Where do you see "celebrating" in the article? Over half of it is devoted to worker pushback against surveillance and criticism of the technology itself, including whether it even works.
The latter third of the article is devoted to push-back. Nonetheless,
as all writers understand, bias can be subtle [1]
Let's start with the title.
"Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office"
Does that not lend at least tacit assent by ambivalence, if not
outright assent? Welcome?
The next 750 words are given over to normalising the "lot's of valid
reasons" to surveil workers, and lending value to an emerging
surveillance industry.
Thereafter 450 words describe the counterpoints, but frame this mainly
as "dislike" and "feelings". Towards the end, the language does shift
to a more humanistic tone, describing "snooping" and the "dangers" of
over-zealous monitoring.
Overall though, I found the article lacks mature analysis, presents an
"as is" hot take, and spins in favour of employer intrusion on the
basis of 19th century industrial justifications.
Given the enormous impact of declining labour relations in an
economically precarious era, and the currency of digital rights and
surveillance in general, I am surprised The Economist did not attempt
a more in-depth treatment of "boss-ware". It would be improved by
actual productivity studies, the psychological literature on workplace
surveillance, some modern ethical understanding of why this is
unacceptable, and what the likely negative impact is going to be on,
frankly dumb, companies that see this as legitimate.
Because ultimately, this stuff is bad for business, for everybody's
business except a few spyware companies.
[1] Unlike my own polemical theatrics which I enjoy wearing up-front
where you can be fully entertained.
> Does that not lend at least tacit assent by ambivalence, if not outright assent? Welcome?
Not at all. It reads like pure sarcasm.
> The next 750 words are given over to normalising the "lot's of valid reasons" to surveil workers, and lending value to an emerging surveillance industry
This is a rhetoric device to underline that you understand the incentive of those employing it in preparation to offer a better alternative, e.g. actually capable management. Or just to explain why managers want to use it.
An employer has of course the right to check your work to know why he is paying you. I firmly condemn management employing crapware like this, I think the developers offering these solutions are very likely shady characters. Defining a goal a worker has to reach is exactly what surveillance management isn't capable of. Employees will optimize the metric not the business goal and honestly I would help them cheat it in any way possible.
> It would be improved by actual productivity studies, the psychological literature on workplace surveillance
I really enjoyed your theatrics, moist was a nice touch. Do you ever feel like an article can be written for its intentional expected negative backlash? What better way to do that then honestly present the frothy maw right up front for all to be disgusted?
> Do you ever feel like an article can be written for its intentional
expected negative backlash? What better way to do that then honestly
present the frothy maw right up front for all to be disgusted?
Interesting point Peter. Yes. Indeed, maybe I misjudge the author's
sophistication (or how The Economist is playing it). But that tactic
opens up great risk of being misinterpreted. At some point one needs
to state an intent/position quite clearly.
Someone in an earlier comment mentions sarcasm. I think to do what
you're suggesting, at least for an Anglophone reader, would require
that you coded your prose as sarcasm. I don't find that easy. While
slipping occasionally, I honestly try to refrain from it, not just
because it's "the lowest form of wit", or because it risks
misunderstanding, but because it carries a "defensive" tone, and I
very much prefer to go on the attack in my prose in accordance with
Nietzsche's "If it's shaky, push it." Dostoyevsky said it best, that
it's a "cry of pain". Sarcasm, he thought, is "usually the last refuge
of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is
coarsely and intrusively invaded."
First, how very apt in this context. Second, as with dealing with
all bullies, better to walk right up and punch them on the nose.
Lastly, despite my sometimes acrid tone, I'm really an optimist about
fellow humans. Best to give people the benefit of the doubt to see
things as they are.
They only drifted "leftwards" after 2008 when they started lobbying for governments to bail out banks. Once this was done, they went back to "orthodoxy".
You strike me as someone who is at least right on the cusp of breaking through to understand what is really going on, however, if not, I encourage you to reconsider the assumptions and motivations of all the labels and affiliations of organizations and people and social strata you were likely also “taught” about all your life, mostly through “history”. It is an odd thing that many, if not most humans assume good faith/intentions even in the light of the starkest and most overpowering mountain of evidence. I guess not much in the universe is more powerful than the human capacity to deny having been fooled. Cue Mark Twain quote here.
As I understood it Blake's Jerusalem didn't literally anticipate the
inhumanity of the northern mills (child labour etc - which the phrase
has since come to signify), but the orthodoxy of church, schools, law,
and halls of Apollonian indoctrination which he saw as obstacles to a
more fully human reality. He was, to use a term from Christopher
Hitchens, an anti-theist in the fullest sense, against all theisms
including those we would recognise today as "technological
orthodoxies". While also arguably the worlds first multi-media artist,
he eschewed the paper 'tygers' as Promethean follies. Rather prescient
I would say.
