The paper proposes an analysis of the ecological discourse within the times of the Capitalocene. The latter term, strongly promoted by Jason W. Moore, is a try for making sense of capitalism as a world-ecology of power. The author of the paper indicates that environmentalism has become neoliberal. It was taken over by the discourse of capitalism, which has made environmental activism a product. An important role in this process was played by surveillance capitalism described by Shoshana Zuboff. The paper puts forward a thesis that the activity of neoliberal environmental activism is designed and maintained by the capitalist structures of power, and that functioning within it is a form of privilege.
The article introduces the reader to the „age of surveillance capitalism” by showing how Internet giants push users in specific directions by manipulating information and collecting data in order to get rich and gain power. The aim is to discuss this issue and show how human experience and preferences become a free raw material for corporations. The analysis includes a description of the threats to humanity and democracy and highlights the fact that the line between our free choice and manipulation is blurring, thus raising issues of security and sovereignty. The public does not realize that a displayed picture of dinner on Instagram is a certain data sold to business customers. This text is meant to make us reflect on our choices and behaviors and whether we still have the ability to return from where we are and, most importantly, whether we ourselves want that change.
Virtual environments and social media platforms are an important communication hub and source of socialisation, shaping the referential framework for many digital natives. Social media have undoubtedly changed the way the human community communicates and shares information. It is thanks to them that social contacts can be maintained almost continuously, and information can be quickly accessed. Their downside is – which is also the primary focus of this study – that they have also become the generators of various dependencies and a source of human downgrading. Through sophisticated algorithms and targeted manipulative techniques of digital oligarchs, social media exploit the weaknesses of the human psyche. The ambition of this study is to provide an analytical and descriptive socio-critical insight into a relatively new phenomenon – surveillance capitalism and attention economy. The text identifies the selected socio-cultural consequences of the use of social media in the online and offline environment through the optics of human downgrading.
The current coronavirus pandemic is not only a health/healthcare crisis but to a vast extent it will also influence other spheres of life, including social relations, the shape of economy and working models, and natural environment. Sustainable development that relies on the previously mentioned pillars (economy, society, environment) is going to be strongly affected by the virus outbreak. There is a threat that the process of recovering from the corona crisis will accelerate and legitimize the dynamics of surveillance capitalism. A really interesting case is going to be the labor world, where thanks to modern technologies, suppression of personal freedoms and triumph of total surveillance might be particularly easy. However, good scenarios are also plausible. The first 21st century pandemic of that scale may force societies to redefine their current modus operandi and shift capitalism into a more sustainable, humanistic model.
The thesis of this paper is that the present crisis situation in the area of public health does not necessarily mean an analogous crisis in economic sphere, which is the sign neoliberal capitalism. We claim that the situation of pandemic harmonizes with capitalist economy. In effect the system appears as stable and effective. In our article we present dialectical view of ideological aspects of pandemic reality, which corelates with theorem about socialization of losses and privatization of profits in economic and political processes.
PL
Tezą artykułu jest twierdzenie, iż obecna sytuacja kryzysowa w obszarze zdrowia publicznego nie musi oznaczać analogicznego kryzysu w sferze gospodarczej, czyli kapitalizmu neoliberalnego. Zakładamy, że obecna sytuacja, jaką stanowią warunki pandemiczne, współgra z gospodarką kapitalistyczną, wskutek czego system ten jawi się jako stabilny i efektywny jednocześnie. W naszym artykule prezentujemy dialektyczny ogląd ideologicznych aspektów pandemicznej rzeczywistości, który koreluje z twierdzeniem o uspołecznieniu kosztów i prywatyzacji zysków procesów ekonomiczno-politycznych.
The article describes the phenomenon of instrumental power in the third modernity. The work aims to define the theoretical framework of the third modernity and the new paradigm of exercising social control through instrumentalism. These concepts come from the works of Shoshan Zuboff and raise the issue of contemporary social relations in a globalised society.
Amerykańska psycholog społeczna Shoshana Zuboff w swojej najnowszej książce "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" nakreśliła kompleksową teorię tłumaczącą przemiany współczesnego kapitalizmu. Nazwała go „kapitalizmem nadzoru”, wskazując na kluczową rolę przemian w zakresie narzędzi kontroli społecznej. Celem niniejszego referatu jest uzupełnienie koncepcji „kapitalizmu nadzoru” o wymiar wpływu opisywanych przez Zuboff procesów na sferę bezpieczeństwa. Rozważona zostanie hipoteza, że tak jak kapitalizm przemysłowy określał warunki brzegowe zimnowojennego wyścigu zbrojeń, tak samo kapitalizm nadzoru Zuboff z koncepcji można interpretować jako koło zamachowe procesu cyfrowego wyścigu zbrojeń.
EN
American social psychologist Shoshana Zuboff describes and presents in her recent book “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” the theory that explains changes of contemporary capitalism. She calls it “surveillance capitalism” and indicates its crucial role in transformations of social control systems. The aim of this paper is to consider the relationship between “surveillance capitalism” and the global security landscape. We will consider the hypothesis that “surveillance capitalism” is a accelerator of a modern cyber arms race, similar to classic industrial capitalism as in the case of the Cold War arms race.
Current crisis of western civilization create a demand for reintegration ritual. For decades a scapegoat ritual played such a role. Modern digital technologies are consi dered a good candidate for a new scapegoat, who will be forced to plead guilty for our sins. Digital technologies are accused of many negatives. But scapegoating ritual has its own logic, which after all eventually turn former scapegoat into godlike being. In order to recover some control over the pervading process of digitalization we need a kind of digital exclusion management. It is commonly said that digital exclusion is a social problem. We present an argument that it is rather a strategic asset.
PL
Obecny kryzys cywilizacji Zachodu generuje potrzebę rytuału reintegrującego spo łeczeństwo. Przez wieki rolę tę pełnił rytuał kozła ofiarnego. Nowoczesne technologie cyfrowe dobrze nadają się do odegrania roli współczesnego kozła ofiarnego, który zo stanie zmuszony do przyznania się do winy za nasze grzechy. Nowoczesne technologie cyfrowe coraz częściej stają się obiektem różnorakich oskarżeń. Ale rytuał kozła ofiar nego kieruje się swoją własną logiką, która ostatecznie prowadzi do przebóstwienia ofiary. Jeśli chcemy odzyskać kontrolę nad postępującym procesem cyfryzacji rzeczy wistości, musimy zastanowić się nad potrzebą zarządzania cyfrowym wykluczeniem. Najczęściej myśli się o nim jako o problemie społecznym. Tymczasem my proponujemy, by zacząć o nim myśleć, jak o zasobie strategicznym.
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