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Orwell Was an Optimist - By Klaus Æ. Mogensen
Without absolute power of the
media, an absolutist regime as
described in Orwell’s Nineteen
Eighty-Four cannot exist for
long. For this reason alone, we
shouldn’t worry too much about
the surveillance society. Orwell
was a pessimist
haven’t got anything to hide, you shouldn’t mind surveillance.
Society only works as long as we can watch each
other and hence keep each other on the path of virtue.
The good news is that surveillance in our society is
increasingly decentralized and laid in the hands of the
individual citizen. We are living in an increasingly transparent
society where few atrocities can be kept hidden.
Private photos and videos taken with mobile phones are
increasingly used to solve crimes – even crimes committed
by authorities, as when citizens record examples
of police violence 15 . Misconduct by big companies is
more and more often uncovered through surveillance by
private citizens, as when the billionaire swindler Stein
Bagger was brought down by the blogger Dorte Toft 16 .
Dictatorships’ aggression against their own people are
documented on the internet the same day, as when the
Iranian student Neda Salehi Agha Soltan was shot by
Iranian security troops in June 2009 during a protest over
the re-election of Ahmadinejad 17 . Little Brother keeps an
eye on Big Brother.
The surveillance of the big by the small has become so
effective because it has become harder for the big to control
the media to the same extent as before. Anybody can
in a few minutes put a video recording on the internet,
and if it is important enough, it will be seen by millions
of people – as happened with the video of Soltan’s death.
In connection with the protests in Iran in 2009, Twitter
also turned out to be a communication platform that was
hard for the authorities to control, and during later protests,
the Iranian authorities found it necessary to close
down the entire telephone system 18 . Without absolute
power of the media, an absolutist regime as described in
Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four cannot exist for long. For
this reason alone, we shouldn’t worry too much about the
surveillance society. Orwell was a pessimist.
KLAUS Æ. MOGENSEN has a BA in physics and astronomy and works
at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. He works with the possibilities
of technology and their significance for our society and lives, with
future culture and lifestyles, consumption and media, and IPR (Intellectual
Property Rights).
notes
1 www.technologyreview.com/computing/22234/a=f
2 www.tinyurl.dk/12474
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritzl_case
4 http://hothardware.com/News/NYPD-Wants-Your-Videos-to-Help-
Fight-Crime
5 www.computerworld.dk/blog/redbord/1612
6 www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6557858.
ece
7 www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6902427.
ece
26 fo#01 2010 www.iff.dk/FO