In the 21st century we are surrounded by technology, and as a teacher I am constantly policing it in the classroom.
Students are taking unsanctioned photos of other students, or unsanctioned videos which I then ensure are deleted. Of course, there are times when I as the teacher, become the subject of the videos and this can lead to even more serious ramifications for the students doing the filming.
New technology allows new ways to film and photograph people – apparently there are even glasses people can wear these days that are secretly filming people without their knowing – the thought of it! However, constant surveillance of others is nothing new.
The panopticon prison designed by philosopher, Jeremy Betham provides an architectural structure in which it is possible to watch another person all the time, regardless of whether they are actually being watched or not. The very fact that they might be aims to engender fear in the subject and cause them to act as though they are being watched constantly.
In the 20th century the psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan reimagined Freud’s trinity of the psyche into the ‘imaginary’, the ‘symbolic’ and the ‘real’ as a developmental trajectory. Apparently the first stage, the ‘imaginary’ is one in which a mirror supplies us with the ‘signified’ self and we as a baby are the ‘signifier’.
The ‘symbolic’ stage represents all the social structures into which a person is born. Now the interesting thing here is that apparently a male can escape from the ‘imaginary’ stage into the ‘symbolic’ because of a certain appendage he has that the woman does not.
(Why the womb is not a signifier, I do not know)
But at any rate, this allows the male to resolve his ‘murderous conflict’. According to Lacan we are all living with a ‘murderous conflict’ but the woman cannot escape it. As a woman, Lacan states that she can only ever remain as an imaginary being, always an outcast or an ‘other’.
Or in other words, she is forever being watched, under surveillance and unable to create her own meaning and representation. So says, Lacan.
But is that the reality?
Well, even in Lacan’s post-modern thinking, it doesn’t make sense. Because in structuralism, meaning is not created as an independent representation, but is part of a system. That system produces meaning, the world and the possibility of the subject.
This possibility means that identity is a therefore a construction, and not a fixed reality. This means that a ‘fiction of the self’ – Lacan’s ideas – can be used as a weapon.
And anyone, even a woman under surveillance, can create a fiction of the self.
Fictions or ‘Storying’ is big in our 21st century culture. We can craft stories to shape and represent anything in anyway we like. Sometimes this is harmless. Sometimes it is not.
When we (to use it as a verb) ‘story’ incorrectly with the Bible it is a major problem. For then we give people a false gospel and teach people something which is not the truth at all. This has eternal ramifications. This is a ‘heaven and hell thing’ and no laughing matter.
We can also story incorrectly with our own identities in various contexts including the church. People can pretend to be anything or anyone they want to be within the church, in order to gain power, wealth, influence and adoration.
This is nothing new. The apostle, Paul encountered it in a massive way in the ancient Corinthian church. But he wasn’t deterred:
And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.
And what will their end be? Nothingness or negation as some philosophies claim?
In Lacan (and Freud’s) male theories of sexuality, they simply cannot account for women in any other way than as a negative, imaginary and incomplete being. An empty signifier. In Lacan’s mind ‘woman is the sex which isn’t one’. Such linguistics makes it possible to entirely reject the category of ‘woman’ and claim it does not exist.
‘She’ thus becomes a nobody.
This is the aim of some today. But as the ancient Greeks believed – even the nothingness is a something if it can be conceived of in the mind.
When it comes to heaven and hell, Christianity doesn’t agree with either philosophy but it can be understood in relation to both.
Hell is real – not a nothingness, nor an imaginary or symbolic state – but real.
It is not a fiction. It is real.
When Christians talk about hell they are not joking. Talking of hell is not some prank that teenagers might pull when on school camp – filming someone snoring in their sleep, putting shaving cream in their sleeping bag, or stealing their hot water bottle from the bathroom (shock horror!). Kids will be kids.
As much as we continue moving into an increasingly technology driven world, there is much that stays the same (as I said, kids will always be kids). Yes, surveillance is all around us, and I am conscious that anything I put online can easily be found by anyone who wants to know more about me, my life experiences and the people that I write and talk about online. Anyone can find it if they want to – even the police. So I have to carefully craft what I put online.
But surveillance is nothing new. And storytelling is as ancient as the first society.
And heaven and hell are eternal.
Yours telling her story,
Alison
NB. I love how in this image it’s unclear who is doing the watching… 😉
