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Nabokov to be discussed

Fandorin — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:46:22 GMT

Hi friends. I would like if you check out my mistakes and advice sentences to be changed in order to get better. Thank in advance.

I started my acquaintance with poetry of Alexander Nabokov , as it seems strange, from the novel Luzhin's Defence. Usually the one starts reeding a novel Lolita and then reads another ones. Everyrhing seems to happen spontaneously. I don'eteven suspect as far as this book makes me think , although I get used to the chess.Before reading I know that Nabokov wrote down this novel, borrowing image from Alexander Alekhine, the great Russian chess player. Honestly, I got very interested about Alekhin, he was very creative and talented one, and his style of playing was amazing. Moreover, having extended inside his biographers' essay and found myself in the atmosphere of his games, which played with tremendous simplicity, excitement and those gave no chances to his opponents at once. All of that showed extraordinary beauty and strength of the chess and I took an interest in this novel with new power. But let me be consecutive.

Vladimir Nabokov, thÑ poet-emigrant, was referred to pleiad of poets, who went through fire and water in epoch of revolution.And that left its unique mark in his works. Nabokov was born in 1899 in St.Petersburg, got home education and in 1919, left Russia with his family and moved to London, and more late in Berlin. His father, Vladimir Nabokov, died in 1922 who was prominent politician and stressed (stood out against background of his liberal views) with his liberal looks (views). He defenced his opponent with his chest, historian Milyutin, in whom the terrorist' bullet was shot. It affected so much on the Nabokov's attitude towards politics that he tried to be far away from it as he could. He finished his graduate in that year in Cambridge, where he was studying an entomology. He got passion on it from his childhood. He met Vera Slonim in Berlin, the woman, who had his heart till the end of his life. He devoted his books to her alone. The son Dmitry was born in 1934, the future opera singer. Nabokov moonlighted in a different way: giving english and french lessons, tennis, making up chess' tasks and puzzles. The real material independence was given by his novel "Lolita", which was discussed hotly, and sometimes it make me laugh,, however the cohesive rows of american poets boycotted it and that left unpleasant smell. American poets called this novel ,written in english, a pornography. At first it had been published in France, and in 1958 the novel saw the light in USA and became a bestseller at once. Improving state og Nabokov made it possible to move in Montre, Switzerland. As a lot of poets-emigrant Nabokov had no permanent place to live and kepr going in the hotels. Nabokov died in 1977, 12 July.

Nabokov is very amazing poet. Having started his action in 1916, he had his collected stories published and he claimed himself to be a peculiar writer. Bunin wrote about him: "This urchin dpulled out the gun and laid everyone,me included... " His creative work, especially mature stories, joined the ranks of beautiful poems. Many writers received his culture, his style and image of writing. There were enemies (opponents) of his works. However there were no one who could say Nabokov to be an talantless. The Nabokov's prose is high-poetical. It fascinates, pierces through mind, makes one think about the real content of things. One of the most point in his works is appeal to the inner world of a human, to his soul, to his creative origin. The writer attempts to get inside the main point and shows the personal's wealth. The many writers supposed that it caused by Nabokov's sympathy for the wealthy. However, it's absolutely wrong. His heroes right are the most common people, but their simplicity tends to be reffered to social status. Such course of work can be explained by empathising with fates of nationales, who found themselves abroad. The word existence is the most suitable one to describe emigrants' living because their life is filled with a poorness,desperate and suicide. In many novels we can find the challenge to the society and limitless desperate in which the heroes leave. What is the assasin rendered for killing emigrant? The deep undesranding and approvement of the cop ("The King"). With which was emigrant paid for sympathy and love for native? There are beating and disdain. ("The cloud, lake and the tower"). What does mild person make to rise atrocity in another one? He shows the unwillingness to take herd instinct one's pshychology ("Invitation to the execution"). The broken fates rise in every work Nabokov had. And one of the shining examples is the "Luzhin defence". Indeed, there is some kind of a lyric song about loneliness of the soul, emptiness, cruelty, lie and pragmatism in his works. It's just a novel which shows the revealing of the questions Nabokov worried about. Luzhin's image is a contrast example of combination with genius and simplicity, estrangement and reticence. The way Nabokov narrates is very cheerful and it is a complicated game of words beyond which the sympathy toward personality hides out. But the same way Gogol made, Nabokov tries to conceal this note of sympathy more deep. There is just a sameness with a classical Russian culture.
Luzhin was being learned to be the same as other was and his father worried about that and urgently wanted to find out the reason of his son's apathy to the whole world. Unfortunately father never found it out. Cohesion of the pupils, having place in the school as a rule, just made this strange boy scare away. He was always finding the secluded corner to hide. Solitude and reticence are the way to avoid the problems. However, there is something in the inner world of Luzhin that isn't affected by despondency. The beatufil day became, and Luzhin remembered that for the whole life and it defined his fate. It was a board, having left on the table. And the boy is absorbed in this amazing and ancient game with a whole his talent and a soul. There was something in those 64 two-colored squares, something revealed him a world of the secrets and beauty of the ancient Indian game and he found out that, as it seemed, he lacked and the light faded before enigmatic combinations. Neither absence in school, nor old jew's death, nor parents' reproaches couldn't make his talent and finally fatal passion stop. Nabokov seems to write in very callous way but there is an inner Luzhin's world concealed, the whole harmony of his talent and wish. Just a few years passed through, Luzhin became an GM and moved abroad. Suddenly the "obliging" man appeared - Valentinov who is ready to help and offered protection. Later he wrote down the letters to Luzhin's parents, convincing them there is a wide area for his son's talent to realize and always repeating the phrase "we are friends - we get even with all". There is no suddenness Nabokov chose his image. Another way to show the "Russian soul" of Nabokov to reveal the infamy and lucre of Valentinov's image. What's about women? There is only a woman who can fall in love with that unhappy and defenceless man. She didn't find neither GM nor man, who can make a profit for her. She liked his shyness. She liked to take care of him. His awkwardness made her more cute about him. She is really into him, his hands, eyes, the way he's moving are pleasant for her. She could keep enjoying the way he painted small things, the way he read and slept. Reading through the novel, we could see the temper is peculiar to a russian, sympathy and love brought together. It's said noone can puts builds love on the sympathy. But it was nothing for her and she married him, not losing a hope, she would make him divert from fatal game, the gambit of which would be his life.
At first there were a whole world of something new and undiscovered - a literature, poems, german papers' notices, walking, wife's attention. He really enjoyed it, trying to forget his game against Thuratu which would lead to the nervous breakdown and medical treatment in the clinic. The love was becoming more strong the time passed away. She walked with him, finding a lot of ways to distract him from his obsession, realizing in chess. However, fatal moment appeared in their life seemed to be improving.
All started from Luzhin's find. The old chessboard which was in his lining from time immemorial. He had found it and tried to hide it away in scary just for the wife not to find it out. But cruel mechanism of hidden human's subconsciousness started its job. It's said the genious is almost the same schizophrenia is. He lost his slepp, trying to guess game of many moves of the life, and the time passed he realized the prize was his life. The only calmness he found is in the night, when everything was gone and he hoped he had time to deliberate his last move. The last point was appearing of Valentinov, offering to being shot in film, devoted to chessmaster, and Luzhin would play against Thurati.. Frightened, he lunged out of the office and run away without stop, and suddenly he realized his position and his consciousness deliberated a reply. Running he was hurrying to decide what's going on and what the answer should be to solve this. Having locked in his room, he found the salvation, being found on fearful circumstances, time, places and the most important - on his weak consciousness, low spirit and logic, which lodged all his mind-squares with exactness and estimation. And the end was scaring:
"Now his legs were hanging out the window and there was only a need to let his grasp slacken and it seems for him to be rescued. Befory doing that, he glanced beneath. There was a fast preparation - rhe reflects of windows was gathering together,the chasm was falling apart on dark and light squares,and in the moment he slackened his hands, icy air gushed out into his mouth and he realized which chasm exactly opened its embrace with such a hospitality."

