Welcome to the Machine: Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control

by Derrick Jensen, George Draffan

You could call them the Monkeywrench Gang of the nanotech age. Derrick Jensen and George Draffan are taking down the data mining industry, one converted mind at a time. In the face of RFID chips, consumer tracking strategies, and illegal government wiretapping, Jensen and Draffan are determined to show consumers how to fight back against government and industry to regain their rights, their privacy, and their humanity. In their new book, Welcome to the Science, Surveillance, and the Culture of Control , Jensen and Draffan take a hart-hitting look at the way technology is used as a machine, to control us and our environment. Their results are startling. If the prospect of perpetual surveillance and psychological warfare alarms you, you are not alone. Most people would be disturbed if you told them that everything from their store purchases to their public transit rides are recorded and filed for government or corporate access. But more often than not, the smooth, silent cleanliness of its operation allows the Machine of Western Civilization to go unnoticed. In Welcome to the Machine , Jensen and Draffan draw our attention back to its eerie, persistent white noise and take a cold, hard, human look at the cultural conditions that have led us to all but surrender to its hum. Jensen and Draffan, who teamed up in 2003 to expose industrial corruption and destruction in Strangely Like The Global Assault on Forests , are back to reveal both the terrifying extent of surveillance today and our chilling complacency at the loss of everything from consumer privacy to civil liberties. In this timely and important new collaboration, Jensen and Draffan take on all aspects of Control everything from the government's policy of total information awareness to a disturbing new technology where soldiers can be given medication to prevent them from feeling fear. They write about pharmaceutical packaging that reports consumer information, which is then used to send targeted drug advertisements directly to your TV.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Science, Philosophy, Hackers, Cultural, Psychology

296 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2004

About the author

Derrick Jensen is an American author and environmental activist living in Crescent City, California. He has published several books questioning and critiquing contemporary society and its values, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame. He holds a B.S. in Mineral Engineering Physics from the Colorado School of Mines and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University. He has also taught creative writing at Pelican Bay State Prison and Eastern Washington University.

Reviews

[Colin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay. That's it. I give up. This book fucking blows. You know, I was trying and trying to stick with it, because buried under all the shit, there are some important critiques of science as a belief system, and scary information about government experiments and research. But no. It's over, less than halfway through. I cannot STAND derrick jensen's over the top use of rhetorical manipulation. It's incredibly problematic the way he throws around language and equates systems of power without illuminating the crucial differences.

The breaking point of the book for me, p. 98: He's talking about sitting on a curb instead of the designated bench outside a WalMart. And how he can feel people wanting him to sit on the bench and not on the curb. To conform. Yeah. Ok. THEN HE SAYS, and I quote: "The same psychological pressures to conform would be at work were I instead standing with a pistol in my hand, pointing it at a Russian Jew kneeling beside a pit filled with writhing bodies, or with a chainsaw in my hand, pointing it at an ancient tree, or poised at a mass media magazine rack, choosing between Solidier of Fortune, Penthouse, or Car and Driver."

Ugh. Fuck you. Sitting on the curb rather than a bench is not the same as any of these things, nor are they the same as each other. Shut the fuck up.

Oh, and he has this quaint habit of always referring to Native people and other folks of color right before or after he talks about animals and other "nonhumans."

Fucking. Hate. It.

Alright. Now that I am over my initial surge of rage about this book, I will elaborate:

Derrick Jensen is attempting to discuss power and control and how they relate in a holistic way to our society. But his argument is seriously weakened by his conflation of various systems of power as the same. In another example to accompany the lovely one above, he comes up with a scenario where he says, "one day, you get pulled over. It might be a cop. It might be a soldier. Or it might me a Starbucks agent. You can't tell the difference." The key is that in order to make the argument of his book accurate and useful to his audience, he needs to illuminate those differences while connecting them to the whole of society. In this, he fails completely, choosing instead to rely on over-the-top rhetorical shenanigans. A cop is not the same as a soldier, and neither of them are the same as a person working for Starbucks. I mean, please. I guess he made that decision to try to get people pissed off about how things are. I think the factual information presented in the book about government spending, research and experiments speaks for itself in that regard, and that his incendiary prose obscures and distracts from those facts, rendering the entire book relatively useless and annoying, not to mention patently offensive and inaccurate in several instances. Still hate it.

[sylas · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really liked this book in college, but the truth is that Derrick Jensen is a terrible person -- and if you're looking for a deep thinker worth following, he's not it. I apologize for my formerly glowing review. It's retracted.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh man, we are so totally fucked. “The Culture of Control” isn’t on the horizon, it is here, and Jensen and Draffan aren’t so much warning us as setting the jumper cables to our brains trying to shock us into resistance. While ostensibly a look at wide-spreading tentacles of surveillance used by governments and corporations, they use this as another platform from which they explicate and condemn modern civilization—using the Panopticon, early prison design as a touchstone metaphor. Frightening, assuredly, but if the extinction of species and devastating wars aren’t enough to arouse the indignation and rebellion of citizens, I doubt that the lengths the government goes to spy on us will prompt them. Still, you should read it. I will note that, in this book, Jensen is harsher than usual with the reader: employing a tsk, tsk coercion of guilt. Maybe all of us need it, but it is a departure from his usual empathy recognizing that we’re all complicit and damaged. By no means does he excuse people’s fucked up beliefs, choices, and actions, but in this book there isn’t a lot of wiggle room. Good or bad, depending on your own situation.

