Postscript on the Societies of Control

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Gilles Deleuze
October, Vol. 59. (Winter, 1992), pp. 3-7.
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This short text presents an provactive historical thesis: older forms of social organization and techniques for controlling individuals within society, based in discrete spaces of enclosure like the school and the factory, are being dissolved and replaced by new “ultra rapid” forms of “free floating control.”

The text was published in 1990. The social and political transition it attempted to describe has perhaps already come to pass. Or it never fully did. In either case, the essay might provide us with some useful and interesting concepts with which to concretely and imaginatively get a theoretical grasp of our contemporary social life as it is mediated and dominated by technology.

Produce a piece of writing in response to the text. Imagine contemporary examples of social control mechanisms, along the wild lines Deleuze sketches. What are some “ultrarapid forms of free-floating control” that you experience within school, work, design, family, social life? Sample and expand on one of Deleuze’s instances for this new form of social control: code, pharmaceuticals, genetic engineering, contests, “highly comic group sessions”, financialization, the corporation, surfing, viruses..

Start with a particular sentence or short passage in the text and elaborate it in your writing, with reference to a concrete example taken from contemporary life. Test the theory, as you understand it, with the example. Allow yourself to be caught up in the paranoid sci-fi vibe of the essay, but also aim for specificity in describing a particular technique of control. You might think about the world of design as a scene of social control, or maybe school or economic life. You might write in a narrative mode, and tell a story, or write something more expository and focused in an analysis and engagement with the text. Or both.

Print three copies of the writing on a single letter size sheet.