Re: grammar help needed

Clive — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:42:40 GMT

Hi,

1) Where I think we need to carve out some territory of definition in practice is to say that proselytism is relating to people different from oneself by using means and methods with ulterior motives in order to convert. But what's happening in secular literature is that it is moving even beyond the ulterior method definition, where some secular specialists on human rights and international law use proselytism to mean "any attempt by religious believers to win converts from other religions or from your religion." And when we see proselytism move into that extensive and broad an expression, it then curtails on the invitation to witness and to make meaning for people, in terms of engaging them around the validity of Christian perspective.

Can an be deleted? No. Kindly check punctuation usage in the above passage and insert punctuation where needed. You might consider not starting sebnetenes with 'But' and 'And'. Could you perhaps say 'However' and 'Moreover'?

(2) They have a vision for what I would call “soul care,” without the same vision and commitment to social care. May I suggest to us that mature evangelists have discerning minds that believe in the whole counsel of God? May I suggest to us, as you listen to that definition, that evangelists are not restricted to religion?

May I suggest to us, as we think about engagement, can we first of all give permission and take permission. That is to say, people have the right to self-define. I also need to take the responsibility to self-define.

Is the usage " May I suggest to us" ok? Please check It seems a bit oddd to say 'us' here. Why not just say 'May I suggest'?

(3) We have surrendered to life-denying violence that simply incites more deadly and devastating violence.

Is the usage of " We have surrender to" ok? Please check.

(4) Half of them were Muslim and half of them were Christian. This is OK, because the two words are used as adjectives.

Should the above sentence have a plural usage "Half of them were Muslims and half of them were Christians." This is also OK, but the two words are nouns.

(5) We need more modeling of how to deal with diversity in positive ways.

Can of be replaced with on? Please check. Either is acceptable.

(6) One of my appeals in the Canadian context has been that, if we had been better at dealing with diversity between us as Christians in this country, we would be relating to cultural diversity in a lot more positively today than we are at this point.

Is the in insertion ok? Please check. No, you need to remove it.

Best wishes, Clive

grammar help needed

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:13:24 GMT

(1) Where I think we need to carve out some territory of definition in practice is to say that proselytism is relating to people different from oneself by using means and methods with ulterior motives in order to convert. But what's happening in secular literature is that it is moving even beyond the ulterior method definition, where some secular specialists on human rights and international law use proselytism to mean "any attempt by religious believers to win converts from other religions or from your religion." And when we see proselytism move into that extensive and broad an expression, it then curtails on the invitation to witness and to make meaning for people, in terms of engaging them around the validity of Christian perspective.

