Arendt and Datapolitik

“The progress of modern science has demonstrated very forcefully to what an extent this observed universe, the infinitely small no less than the infinitely large, escapes not only the coarseness of human sense perception but even the enormously ingenious instruments that have been built for its refinement. The data with which modern physical research is concerned turn up like ‘mysterious messenger[s] from the real world.’ They are not phenomena, appearances, strictly speaking, for we meet them nowhere, neither in our everyday world nor in the laboratory; we know of their presence only because they affect our measuring instruments in certain ways. And this effect, in the telling image of Eddington, may ‘have as much resemblance’ to what they are ‘as a telephone number has to a subscriber.’ The point of the matter is that Eddington, without the slightest hesitation, assumes that these physical data emerge from a ‘real world,’ more real by implication than the world we live in; the trouble is that something physical is present but never appears.”

-- Hannah Arendt, “The Conquest of Space and the Stature of Man”

Reading this passage today, Arendt’s insights risk seeming dated and quaint given our current techno-political culture. Partly this is because Arendt didn’t have, or did not articulate, an ontology of the virtual, which is the sine qua non of our contemporary techno-politics. She is troubled by what the scientist calls the “real world.” This is because that world, it seems to her, does not have an apparitional character that humans can engage. The “more real,” or hyper-real, of the scientist is not experienced by humans but is registered by hyper-sensitive machines. In this passage, then, we sense Arendt puzzled and amazed by the world of quanta – of the physical without appearance.

[caption id="attachment_15050" align="alignleft" width="300"] A man on his phone (Source: Dark Politricks)[/caption]

The rhetorical effect of the absurd that comes from quoting the Eddington passage could easily escape us. Eddington’s metaphor works because it might have sounded unfathomable to Arednt’s readers. The digits of a telephone have absolutely no relationship – other than a purely random one – to the identity of a person, regardless of how you understand the qualities of human identity. You can accrue facts about persons and have those facts count towards an image you may or may not have about their physical, psychological, or political presence in the world. But when Arendt penned her essay, you would never consider a person relatable to data. Today the relationship between telephone number and subscriber isn’t merely one of resemblance (as the passage implies). It is also a sentimental one. This is because a subscriber isn’t merely a subscriber; she is intimate with data. Data is emitted from her gestures, her gait, her appearance, her digits, her sounds, and her blood.

Our “real world” has been transformed to such a degree that most of us, whether we like it or not, consider our relationship with our telephone numbers to be one of the most intimate relationships of our lives. It is so intimate, in fact, that we won’t change our telephone numbers when we change cell phone carriers or geographical addresses, just as we wouldn’t consider changing our names because we have moved to a different part of the country. Pace Marshall McLuhan, our telephone digits aren’t simply an extension of ourselves; they are as much a part of our selves as our anatomical digits are. Just consider this: an unofficial poll I have been conducting (every time I travel in airports) asks co-travellers at security check points whether they would be more willing to lose their luggage or their cell phones. 100% of my sample group answered that they would rather lose their luggage. And this, without reflecting one second on it.

[caption id="attachment_15051" align="aligncenter" width="551"] Data journalism (Source: OWNI.eu)[/caption]

What’s more – and what’s crucially different from Arendt’s political culture – is that data is apparent – it is phenomenal – because the human is its material source. Data is harnessable matter, a fact that has been ensured by the intensification of memory storage size and tracking technology. Data occupies space and time. Every gesture, sound, vista, or look – anything that we might say belongs to human existence – is transformable into virtual bytes that are captured and stored not only, or simply, for the purpose of surveillance and control (though that is always an option) but also for the purposes of interception, extraction, tracking, locating, and assessing.

Interception, extraction, tracking, locating, assessing – these relational activities signal the intensification of an underappreciated form of modern political power that we might call datapolitik. Datapolitik is the unique constellation of political forms available to our contemporary techno-digital condition. These forms are not new, albeit their intensification and proliferation is unique, as is the user’s willingness to generate and proliferate data emissions. Datapolitik has a history and a media archeology well nested in the history of the cynegetic powers of the police. Those powers are oriented to capturing and detaining prey. In our case, the prey is more often than not information itself, and the means and processes whereby information is captured include pursuit, interception, and extraction.

[caption id="attachment_15052" align="alignright" width="300"] CIA Torture Report (Source: International Business Times)[/caption]

Within the cynegetic techno-culture of datapolitik, the CIA Report on Torture makes perfect sense. At one level, it exposes something we all already knew: torture continues to be a prevalent form of state action, regardless of its illegality. But that seems of minor relevance. When the extraction of data from bodies, from resources, from activities, from minds – from life – is the central operating system of our techno-political culture, then using whatever algorithm necessary – including algorithms of pain and horror – makes plain common sense. Let’s be honest with ourselves: we have no problem extracting information from our clicks on the web or from our GPS activities. Indeed, we encourage it. Without scandal, we regularly acquiesce to such encouragements whenever we “agree” to the terms and conditions of an OS update or installation. And when we live in a virtual world where it is difficult to imagine a difference between our telephone digits and our selves – a political world entirely unlike Arendt’s – then it must seem equally plausible to acquiescence to data interception, extraction, and capture (i.e., #datapolitik) in any form whatsoever.

The insensibility of this sensus communis is worrisome, no doubt. But even more worrisome is the fact that while we are prepared to adopt and deploy – to partake in – datapolitik, we have yet to develop a critical political vocabulary specific to the new media at hand. Our traditional moral vocabularies can’t help us very much because datapolitik is not a matter of good or bad behavior, good or bad technology. At best, we might say that our technology is being used for bad purposes, but when hasn’t that been the case? Our traditional critical vocabularies – indebted as they are to older media (especially print and cinema) – are equally strained in the face of datapolitik. And our political vocabularies and concepts are also limp given their recursive rehearsing of power as coercive and intentional, ideological, or disciplinary. In short, we have yet to engage and develop the relevant critical concepts specific to our algorithmic cultures.

There is no point in bemoaning these developments in the manner in which some of Arendt’s past colleagues bemoaned the devolution of humanity because of the rise of technical media. I certainly don’t want to be read as criticizing our digital turn. But I do believe it a task of ours as users to engage the political lives of digital media on their own terms – not because they are part of our imagined futures, but because they have already shaped our actual pasts.

(Featured Image: "Staying Safe in the Virtual World"; Source: Business Computing World)