Culture

Reading Frankenstein: Chapter 6

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ Leave a comment

Earlier posts in this series: Walton’s Letters, Chapters 1 & 2, Chapters 3 & 4, Chapter 5. 

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Last month, in the Guardian’s “My Hero” series, Neil Gaiman chose to write about Mary Shelley. His brief reflections open by recalling the circumstances that led to the writing of Frankenstein: “The cold, wet summer of 1816, a night of ghost stories and a challenge allowed a young woman to delineate the darkness, and give us a way of looking at the world.” He concludes as follows:

“The glittering promise of science, offering life and miracles, and the nameless creature in the shadows, monster and miracle all in one, back from the dead, needing knowledge and love but able, in the end, only to destroy … it was Mary Shelley’s gift to us, and we would be infinitely poorer without it.”

I like this idea of the nameless creature as Shelley’s gift to us. But what exactly is the nature of this gift? I would suggest that what Shelley has bequeathed to us is nothing less than the gift of thought. The creature is, as I see it, what some have called an object to think with, only it is an object of the imagination. It materializes, in our mind’s eye, the power conferred upon us by our knowledge, and it does so that we might think about what we can do.

At the end of her Introduction to Evocative Objects: Things We Think With, Sherry Turkle writes,

“Once we see life through the cyborg prism, becoming one with a machine is reduced to a technical problem of finding the right operating system to make it (that is, us) run smoothly. When we live with implanted chips, we will be on a different footing in our relationships with computers. When we share other people’s tissue and genetic material, we will be on a different footing with the bodies of others. Our theories tell us stories about the objects of our lives. As we begin to live with objects that challenge the boundaries between the born and created and between humans and everything else, we will need to tell ourselves different stories.”

It seems to me that, given the realities Turkle anticipates, Frankenstein is exactly the story we need. It helps us think about what we make, but primarily by helping us think about ourselves. The creature in this story is nothing if not a mirror on which we might see ourselves. Of course, so too is Frankenstein.

The sixth chapter of Shelley’s novel opens with a letter from Elizabeth. It’s worth noting, briefly, the multiple layers of narration at this point in the story. Ostensibly, we are reading Elizabeth’s words to Frankenstein relayed by Frankenstein to Walton, who is in turn relaying them to his sister, Margaret. It’s easy to lose sight of this, but keeping this framework in mind, I think, is key to interpreting Frankenstein’s self-representation. It helps us sustain a healthy suspicion of Frankenstein’s framing of the events and, by extension, to also cast a critical eye on the rationalizations and justifications we offer for our own actions and motives.

Elizabeth’s letter functions chiefly to supply details that will render subsequent events more meaningful. We learn more, for instance, about the other Frankenstein siblings, the older Ernest and the younger William. We learn as well about Justine Moritz, a longstanding household servant in the Frankenstein household, who was beloved by all of the family.

There’s a curious digression in Elizabeth’s rehearsal of Justine’s history in which she notes how the nature of Swiss political culture has “produced simpler and happier manners than those which prevail in the great monarchies that surround it.” This is to assure us of Justine’s place in the family: “A servant in Geneva,” we are assured, “does not mean the same thing as a servant in France and England. Justine, thus received in our family, learned the duties of a servant; a condition which, in our fortunate country, does not include the idea of ignorance, and a sacrifice of the dignity of a human being.”

Elizabeth goes on to speak glowingly of Ernest and, especially, of “little darling William.” All of this, of course, particularly in light of Frankenstein’s earlier claim to have lost everything, strikes us as preparation for a great tragedy.

The remainder of the chapter narrates Frankenstein’s continued recovery, which is sustained almost entirely by Henry Clerval’s loving attention. It was Clerval, Frankenstein tells us, who “called forth the better feelings of my heart; he again taught me to love the aspect of nature, and the cheerful faces of children.” Once again, well-being is presented as a kind of equilibrium between our urge to know and to do, on the one hand, and our acceptance of the world as a gift on the other. And, once again, this equilibrium is the product of friendship. Friendship is a kind of anchor that keeps us from sinking into the maelstrom of self-absorption, a victim of virtues which, unregulated, become our vices. Clerval’s particular influence on Frankenstein was twofold: he brought Frankenstein out of himself into the world, and he brought the liberal arts to bear on a scientific imagination.

