Peer-level self-surveillance outweighs state surveillance in producing conformity.

Evidence

The dispositive of transparency has the further consequence of promoting total conformity. The economy of transparency seeks to suppress deviation. Total networking – total communication – already has a levelling effect per se. Its effect is conformity: it is as if everyone were watching over everyone else – even before intelligence agencies or secret services have stepped in to supervise and steer. Invisible moderators smooth out communication and calibrate it to what is generally understood and accepted. Such primary, intrinsic surveillance proves much more problematic than the secondary, extrinsic surveillance undertaken by secret services and spying agencies. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 35

Categorization

• XREF: The idea that intrinsic peer surveillance matters more than extrinsic state spying connects to how Zamyatin’s ‘We’ depicts citizens who police themselves before state auditors do. — connects to: Intrinsic conformity outweighs state surveillance as a threat — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 35; Mutual surveillance becomes the habitat within which social conformity is engineered — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1365; Control societies replace external surveillance with internalized self-policing — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 48 (+3 more)

Related

• Intrinsic conformity outweighs state surveillance as a threat (similarity 0.88)
• A surveillance society only becomes complete when those surveilled begin to self-surveil. (similarity 0.80)
• Control shifts from external surveillance to a deterrence system internalized as the self. (similarity 0.79)
• Surveillance harms by invading the self’s space on another’s behalf. (similarity 0.79)
• Control societies replace external surveillance with self-policing but require the subject’s complicity. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Surveillance controls populations chiefly through internalized self-policing #corroborates (0.90) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 44
• Control societies replace external surveillance with internalized self-policing #corroborates (0.88) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 48
• Intrinsic conformity outweighs state surveillance as a threat #corroborates (0.85) — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 35
• Mutual surveillance becomes the habitat within which social conformity is engineered #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1365
• External surveillance becomes internalized as self-imposed bodily discipline #corroborates (0.82) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 512
• Internalized self-censorship enforces conformity more effectively than state propaganda #corroborates (0.80) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 166