Watching You: 2
After getting your feedback and insightful comments, I went about digging some more on this new voyeuristic culture (an act of voyeurism this!). The idea was to seek an alternative explanation.
I figured voyeurism is in a way a democratic power re-appropriation by the masses. In other words, now everyone has the power to see hence the playing field is somehow leveled. Think about the times when certain sections of cities were off limits for certain castes and access to knowledge, education, and scriptures was restricted to certain segments of the population. Foucault, a very famous theorist coined the ‘clinical gaze’, which refers to the power of a physician to know all (think therapists).
Zoom out to current scenario, where public and private spaces are being collapsed in an information explosion and everything can be seen. In this age of media overkill we are all empowered, hence we are all voyeurs.
More:
Ironically, the mainstream embrace of voyeurism comes precisely as many Americans feel their own privacy is in danger, be it from surveillance on the job, marketers on the Net… “These shows are a kind of acting out of the mingled fascination and fear that surrounds this, a way of playing it out in a kind of harmless way."- Article on Times, about Reality TV.
5 comments:
I think it's human nature, to have to know. You always need to know something. You're always seeking. I think when God said Let there be man, he had also whispered, let him always be wanting.
What surprises me is the appearance of a class of people that loves being watched. Attention to feed the ego?
I agree with you. But there is nothing innocent about this thirst for knowledge, wanting to know for what purpose? seeing is powerful, quite literally! Even in surveillance the weaker ones are watched by those who 'control' them.
Being watched is also a kind of power, you have what the voyeur is looking for. Thats just one way of looking at. Any thoughts?
Nice diggin..
Will throw up some dirt after my tour!
But is it? There are many questions that can be asked here.
But don't we even see with our eyes closed. Sometimes, even though we don't see someone but hear about them, don't we come to conclusions. Can someone have no sensory powers, be blind and deaf and yet not know or want to know, in his own way.
I guess it all comes down to one darn cliche which was etched onto my school emblem. Knowledge is power, and in that very sense, God is All-Powerful. And we, I think want to be in harmony with the world that we live in and hence seek the ways by which it acts. And reacts.
Nijaz: I think we crossed that dsictinction long ago, you dont have to stleathily peep through a hole to be a voyeur. We are voeyurs who dont just 'see', we 'feel', 'hear', 'smell' as well!
Thats an interesting point of seeking harmony though :)
Sudarshan: back from hols?havent heard from u in a while..
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