Paste your essay in here…Do you ever get the feeling that somebody is watching you? That tingling feeling on the back of your neck like you are being observed, but you are not sure who and where or how? Surveillance, and especially mass surveillance, plays a big role in both the real world and in the fictional worlds found in literature. It falls into the deepest fears of many people, and the act of being watched without permission is a valid fear to have. Many people especially fear being watched by the government or other authoritative figures, which is a very real possibility in this current age of technology. But what about back before we had the technological advances of today? How did governments and authority figures keep an eye on others? First we can explore how mass surveillance has entered our world. By looking at system’s like England’s CCTV, which is a government-run system of surveillance cameras placed all around cities in the UK, and exploring the Russian/USSR secret police and KGB, which struck much fear into its citizens, we can see how the rapid growth and fear of mass surveillance has developed. We can also look at some of the original ideas of mass surveillance by exploring ideas like Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, a design he made of the”ideal” prison in which prisoners are motivated into obedience by fear of being constantly watched. Another idea to explore is how did science-fiction and literature play a role in the growing fear of mass surveillance before it became a reality? By looking into Thomas More’s Utopia, which was first published in 1516, we can examine what More thought about how citizens should be surveyed in a time before the idea of mass surveillance really came about. A little later on in history we can explore Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, a novel completed in 1921 and published in 1924. We was written largely due to Zamyatin seeing how Russia/The USSR was using surveillance and fear to keep its citizens in line, and he explored that idea using some science fiction in addition to how he viewed the current situation in his homeland. We ended up inspiring a lot of other science fiction authors and the novels they later wrote, including Aldous Huxley and his novel Brave New World, as well as George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Jumping even further ahead, we can look into how the science fiction idea of mass surveillance developed into other novels and movies such as the 1987 film Robocop. Mass surveillance has played a big role in dystopian literature and film, one that we must examine by looking into how large-scale surveillance has been used throughout history, different forms of mass surveillance, and how different utopian and dystopian novels and films use these types of surveillance.
Mass surveillance takes many forms in today's world. With the advances we have made in technology over the years, it is almost a given that our governments would use these advances in order to assist in surveillance. This surveillance, unlike what some paranoid people will tell you, really started solely as a form of protection. Protection from people who commit crimes, small or large, and protection of the government from these bad people as well. One place to examine this would be in the United Kingdom. The use of electronic surveillance in the UK grew from work that was done in signal intelligence and code breaking during World War II. Nowadays, the UK one of the most surveilled places in the world. It is estimated that there are somewhere around 500,000 CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) Cameras in London alone, and somewhere between 4 million to 5.9 million public and private CCTV cameras across the entire UK. The average Londoner is said to be caught on camera about 300 times a day, and that one does not need to travel far in order to be caught on camera (“How Many CCTV…”). The idea of being watched this much can be unsettling to anyone, and although the main purpose of CCTV in England is to use it to identify the faces of criminals and to help stop crime before it happens, it is still unnerving to think that the government could have its’ eyes on you at any and all times when you are outside of your home. This fear of being watched is human nature though, and we can examine how this fear has been exploited much earlier than the development of CCTV in the UK.
Jeremy Bentham, English philosopher and social theorist, first created the idea of the Panopticon in the late eighteenth century. The Panopticon is a type of institutional building (like a prison) and also a system of control. The design is in a giant circular style. A cylindrical guard tower is in the middle of a surrounding circle of the cells of the inmates. A single watchman stands guard in the circular tower and the whole guard tower is lit with light; however, the inmates cannot see into the guard tower. The point of a panopticon is that the prisoners in the cells of the outside circle never know if the guard is watching them or not, so they must assume that they are being watched at all times. This creates a fear within the inmates and they are motivated to act with good behaviour. Bentham conceived the idea of the Panopticon to be applicable to hospitals, schools, work areas, and asylums, but he mostly focused on the idea of a Panopticon prison (“The Panopticon”). While Bentham’s prison has never been created exactly to his original specifications in real-life, it has been built upon by other philosophers and used in many later ideas of science-fiction literature and real-life uses of mass surveillance today.
