[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Barrister]

Oex, I like your notion of needing someplace which is outside the multitude of prying eyes we now have.

Like inside your home?

[crazy canuck]

BB, you like canoeing.  I assume one of the things you like about it is you can get away from everything for a while.  I think that is an important thing to preserve and not just for people who live in non urban enviornments.  I think people should be afforded a certain degree of anonymity. I find the prospect of my every movement outside my house being recorded rather distasteful.

[Malthus]

Oex, I like your notion of needing someplace which is outside the multitude of prying eyes we now have.

Like inside your home?

[Oexmelin]

Oex, I like your notion of needing someplace which is outside the multitude of prying eyes we now have.

This is not quite that - such a turn of phrase would indicate that "home" is such a place, or should be - and I don't think that is quite desirable. Not because I want prying eyes in my home, but rather that associating it with the home (an easily identifiable space) often leaves all other spaces open for scrutiny.

It more that we always were, and always are, under the eyes of others. We need to have a form of sociability that create moments, spaces, and circumstances for willful blindness and anonymity.

[Oexmelin]

Oex, I like your notion of needing someplace which is outside the multitude of prying eyes we now have.

Like inside your home?

QED

[Neil]

Oex, I like your notion of needing someplace which is outside the multitude of prying eyes we now have.

Like inside your home?

You're not safe there, because the police will be spying on your 24/7.

[crazy canuck]

It more that we always were, and always are, under the eyes of others. We need to have a form of sociability that create moments, spaces, and circumstances for willful blindness and anonymity.

I understood you to mean that. 

edit: as I said to BB before you posted.

BB, you like canoeing.  I assume one of the things you like about it is you can get away from everything for a while.  I think that is an important thing to preserve and not just for people who live in non urban enviornments.  I think people should be afforded a certain degree of anonymity. I find the prospect of my every movement outside my house being recorded rather distasteful.

[Oexmelin]

I agree that, as a matter of first principles, that is how laws out to be drafted.  But that does not take away from that fact that almost all of our social activities are in fact governed by law. 

Except that they aren't! That's what I wrote: our activities are governed by our social behaviour and social sanctions, which may or may not be sanctioned by law. There is no primal law which existed before societies came into existence. There is no moment in history we can point to, except in the intellectual constructions of the Enlightenment, that men were living as individuals. And there are tons of societies which do not have laws, or did not have laws (to the extent that law is its own special language and is not synonymus with rules), or a governing body, and yet were not living in utter anarchy.

One of the main difference now is that we can have collective activities without sociability, and therefore, without the social shunning that comes with antisocial behaviour: the economic realm is full of them - hence the surprise, and ire, of some of those Wall Street traders at being booed. 

[Barrister]

I have not made up my mind on cameras.  Our privacy laws were drafted at a time when few people walked around with video recording devices.  Now all the world seems to be a stage since every mobile phone is a video recorder.

Precisely. Everyone used to use the metaphor of the "global village" without pushing the image to its furthest conclusion. In a village, privacy is itself very limited and thoroughly depends on a tacit understanding: that, while you *may* know - or often, while you *do* know - what your neighbour is doing, you don't use it against him / her unless you were invited to, either explicitely or implicitely (i.e., you yourself tell it to a large group). Of course, people are going to go too far and bring in conflict - but in a small village, people will be wary of it - because you still need to live with that neighbour, with whom you probably are related anyway. When conflicts arise, there will be numerous means of putting an end to it, and numerous ways to reintegrate parties who make amends within the village society. And absent reintegration or willful, beneficial blindness (i.e., all the people who pretended not to see the homosexuality of a loved one), there always was exile - the town, the next village.

We have the village now, but have very few means of reintegration, of making gossip, information, slander stop - except by burying it under a ton more of information, and some things go "viral". We have few places of virtual exile to remake ourselves. People can hound others where ever they are - day and night, in your home and out of it. Ppting out of, say, internet, is not really a possibility. Even the town is no longer a safe haven, because rather than being seen (and, yes, controlled) by our neighbours, and relatives - who can easily be tolerant, forgiveful, benevolent, pater/maternallistic - we are controlled by anonymous people who have no relation, no compulsion, and few qualms about punishing, and controlling to the extent made possible by the laws, or by what they "think" an insubstantial community might think.  Think of bosses who fire or turn down employees because they posted photos on FB of them drinking / partying while all sorts of real communities would think that drinking, partying and even being drunk once in a while is perfectly normal.

