Organized Immaturity in a Post-Kantian Perspective: Toward a critical theory of surveillance capitalism

Abstract

Organized immaturity has been defined as the erosion of the individual’s capacity for the public use of reason, pressured by control patterns of socio-technological systems built on obscure operating principles, ideologies, or regimes. Recent studies of surveillance capitalism explore the technological advancements of digitalization and analyse their negative impacts on information integrity and user autonomy. We identify organized immaturity as a deeper cause of these impacts and develop elements of a critical theory to explain the maturity-eroding effects of surveillance capitalism and to theorize an agenda for countermeasures. We first identify, describe and analyse infantilization, reductionism and totalization as emerging patterns of surveillance capitalism, which organize immaturity in human individuals and collectives. We then define the individual abilities and public deliberation principles needed to exercise maturity in private and public life, using Habermas’s theory of communicative action, as applied to human moral development, and Kant’s mentalist approach to individual maturity. Finally, we use these principles as a critical foundation and guide for citizens to nurture and protect individual maturity and democratic society from the infantilization, reductionism and totalization induced by surveillance capitalism.