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Realtopia?
I have recently been reading and re-reading about all things utopic, dystopic and “real[life]topic” for new module preparations; Imagining Crime. Dystopic societies are absolutely terrifying and whilst utopic ideas can envision perfect-like societies these utopic worlds can also become terrifying. These ‘imagined nowhere’ places can also reflect our lived realities, take Nazism for an example.
In CRI1009 Imagining Crime, students have already began to provide some insightful criticism of the modern social world. Questions which have been considered relate to the increasing use of the World Wide Web and new technologies. Whilst these may be promoted as being utopic, i.e., incredibly advanced and innovative, these utopic technological ideas also make me dystopic[ly] worry about the impact on human relations.
In the documentary America’s New Female Right there are examples of families who are also shown to be using technology to further a far right utopic agenda. An example includes a parent that is offended because their child’s two favourite teachers were (described as being) ‘homosexuals’, the parents response to this appeared to be taking the child out of school to home school the child instead, but also to give their child an iPad/tablet screen to use as a replacement for the teachers. Another example consisted of a teen using social media to spread far right propaganda and organise a transphobic rally. In the UK quite recently the far right riots were organised and encouraged via online platforms.
I would not advise watching the documentary, aside from being terrifying, the report and their team did very little to challenge these ideas. I did get the sense that the documentary was made to satisfy voyeuristic tendencies, and as well as this, it seems to add to the mythical idea that far right ideology and actions only exists within self identified far right extremist groups when this is not the case.
Mills (1959) suggests that people feel troubled if the society in which they live in has wide scale social problems. So might the unquestioning and increased use of technologies add to troubles due to the spreading of hate and division? And might this have an impact on our ability to speak to and challenge each other? Or to learn about lives different to our own? This reminds me of Benjamin Zephaniah’s children’s book titled People Need People (2022), maybe technologies and use of the internet are both connecting yet removing us from people in some way.
References
Mills, C. W. (2000) The Sociological Imagination. Fortieth anniversary edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zephaniah, B. (2022) People Need People. (London: Orchard Books)
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Things I used to could do without a phone. #BlackenAsiaWithLove
A Spoken Word poem for young people everywhere, esp Youth in Asia, who may never know WE LIVED before smartphones…and live to tell about it.
Walk.
Walk down the street.
Find my way.
Go someplace.
Go someplace I had previously been.
Go someplace I had previously not been.
Meet.
Meet friends.
Meet friends at a specific time and place.
Meet new people.
Meet new people without suspicion.
Strike up a conversation with a stranger.
Make myself known to a previously unknown person.
Now, everything and everyone unknown is literally described as ‘weird’.
Eat.
Eat in a restaurant by myself.
Pay attention to the waiter.
Wait for my order to arrive.
Sit.
Sit alone.
Sit with others.
Listen.
Listen to the sound of silence.
Listen to music.
Listen to a whole album.
Listen to the cityscape.
Overhear others’ conversations in public.
Watch kids play.
Shop.
Share.
Share pictures.
Take pictures.
Develop pictures.
Frame pictures.
See the same picture in the same spot.
Read.
Read a book.
Read a long article.
Read liner notes.
Pee.
I used to be able to stand at a urinal and focus on what I was doing,
Not feeling bored,
Not feeling the need to respond to anything that urgently.
Nothing could be so urgent that I could not, as the Brits say, ‘take a wee’.
Wait.
Wait at a traffic light.
Wait for a friend at a pre-determined place and time.
Wait for my turn.
Wait for a meal I ordered to arrive.
Wait in an office for my appointment.
Wait in line.
Wait for anything!
I used to appreciate the downtime of waiting.
Now waiting fuels FOMO.
I used to enjoy people watching…
Now I just watch people on their phones.
It’s genuine anxiety.
Walk.
Walk from point A to B.
I used to could walk between two known points without having to mark the moment with a post.
Now I can’t walk down the hall,
Or through the house or even to the toilet without checking my phone.
I avoid eye contact with strangers.
Anyone I don’t already know is strange.
I used to could muscle through this awkwardness.
Talk.
Have a conversation.
A friend and I recently lamented about how you used to could have a conversation and
Even figure out a specific thing that you couldn’t immediately recall…
Just by talking.
I also appreciate the examples we discussed.
Say you wanted to mention a world leader but couldn’t immediately remember their name. What would you do before?
Rattle off the few facts you could recall and in so doing you’d jog your memory.
