December 16, 2008
- Identity as Relative and Absolutue -
You hide things which you are aware of from your own awareness. If you are any good at it, others may not notice them. They form a picture of you, more or less, as you present yourself, in a spirit of trust. Suddenly one of these hidden things comes up, and you are not what you appeared to be. Their picture of you, and their trust, is broken.
Surveillance requires us to be exactly what we are all the time. It squeezes out the hidden parts of our identity, if we let it, stopping us from glossing over them.
There is a very relevant passage in the Marchall McLuhan playboy interview that I need to find… Something about tribal societies having shared strict social standards, but very free internal realities…
(more on this soon…ish. See also: some notes on the subject.)
