On March 17, 2018, Facebook was exposed for leaking user information and will be sued and face a $2 trillion fine. Cambridge Analytica, a company that serves for the Trump campaign, reportedly obtained private information from nearly half a million users through a psychological test app released on Facebook. Through the analysis of this information, the campaign news was pushed to these users in a targeted manner, which helped Trump win the presidential election. In the Internet age, 'information disclosure' may no longer be a strange word. However, the disclosure of personal information may cause our consciousness to be manipulated and utilized unconsciously by others. This may be what most people have not thought of. In fact, I have studied Foucault's theory before. I suddenly remembered this news when I received the Facebook push. I also thought that my roommates who had studied the economy told me about the ability of big data. Foucault talked about how modern society can control people's thoughts through discipline and surveillance, thus revealing a glimpse of the way power operates in contemporary society. I am rethinking the question: Who is going to manipulate and control our thoughts in a modern, rational society?
Not only that, modern society has developed a strict surveillance system. Especially with the development of modern media, while people enjoy more and more convenience, personal space has also been severely compressed. In China, the ubiquitous 'Skynet' is monitoring everyone's every move. Although Foucault himself has not been able to see the power of the Internet, his insight into the 'monitoring' system of modern society can also provide inspiration for us to understand today's society. This can also be seen as Foucault's extraordinary insight as a thinker.
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Another point that impressed me was the 'panopticon', which I once learned in the Explaining Crime course. The purpose of the design is to allow the guard to monitor the confinement in each grid. However, the confinement cannot see the guard, nor does it know if the guard is watching him, nor can he communicate with the left and right confinement. Foucault observed that the focus of this model is different from the punishment of the monarchy, which emphasizes physical punishment but achieves psychological control through the control of the prisoner's body and the standardization of actions in this mechanism. Foucault's research on the modern prison system is not only to tell us how the prison came but to analyze the powerful operation of contemporary society through the description of the prison. In Foucault's view, modern society is like a prison-like society. In school, after work, isn't this our daily life?
Although the main course of this semester is in the form of a group, for me, I prefer to immerse myself in weekly reading, which gives me more time to think. I chose Nietzsche and Foucault as the object of my reflection because the former made me reflect on the current legal system. Whether the law is safeguarding justice and protecting the weak is a problem worth considering, especially for me. Regarding my choice of future careers, how do I choose when morality and law stand in opposition? Foucault’s argument is the most discussed issue with my father. Does everyone have to live a rational life? Who is stipulated? Can irrational people not live well? Everyone must be exactly the same. The edge and the center, the distinction that should not be made of modernity, is a problem that every modern person needs to seriously think about.
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