But all is not well, of course. Once released into the world, our action does not simply dissipate into nothingness, whatever we might wish. The creature is still at large, and Frankenstein’s greater sin is his failure to accept responsibility for what he has made. This refusal of responsibility is reflected in the disgust Frankenstein had now developed toward his former passion: “I had conceived a violent antipathy even to the name of natural philosophy.” Just seeing the implements of his former work induced “the agony of my nervous symptoms.” While introducing Clerval to his professors, Frankenstein would become visibly agitated when they praised his talent and skill.

Shelley paints Frankenstein as a man who is racked by guilt but also unwilling to confront it. His “violent antipathy ” toward what he had previously pursued with obsessive zeal suggests profound shame and a deep desire to burry and repress his transgression. More worrisome still is his decision to keep knowledge of the creature secret, even from Clerval. It’s more than a little ironic that the man who would rip open nature’s secrets now carefully guards his own.

Nothing good follows from Frankenstein’s refusal of responsibility, only an accumulation of disasters. The question this leaves us with is this: What would it mean for us to accept responsibility for what we make and for what we do with what is made for us? Makers and users both, it seems that we are, like Frankenstein, hell-bent on refusing responsibility for what we do with the technologies that have been furnished for us. It would seem, in fact, that the general tendency of our making is to create conditions that undermine the possibility of either thoughtfulness or responsibility. Shelley’s story, however, her gift to us, provokes our thinking and may even rekindle our sense of moral responsibility.

Reading Frankenstein: Chapter 5

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ 4 Comments

Earlier posts in this series: Walton’s Letters, Chapters 1 & 2, Chapters 3 & 4. 

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In kindly plugging this series of posts on Twitter, Matt Thomas noted of Frankenstein that it was “still the scariest story ever, because it’s us.” That’s well put. It becomes more apparent as the story progresses, but Shelley persistently invites us to contemplate the monstrosity that is endemic to human nature. I’m not sure that this aspect of the story survives in most of the modern re-tellings of the story, re-tellings that continue to get churned-out at an impressive clip.

Daniel Radcliffe, who will be starring as Igor in a film version due out next October, recently suggested, to the producer’s dismay apparently, that the film should be marketed with the the following tag line, “If you loved the book, you’ll hate the movie.” This was his way of getting at the fact that this was an edgier, more modern rendering of the storyline. The Radcliffe project apparently focuses on the relationship between Igor and Frankenstein. Of course, I’m tempted to think that the edgy thing to do might be to produce a film that was, in fact, more faithful to the novel.

Relatedly, I’d like to know, if any of you could supply the answer, when the Igor character gets inserted into the Frankenstein mythos. In the cultural imagination, Igor is always a part of the story, but he is non-existent in Shelley’s novel. According to IMDB, the earliest instance of the character in film was in 1939 when he was played by Bela Lugosi in The Son of Frankenstein, which was part of the Boris Karloff Frankenstein franchise.

In any case, popular interest in Frankenstein is obviously alive and well. Along with the forthcoming film starring Radcliffe, there’s this year’s I, Frankenstein, another fanciful story in which the Monster, named Adam, becomes embroiled in an age-old battle between angels and demons. A comment on the last post also alerted me to a London stage production of Frankenstein starring the ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch. It first ran in 2011 and, just a few days ago, began a third encore run.

Our monsters always tells us something about ourselves and the prevailing cultural zeitgeist. I wonder, then, what we might make of this apparent revival of the Frankenstein myth. Perhaps that’s a question we can return to after we wrap up these posts. Of course, if you have any insights on the matter, feel free to share them below. But now, back to the text, beginning with chapter five.