Oex, you wrote a fair bit last night and I didn't have the time to give it the response it deserved.

Just a few posts earlier you wrote:

I have expectations of social anonymity, social control and the right to ephemerous, momentous behaviour.

And I think the latters are just re-statements of the first.  You expect, or figure you have the right to be, anonymous.

And I'm glad you brought up the notion of a village, because that's exactly where I wanted to go.  Those of us living in large urban centres are effectively anonymous in large crowds or public spaces.  You're very unlikely to meet anyone you know, or to have anyone remember what you did.

But that's a fairly recent development in human history.  For most of history, and indeed in the present for those living in small communities, there is no such thing as public anonymity.  If you were in public, you would be observed and identified.  If you did somethign odd, it would be talked about.

I commented you apparently had never lived in a "village".  That's because your description of how things happen in a village is quite opposite to what I have experienced.  The most obvious example is my wife's home town - est. population 100.  Her parents run a restaurant there - one of two businesses in town.  Since the restaurant runs 6 days a week, if we are visiting my wife's parents that means we are sitting around that restaurant.  I've seen how people come in - and immediately talk about what everyone else in town is doing.  It's not done meanly or maliciously - it's often happy news of who is engaged / pregnant.  If it is unfortunate news (someone drinking too much, getting divorced) it's often in terms of what if anything can be done to help.

But in any event - there is zero anonymity in a town like that.

And that was also my experience in the slightly larger, but still small towns I have lived in the north.  In particular as a prosecutor - I could not go anywhere without being recognized for what I did.  If I acted oddly or inappropriately, even if "off duty", you bet it would be used against me.

So - in the past couple hundred years, some people living in urban areas have developed this sense of 'social anonymity'.  But that feeling is not universal, is not a human right, and is almost inevitably disappearing by the increasing use of technology.

[Oexmelin]

And I think the latters are just re-statements of the first.  You expect, or figure you have the right to be, anonymous.

I don't think they are - they are modulated facets of social behavior under the eyes of others - and this is precisely why I brought up the example of the village. That's the problem with using catch-all words such as anonymity or privacy: we forget what we are actually expecting, or talking about.

Anonymity to me is simply the capacity to act without past experiences and future expectations of others playing a role in the judgment they might pass on my action. It doesn't mean no one can identify me. It doesn't mean that I don't care about what others think. It means that I can expect a constantly renewed clean slate, and that the forgiveness of my errors, or antisocial behaviour, will be found in silence or ignorance, or, conversely, that mitigating factors in my past will not play a role either.

Social control is not a condition of anonymity. It is a a matter of self-governing because you think about what others will think about you and your actions - and this can obviously take place in a variety of setting, including a village where it can be pretty strong, and yes, often onerous. Social control happens whether you are anonymous or well-known. But it is at least socially controlled - which means it is woven between actual humans who will meet each other. I used it to contrast the idea that social behaviour, and antisocial behaviour, should be mainly, or entirely controlled by law and state-sanctioned coercion. Which is an idea abhorrent to me. I don't posit social control as this idyllic pastoral mechanism: it can be brutal, relentless.  This is why we have had ways out - to change the setting, to wipe the slate clean at some moments. There is nothing inherently different in what you wrote from what I wrote: I simply insisted upon the fact that people in a village will have very different parameters to use that info than those in a large town. People will be gossiping, always. Sometimes malevolently. But there is the idea that what goes around comes around - and you might not want to destroy or erase the other person. I will freely admit that there might be a difference between villages in Quebec, which are old and people have intimate knowledge of so-and-so's genealogy, and the more recent, or even transitory villages of the West.  In any case, we always had safety valve whenever the village felt too oppressive: first, the next village. Then, the town.

