Between Max Weber and Gilles Deleuze: Leadership Democracy within a Society of Control

<p><b>Gilles Deleuze argued that modern western societies are undergoing or have undergone a shift away from a purely disciplinary formation as articulated by Michel Foucault towards new structures of control. Whereas disciplinary societies were defined by the specifics of certain kinds of confinement, what Deleuze terms societies of control emerge from the dissolution of the separation between these forms of confinement and the wider society. Because of this, social control has begun to pervade the individual lives of persons within a society, where persons are treated as subjects from which data and information can be extracted. However, at the same time many modern western societies are also considered or can be classified as what Weber described as leadership democracies, that is, democracies where charismatic leaders are elected and command large followings. Thus, a theoretical question emerges as to how these two theoretical approaches would interact. A society of control by its nature makes the imposition of control over subjects more encompassing while the charismatic leader at the helm of a political apparatus is theoretically able to overcome the various obstacles that impose themselves over most members of a society. The question is how this would include the overcoming of the imposition of the society of control.</b></p> <p>The purpose of this thesis is to explore how a leadership democracy under the guidance of a charismatic leader, or leaders, is able to overcome the impositions of a society of control. It shall be argued in due course, despite the presence and impositions of a society of control, that such impositions do not impinge upon the nature of the charismatic leader, or leaders, in such a way or to the extent required to prevent the charismatic leader, or leaders, from operating as this kind of leader, or leaders, by definition. In so doing, this thesis explores the manner in which the charismatic leader, or leaders, can overcome the mechanisms of a society of control and maintain the integrity of a leadership democracy in relation to the manner in which societal control is exerted over a population. Given that this thesis deals with a question of pure theory, the nature of this thesis shall be largely formal and shall rely largely on formal argumentation derived from primary and secondary literature as opposed to empirical research, however, where necessary empirical examples and research shall be drawn on for illustration purposes.</p>

Between Max Weber and Gilles Deleuze: Leadership Democracy within a Society of Control

<p><b>Gilles Deleuze argued that modern western societies are undergoing or have undergone a shift away from a purely disciplinary formation as articulated by Michel Foucault towards new structures of control. Whereas disciplinary societies were defined by the specifics of certain kinds of confinement, what Deleuze terms societies of control emerge from the dissolution of the separation between these forms of confinement and the wider society. Because of this, social control has begun to pervade the individual lives of persons within a society, where persons are treated as subjects from which data and information can be extracted. However, at the same time many modern western societies are also considered or can be classified as what Weber described as leadership democracies, that is, democracies where charismatic leaders are elected and command large followings. Thus, a theoretical question emerges as to how these two theoretical approaches would interact. A society of control by its nature makes the imposition of control over subjects more encompassing while the charismatic leader at the helm of a political apparatus is theoretically able to overcome the various obstacles that impose themselves over most members of a society. The question is how this would include the overcoming of the imposition of the society of control.</b></p> <p>The purpose of this thesis is to explore how a leadership democracy under the guidance of a charismatic leader, or leaders, is able to overcome the impositions of a society of control. It shall be argued in due course, despite the presence and impositions of a society of control, that such impositions do not impinge upon the nature of the charismatic leader, or leaders, in such a way or to the extent required to prevent the charismatic leader, or leaders, from operating as this kind of leader, or leaders, by definition. In so doing, this thesis explores the manner in which the charismatic leader, or leaders, can overcome the mechanisms of a society of control and maintain the integrity of a leadership democracy in relation to the manner in which societal control is exerted over a population. Given that this thesis deals with a question of pure theory, the nature of this thesis shall be largely formal and shall rely largely on formal argumentation derived from primary and secondary literature as opposed to empirical research, however, where necessary empirical examples and research shall be drawn on for illustration purposes.</p>

Social order in the de-differentiated society: Deleuzian social theory and the penal institution

The article problematises the assumption that modern society is characterised by institutional differentiation as a unidirectional process. Inspired by Deleuze’s sketch of the ‘society of control’, in this article the authors explore institutional de-differentiation in contemporary society. They illustrate the process of de-differentiation by developments in the penal institution, employing empirical materials from the Norwegian prison system. They show how this institution increasingly integrates (imports) elements from other institutions while expanding (exports) its activities into said institutions, resulting in a blurring of institutional borders. Furthermore, the question of institutional differentiation has been related to the question of social control in modern society. The authors discuss the characteristics of the social order of a de-differentiated society by drawing on Deleuze’s social theory and arguing that de-differentiation gives rise to forms of power and social logics no longer restricted by institutional confinements.

WORK (CYBER) BULLYİNG, POWER IMBALANCES AND VİCTİMİZATİON: A REVİEW ON PANOPTİC METAPHOR AND EMPLOYEE SURVEİLLANCE İN INDİAN WORKPLACES

The dominant interpretation of electronic surveillance in the workplace focusing mainly on the invasion of privacy does not give sufficient explanation of its various and nuanced underpinnings and other adverse effects. Likewise, harassment or bullying in the workplace has been at the forefront of major concerns of organizations and employees for several decades and is currently more prevalent and opaque. Combining these two factors and through a methodical revisit of the metaphor of the Panopticon, this paper aims to examine its relevance for the analysis of modern electronic surveillance used in the workplace, and sparks discussion around the issue of workplace bullying and the consequent control mechanism, power imbalances and victimization, with a special focus and application on Indian scenario. This research exposes the unfair and unjustifiable victimization of workplace bullying by going beyond Foucault’s concept of “disciplinary society,” according to which persons are “normalized” by their categorical locations, as well as beyond Deleuze’s argument of “society of control,” where people are forced to live in circumscribed parameters. It is an exploratory research that follows an analytic research methodology of theoretical analysis (literature reviews) and critical discourse analysis. Persistent victimization is relayed as a co-existent phenomenon of workplace bullying.