For all of the understandable cinematic focus on the moment of creation, it is narrated by Shelley almost in passing and in all of one small paragraph. And in the novel, lightning plays no role in the animation of the built corpse (although there was a nod to galvanism earlier in the story). All we are told is that Frankenstein gathered “the instruments of life” around himself so that he

“might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.”

But rather than rejoice at the realization of his life’s ambition, Frankenstein is immediately revolted by what he has made. The “creature” quickly becomes “the wretch.” He had carefully selected parts that would render his creation beautiful–“his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness”–but these same features now served only to amplify the hideousness of the creature by contrast with his “watery eyes,” “shrivelled complexion,” and “straight black lips.”

The immediacy with which Frankenstein turns on the creature, whose creation had consumed nearly two years of fanatical effort, is stunning. It’s presented to us as a wholly visceral response, as if the grotesqueness was wholly a function of movement. When the body was inert, the hideousness was latent; once it was animated, hideousness was all that Frankenstein could perceive.

“Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created,” he remembers, “I rushed out of the room, and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep.”

So much of what follows hinges on this decisive moment, and yet it is so fleeting and thoughtless, by which mean devoid of reflection, strictly visceral (at least as Frankenstein tells it). It is, from one angle, an aesthetic response. This is interesting in light of the earlier characterizations of Victor, Elizabeth, and Henry Clerval. Characterizations that led me to suggest that the three represented the aspects of the soul in ancient Greek thought–Logos, Eros, and Thumos, respectively–and that Elizabeth’s influence seemed to be definitive.

I’d written that it was as if Shelley, contra Plato, had wanted us to see Eros and not Logos as the facet of the soul that best guides moral action. But perhaps I lost sight of the narrator’s voice. It is Victor, after all, who so characterized himself and his two friends. But Shelley’s way of framing the story through Walton’s account constantly invites us to consider whether we should read Victor’s narrative sympathetically or rather against the grain of Victor’s telling. Perhaps some combination of the two is the best approach.

In any case, it would seem that, if we are to hold Victor morally responsible for his abandonment of the creature, it was his aesthetic sense that led him astray. Although, having said that, perhaps we can understand Victor’s fault in a threefold manner that corresponds to Logos, Eros, and Thumos. It’s entirely possible that I’m pushing this framework beyond reasonable measure, but here is what I’m just now thinking. Victor’s faults are, first, the unhinged pursuit of the mysteries of life and the animation of the creature; second, the abandonment of the creature; and, lastly, his dogged determination to see the creature dead. Consider how these correspond to Logos, Eros, and Thumos. The first fault is an abuse of the virtue of reason. The second is grounded in an aesthetic reaction to ugliness. The last can be read as a misguided, perhaps even immoral, but “spirited” pursuit of justice. This suggests again Shelley’s tragic vision: the very faculties that constitute our humanity also produce our inhumanity.

There is, returning to the narrative, a certain implausibility to Frankenstein’s decision simply to return to his bedroom and try to sleep off the disaster, unless, of course, we read it as the irrationality brought about by shock. When he finally does fall asleep, he is plagued by macabre dreams in which he kisses Elizabeth’s lips only to see them take on the “hue of death” and have her suddenly turn into the corpse of his dead mother. He then wakes up terrified only to see “the wretch” pulling back the curtains of the bed and staring at him. He “muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks.” This is surely one of the more chilling sequences in the story.

Again, Frankenstein flees from his creation, and, again, it is due to the creature’s physical appearance: “I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.”

In the morning, he comes upon his dear friend, Henry Clerval, just as he disembarks from a carriage. Henry had finally convinced his merchant father to allow him to pursue a liberal arts education and he had come to study at Ingolstadt with Victor. Frankenstein is relieved at the sight of his friend, and Henry is overjoyed. Very quickly, however, it becomes obvious to Henry that not all is well with his friend. Frankenstein approaches his living quarters in fear, but the creature, or “my enemy” is he now refers to it, is nowhere to be found.