And this is why I mentioned momentous behavior. What happens when you make a mistake? The consequences are not the same when you do it in a large town, or when you do it in a small village, or when you do it under the gaze of state agents, are being recorded and potentially prosecuted.  And it not even needs to be a mistake. There are strength in crowds, and while people always point to violent riots, there are all sorts of moments when the idea that no one can be identified individually in a collective movement is a powerful enabler in all sorts of political demonstrations which I think needs to be at the core of our democratic regime (as opposed to the strictly controlled, truly anonymous, but thoroughly regulated and limited, vote).

All of it stems from the fact that I feel we are simultaneously giving anonymity an individual meaning that we need to be able to do whatever we want in a limited space (my home) and conversely reducing the space for social anonymity by putting it under constant surveillance by distant, unrelated people. The result, I fear, is a declining tolerance for all sorts of behaviors and a judicalisation of relationships. People in a village might use any sort of info against people they know everything about. But the fact that they will need to live with those other people will restrain them in what they'll be using, and in what context, because there will be an important social price to pay. Where social anonymity is moribund and asocial surveillance is strong, there can always be someone to denounce and pay no price for denouncing - even for the slightest of "offense".

[crazy canuck]

Except that they aren't! That's what I wrote: our activities are governed by our social behaviour and social sanctions, which may or may not be sanctioned by law.

We are going to have to agree to disagree.  You describe a theory of social behaviour which denies the impact the law plays on influencing behaviour.  Do you really contend that Tort, Criminal and Human Rights Laws fundamentally influence how we interact with one another.  If so, how do you explain the changes in drinking driving rates, the changes in hiring practices across the country etc etc etc. Jacob unwittingly provided an excellent examples of a number of areas where the law impacts behaviour but take the most intimate behaviour we have - sexual relations.  The law has had a profound impact in this area, from the recognition of same sex relationships (which were once illegal) to governing the right of a woman to be able to say no and the ability of workers, particularly women, to have a right to work in a harrassment free enviornment.

Your analysis really only works if it ignores the impact that changes in the law have had on fundamental rights over time (and I didnt even go to all the changes the Charter has made.... )
 
The way we build our homes, live in our neighbourhoods, travel to and from work, act in the workplace, interact with our loved ones etc etc etc.  are all governed by a complex array of municipal, provincial and federal laws in the form of legislation and regulations.  You many not be aware of it and probably because the behaviours required by the law largely become normative over time (the sign of a good law) but that does not mean the law has no effect.

[Barrister]

Oex, it seems your argument is an argument against how the data from things like CCTV cameras would and should be used, which is fair enough.  I'd hate for such recordings to be screened on youtube for example.

But with proper controls on how such data is used, I don't see how your lengthy argument is an argument against the very recording itself.

[Oexmelin]

Oex, it seems your argument is an argument against how the data from things like CCTV cameras would and should be used, which is fair enough.  I'd hate for such recordings to be screened on youtube for example.

But with proper controls on how such data is used, I don't see how your lengthy argument is an argument against the very recording itself.

It is an argument against the act itself generally, and against the recording specifically. I am not interested in technical discussions, safeguards, etc. which seem to me the easy way to go around the deeper issues. And the technical discussions increasingly seem to me to be the easy - i.e. cowardly - way to avoid talking about what we do in favour of talking about how we do (regardless of what, exactly we are doing...). It keeps informed and uninformed citizens out, and makes every democratic discussion the prerogative of technical experts. Some might be in favour of that (and Languish is full of such spiteful evaluations of fellow citizens) but that seems to me to deeply undermine whatever democratic values we hold dear, for better or for worse.

In other words, I want the process of dilution, which happens in a crowd and does not happen in camera (or might happen to mechanism I am not privy to), to remain present. I want social control of the crown, not state-operated surveillance - that is the main difference. The first broadcasts a message of tacit trust. The second, a message of basic distrust. And I think such message is important: it provides the filter through which we see, or instinctively understand, our relationship to one another.

Out of curiosity, BB, are you in favour of "cop watching": i.e., people, demonstrators, activists filming police action?