Childhood: a device of governmentality of the child body

This work aimed to problematize the production of the object childhood as a governmentality device, gradually reconfigured in disciplinary society, biopolitics, as Foucault (1979) says, and in the society of control, as explained by Deleuze (1990) and Lazzari (2008). To do so, we used the cartographic method, which points out that, following legal procedures, we research and intervene, intending to produce other realities, seeking to break with the logic of capture established, we will follow the practices of a psychologist in a Specialized Reference Center of Social Assistance (CREAS), which works with children and adolescents victims of rights violations. Pointing out how the production of a literature of Education, at the same time as its production as a field of knowledge, it produced a certain mode of action and a certain subjective profile of childhood, affecting another relationship between families and the Modern State through public policies.

Media Genealogy of the Contagion: Syphilis — AIDS — COVID-19

The article is devoted to a genealogy of the attitude toward viruses in social and political practice in light of the new coronavirus pandemic. The disciplinary society and the society of control have taken on a completely new configuration since the HIV crisis in the 1980s. AIDS and now COVID-19 as phenomena of social crisis have had a great impact on (sexual) relationships and have also caused a significant change in the social and political order. Epidemics and pandemics mobilize political structures and constitute power relations, thus changing the way bodies are controlled, establishing new differentiations and redefining what disease is. The authors trace the development of discourses about syphilis, AIDS and COVID-19 to describe how knowledge about the disease is being generated today; it has origins in myth and would be unthinkable without aesthetic visualization and mass media technologies. Syphilis was an exact fit for the paradigm of the disciplinary society, which stigmatized bodily pleasure and abstracted pathology by activating projection mechanisms as a sign of the Other. However, AIDS already differed significantly from that paradigm because other medical technologies are used to define HIV, and that has affected the epistemology of the disease and epidemic. The article considers HIV/AIDS as a transitional model that forms a bridge between the epidemics of the past (leprosy, plague, smallpox, syphilis) and the COVID-19 pandemic. Above all there is a change in the biopolitical regime so that bodies are no longer controlled and regulated through sexuality. COVID-19 is a new form of sociality which is not based on the exclusion of “pathological” forms of sexuality or on “deviant” or “perverted” bodies, but involves the object-based, microlevel of relations between viruses, the immune system, and the human genome, which are then mapped with distortions and substitutions onto social relationships and practices. The authors use the term “delegated control” in a new context and introduce the original term “omniopticum” to describe the new regime of biopolitics and the “control society” in the post-COVID era.

DIGITAL TRANSPARENCY AS A SUBSTRATE OF THE MODERN "PANOPTICON"

The article is devoted to new risks and challenges of the modern era, "new" forms of implementation of power relations - the transition from a disciplinary society to a society of control (self-control), where the very fabric of digital reality, formed by atomized individuals(turned from a methodological metaphor into a real fact), becomes a guarantee transparency, the elimination of privacy and the transformation of a person into a digital panopticon. In such a space, the effect of creativity is created (the free play of symbols, texts and images; reality is aestheticized), which is reduced to the interpretation of others and self-interpretation (openness of meanings and understandings), in essence, which is a process of self-control and the demand for control from others. Transparency in this case is not just openness, it is a guarantee of interpenetration, an invasion of once personal space (not so much imposed from the outside, but “required” within the framework of the rules of digital transparency), as well as an opportunity to live for another, canceling his individuality and manifestation of personal freedom.

The Final Cut?: The Production of pedagogy and scholarship within a society of control

In this article, we explore the teaching of post-qualitative methodology within what Deleuze called a “Control Society.” We offer up the online video series Three Minute Theory, specifically the video What are Societies of Control? as an example of our engagement with post-qualitative theories and methodologies. We posit that post-qualitative methodology repurposes the tools of a control society and for that reason is both needed and necessary for making sense of the world we live in. We begin by providing an overview of a control society. Next, we provide “outtakes” from the video script that serves to illustrate the process of producing a pedagogical product, highlights our collaborative writing process, and provides additional examples of control societies. Then, we discuss our pedagogical considerations when making the video, including the importance of a controlling metaphor and the creation of a “writerly text” that would allow our audience/students to use as an impetus for creation rather than as a source to be reproduced. Finally, we provide examples of the ways in which post-qualitative methodologies align with control societies and the possibilities this presents for researchers.

Freedom in the Society of Control: Ethical challenges

The Society of Control is a philosophical concept developed by Gilles Deleuze in the early 1990s to highlight the transition from Michel Foucault’s Disciplinary Society to a new social constitution of power assisted by digital technologies. The Society of Control is organized around switches, which convert data, and, in this way, exercise power. These switches take data inputs (digitized information about individuals) and transform them into outputs (decisions) based on their pre-programmed instructions. I call these switches “automated decision-making algorithms” (ADMAs) and look at ethical issues that arise from their impact on human freedom. I distinguish between negative and positive aspects of freedom and examine the impact of the ADMAs on both. My main argument is that freedom becomes endangered in this new ecosystem of computerized control, which makes individuals powerless in new and unprecedented ways. Finally, I suggest a few ways to recover freedom, while preserving the economic benefits of the ADMAs.