Thursday, September 8, 2011

8 reasons youth don't fight back

thank you Barry for sending this my way.

great article...
bleeds of Ivan Illich's deschooling society and tools of conviviality.
highly recommended read from me... to perhaps capture the essence of 2 great books..


the only part that didn't really resonate with me was #6

6. The Normalization of Surveillance. The fear of being surveilled makes a population easier to control. While the National Security Agency (NSA) has received publicity for monitoring American citizen’s email and phone conversations, and while employer surveillance has become increasingly common in the United States, young Americans have become increasingly acquiescent to corporatocracy surveillance because, beginning at a young age, surveillance is routine in their lives. Parents routinely check Web sites for their kid’s latest test grades and completed assignments, and just like employers, are monitoring their children’s computers and Facebook pages. Some parents use the GPS in their children’s cell phones to track their whereabouts, and other parents have video cameras in their homes. Increasingly, I talk with young people who lack the confidence that they can even pull off a party when their parents are out of town, and so how much confidence are they going to have about pulling off a democratic movement below the radar of authorities? 




i'm more on the thinking that transparency is a new type of currency. we've trained ourselves to think it's bad, but that's because we've used it as a sign of mistrust. ie: we're not getting to know others through transparency.. we're checking up on them. and checking up on them about things that really don't matter. of course if transparency to you means that your parents are checking your grades... that's going to seem confining. if we use the word Surveillance - no doubt.


also not feeling the example - that kids no longer feel compelled to pull of a party. to me that trivializes and misrepesents the seriousness of this suppression. it makes it sound like this social change that needs to happen is really just about kids wanting to have fun and do things their way.