Shortly thereafter, Victor descends into a fit of hysteria, “I jumped over chairs, clapped my hands, and laughed aloud.” Henry is taken aback. Then Victor imagines that the creature can hear him. When Henry asks him what is wrong, Victor insists, “Do not ask me […] he can tell.–Oh, save me! save me!”

This was the beginning of a period of several months during which Henry nursed his friend back to good health. In recalling this period of time, Victor marks his progress by noting that he slowly began to take note of the beauty of external objects. He notes the beauties of the season once again and felt the “sentiments of joy and affection revive” within him.

The chapter ends with Clerval asking to speak to Victor “on one subject.” This unnerves Victor; he suspects Clerval will finally ask about the creature. But the one subject turns out to be Victor’s family. Henry thinks it’s time for Victor to write to his family. Victor is relieved and more than happy to comply. Then Henry hands him a letter from Elizabeth, and with that the chapter ends.

Reading Frankenstein: Chapters 1 and 2

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ 1 Comment

When I began writing the first Reading Frankenstein post, I did not anticipate putting down nearly 2,000 words. I’m pretty sure that’s not the optimal length for this sort of exercise. My goal moving forward will be to take on two chapters per post and keep each post as close to 1,000 words as possible. We’ll see how that goes. Now on to chapter one.

With the first chapter the role of the narrator is handed over to Victor Frankenstein, who begins his story by telling of his charmed childhood. We learn that both his father and mother were saintly human beings of outstanding virtue. Frankenstein’s mother, Caroline, was the daughter of a man named Beaufort, whom Frankenstein’s father loved “with the truest friendship.” Unfortunately, Beaufort sank into poverty, and, despite his daughter’s best efforts, died destitute and despairing. Frankenstein’s father tracked the family down and rescued Caroline from her impoverished life. Two years later they married.

This little vignette, one of many such personal histories scattered throughout the novel, touches again on the theme of friendship already introduced in Walton’s letters. The vignette is also a fall narrative, i.e., it describes someone’s fall from a position of prestige or wealth or honor and the ensuing consequences. It’s a pattern that recurs throughout the story establishing a Fall motif that resonates with the significance of Paradise Lost to the story. As of yet, I’m not sure what more to make of it.

Frankenstein then goes on to describe the doting love his parents lavish upon him: “I was their plaything and their idol, and something better–their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed upon them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me.” Of course, this amounts to a painful indictment of Frankenstein’s own dereliction of duty toward his own creation, but it is not at all clear that Frankenstein himself registers this fact. It’s thus poignantly ironic when Frankenstein speaks of his parents’ “deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life.” This all prepares us to later hear with sympathy the Monster’s justification of his actions on the grounds of his abandonment and rejection by Frankenstein. Frankenstein here appears to be testifying as a witness against himself.

This first chapter concludes with the introduction of Elizabeth Lavenza. Like Caroline Beaufort, Elizabeth’s father, an Italian solider, experiences a fall; he is either dead or languishing away in an Austrian prison. She was entrusted to the care of a family who themselves had fallen on hard times. Frankenstein’s mother entered the home of this poor family in an act of charity, and she was immediately captivated by Elizabeth’s radiant beauty. Shelley’s characters are consistently described rather lavishly, some might say melodramatically. Perhaps this reflects a certain writerly immaturity, Shelley was not yet twenty when the novel was complete. Or it may by a conscious effort to cast her characters as ideal types; more on that in a moment. With the family’s blessing, Caroline takes Elizabeth home with her, and she becomes little Victor’s “beautiful and adored companion.”

In the second chapter, Frankenstein goes on to describe the deep bond he forms with Elizabeth as the two, about a year apart in age, grow up together. “Harmony was the soul of our companionship,” he explains. As he tells us of the nature of their relationship, it’s clear that “harmony” was a precise and apt word choice: they complemented one another. Although, more to the point, it was to Elizabeth that Frankenstein ascribed a kind of controlling influence. It doesn’t appear that Elizabeth derived a similar effect from Victor. This dynamic was anticipated in Walton’s desire, expressed in a letter to his sister, to find a friend who would “regulate” his mind.

