The cards in our pockets

In “Postscript on the Societies of Control,” Deleuze discusses the mechanisms of control in a control society. He refers to a city imagined by Felix Guattari, where an electronic card is used to grant access through various barriers. He notes that “the card could just as easily be rejected on a given day or between certain hours; what counts is not the barrier but the computer that tracks each person’s position” (7). Writing in 1992, Deleuze makes this scenario sound futuristic. I don’t know what the technology was in 1992, but we certainly have such control systems today. Right here on campus, our Brown cards are used to grant access not only to physical places like dorms and dining halls, but also to services, like laundry. Wherever the master computer is, it can do more than decide what rooms we may enter and when. Regardless of whether the information is used or not, surely someone has access to data on where we go at particular times. Deleuze makes all this control sound scary, but I don’t think there is anything sinister about the Brown card program or similar systems. I admit that it gives one pause to think about how much a little sliver of plastic can do.

But computerized mechanisms of control have their weaknesses. In Neuromancer, Wintermute expresses frustration with the difficulty he has getting through traditional mechanical locks. This is not an afterthought; figuring out how to access mechanical systems is a major obstacle for Wintermute. Might it be that as computerized control systems like our Brown cards become increasingly common, non-computerized mechanisms will gain a new kind of strength?