In 1516, English author, social philosopher, and statesman Thomas More first published his work Utopia, originally in Latin, about his idea for a political system of a fictional, ideal island nation. More detailed all of the social, political, and religious guidelines of this imaginary nation in his novel, including his ideas for how to deal with criminals and how to keep the people of the nation in line. Even though Bentham’s ideas of the panopticon and mass surveillance were not yet developed during More’s time, he did outline many ideas that were similar, and these could have helped in the development of how we understand surveillance today. In Utopia, More sets up a system on how to deal with criminals. For those who commit crimes or act with criminal intent, they are made into slaves. The slaves of the utopia are required to wear a certain color, have a close haircut, and have one of their ears clipped at the top to identify them as a slave. Slaves are generally required to do the hard labor of the society. There are also rules in place to prevent the slaves from escaping or from free people to help the slaves. These rules generally result in death for the slave and either slavery or death for the free person. One thing that More adds to this, and the most important in our topic, is the reward for informants of nefarious plots. More says “On the other hand, there are rewards for informers – money for a free man, freedom for a slave, and for both of them pardon and amnesty for knowing about the plot. Thus it can never be safer to persist in an illicit scheme than to repent of it” (More 25). This passage tells us a lot about how More thought to keep the citizens of this “utopia” in line, and a large part of it seems to rest on being an informant and telling the authorities about the plans and thoughts of others. This idea, especially to us in the modern world, seems rather dystopian rather than utopian. A society that encourages one to tattle or report on others, while not unfamiliar, is generally one that most people aren’t comfortable with. This idea of ratting out one’s neighbors becomes a theme we can follow throughout both history, and future science fiction novels.
Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We is well known for being one of the first truly dystopian novels, and is acknowledged as the precursor to later well known dystopian literature such as Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and even Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. Zamyatin, born in Russia in 1884, wrote We during a time when Russia was becoming the Soviet Union. Zamyatin was inspired by policies set in place by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and how much he was disturbed by them. His works of literature were increasingly satirical and critical of the CPSU and although he originally agreed with some of their policies, he grew to slowly disagree with them more as time went on. We see this in We, which was written in the very early 1920’s and was banned by the CPSU from being published in the USSR. Zamyatin ended up smuggling his novel to be published in other countries. We is centered in the future, in a world of harmony, but also conformity, in a united totalitarian state called the “One State”. In the novel, the main character refers to the One State as a “straight line” and calls it “The great, divine, precise, wise straight line – the wisest of all lines” (Zamyatin 4). The One State is a nation composed and created almost entirely out of glass. This construction of society assists greatly with mass surveillance and is likely a comment on the state of the Soviet Union at the time. Something that was stressed greatly in the Soviet Union was the idea of being a single-entity or “one-state” if you will. The USSR (which stands for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), was focused greatly on the unity of its people and banning together as one. Zamyatin also took influence from Bentham’s Panopticon in how the world in constructed almost entirely with glass and everyone can see into everyone’s lives and homes. The people in We, in addition to being watched at all times, are controlled down to the core. They are uniformed, march in step, and have no names, only given numbers. The people have no families or one-on-one bonds and are heavily separated. This atomizing of individuals actually causes the people to be subject to control. While being allowed to be an individual feels like freedom, the people are actually more easily controlled by this system of atomizing. The act of breaking people down into atoms can be seen in how they are numbered. Each person has a letter followed by a number as their given “name”. And while it claims to be random, we can see by the characters we meet that these letters and numbers are not chosen randomly. Our main character is called D-503, his wife is O-90, his friend and O-90’s lover is R-13, and the woman D-503 falls in love with, and who is the cause of his downfall, is called I-330. We can discern just by looking at these characters alone that the men in society are given consonants as their letter and odd numbers following, whereas women are given vowel letters and even numbers. This act of breaking people down by gender assists in the atomization and also the dehumanization of the population. In addition to the glass walls making everyone’s actions transparent, this system takes away an individual's sense of individuality, which is a large point in a totalitarian society like the one found in We, and very similar to the homeland of Zamyatin. With the system of government and controlling of the population outlined in We, it is clear how this dystopian novel was influenced by the current state of the nation that Zamyatin was living in. We can also examine how Zamyatin later influenced other science fiction novelists, and possibly a larger chunk of the population on how to work with mass surveillance.