Victor confesses that, for his part, he was “more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge.” By contrast, “She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets.” And she also found “ample scope for admiration and delight” in the “wondrous scenes that surrounded our Swiss home.” “While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearance of things,” Frankenstein notes, “I delighted in investigating their causes.” Shelley is here setting up a rather conventional dichotomy and trading on a venerable, though minor, motif in Western literature. But that is not to say that it is wholly without merit. We might say that the difference is between perceiving the world as a gift to be delighted in, on the one hand, or, as Frankenstein puts it, “a secret which I desired to divine.”

Later on, a second son is born, and the family settles down in Geneva. Then we are introduced to Henry Clerval, a classmate of Victor’s, who becomes a great friend to both he and Elizabeth. As with Walton, we first learn about Henry’s disposition by learning of the books that shaped his imagination as a child. In Henry’s case, these were “books of chivalry and romance.” We learn as well that Henry “composed heroic songs” and wrote “many a tale of enchantment and knightly adventure.” Etc.

Victor, however, returns to the course of his own interests. He confesses that “neither the structure of languages nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various states, possessed attraction for [him].” It was, rather, “the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn.”

He happily acknowledges that the influence of Elizabeth moderated the more unhealthy tendencies of his temperament, and not only his. Clerval, who “occupied himself … with the moral relation of things” also benefited from Elizabeth’s influence. It was she who “unfolded to him the real loveliness of beneficence, and made the doing good the end and aim of his soaring ambition.”

It would seem, then, that in the characters of Victor, Elizabeth, and Henry, Shelley is offering us ideal types. Victor clearly represents the spirit of the natural sciences, as Shelley understood them, and the pursuit of knowledge more generally. Henry appears to represent what we might call the political sphere. I’m not entirely sure how I would characterize Elizabeth: we may say that she represents the poetic, or simply art perhaps; maybe Nature; beauty or love also come to mind.

In fact, as I think about it, it would seem that the most obvious correspondence is to the three parts of the soul in ancient Greek philosophy: thumos, eros, and logos. Victor corresponds to the logos–roughly speaking, the rational component of the soul that is attuned to Truth. Henry corresponds to thumos, often translated “spiritedness”–the passionate, courageous aspect of the soul attuned to Goodness. And, finally, Elizabeth corresponds to eros–the varied capacity of the soul to love, which is attuned to Beauty. In Plato’s famous formulation, logos or reason, steers the chariot hitched to the unwieldy horses thumos and eros. Through the relationship of these three characters, Shelley seems to be suggesting that it is eros, the soul’s attunement to Beauty as represented by Elizabeth, that ought to be steering the soul. On this reading, the novel can’t be read simplistically as a critique of the natural sciences or the pursuit of knowledge as such. It suggests that the pursuit of knowledge has it’s place but it must be in harmony with thumos and eros, and the primacy of the latter might be the key to achieving that harmony.

Finally, and I’ll try to make this brief, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the sources of Victor’s fascination (or fixation) with the natural sciences, and particularly with the natural sciences conceived as a quest for esoteric knowledge and power. Again, books are to blame, as they were with Walton and Henry. In this case, it is a chance encounter with the writings of the famous Renaissance alchemist and magician, Cornelius Agrippa, that sets the tragic trajectory of Victor’s life. Agrippa leads Victor to the writing of other notables such as Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. He is captivated by their attempts to peer into the deep secrets of the universe, and he has no idea that their work has been roundly discredited. As a result of his reading, Victor “entered with the greatest diligence into the search for the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life,” especially the latter. Echoing Bacon and anticipating the Transhumanists, he declares, “what glory would attend the discovery, if I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!”

With childish vigor and innocence he pursues his studies despite a rebuff from his father, who, taking one look at Agrippa’s book, casually dismisses it as rubbish. Later, when he is about fifteen years old, after watching lightning obliterate an oak tree, he is captivated by a “man of great research in natural philosophy” who, luck would have it, was visiting his family. This man was well-versed in the latest theories of electricity and galvanism, and his ensuing discussion makes Victor question all that he had learned from the alchemists. This leads him to despair of the possibility of scientific knowledge, and he turns to mathematics believing it to be “built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration.”