[Py · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book a couple of years ago and couldn't get passed the first chapter because I found it so terrifying. Now was totally the right time for me to read it. Although at times the book was quite 'facty' and hard to read I found it really interesting and a very worthwhile critique of science. Having read quite alot of Jensen there is an amount of repetition but I think he uses this well to get certain points across and there's some things that he says in each of his books to ensure that as many people as possible know them.

Overall I think this book is quite important and well worth reading.

[Nate Jordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our modern-day Thoreau once again delivers us cautionary advice and uncommon wisdom by looking at our cultural machinations and manifestations of paranoia, greed, power, and control run amok in our global society. Welcome to the Machine challenges our submission to the institutions and technologies built to rob us of all that makes us human--our connection to the land, our kinship with one another, our place in the living world.

[Laura Isabelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

didn't really finish this one. it is very upsetting, but very true. i actually spent about two hours one evening referencing all of his sources because i couldn't believe what I was reading about the technology that was being developed under our US govt. I have seen the technology that he wrote about being released in the years since this book came out. it will take courage of heart to read through this and I have never seen the world in the same way.

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book fortuitously based off the title and cover while perusing amazon late one night. Having no past experience with the author, or really any idea what I was getting into, I almost regret buying the book - yet it receives a five-star rating. All I care to say reviewing the book is this: Hands down the scariest book I have ever read.

[Get X Serious · Rating 3 out of 5]

We live in the panopticon.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this concurrently with THE TRAVELER by John Twelve Hawks.

[Richard Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maddening, enlightening, frightening.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jensesn gets philosophical on the fundamental reasons why this culture seems hell bent on control, and how that effects science, technology and even our thoughts. a great book.

[Leo · Rating 2 out of 5]

So the overall theme of the book was translating information. I appreciated the insights, the correlations etc butbit was just too much. The premise for each chapter was just covered in what felt like pointless info. It was hard to stay along. Again hidden with in the info this is a great book just feel that if wmhe were more concise that would have make the book better. I can feel that he is very passionate and was venting, by no regards am I attacking him or the book.

What I'm converting is that there are alot of mental hoops to jump through.

[Adam Ross · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not at all what I was expecting. Jensen is a rabid, foaming at the mouth environmentalist and the book far less academic than I had hoped. It covers common themes in technological development, raising concerns over nanotech, supersoldiers, genetic modification, human experimentation and the culture of psychological control. The first few chapters are really very good, as they focus mostly on these issues and problems. The later two-thirds of the book then simply turns into an all-out assault on every facet of culture as fundamentally irredeemable, exhibiting a revolutionary millennial expectation of societal collapse in the near future. Some of the information was helpful and interesting, but the perspective in which it was set is truly problematic. I've no problem with being environmentally conscious and all that, but not remotely to this extent.

[Jerome · Rating 3 out of 5]

What could have been a great book under the supervision of an (authoritarian?) editor is instead a stream-of-consciousness hodgepodge of reflections on the death of privacy in the name of security. The book begins with a reflection of Foucault's analysis of Bentham's panopticon, which in the authors' view is the model for control in the surveillance society. Unfortunately, this kind of analysis is not sustained, and the book flounders under a string of digressions. This is unfortunate, because I think Jensen has a real critique of the underlying power-structures lurking behind the cameras which is missing from books like David Brin's The Transparent Society.

[James Lamp · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is about exactly what the title suggests-the culture of data gathering, encroachment of rights, surveillance and the science and corporate interests behind it all. It explores such things as RFID chips, biometrics, the ubiquitous use of cameras in some industrialized nations and a variety of other topics. It's a vehement book and sometimes a little over the top in stressing the dangers of all these things, but that's by design, I'm sure. Interesting read. Bear in mind that this book is much more technical and statistics laden than any other Jensen book. So don't look for his usual flowing, insightful narrative here as much.

[J. Harding · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a fan of Jensen, but this book was more a chore to read than many of his other books; this is also a co-authored book and that might be the difference. His Endgame books and What We Leave Behind were so good my brain melted; this book didn't have the same
affect as the others, for me.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would stick with Jensen's more popular books. While government preasure and information gather is an important topic Jensen takes it too far. This has to be the least academic of his books. Many of his comparisons seem fanciful.

Jensen simply tried too hard in this book.

[fire_on_the_mountain · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe some people are able to get down with Jensen's schtick. I can't. He takes something that is serious-- the pervasiveness of technology and social control-- and wastes all that potential on hyperbole and unhinged complaint. It is incredibly un-academic. I recommend this to no one.

[Charlene]

TBR as soon as it arrives via mail order

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

there's some interesting stuff here, but it'd be better to just skip it and stick to Jensen's central trilogy (Language Older Than Words, Culture Of Make Believe, and Endgame)

[tanikota · Rating 4 out of 5]

learn more about technology, system, pentagon...and exit [if you can]. Those who despised control in all its forms - read it!

[(unknown) · Rating 4 out of 5]

i'm really not near paranoid *enough*.

[Chalan Moon · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are plenty of reasons to be horrified by the conducts of our government. This book almost makes it seem like you could invents stuff and be right.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amazing research, but doesn't exactly leave you with much promise for the future.

[Maxim · Rating 1 out of 5]

he succeeds in creating a black and white picture of power.

[Phil (Theophilus) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of your enslavement by Big Biz & Big Government.