Can an be deleted? Kindly check punctuation usage in the above passage and insert punctuation where needed.

Is the usage " May I suggest to us" ok? Please check

(3) We have surrender to life-denying violence that simply incites more deadly and devastating violence.

Is the usage of " We have surrender to" ok? Please check.

(4) Half of them were Muslim and half of them were Christian.

Should the above sentence have a plural usage "Half of them were Muslims and half of them were Christians."

(5) We need more modeling of how to deal with diversity in positive ways.

Can of be replaced with on? Please check.

(6) One of my appeals in the Canadian context has been that if we had been better at dealing with diversity between us as Christians in this country, we would be relating to cultural diversity in a lot more positively today than we are at this point.

Is the in insertion ok? Please check.

Re: Life is not what it seems; we don't recognize...

Yoong Liat — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 15:16:45 GMT

Pioussoul wrote:

Thanks, Jackson, for the amicable invitation.

I'd love and ready to interpret my own begotten motto for you, but I'm much more afraid of violating the good tradition of literature, i.e. authors don't usually interpret their own works.

Thanks, Jackson, for the amicable invitation. Just to confirm: Shouldn't it be 'amiable'?

Re: Life is not what it seems; we don't recognize...

Pioussoul — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 18:18:03 GMT

Thanks, Jackson, for the amicable invitation.

I'd love and ready to interpret my own begotten motto for you, but I'm much more afraid of violating the good tradition of literature, i.e. authors don't usually interpret their own works.

grammatical check

Murajica — Fri, 12 May 2006 02:19:51 GMT

Dear Members!

I am a new member and I would need some urgent academic help. Tomorrow i have to submit an essay for my postgraduate study. as Slovenian I am not sure if everything is in order in the essay. I attached the essay in this message. If anybody would consider looking into my essay I would be more then glad about that.

Introduction

This essay represents a possible answer to the question of the transforming the form of power from classical physical, person-to-person alike configurations to the new formation of ubiquitous - virtual â power. In contemporary society the classical Benthamâs idea of Panopticon has been employed to society as an âElectronic Panopticonâ wherein government agencies, commercial interests and corporations use information technologies to sort people into âgroupsâ or âtypesâ. Supervisors exert power over the supervised in some manner or other (King 2001). As some authors still interpret Western society with the few-watch-many panopticon model, called as exclusionary fortress (King 2001), others are more focused on many-watch-few the Synopticon model (Bauman 1998). Yet, essay examines the similarities and differences of those two models, with an additional consideration to a hybrid model of the superpanopticism.

Why is than that this utilitarian two hundred years old idea of panopticon survived and extended in to new â hybrid â forms? This essay provides also the retrospective of the development of the power and public surveillance from the panoptic initial idea till nowadays electronic global power.

The spread of globalization and electronic era brought new technologies in everybodyâs everyday life. Over all, I should repeat the questions raised by Lyon (1994) whether do those new technologies spell a qualitatively new surveillance? If so, does this add up to the emergence of a more authoritarian, prison-like society? I conclude with the question if this is really prison-like society for everybody or only for non reluctant citizen. Therefore, is the new society really the limited society? Do we as contemporary residents have lack of opportunities and live in virtual cells or are we all just blinded and idled of all opportunities?

But again, what about the residents of the non-western, âunderdevelopedâ world â under what source and type of the surveillance do they live and what is their opportunity of resistance when they choose to âenterâ the West â so called surveillance society. What does it mean to shift the âreal jungleâ with the âmanufactured jungleâ?

From Panopticon to Synopticon

Todayâs society is often called as surveillance society. Many consider contemporary society as Post-Panopticon society, as a copy of initial idea of the total, the 360 degree surveillance area.

In the eighteen century a British reformer Jeremy Bentham presented the blueprint of optimal surveillance object called the Panopticon. This rounded structure with the watch tower in the axis of circle gives the gatekeeper/supervisor the ability to see all without being seen; ultimately it gives the keeper the ability to exert power over the inmates. Primary, it was meant to revolutionise the way in which prisons were administrate (King 2001). âThere were no more bars, no more chains, no more heavy locksâ¦â (Foucault 1991: 202)

In the Panopticon, the peripheral mass cannot see the observers, and must assume that someone may be watching over them at all time (Boyne 2000). One of the most influential theoretic of the philosophy of Panopticon, Michael Foucault describes it as a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad. In the ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing, when on the other side in the core tower, one sees everything without ever being seen (Foucault 1991). Another weighty sociologist Zygmunt Bauman foremostly sees Panopticon as a weapon against difference, choice and variety (1998). In this point, we can presume that Panopticon is really an opposite idea of democracy. But, as we will see latter, many connect the panopticism with the Western democratic society. Bauman further claims that âThe Panopticonâs main purpose was to install discipline and to impose a uniform pattern on the behaviour of its inmates.â (Bauman 1998:50)

A pictorial description of original Benthamâs Panopticon was provided by Foucault, describing it as an architectural figure of this composition. He describes the principle on which it was based:

ââ¦at the periphery, an annular building; at the centre, tower. A watchtower is pierced with wide windows that open onto inner side of the ring. The peripheral building is divided into cells, each of which extends the whole width of the building. They have two windows, one on the inside, corresponding to the windows of the tower; the other, on the outside, allows the light to cross the cell from one end to other. All that is needed, than, is a supervisor in a central tower and to shut up in each cell a madman, a patient, a condemned man, a worker or a school boy.â (Foucault 1991: 200)

