INFORMATION IS WHERE THE ACTION IS
August 26, 2013
Social control manifests itself
to us as control of flows of information.
The ultimate agent of control over flows of information among people is
the individual human mind. The source of
this agency is what each of us knows about her- or himself, in relation to what
s/he knows about others. At all moments
in which we engage disarray in our relations, our response depends on choosing
between two attitudes toward applying what we know to the situation. We may give others information we think they
need to know for their own good, and be prepared to silence or contest their
voices if they don’t go with our program, or we may share information to learn
from one another. I was struck learning
Norwegian that the basic Germanic word for learning also meant teaching. Teaching was learning TO others, while
learning was learning FROM others. When the power of information flows is
shared, conversations about conflict
become alternating flows of talking, listening and reflection, where what is talked
about moment to moment, and who knows and learns what, moves back and forth
among actors.
Knowing better than others
implies power over others. Learning with
others implies power sharing. I have
lately called taking the former approach to social control “violence,” and the
latter “peacemaking.” The former
approach to social control is a matter of warfare, of mission, of contests of
will, of superior control of information.
The latter approach is a matter of discovery, of creativity, of cooperation,
of mutual learning, of conciliation. In
my case as a career teacher, adopting this attitude entailed my questioning the
premise that I knew better than students what they needed to know, or that I
knew what they had to teach me about myself.
From my peacemaking point of
view, the news these days keeps showing new knots of absurdity we humans
getting tied up into trying to hold onto knowing things about ourselves and
others which others don’t. As I write,
one hot political contest for information control is between establishing
privacy of personal information, and assuring that only those in law enforcement
and government-sponsored “intelligence” know what they know and think about us
and everyone else in the world.
Trust that information about oneself can be
shared and understood is requisite to sharing information with others rather
than controlling information about them.
Trust depends on information being direct and honest rather than evasive
and misleading. We have limits to our
honesty and openness. We all protect zones
of personal privacy. From the times that
created the story of Adam and Eve to this day, our most intimate struggles with
power over others are to keep private our control over where, how, and with whom we undress parts of
ourselves, and over how and whether we let ourselves be touched.
We likewise set boundaries over other information about ourselves we will
share with others. I have my
limits. While I don’t mind Uncle Sam and
others knowing my bank transactions, I don’t want anyone but myself and my wife
to be able to take money out of the account.
While my liability for fraudulent use of my credit card is limited by
federal law to $50, I’d rather not deal
with the hassle of anyone but my wife using our account. I and the holders of my internet accounts
share a major interest in cyber-security.
I don’t want uninvited people walking into my bathroom while I am taking
a shower, or in bed. When people get
into my personal space while they are talking to me, my defenses go up. I don’t want people trying to hurt me by
saying things about me behind my back that they won’t say to my face. And for years until I stopped drinking, my
mind became increasingly consumed with hiding my inebriation from others. I set boundaries on whom I invite into my
home (notably, not solicitors). I
consciously monitor what I say and refrain from saying in serious
discussions. I have learned most of all
that to enjoy others’ trust and openness, I need to respect their
confidentiality. All in all, I try to
respect privacy where I encounter it in others as I reserve it for myself. I do so because I believe that the honesty I
get and the honesty I convey depend on it.
I have learned to prefer letting others disclose their personal secrets
as they will, rather than as I want to know.
Hence for instance I have befriended prisoners and convicts for years
without ever asking, or learning, what “their crimes” were, let alone knowing
more than bits and pieces of those events, in order to let them tell me what
they have wanted me to know about their pasts when they found it useful and
safe to make those parts of themselves known.
The same goes for listening to stories from the many survivors of
childhood sexual assault and torture whom I have gotten to know well. In matters of conflict, I find it pays to
hear others account for themselves before I presume to know anything else that
needs knowing about them.