English author Aldous Huxley wrote his novel Brave New World in 1931, just six years after Zamyatin first published We in 1924. Brave New World focuses around a futuristic society called the “World State”, much like the One State in We. In Brave New World, the people of the society are genetically modified. At “birth” (now done only in laboratories and never real life birth from a woman), a baby is given a rank in society. The highest ranked people are Alphas, followed by Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and at the bottom are Epsilons. This breaking up of society is similar to the atomization of individuals found in We, another similarity that the two novels have. Huxley also focuses on the issue of mass surveillance in his novel, and although it is similar to We and still very dystopian, it is a little different. The people are trained from birth to do and know and identify with certain things based off of their position in society. Surveillance in Brave New World is a complex system of control made up of many different elements including systematic monitoring. The life of the people or starts with biological surveillance – they are programmed to behave predictably and much like machines. We see this in the beginning of the novel when the Director of the “Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre” is showing a group of alpha boys how they create and condition the babies and children to become the cog in society that they are meant to be. During this tour the Director even shows the boys a room where Beta children are being conditioned to their place in society while they sleep. A tape plays on a loop throughout the room a few sentences that the Beta’s are supposed to be conditioned to know. Part of the tape says “Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they are so frightfully clever. I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much bettter than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They wear all green and Delta children wear Khaki. Oh no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilon’s are still worse…” (Huxley 27). The tape continues on in this manner, on a loop detailing aspects of how the Beta’s should live and what they are conditioned to believe. They are created to act like machines, done using a process that works like machine, within a giant factory. This is largely attributed in the novel to the World State’s love of Henry Ford and the assembly line. The society admires machines and has their citizens act like them too. Later in these people’s lives, their machine-like predictability is supported by strict means of control. This form of surveillance, while not as direct as watching people’s every move, can still be considered a major form of dystopian mass surveillance. While it is not used as directly today, we do not yet have the exact genetics-changing capabilities as shown in the novel, there are still traces of the idea throughout other science fiction novels and movies, as well as the rapidly developing science advancements we make every day and the idea of separating people into different ranks or castes in society.
George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (hereby shown as 1984) is one of the most well-known science fiction and dystopian novels of the world today. 1984, despite the title, was published in 1949 and focuses on a man named Winston Smith who lives in a futuristic world in the superstate of Oceania. Oceania is ruled by a group called the “Party” and the Party’s leader is an omnipresent, possibly fictional cult-of-personality called Big Brother. This is where mass surveillance, and the fear that comes with it, starts to play a big role in the novel. All around Oceania there are big signs that say “Big Brother is watching you”. And it’s true. With cameras virtually everywhere, including on things called telescreens (very similar to today’s televisions) which are the focal point of every person or families place of residence and that must be on at all times. There are also the ‘Thought Police”. The Thought Police are the main form of authoritative figures and their function is to persecute those who have any sort of individualism or independent thinking, and specifically any thinking that goes against the ideas of the Party. Between Big Brother and the Thought Police there is also the fact that you cannot trust anyone with anything in this society. Much like the informant system in More’s Utopia, the people of Oceania are trained from childhood to report on any and everyone that they believe to be thinking or acting against the Party. In the novel we encounter this toward the end of the story when Winston gets sent to a cell for being caught as a “thoughtcriminal” and for being with Julia in the room above Mr. Charrington’s shop, a place they thought was safe but had actually been monitored with a hidden telescreen the entire time. In one of the holding cells, Winston encounters his old neighbor Mr. Parson’s, whose own children accused him of committing a “thoughtcrime” and got him sent to the quasi-prison/torture chamber that Winston is also in (Orwell 233). Between Big Brother, the Thought Police, and not being able to trust even your own family, it is clear the world in 1984 is a dystopian one. Mass Surveillance is one of the major points in the novel, and it is one of the biggest reasons that the Party is able to keep control of the population so well. The fear of committing a thoughtcrime, or even getting falsely accused of such, and have to go to the torture chamber, known only as “Room 101”, is largely what keeps the citizens of Oceania in line, and is another example of how mass surveillance influenced, and was influenced by, dystopian novels.