[Barrister]

Oex, it seems your argument is an argument against how the data from things like CCTV cameras would and should be used, which is fair enough.  I'd hate for such recordings to be screened on youtube for example.

But with proper controls on how such data is used, I don't see how your lengthy argument is an argument against the very recording itself.

It is an argument against the act itself generally, and against the recording specifically. I am not interested in technical discussions, safeguards, etc. which seem to me the easy way to go around the deeper issues. And the technical discussions increasingly seem to me to be the easy - i.e. cowardly - way to avoid talking about what we do in favour of talking about how we do (regardless of what, exactly we are doing...). It keeps informed and uninformed citizens out, and makes every democratic discussion the prerogative of technical experts. Some might be in favour of that (and Languish is full of such spiteful evaluations of fellow citizens) but that seems to me to deeply undermine whatever democratic values we hold dear, for better or for worse.

In other words, I want the process of dilution, which happens in a crowd and does not happen in camera (or might happen to mechanism I am not privy to), to remain present. I want social control of the crown, not state-operated surveillance - that is the main difference. The first broadcasts a message of tacit trust. The second, a message of basic distrust. And I think such message is important: it provides the filter through which we see, or instinctively understand, our relationship to one another.

Out of curiosity, BB, are you in favour of "cop watching": i.e., people, demonstrators, activists filming police action?

Last point first - of course.  As long as they are not actively interfering with an investigation, they have every right to film police action.  Some cops (but only some) seem to have a real problem with it, but it's the old 'if you're not doing anything wrong what are you worried about'.

Of course perhaps that is because I am used to having my every word recorded in court, and my every email and voice mail used against me by defence counsel.

And I think this is why my conversations with you while interesting, we always seem to talk past each other.  I'm not usually very interested in discussions of grand principles for what seems like such a basic proposition: you'd be perfectly fine with a police officer standing at a street corner observing, so why not replace the expensive human with an inexpensive camera who does the exact same task?  To me a discussion of principles in fact obscures the very basic natrue of what is being discussed.

Perhaps it just boils down to our professions - you're the ivory tower humanities intellectual, I'm the practical-minded trial Crown.   

[Oexmelin]

We are going to have to agree to disagree.  You describe a theory of social behaviour which denies the impact the law plays on influencing behaviour. 

I don't think I do. Allow me to quote from my previous post:

Laws sanction behaviour, and provides a language to discuss competing norms. Of course, it can create some behaviour, and will shape some norms. But never all of them - and I pray it never replaces all other sources of both action and norm.

My point was not that law cannot come to encompass every possible facet of human activity. It can. Therein lies precisely its appeal (in other words, what law *does* and makes it enormously useful) and its weakness (it can never "describe" the totality of the human experience for it requires human experience to be artificially reduced to a moment of decision (right / wrong, loser / winner, this/that).

What fundamental laws do, as I said, was provide a language to reconcile and compare various norms. Again, this is enormously useful, and has resulted in an explosion of categories of norms, including some very surprising results - all recent development over same-sex relationships, are testament to that.

But governance is a somewhat different matter. Or perhaps it is a matter of vocabulary. Law certainly can provide a structure for things - we can tie up things to it, use it to shape things, and tie up two seemingly unrelated things together using it - much like a vine can grow on a treillis. But does the treillis govern the vine? It might: you can certainly design a box-like treillis so tight the vine will be entirely contained within it. But I don't see it as the current situation, nor would want it to be an ideal.

The best way to separate our thinking about it is perhaps to reflect upon the origins of law. If you instinctively believe law is created as some sort of original, self-referencing abstract entity, then society mostly reacts to law, and is indeed governed by it - that is to say, its input is limited to reaction. Perhaps because I am a historian, I tend to think of law not as an original, outside, construct, but as a successive build-up to frame selective areas of social life. That the state at some point expended a lot of efforts to portray itself as the sole source of law says a lot about the state, and the possibilities of law, but it does also point to the fact that there were lots of competing legal systems, which in turn left immense areas of human activity out of its radar.