for capitalism; unify the split and that driving force for capitalism is changed. There is profit made in this kind of split user experience because people can't be on-line all the time, either for free speech or for spyingand yet many strive hard to unify that on-line and off-line life experience (generating hotly contested debates about possible Internet addiction) (Packard 2018a). Consider the so-called Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) disorder, where people are on-line habitually because they fear missing out on something.…”

Section: Conclusion Observations Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Alienating Marx(ists) From the Cold War Into Surveillance Capitalism

Packard¹

2019

Proceedings of the 47th International Academic Conference, Prague

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Marx's Machine Age theory of capitalism ascribes a unique driving role for alienation and argues new modes of production emerge from past modes of production. Presently so-called surveillance capitalism is superseding Machine Age capitalism and distributing wealth unequally to a 1% global elite. There are debates about what alienation is at work in this changed epoch. Premised on Marx's idea that modes of production are born in the previous epoch along with the alienation that works with them, a hypothesis about how today's Internet enables both endless free speech, while inversely and simultaneously, enabling endless spying with impunity is presented here. The hypothesis is a conceptualization of alienation labeled as "known unknown." The adaption of the term "known unknown alienation" stems from the discourse in the film, "The Unknown Known" which highlights aspects of known unknown alienation, in the form of so-called national security experts who are mentally divided about what they can and can not know (or talk about) and also the divide between the expert and the taxpayer, who does not qualify to have access to the same information that the expert has. This personal internal contradiction and social alienation is compounded because Americans are proud of US constitutionally protected free speech rights (which according to The Citizens United Act allows corporations to be individuals); these contradictions help drive surveillance capitalism. The historical-comparative argument is: "Communist hunting" intelligence agents, scientists, and contractors, backed by neoliberal economists, built a military-industrial-complex that obligated them to both known and not know, or in the case of the CIA be "witting" of national security secrets, which alienated them from US constitutional free speech. Their alienation manifest in their interactive inventions-the Internet, pc and cell phone-devices that today dialectically give customers the ability to express free speech endlessly in electronic memory form, while inversely giving spies unlimited access to that speech with impunity. This process works in tandem: enabling appropriation of data for government surveillance and service fee payments for corporations.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Conclusion Observations Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%