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Notes
Of course such endeavors are not without risks. More broadly, as Shalen (2008) suggests, “Biocritical inquiry raises ethical issues concerning privacy, hearsay, gossip mongering, and general propriety of exploring historical personae who have explicitly or tacitly eschewed publicity. It also puts into a spotlight the biocritics’ biases, agendas, and framing preferences. Those looking into other people’s backstage regions must be ready to grant access to theirs. The question is how we can conduct biocritical and autobiocritical investigations with both tact and verve, expose hearsay for what it is while making the most of it.”
The section on “Second Thoughts and Enduring Tensions” in Marx (1995) -http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/recent.html.
David Hume’s words of disappointment regarding the response to his Treatise of Human Nature.
In contrast to Marx’s critics on the left, Bottoms would say the bias goes in the other direction. The cultural materials (cartoons, posters, advertisements, song lyrics) are overwhelmingly on the anti-surveillance side.
But in a fluid and ambiguous world of contradictions is there “really”, or necessarily, a guy behind the guy, −-the actor who knows what he or she truly is and believes? Are the changing signals the chameleon sends reflective of its essence as having no essence, or a useful cover for the inner core of what it really is? In the best, kaleidoscopic Goffmanian terms that is the question! Chameleons, like humans, are doubly blessed in being able to hide ala passive blocking (their coloration), but also to actively deceive in having eyes that can pivot and focus independently. The subject of its’ surveillance, seeing the eye not looking at it may thus be unaware of being observed.
Consider drones that look like flies and hover like hummingbirds, “snakebots” that can slither under doors, and smart dust, micro motes and cyborg beetles (live insects) that can portage cameras and other sensors (Hudson 2016).
This was said to console then graduate student Travis Hirschi after an editor questioned whether his impressionistic article on prostitutes was “really” sociology. Hirschi went on to become one of the most widely respected criminologists of the twentieth century.
Unlike artists, academics should not express disinterest or disdain for critics. That is because of the occupational power of peers and the tentativeness of scholarly endeavors in which we must learn from each other and any one person is limited in what they know. In the case of my undercover book, many reviews were a Rorschach test revealing about the reviewer as well as the about the book. About half the time I could predict at least some of a reviewers’ responses by knowing their discipline and politics. (Marx 1995)
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Expanded version of a seminar paper delivered at Law, Science, Technology and Society Studies, VUB, Brussels, 2017 with Serge Gutwirth, Tugba Basaran, Marieke De Goede, Joris Van Hoboken and Kristof Verfaillie. These thoughts were mostly written as I was finishing the book. I have also been informed from the kind, insightful, and fair reviews of so many people, most of whom I don't know: http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/wis_bookreviews.html#marx_back
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Marx, G.T. A Satirical (?) Book Review of Windows Into the Soul: Surveillance and Society in an Age of High Technology by its Author. Am Soc 50, 608–624 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-019-09424-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-019-09424-1