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And, since it's possible, it must be. This confuses two modes of existence, one real and the other potential. What I say below merely expands on this.
"It suggests, for example, that a system in which capital and goods can flow freely, but where there are limits on the movement of people from place to place, might reasonably be described as closed. So might a system in which interactions with the outside world are heavily filtered through approved channels -- or one in which people are simply taught to be fearful and suspicious of any message that comes from outside. By any of those standards, the US is indisputably far more of a closed system today than it was 10 or 20 years ago."
But that's simply wrong. First, you have to decide if a closed society is one that's closed to information or exchange of people, there's a real difference between the two. But more importantly, neither holds in this case. I've had no trouble going abroad; I may need a form of ID, but I've always needed a form of ID to return--and the ID requirements for entering other countries hasn't changed. Going through customs is a hassle, but I've only had my bags searched in Britain under Blair, and the guy didn't even look at me when he tagged me for inspection. TSA's gone through my bags, seen what must have seemed suspicious in some sense, and ignored it entirely as irrelevant to the purpose of the inspection.
Meanwhile, I'd point out that I'm a linguist--not just one who studies language, but one who also studies languages. I've had a much easier time since the '70s, when obtaining materials in foreign languages was damned difficult in Baltimore. New York was a little easier, as was DC. But in the last 13 months I've gotten large book orders from Beirut (a month or so after DUers were claiming the city was utterly flattened ... something that surprised my Sunni and Shi'ite book vendors), as well as from Egypt, Romania, Poland, Russia, and France. Couldn't do that 15 years ago with any ease, and almost certainly not 20 years ago without specialized knowledge of booksellers and suppliers. Now I just Google what I want, or even use amazon.fr.
I've set up research in Poland via e-mail with absolutely no formal approval (my host asked her dept. chair). And in a typical day I may read information posted on webpages in 10 countries, some general access stuff (newspapers), some technical (a report on a the phonetics of stop consonants in Rioplatense Spanish). You know what? Nobody cared in the least. Things are much more open now. There are fewer foreign students, IIRC, coming to the US, but the number of US students going abroad is unchanged or up from a decade ago. Telecommunications make exchange of information easier, and there's no let up on immigration (a bit of easing up in illegal immigration, of projections for the year are up).
Exceptions that would have been standard 30 years ago now scream for attention, and apparently get it.
There's the potential for closing down this information flow and exchange of people. But there's far more than 30 years ago, and the potential for closing it down is the same as it ever was. Justifiably increased fear should be based on some change, not simply on greater recognition of the danger that's always been there; moreover, a long period of stability should reasonably be seen as justifying decreased fear. One can argue that visa restrictions have increased in the last 7 years, as they have; but they also relaxed in the previous 10 years, and perhaps they shouldn't have.
"But it's not just the technology of surveillance that has been upgraded. Even the essential control mechanism of fear works differently now than it did in the 1940's. What need is there for concentration camps for a relative few when everyone in the society can be maintained in constant fear of losing their job, losing their health insurance, losing their house, and losing their credit record?"
Granted, the potential for surveillance has been increased. This is different from the level of surveillance increasing. The control mechanism that you point out is precisely the second string means of control in the USSR and other totalitarian countries: First, your party membership allowed you access to careers and benefits denied others ... and your behavior and family background allowed or denied you access to the party (I've heard some scant DUers want such a system in the US). Second string control: In the USSR if the authorities got pissed at you, you lost your job; this was illegal, and would lose you your health care, your food, your habitation, and your freedom. The GULag was second or third-string, and hardly for the few: Remove you from society. How the three layers of control were applied changed over time--in '36, second-string pressure was relaxed a bit and the GULags used more. In the '70s, it was less GULagy and more Party-control. No matter: They got their way.
I don't see this here. In some ways the potential for quick, unsurveilled action has *increased*: Getting a group of students to protest by text messaging is so much simpler than getting a printing press, setting the type, printing the fliers, and hawking them.
The fear of economic disaster hasn't changed much, IMHO. My parents were afraid they'd lose their house when I was born in '59. And in the '70s. When I went to college my father lost a lot of sleep over paying for school for me. Present fears are always worse than past fears, unless one can adopt a sufficiently detached and ironic stance. In some ways I think I fear more than my parents, but I think I also have more to lose and less family to rely on.
"To look for explicit parallels with fascism is to lose sight of the real focus, which has to be the extended right-wing campaign to destroy first the unions and then the social safety net. That -- together with such things as student loans and restrictions on bankruptcy, which increasingly lock people into a life-long cycle of unpayable debt -- is by far the most effective control mechanism to make sure that ordinary non-rebellious citizens don't get out of line and start taking independent action."
The social safety net has been reduced, but a social safety net--or unions--is perfectly compatible with either an open or a closed society. Interesting that the real focus wasn't really closed/open societies, but the social safety net and unions. The USSR was union-central, with a great social safety net. Germany, probably not so much. Eh.
Personally, I don't see how debt prevents action, apart from the time required to earn whatever income you can. Perhaps if we had debtor's prisons ... Then again, unemployment and debt also have been shown to be great motivators to action.
"With all respect to nadinbrzezinski, our greatest fear here at DU should be not that they have files on us and we're going to wake up to find ourselves disappeared some bright morning. We should be worrying instead about what they're going to do next to demonize us, or turn us into figures of mockery, and to convince our fellow-citizens that they needn't or daren't listen to what we have to say. Because that kind of isolation of the larger citizenry from the outside world would be the most effective implementation of a closed society that can be imagined."
This I find ludicrous. You've decided to change the subject entirely *again* and redefine "closed society" not as one that is closed to outside influence, or devoid of a social safety net and unions, but one that's closed-minded against our views. Being demonized isn't anything like going into a GULag, sorry. Being mocked ... not the same as being executed. Being ignored, yippee: 25 years ago you'd have been ignored perfectly well simply because this forum wouldn't exist, and it would only matter if you were a writer or publicist. Freedom of speech does *not* entail the right to be heard, and freedom of the press does not entail having your press be a going venture. However it strikes me as more likely that you'll be heard now that we've obviously entered a closed, stifled society, than before under the guiding light of openness and freedom. Odd how that works ... perhaps the initial assumptions are a bit off so it's actually part of a proof by contradiction?
Go to Hyde Park: There's a great example of freedom of speech at the Marble Arch there, you can get up and say pretty much whatever you want. Of course, you get up and you're pretty much ignored by most people, but that's the way it goes. But that doesn't mean it's a closed society, or even that they're closed-minded against you; it just means nobody cares what you have to say, they have bigger worries, however trivial.
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