I am privileged. I no longer need
to work for anyone but myself. There may
be things I don’t care to tell people, but there is nothing much left I can
think of that I fear becoming known about me by anyone who doesn’t already
know. Equally, I have learned never to
presume that anyone else feels likewise about the privacy of what they know
about themselves. I see people’s
demands for privacy escalating in face-to-face and cyber-reality, as now in epic
struggles between maintaining privacy and confidentiality of information about
ourselves, and government and for-profit corporate control of information about
how to sort us out and manage us. At
law, what one can say and ask depends on being granted “standing to be heard,”
which depends in turn on rules of words one can use, and information that is “competent”
by be heard by arbiters of “facts,” on which judgments rest. In job and student applications, essential
information about oneself is reduced to categories, as in certificates and
diplomas received, grade point averages, and having references say “strong”
things. In all contests over information
about ourselves, there are winners and losers.
In the field of criminal justice, we call losers “offenders.” We call those who control information about
offenders “the authorities.” Power over
information about themselves and about those whom they regard as their subjects
“of interest” is their game.
Meanwhile, we keep getting more demands to share personal information
with public and private strangers who hold power over what to do to or for us
to transact daily personal and professional business. Examples of falls from among the high and
mighty demonstrate that some information we have given up somewhere, sometime
in the past, will come back to haunt us proliferating, disparate storehouses of information about us,
beyond our control, against our wishes.
The less we can foresee adverse consequences of each piece of ourselves
we disclose. The more guarded we become
about what we say. The warier we become
of involving ourselves in other people’s lives.
The more diffident we become that others will want to hear what we are
feeling or thinking about, in a climate that puts a premium on taking care of
business, of getting to the point, of not putting people off by intruding our
issues into others’ busy lives. By the
same token, we have less time for distraction from getting on with business, or
in the long term, of achieving personal and professional goals “efficiently,” “productively.” It is increasingly recognized that without
practice we lose track of our own feelings and opinions. As we attend more to limiting what we reveal
about ourselves to anyone in particular, we lose our sense of self-identity,
our knowledge and awareness of ourselves and of how others see us apart from
whether they are for or against us. I am
reminded of a time when I entered therapy in a state of clinical depression,
feeling useless and purposeless, thinking I might be going crazy. My therapist would generally start our
sessions by asking how I was doing. I
found myself saying “okay…” or “I dunno.”
I was so afraid that my feelings and thoughts were socially unacceptable
that I literally felt my mind go blank in self-defense. My therapist stuck with me through years of
self-examination, of willingness to share parts of myself with so much as a
single listener, let alone in moments alone with myself. As I let myself know and embrace myself, I
have become less inhibited about revealing myself to others, let alone becoming
conscious of myself in others’ eyes. As
I give myself time to open myself to others, I find myself allowing more time
to listen and learn from others. In
these moments I am able to share information with others rather than defining
information for others or having their information define me. In these moments, direct currents of power
over others become alternating currents of power between and among each other,
constantly shifting directions and agendas in social discourse. In the realm of social control, power over
others becomes power sharing.
In cyberspace and in everyday lives, time for one another is becoming
scarcer. The honest and openness to
share information depends not only on acceptance of oneself and others, but on
having time to talk and listen, time to explain ourselves, and to hear others
explain themselves to us. The more
numerous the discrete demands that we provide or respond to information about
ourselves and from others, the lower our capacity to notice and hear others and
ourselves even when we say we are listening and taking note. Without time to listen and reconsider what we
do next, we are reduced to controlling and being controlled by others, or else
to being out of control. Without
awareness of ourselves, we have no awareness of the effects of ourselves on others,
and less information about our effects on others. That leaves us more protective of our
privacy, more guarded about becoming known.
It becomes safer and easier to talk about the weather or sports or what “those
people” are doing, than to open ourselves to becoming subjects of our
conversations. And so police officers
are trained to ask rather than answer questions, and as a professional I have
been taught to set boundaries on how much I let students or clients know about
myself—to keep the conversation focused on them and what they know and are
learning. This in turn limits what they
are willing and able to tell me. In this
game of power over others, I become less able to depend on anything I hear,
more insecure about the future of relationships, more subject to frustrated
intentions for and expectations of others.
Social control spins out of the hands of those who would establish
control over others by controlling information about themselves and
others. Essentially, how freely we know
and share information about ourselves with others determines how much our
relations with one another are under control.
Love and peace--hal