While poignant, the architecture of Foucaultâs version of Benthamâs Panopticon produces a kind of double vision; two different, divergent stories of the development of evidently modern relations of surveillance, domination and control. Firstly, the story of what goes on with the supervisor or inspector in the central tower and secondly what happens to the person in the cell. The tale of the supervisor takes us to the techniques of observation, information gathering, data management, simulation and to (what Foucault later describes as) âa biopolitics of the populationâ (Simon 2005). George Orwell (1984 in Simon 2005:4) precisely describes the effect as a result of Panopticon:

âThere was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the timeâ¦ You had to live â did live, from habit that became instinct â in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized.â

The Panoptic machine makes one visible and at the same time it hides the operations (motives, practice, and ethics) of the supervisor. This relation (being seen without being able to see) provides uncertainty which become a source of anxiety, discomfort and even terror (Simon 2005).

In The Panopticon also the observers were under possible control, it may ever provide an apparatus for supervising its own mechanisms. (Foucault 1991)

One of the important deficiencies of the Panopticon model was exposed by Simon (2005). Though, the Panopticon makes all acts in principle visible in cannot distinguish between acts that conform to the rules and acts which pretend co conform to the rules. Nevertheless, the idea of Panopticon is not always the optimal explanation for the role of power in the modern society. Although, as we will se latter, we can easily name modern public sphere with Foucaultian expression âlaboratory of powerâ, has the contemporary society mirrored the sight to the surveillance. The supervision of the few watching the many has turned to the many watching the few.

Reading with Foucault rather than against him Mathesion (in Simon 2005) theorizes a role for the synoptic machine of the contemporary culture industries; accounted for by the critical theory tradition. By the critics like Mathesion and Baudrillard the individualâs relation to the modern media is rather synoptic than panoptic; the relation is extremely visual, where the many (an audience) observe the few (the television programme). But yet we can argue, that provided synoptic apparatus is in tight symbiosis with the panoptic. But one can at this point draw on media theory and argue that synoptic function of the media is the production of homogenous knowledge and wide spread culture (ibid.).

At this point in the theory, the Synopticon emerged as the hybrid version of the Panopticon. Thomas Mathiesen coined the memorial phrase, where the introduction of panoptical power represented a fundamental transformation from situation where the few watch the many to a situation where the many watch the few (Bauman 1998). Bauman (1998) further adds that Synopticon is in its nature global. The watchers are united from their locality and at least spiritually they are transported into cyberspace. Distance no longer matters, even if bodily they remain in place. Globalization is not about what we all wish or hope to do, it is about what happening in the worldwide level, it is about what is happening to all of us (ibid.). It does not matter any more if the targets of the Synopticon mutated from the watched into the watchers stay in the place or move around the globe. And who are the new watched population at whom Synopticon âaim its arrowsâ?

âThe many watch the few. The few who are watched are the celebrities. They may come from the world of politics, of sport, of science or show business, or just be celebrated information specialists. Wherever they come from, though, all displayed celebrities put on display the world of celebrities â a world whose main distinctive feature is precisely the quality of being watched â by many, and in all corners of the globe: of being global in their capacity of being watched.â (Bauman 1998:53)

The main difference by the word of Bauman (1998) is that Panopticon forced people into the position where they could be watched, but Synopticon on the other hand needs no coercion. People are seduced into watching and the watched few are tightly selected. Surveillance and consecutively the power are therefore spreading among all of us. We-as the audience are all the part of Synopticon and therefore we are all in the possession of power. We have the possibility to survey and the possibility to be a part of the apparatus. The fictive power is dividing from our television receiver to yours receiver. The power and the surveillance are spreading through the signals, networks and internet connections and they are imaginatively connecting us. Ultimately, we are all part of the game of surveillance, gathered in the electronic arena, where in a fictive menagerie we watch over the selected few. We are covetous for their private life. Their privacy is our required publicity.

The development of new technologies and new techniques of power, consist â on the contrary â in the many watching the few. That is shown in the rise of mass media â television more than any other. That leads to the creation, alongside the Panopticon, of another power mechanism which, coining another apt phrase â Synopticon (Bauman 1998).

History review of surveillance and power

Lyon (1994) sets out as prominent work about surveillance two main traditions the Marxian and the Weberian. Karl Marxâs special attention on surveillance is in aspect of the struggle between labour and capital, where worker is viewed as a means of maintaining managerial control on behalf of capital. Opposite, Max Webber concentrates on the manners that all modern organizations develop means of storing and retrieving data in the form of files as part of the quest of efficient practice within bureaucracy. Such files contain personal information so that government can supervise population. Furthermore, we should opt on Foucaultâs contribution to surveillance theory. He claims that modern societies have introduced and employed a range of disciplinary practices rather than relaying on external controls and constrains. This practice is necessary for life to continue in a regularized patterned way. (Lyon 1994)

For Foucault (1991) the panopticism is the general principle of new political elites, who use it as a relation of discipline and not the relation of sovereignty. He sees the idea of panopticism have spread over the globe:

ââ¦although the universal juridicism of modern society seems to fix limits on the exercise of power, its universally widespread panopticism enables it to operate, in the underside of the law, a machinery that is both immense and minute, which supports, reinforces, multiplies the asymmetry of power and undermines the limits that are traced around the law. /â¦/ in the genealogy of modern society, they have been, with the class domination that traverses it, the political counterpart of the juridical norms according to which power is redistributed. (Foucault 1991: 223)