Despite the joy and tranquility that ensued, Victor’s turn away from the pursuit of the secrets of life would not last. He describes this temporary sobriety as “the last effort made by the spirit of preservation to avert the storm that was even then hanging in the stars, and ready to envelope me.” There’s more than a hint of fatalism in the way that Victor narrates his own story. “Destiny was too potent,” he says, “and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction.”

That destiny begins to unfold in the next chapter, which we’ll look at in the next day or two.

Reading Frankenstein

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ 3 Comments

For some time now I’ve wanted to write about Frankenstein. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s classic tale, first published in 1818, has long struck me as one of those works whose brilliance has been dulled by familiarity (and, more often than not, a familiarity stemming not from the novel itself but from its myriad pop cultural incarnations). It is, to speak anachronistically, a story that explores technology as force in human affairs, and it is typically read as a cautionary tale. It is that, to be sure, but I think that leaving it there sells the novel considerably short.

I’ve failed, however, to follow through on the impulse to write about the story mostly because the task grew larger and larger the more I thought about it, and it was, consequently, easier to put it off than to begin it. But now, as I’m reading the novel again, I’ve decided to make a go of it. Rather than write a single post on Frankenstein, however, I’ve decided (naturally) to blog through my reading of it.

What I’m envisioning is a series of posts that will each take a handful of chapters under consideration (there are 24 altogether, not counting the letters that frame the story at the outset). With each post I’m intending mostly to think with the novel as it were, chiefly by articulating my understanding of the multiple threads that Shelley weaves together throughout the story. And, of course, I invite you to think along with me and make it a conversation if your so inclined.

I’m not sure what kind of pace I’m going to be able to keep up, but I hope to wrap up the posts within three weeks or so. If you don’t own a copy of the book, Project Gutenberg offers the novel in a variety of formats. Sometime tomorrow (Monday) I’ll kick things off with the first post on the letters that frame the story of Victor Frankenstein and his creation. The letters are written by a man named Robert Walton, who is leading an expedition to the North Pole, to his sister. The narration of the story is then passed off to Victor Frankenstein, who tells his story to Walton. There is later another shift at the heart of the novel as the monster tells Frankenstein about his experience. Frankenstein then assumes control of the narrative again, and finally it passes once more to Walton.

A couple of disclaimers: First, I am not a literary critic by training, so take what ensues as the scribblings of an interested amateur. Secondly, I am not familiar, at least not in any serious way, with the secondary literature on either Shelley or her novel. If you do want a little background on Shelley’s life, you might consider the biographical essay at the Poetry Foundation. Finally, I won’t be making any serious effort to avoid spoilers as I write about the story.

More to come.

Thinking About Big Data

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ 3 Comments

I want to pass on to you three pieces on what has come to be known as Big Data, a diverse set of practices enabled by the power of modern computing to accumulate and process massive amounts of data. The first piece, “View from Nowhere,” is by Nathan Jurgenson. Jurgenson argues that the aspirations attached to Big Data, particularly in the realm of human affairs, amounts to a revival of Positivism:

“The rationalist fantasy that enough data can be collected with the ‘right’ methodology to provide an objective and disinterested picture of reality is an old and familiar one: positivism. This is the understanding that the social world can be known and explained from a value-neutral, transcendent view from nowhere in particular.”

Jurgenson goes on to challenge these positivist assumptions through a critical reading of OkCupid CEO Christian Rudder’s new book Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking).

The second piece is an op-ed in the NY Times by Frank Pasquale, “The Dark Market for Personal Data.” Pasquale considers the risks to privacy associated with gathering and selling of personal information by companies equipped to mine and package such data. Pasquale concludes,

“We need regulation to help consumers recognize the perils of the new information landscape without being overwhelmed with data. The right to be notified about the use of one’s data and the right to challenge and correct errors is fundamental. Without these protections, we’ll continue to be judged by a big-data Star Chamber of unaccountable decision makers using questionable sources.”