Looking back on figures in these novels like the Thought Police in 1984, we can continue thinking about how authority figures can best keep citizens in line. This idea is explored in the 1987 cyberpunk action film Robocop. The movie focuses on a cop named Alex Murphy who works in the dystopian future version of Detroit, Michigan. Murphy is shot and killed while trying to arrest a gang on criminals and a mega-corporation called OCP is given permission from the mayor to use his brain in order to create a being they call Robocop. Robocop is supposed to be the ideal form of a police officer and able to do things others cannot. He is given four directives, which include serving the public trust, protecting the innocent, upholding the law, and a fourth unknown directive that is revealed later in the film to be unable to arrest or kill a superior officer. In the movie, Robocop is seen to be very efficient at his job and succeeds in helping rid the streets of crime. His success, however, causes the uprising and striking of the human police officers. This, among other things, is a reason why Robocop could be something to fear in a future society. The movie, which is meant to be dystopian, can be viewed as a somewhat scary look into what our reality could become, much like other dystopian works. Robocop, while given the directive to protect the innocent, had some earlier modeled robot precursors in the film, including one called ED-209, which malfunctioned at its first demonstration and killed an innocent man. The idea of being watched and protected by robots rather than humans is a scary concept to most. Because while humans can make mistakes, robots can malfunction in a way humans generally cannot, and they can also be hacked and changed, much like how Robocop’s fourth directive was unknown to him until the moment when he was attempting to arrest his superior officer Jones for hiring a gang member to kill his colleague Morton. The end of the movie Robocop actually steps away from this fear and shows us that Murphy’s brain is still very active within the robot body and that he still has enough human-like qualities in order to make thoughtful decisions and be less robotic, however the thoughts still linger after viewing the film about the myriad of moralities that are wrong with the Robocop program and how the system of surveillance via robot in the film is something to be feared and something found both in dystopian literature and films, and also in the real world. This fear is a major motivator for citizens to act with upstanding behavior and to obey the government, or otherwise be arrested or even killed by a robot with a lack of feelings.
With the rapid development of technology, it is true that dystopianism is something to be, if nothing less than feared, then to be taken with a hefty amount of caution. Mass surveillance has played a big role in dystopian literature and film, one that we examine by looking into how large-scale surveillance has been used throughout history, different forms of mass surveillance, and how different utopian and dystopian novels and films use these types of surveillance. We can see by looking at England’s CCTV how surveillance has developed in today’s world, and how by stepping outside your home you are at the risk of being watched by any and everyone. When we look back in time we can examine Bentham’s Panopticon design and how governments and authorities can use fear as a motivator for good behavior. This idea of using fear as a motivator travels all the way to novels like Orwell’s 1984 and the popular film Robocop. When exploring surveillance in the past we can also look into the minds of authors and philosophers like Thomas More and his novel Utopia to see what he thought about keeping the population in line, and he uses the idea of observing and reporting on one’s neighbors to keep up good behavior, something Orwell also mimics in 1984. We can see in the one of the early dystopian novels, Zamyatin's We, and also in Huxley’s close follow-up novel Brave New World, how atomizing the individual makes for a more obedient society and continues to observe the people using many different forms of mass surveillance. All of these ideas we have explored show just how deeply embedded mass surveillance is in the world of dystopias. It is our fear of dystopias and our ability to view what they might be like through literature and film that keeps us from being a full-out dystopia today. While technology has brought us much closer than we may have been in the past, governments have been able to use many means to control their populations, as seen in many of our examples. Our fear, however, is important in keeping us away from being a dystopia and our ability as individuals to recognize mass surveillance by the government as well as other dystopian features keep us able to use our minds and our rights as people to keep a possible dystopian future at bay, at least for the time being.