Governments in 1960s and 1970s developed large-scale date integration projects, which had raised the fear of the omniscient âBig Brotherâ state. In that time individuals knew when data about them, and for whom and for what reason had been collected. Surveillance systems at that time were discrete and bounded. The concept of databanks expressed a technological and political reality that personal information system had some clear boundaries (Bennett 2001). 1970s were also the time of Orwellian Big Brother states.â This position might be contrasted with that of Lyon (1994) who kept the Orwellian nightmare of 1984 at bay with a Foucauldian emphasis on discipline but has moved on (Lyon, 2001) to incorporate some of the arguments about risk society from Beck.â (Lyon, 2001:10-113).

Anthony Giddens (in Lyon 1994) describes some differences of surveillance in the western societies and the surveillance in the totalitarian eastern block. He finds a gap distinction between surveillance as âgathering data onâ and âsupervisingâ people. Giddens claims that totalitarianism is, first of all, an extreme focusing of surveillance (ibid.). But the changes in the political systems, the global technological progress and above all the globalization changed the rules. To conquer and survey the world, one does not need to be present in all places for all the time.

âIn the world we inhabit, distance does not seem to matter much. Sometimes it seems that it exists solely in order to be cancelled; as if space was but a constant invitation to slight it, refute and deny. Space stopped being an obstacle â one needs just a split second to conquer it.â (Bauman 1998:77)

In fact, as Kavanagh (1996 in Bauman 1998) stated, globalization is a paradox. While it is very beneficial to a very few, it leaves out or marginalizes two-thirds of the world.

Latest surveillance studies have gone further than Foucault in demonstrating new data collection with sophisticated, yet manipulated forms to alter, manage or even control the live chances of the supervised person (Gandy 1993). As an example Simon (2005) proposes census data, used to generate profiles of various populations to guide the development of government policies, which have further define effects on persons, independent of their knowledge. Only a step away is insurance data, credit information, marketing data etc. In all this cases, data obtained from people is managed independently and used to structure the lives of those people.

New forms of surveillance

As we see, in the contemporarily people are facing the paradoxical situation, where everybody can be the object of observation and simultaneously the subject that execute the surveillance. The strength of the surveillance is taking away our privacy; it prevails into ours most intimate moment and places. The systems of surveillance possess the power for assembling and finally to assemble all needed information that we have ever put into the circulation. Our credit card or post code of our home address, calls made from the mobile and even type of food that we buy in our favourite shop with our favourite club card all tell more about us than we would at anytime wanted to be known. In the traditionally disciplinary the object of surveillance was the body but in âdataveillanceâ the object of control is simply the digital representation of the body (Simon 2005). Huge data collection systems connected to each other also support each other with the latest information about us and use us and information about us as crucial capital and power.

âNo one is spying on us, exactly, although for many people that is what it feels like if and when they find out just how detailed a picture of us is available. âTheyâ know things about us, but we often donât know what they know, why they know, or with whom else they might share their knowledge.â (Lyon 1994:4)

Dataveillance (the collection, organization and storage of information about persons) and biometrics (the use of the body as a measure of identity) have not only come into focus with the post 9/11 security consciousness of state institutions. These technologies are now becoming a regular feature of the everyday lives and culture of citizens. (Simon 2005)

Deluze (1992 in Simon 2005:17) for example claims that in societies of control what is important is no longer either a signature or a number, but a code â the code is a password and it stand in for bodies. He remarks âthe numerical language of control is made of codes that mark access to information, or reject it. We no longer find ourselves dealing with the mass/individual pair. Individuals have become âdividualsâ and masses, samples, data, markets or âbanksâ.â We can support the Deluzeâs idea with a claim that societies have shifted from disciplinary societies to societies of control. This idea parallels the critiques of panopticism, which point to a shift away from classical visual surveillance to dataveillance as a mode of ordering information. Clark (1988 in Howard et al. 2005:69) coined the term dataveillance to signify âthe systematic use of personal data systems in the investigation or monitoring of the actions or communications of one or more personsâ in an effort to analyze the potential for new digital technologies to allow âincreased surveillance of the citizen by the state, and the consumer by the corporation.â

Simon (2005) claims, that the surveillance apparatus does not act on bodies or minds but on information about them. Thus, we can say that dataveillance corresponds to the modulatory effects of power, as it is described by Deleuze (1992 in Simon 2005:15):

âthe image of a city âwhere one would be able to leave oneâs apartment, oneâs street, oneâs neighbourhood, thanks to oneâs âdividual electronic card that raises a given barrier; but the card could just as easily be rejected on a given day or between certain hours; what counts is not the barrier but the computer that tracks each personâs position â licit or illicit â and effects a universal modulationâ.

Poster (1992) explains the shift to control societies in terms of the superpanopticism. He argues that, it does not operate through external force or expected internal norms but rather in terms of discourse and the linguistic properties of digital computation. The electronic database is the core of the superpanopticon, it is a sorting machine that organizes and produces subjects. As David Lyon summarizes:

the subject is multiplied and decentred in the database, acted on by remote computers each time a record is automatically verified or checked against another, without ever referring to the individual concerned /â¦/ computers become machines for producing retrievable identities (Lyon 2001: 115).