Finally, here is a journal article, “Obscurity and Privacy,” by Evan Selinger and Woodrow Hartzog. Selinger and Hartzog offer obscurity as an explanatory concept to help clarify our thinking about the sorts of issues that usually get lumped together as matters of privacy. Privacy, however, may not be a sufficiently robust concept to meet the challenges posed by Big Data.

“Obscurity identifies some of the fundamental ways information can be obtained or kept out of reach, correctly interpreted or misunderstood. Appeals to obscurity can generate explanatory power, clarifying how advances in the sciences of data collection and analysis, innovation in domains related to information and communication technology, and changes to social norms can alter the privacy landscape and give rise to three core problems: 1) new breaches of etiquette, 2) new privacy interests, and 3) new privacy harms.”

In each of these areas, obscurity names the relative confidence individuals can have that the data trail they leave behind as a matter of course will not be readily accessible:

“When information is hard to understand, the only people who will grasp it are those with sufficient motivation to push past the layer of opacity protecting it. Sense-making processes of interpretation are required to understand what is communicated and, if applicable, whom the communications concerns. If the hermeneutic challenge is too steep, the person attempting to decipher the content can come to faulty conclusions, or grow frustrated and give up the detective work. In the latter case, effort becomes a deterrent, just like in instances where information is not readily available.”

Big Data practices have made it increasingly difficult to achieve this relative obscurity thus posing a novel set social and personal challenges. For example, the risks Pasquale identifies in his op-ed may be understood as risks that follow from a loss of obscurity. Read the whole piece for a better understanding of these challenges. In fact, be sure to read all three pieces. Jurgenson, Selinger, and Pasquale are among our most thoughtful guides in these matters.

Allow me to wrap this post up with a couple of additional observations. Returning to Jurgenson’s thesis about Big Data–that Big Data is a neo-Positivist ideology–I’m reminded that positivist sociology, or social physics, was premised on the assumption that the social realm operated in predictable law-like fashion, much as the natural world operated according to the Newtonian world picture. In other words, human action was, at root, rational and thus predictable. The early twentieth century profoundly challenged this confidence in human rationality. Think, for instance, of the carnage of the Great War and Freudianism. Suddenly, humanity seemed less rational and, consequently, the prospect of uncovering law-like principles of human society must have seemed far more implausible. Interestingly, this irrationality preserved our humanity, insofar as our humanity was understood to consist of an irreducible spontaneity, freedom, and unpredictability. In other words, so long as the Other against which our humanity was defined was the Machine.

If Big Data is neo-Positivist, and I think Jurgenson is certainly on to something with that characterization, it aims to transcend the earlier failure of Comteian Positivism. It acknowledges the irrationality of human behavior, but it construes it, paradoxically, as Predictable Irrationality. In other words, it suggests that we can know what we cannot understand. And this recalls Evgeny Morozov’s critical remarks in “Every Little Byte Counts,”

“The predictive models Tucker celebrates are good at telling us what could happen, but they cannot tell us why. As Tucker himself acknowledges, we can learn that some people are more prone to having flat tires and, by analyzing heaps of data, we can even identify who they are — which might be enough to prevent an accident — but the exact reasons defy us.

Such aversion to understanding causality has a political cost. To apply such logic to more consequential problems — health, education, crime — could bias us into thinking that our problems stem from our own poor choices. This is not very surprising, given that the self-tracking gadget in our hands can only nudge us to change our behavior, not reform society at large. But surely many of the problems that plague our health and educational systems stem from the failures of institutions, not just individuals.”

It also suggests that some of the anxieties associated with Big Data may not be unlike those occasioned by the earlier positivism–they are anxieties about our humanity. If we buy into the story Big Data tells about itself, then it threatens, finally, to make our actions scrutable and predictable, suggesting that we are not as free, independent, spontaneous, or unique as we might imagine ourselves to be.