Who was the 43rd US president?
If you didn’t immediately recall his name,
You might have recalled that the current one is often called “45” since
Many folks avoid calling his name.
You know Obama was before him, therefore he must’ve been number “44.”
You know Obama inherited a crap economy and several unjust wars,
Including the cultural war against Islam. And
That this was even one of the coded racial slurs used against him: “A Muslim.”
Putting these facts together,
You’d quickly arrive at Dubya! And
His whole warmongering cabinet. And
Condi Rice. And
General Powell’s botched PowerPoint presentation at the UN. And
Big dick Cheney, Halliburton and that fool shooting his friend while hunting.
That whole process might have taken a full minute,
But so would pulling up 43’s name on the Google.
This way, however, you haven’t lost the flow of conversation nor the productive energy produced between two people when they talk.
(It’s called ‘limbic resonance’, BTW).
Yeah, I used to be able to recall things…
Many more things about the world without my mobile phone.
Wonder.
Allow my mind to wander.
Entertain myself with my own thoughts.
Think.
Think new things.
Think differently just by thinking through a topic.
I used to know things.
Know answers that weren’t presented to me as search results.
I used to trust my own knowledge.
I used to be able to be present, enjoying my own company,
Appreciating the wisdom that comes with the mental downtime.
Never the fear of missing out,
Allowing myself time to reflect.
It is in reflection that wisdom is born.
Now, most of us just spend our time simply doing:
Surfing, scrolling, liking, dissing, posting, sharing and the like.
Even on a wondrous occasion, many of us would rather be on our phones.
Not just sharing the wonderful occasion –
Watching an insanely beautiful landscape through our tiny screens,
Phubbing the people we’re actually with,
Reducing a wondrous experience to a well-crafted selfie –
But just making sure we’re not missing out on something rather mundane happening back home.
I used to could be in the world.
Now, I’m just in cyberspace.
I used to be wiser.
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Upskirting: A new criminal offence but will the legislation do the job?
Upskirting for anyone who has not come across the term is the act of taking unauthorised pictures under a skirt or kilt to capture images of the crotch area and sometimes genitalia. It tends to happen in crowded public places making it difficult to spot when it is happening. The resulting images are often distributed on the internet, usually interlinked with pornographic or fetish sites and present a multitude of moral and legal issues surrounding privacy, decency and consent. In some instances, the victim is identifiable from the image but in many they are not and are often unaware that such images even exist. This type of behaviour is not new but the development of technology, most notably camera phones has facilitated the practice as has the ability to share these images online. In England and Wales there is currently no specific legislation banning such action because voyeurism only covers private spaces and outraging public decency requires a witness. As such, when victims of upskirting come forward there is currently little scope for prosecution although some successful prosecutions have occurred under the offence of outraging public decency.
Gina Martin, a freelance writer and victim of upskirting launched a campaign to get upskirting recognised as a specific crime and punishable under the Sexual Offences Act. This campaign has gained considerable momentum both publicly and politically and in March 2018 the Voyeurism (Offence) Bill was presented to the House of Commons. The bill was blocked by the objections of one MP on the grounds that there had been a ‘lack of debate’ and thus a breach of parliamentary procedure. The backlash to this objection was interesting, rather than acknowledging that this is a serious issue worthy of parliamentary debate a humiliating and somewhat bullying approach was taken in the form of ‘pants bunting’ being hung outside of his Commons office. While I might not agree with some of the past actions of this MP his argument that new laws need to be debated if we (the UK) are to stand up for freedom and democracy is an important one. Upskirting is a serious breach of privacy and decency and therefore needs proper debate if the resulting legislation is going to be more than a knee-jerk reaction to public outrage. Such legislation often results in the need for multiple revisions in order for it to efficiency and effectively tackle such behaviour. For example, the proposed burden of proof in the original bill alongside the limited scope of the bill[1] would likely have limited prosecutions rather than facilitating them. Unfortunately, with just three months between the original bill and the revised Voyeurism (Offences) (No.2)) Bill, which was successfully introduced to the House of Commons in June 2018, the extent to which sufficient informed debate has occurred remains questionable.
[1] See the comments by Clare McGlynn (professor at Durham University) in Sabbagh and Ankel (2018) Call for upskirting bill to include ‘deepfake’ pornography ban. The Guardian [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/21/call-for-upskirting-bill-to-include-deepfake-pornography-ban. [Accessed: 17 August 2018].
Thoughts from the criminology team 