Poster (1992??preveri ker spodaj maÅ¡ 1996) writes about new forms of power where the unwanted surveillance of personal choice becomes a discursive reality through the willing participation of the surveilled individual. In this instance the play of power and discourse is uniquely configured. The one being surveilled provides the information necessary for surveillance.

The diagram of superpanopticism is not a diagram of surveillance in the traditional sense, no one is watching us and we do not perceive ourselves as being watched. We simply go about our business while our databased selves are assembled, scrutinized and evaluated in much more detail than the inmates at Foucaultâs Mettray prison ever experienced (ibid.).

At the same time we allow the surveillance as we are part of surveillance society â where for exchange of our information we can be part of âthe manyâ that watch âthe fewâ. We live in the Panopticon but at the same time we participate and even with ease enjoy the Synopticon. Foucaultâs version of Benthamâs plan has been upgraded, so that the inmate is aware of the gaze of the supervisor through signs of their presence. This is initially ominous tower with its shielded windows signifying the presence of the guards, but it could also easily be the insidious sign of the CCTV camera or the spy satellite as material extensions of the human eye (Simon 2005).

However, it is the sign of presence of surveillance and not its actual presence that matters here. Yet we can say that this is what makes possible to substitute fake supervisor (cameras) for real ones and still achieve the same effects of power and domination. (Norris 2003). Or as Foucault (1991:200) claims âvisibility is a trap.â

Lyon (1994) claims that interesting challenge to surveillance studies presented by processes such as computer-matching is than an essentially technical procedure contribute to the blurring of conventionally conceived boundaries.

King (2001) asserts that Panopticon is still a useful metaphor for the examination of the world we live in and as well understanding of its history and how it is mirrored in nowadays Western society.

It is on this point that the critique of Foucault takes on its strongest form. As Anthony Giddens (1990) has noted, modern surveillance can be denoted by increasing distances between the observer and the observed. So can we ultimately find the connections between the initial Panopticon prison idea and modern surveillance society? Following Gary Marx (1988 in Simon 2005) we can extrapolate from guards in the watchtower to some hi-tech management and policing systems: a kind of prototypical hybrid-police-cyborg using progressively more sophisticated technical capacity for monitoring (CCTV, infrared cameras, electronic tags), data storage (huge hard drives systems), networking (data conversion) and analysis (systems capable of advanced pattern recognition and multivariate sorting) (ibid.).

Particular forms of communication are vital aspects of what it means to be human. What we disclose to whom, and under what conditions, is highly significant. What once we might have revealed, consciously, about ourselves to someone we trust â friend, doctor, priest, therapist â may now be involuntarily disclosed by electronic means to organizations or machines that we cannot know, let alone trust, in the same way (Lyon 1994).

âPrecise details of our personal lives are collected stored, retrieved and processed every day within huge computer databases belonging to big corporations and government departments. This is âsurveillance societyâ.â (Lyon 1994:3)

An interesting comparison with the new Lyonâs surveillance society was a lot earlier provided by Foucault, when he talked about the power of the Panopticon. He considers the activity of the Panopticon also as a kind of laboratory of power. Because of its mechanisms of observation, it gains in efficiency and in the ability to penetrate into menâs behaviour; knowledge follows the advances of power, discovering new objects of knowledge over all the surfaces on which power is exercised (Foucault 1991). Introducing the Panopticon into the contemporary society, we can understand the present public sphere â surveyed, tracked and surrounded with the linked apparatuses filled with data of citizens as a huge laboratory of virtual power.

For Mark Poster the post-modern is classified as a âmode of informationâ. He raises the question of location of human self if fragments of personal data constantly circulate within computer systems, beyond any agentâs personal control. (Lyon 1994)

Further, for Bauman (1998), then, the dream of total control, exemplified by the Panopticon, is really fully applicable only within a âclockworkâ society, whose inhabitants are required to have fixed places, functions and appetites. âAdvanced Westernâ societies are not like this. On the other hand, for the inhabitants of the first world state borders are levelled down, as they are dismantled for the worldâs commodities, capital and finances. But for the inhabitant of the second world, the walls built of immigration controls, of residence laws, and of âclean streetsâ and âzero toleranceâ policies, grow taller. (Bauman 1998)

My thesis and conclusion

The provided literature and shown examples have, therefore, made a systematic case in support of the proposition that technology and advance have made possible the systems of domination and power, especially virtual apparatus to supervise with supremacy over the people of postmodernity. As power is indeed strongly roped with forms of technology, it is possible to agree that power is nowadays virtual in form, with âsurveillance /â¦/, as an institutionally central and pervasive feature of social lifeâ¦â (Lyon 1994:24)

In fact, it is interesting to accept the fact that new virtual forms of information technology are constructing society as well physically (modern surveillance systems) as also socially (changing of public behaviour, new ways of pleasure and voyeurism â when many watch the few, or surveillance for pleasure, etc.). Although, it is significant to point out that in contemporary society â as Anthony Giddens called it with felicitous phrase, a âmanufactured jungleâ no physical presence of âanotherâ is needed to perceive his influential power and surveillance; no matter what place or what moment in the society do we take into consideration.

