Sarah Jeong Quotes

Representation is a sort of surveillance.

A real subjection is born mechanically from a fictitious relation [...] He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribed in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.

If those in charge of our society – politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television – can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.

The fear tactic is a tactic that's used by people who want to maintain control, and it's very effective.

When 9/11 happened, it changed things overnight, giving the biggest shock treatment to individual agency. People in the U.S., the absolute stronghold of individualism and libertarianism, had to give up many cherished freedoms and privacies in exchange for the promise of public safety.

Men are more ready to offend one who desires to be beloved than one who wishes to be feared.

We should not be comfortable or content in a society where the only way to remain free of surveillance and repression is if we make ourselves as unthreatning, passive, and compliant as possible.

The garb of religion is the best cloak for power.

You can never know what is and what is not powerful, but you can always find out what the powerful people are scared of. A state like China looks so powerful, but they are so scared of the Internet, so the Internet is more powerful than them.

The 'Enlightenment', which discovered the liberties, also invented the disciplines.

In the eyes of authority - and maybe rightly so - nothing looks more like a terrorist than the ordinary man.

Our society is not one of spectacle but of surveillance.

Guilt was the grease in which the wheels of the authority turned.

Stop being frightened. You only see a monster because they want you to see monsters everywhere. They've conditioned you to look for monsters in every shadow, every coat hung on every door. As long as we keep seeing monsters, we'll continue to need protection and that's how other people get to control our lives.

Obedience simulates subordination as fear of the police simulates honesty.

... privacy is ... connected to a politics of domination.

The Latin motto over Poindexter's new Pentagon office reads Scientia Est Potentia - "knowledge is power." Exactly: the government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you.

The prevailing move in American society to a permanent war status does more than promote a set of unifying symbols that embrace a survival of the fittest ethic, promoting conformity over dissent, the strong over the weak, and fear over responsibility, it also gives rise to what David Graeber has called a "language of command" in which violence becomes the most important element of power and mediating force in shaping social relationships.

In real life, what scares me is politicians, corporations and people that think they know what the world should be.

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live-did live, from habit that became instinct-in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

It's very tough to get yourself around the idea that there could be a mechanism being used or abused to restrict and alter the society in which we live.

Everyone, especially minorities of race and ethnicity, now live under a surveillance panoptican.

People only respond to fear.

It's better to be loved than feared, but if you can't be loved, then fear will do.-Dino quoting Machiavelli

Now you are no longer a giggling child, smiling at whoever comes along. You are a woman with power. Learn to control your smile, and you can control what men will think about you.