The power of supervision has developed in recent years with the speed of the development of science and technology. With introduction of new â especially virtual technology apparatuses, one is becoming even more âthe objectâ of observation and surveillance. Discrepancy between private â intimate side of life and the public access to oneâs personal matters has blurred to the degree, where one can no more foresight when, how and by who is observed at the particular moment. Yet, I could agree with intimidated and tighten theories of âtotal disclosureâ proposed by theoretic of surveillance (Orwell, Lyon, Foucault, etc.), where apparatus of the state, economic and media govern its population in the scheme of matrix. Individual can be metaphorical staged with the famous Foucaultian quote:

âHe is seen, but he does not see he is the object of information, never a subject in communication.â (Foucault 1991: 200)

One has no more option to be under self control only, but has become the object of the total observation drawled in the matrix of the mass.

Is the new democracy really the new totalitarianism with millions of pigeonholes or is it opposite of the verified systems with negative connotation, known from the past?

At the Titoâs Yugoslavia there was a well known âbrainwashâ rule proposed by the government to its population saying that âNon-friend never sleeps! Everybody has to be aware at all time.â Citizens attended to be continuously frightened and therefore they suppose to trust the state and follow and obey its instructions. Police, army and other political commissars controlled the nation with ceaseless personal control. The possibility of resistance was at minimum, boundaries were almost closed and one had almost no place to manoeuvre.

Therefore, I can somehow not find the direct linking between new âWesternâ types of surveillance and old totalitarian types of all-time pressure surveillance and I can easily argue that at this moment one has a possibility of choice whether he would like to allow (or not disallow) to be supervised or yet he can resist and try to ignore the systems of surveillance in the name of his belonging right to the privacy. Resistance always demands more inclusion then following and obeying â but what matters here is the choice of not being supervised and therefore at least in the legitimate way choice of own personal private life. In the time of the stateâs personal surveillance â this possibility was not directly an option.

Such arguments, I would argue and widen with the fact that global life is possibly becoming multidimensional and as well extremely rapid â consecutively one has no more energy, time or even possibility to pay attention of own surveillance. Equally, it can be also possible to argue King (2001) which claims that information and communication technologies have advanced at an incredible rate, so that we can do things that at one time were not possible but at the same time we have become traceable to an unprecedented degree. But the fact remains: power has become in modern society virtual in form â whether we accept it or not. The only question is, whether we are utterly loosing the connection when and how the new technologies is going to track us.

Resources:

- Bauman Z. (1998) Globalization â The Human Conequences Cambridge: Polity.

- Bennett J. C. (2001) âCookies, web bugs, webcams and cue cats: Patterns of surveillance on the world wide webâ Ethic and Information Technology Vol.3 pp.197-201.

- Boyne R. (2000) âPost-Panopticismâ Economy and Society Vol.29 No.2 pp.285-307.

- Foucault M. (1991 [1975]) Discipline and Punish â The Birth of the Prison London: Penguin Books.

- Gandy, O. (1993). The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy of Personal Information. Boulder, CO, Westview Press.

- Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge, Polity Press.

- Green, S. (1999) âA Plague on the Panopticon: Surveillance and Power in the Global Information Economy.â Information, Communication and Society 2(1): 26-44.

- Howard N. P., Carr N. J. and Milstein J. T. (2005) âDigital Technology and the Market for Political Surveillanceâ Surveillance & Society Vol.3 No.1 pp.59-73.

- King L. (2001) âInformation, Society and the Panopticonâ The Western Journal o Graduate Research Vol. 10, No.1 pp.40-50.

- Norris, C. (2003) âFrom Personal to Digital: CCTV, the Panopticon and the Technological Mediation of Suspicion and Social Control.â Surveillance as Social Sorting. D. Lyon (ed.). London, Routledge.

- Lyon D. (1994) The Electronic Eye â The Rise of Surveillance Society Cambridge: Polity Press.

- Lyon, D. (2001) Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life. Buckingham, Open University Press.

- Poster, M. (1996) âDatabases as Discourse, or, Electronic Interpellations.â Computers, Surveillance, and Privacy. D. Lyon and E. Zureik (eds.). Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press: 175-192.

- Simon B. (2005) âThe Return of Panopticism: Supervision, Subjection and New Surveillanceâ Surveillance & Society Vol.3 No.1 pp.1-20 online: http://www.surveillance-and-society.org

Re: My Last Duchess by Robert Browning

abbie1948 — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 01:58:13 GMT

I have taken a slightly different approach from Mr. P., looking at the characters in a bit more detail. It's a bit long, and I apologise to other readers, unless it helps!

1. Look at the stories told:

Both are about âthe literary tradition of despotic Italiansâ 1 Dante describes various true stories of the cruelty of Italian nobles , http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/anthology/pre1914poetry.htm#
and it is likely that Browning would have been familiar with his work.

Both are based in reality â
Real Duchess of Malfi (DOM)
http://members.fortunecity.com/talkatoo/history.htm

My last Duchess = Lucrezia, a daughter of the Cosimo I de' Medici
http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem288.html

Both based in 16th century Italy. (a common literary device at the time Webster was writing)

DoM is murdered at the order of her brother, and it is suspected that Lucreziasuffers the same fate on the orders of her husband. (There is no historical proof that these murders occurred, neither is it overtly mentioned by Browning)

2. Look at the main characters, and what we know of them

What function do they serve in the piece?

DoM â woman of high status and power by virtue of marriage. She seems not to be named, but always referred to by her title. As a powerful woman, she represents danger to Websterâs audience, to whom male dominance and power were more acceptable. She is undoubtedly proud and haughty, but equally lusty (it is she who chases Antonio)

Ferdinand, her brother. A very dark character, represented by blackness and night. He is deemed mad, and described as a lycanthrope (believes he is a werewolf)

The Cardinal, her brother. A cold, calculating character, known to have murdered his mistress, and therefore a hypocrite because of his office in the Church. (but donât forget that at that time, high office in the Church was more to do with power than love of God.)

Antonio her 2nd husband. An insignificant character in the play, he nevertheless stands for goodness, integrity and honesty in a corrupt court. He is a scholar and of high standing by virtue of that, but is not the equal of his wife by birth or status.

Last Duchess

The Duke (Ferrara). A cold, proud and haughty man. He could be described as a combination of the 3 main characters in DoM, having the status of the Duchess, the darkeness (though not the madness) of Ferdinand and the cold, calculating and murderous nature of the Cardinal.

Fra Pandolf, the painter of the portrait. This character is only referred to in the context of the painting, and perhaps serves, in Browningâs eyes, to emphasise the innocence of the Duchess of F; because of his standing as a priest. (Donât forget, weâve moved on a bit, and attitudes may have been different in 1800âs from Websterâs time).

The visitor â never named, but assumed to be an envoy from the Count with whom Ferrara is negotiating to have his daughter as a wife. He serves to emphasise the power of the Duke.

The Duchess of F â the âfirst Duchessâ â never named, and only referred to as the sitter of the portrait. She was young and innocent, and like Antonio may stand for goodness against a backdrop of evil.

3. Themes of the pieces

Inequality and power.

Malfi and Ferrara both have power and status, whereas Antonio and DoF do not. Neither have been born to the status of their spouses, and can never hope to achieve it, even through marriage. They will always be subject to their spouseâs authority.

Both Malfi & Ferrara are in the position of seeking for a spouse; she says âWe are forced to woo, because none dare woo usâ (Act 1 Scene ii). She has to woo Antonio, and Duke F is in the position of seeking his second wife through the envoy of a count, a person of lesser nobility than he.

Malfi acknowledges the inferior status of her husband by declaring, after the marriage, âI am Duchess of Malfi stillâ (Act V scene ii). The Duke F however does not feel the need to emphasise his power and status so overtly. He simply informs the envoy that he would not âstoop to â¦â¦ make [his] will quite clear to such an oneâ (lines 35 â 37). âI chuse never to stoopâ (line 42 -43) (Here we see a difference; Malfi loves her husband, whilst F. obviously despised his wife â âsuch an oneâ.)

F further impresses upon the envoy that he is a man of power and status by the mention of his name, which is 900 years old, and again shows his derision of his wife for treating the honour he bestowed upon her with that name in the same manner as she treated âanybodyâs giftâ (lines 33 -34). His power and wealth are also displayed through his pride in his works of art. Although he never mentions his Last Duchess by name, he proudly informs the envoys of the names of the artists of the painting and the sculpture he exhibits.

There is an underlying menace in both pieces. The Cardinal is a man of power, already known to have killed his mistress, and therefore known to be capable of murder. Ferdinand is mad, and prone to fits of rage and jealousy. Duke F is more controlled, like the Cardinal, but is there some menace in the way he treats the envoy? Perhaps. He certainly emphasizes his power by never addressing him by name, and by standing over him whilst he sits and looks at the picture. (line 5) There may be some menace in his invitation to the envoy to âgo down togetherâ after viewing the portrait. Surely a man of such lowly status as compared with the Duke would expect to walk behind him, and must have felt uncomfortable walking beside him? (how would you feel if you had to walk beside your headmaster/ mistress?)

Perhaps most significantly: is there a veiled threat for the envoy to carry back to his master the Count? The Duke displays the picture to the silent envoy, emphasing the silence by saying âthey would ask me if they durst..â (line 11), implying that the envoy had better not ask!! He then tells him of the shortcomings of his last duchess, and says âI gave commands; the smiles stopped altogetherâ (lines 45-46). Is this a veiled admission that he ordered the killing of his first wife? Would his second wife face a similar fate if she did not demonstrate the appropriate degree of pride in the name and position he is offering?

Finally, the characters of Antonio and Duchess F are similar in that both are apparently good and innocent. Antonio had potential through education, though failed to realize or exploit this. Duchess F was the daughter of a Count â both married above their position. Antonio says âWe follow after bubbles, blown in thâairâ (act V scene iv). Duchess F. was light hearted âtoo soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whateâer she looked upon, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, tâwas all oneââ (lines 21-25).

Both are destined to die. Malfi is killed on the orders of her brother, Ferdinand, who is motivated by jealousy and the desire to dominate and control her http://www.english-literature.org/essays/webster.html . Ferrara displays similar tendencies in his need to dominate and control his duchess, and frankly prefers her as a work of art, of which he proud, than as a wife whom he despised.

Both Antonio and Duchess F are âvictims of corrupt motivesâ and meet a âcruel and tragic fateâ http://www.english- literature.org/essays/webster.html .

This is not your essay! It is designed to give you some pointers, and some ideas to work on. You need to read both pieces, and reference thoroughly, and I recommend you read the web sites sent. If possible, try to include some more stuff from Malfi, as the above concentrates a bit heavily on Last Duchess.