In a controlled world, where is the freedom of conscience?

In a controlled world, where is the freedom of conscience?

The political use of digital gadgets may have the best intentions in the world, but the fact remains that technological tools are by nature a means for surveillance and control. What is being resisted in France needs to be resisted everywhere!

The address of the President of France on 12 July 2021, announcing progress in the order of compulsory vaccination for carers and certain other professions, will undoubtedly mark a turning point in the exercise of power. Although duly vaccinated myself (two doses of Moderna), I note that we are witnessing a form of authoritarian drift of states under the influence of digital technologies. This trend is not without questioning, if not without worrying. The exercise of power finds in the new digital tools a staggering power of control and surveillance of populations. The aim here is to generate a "health pass" allowing the resumption of a "normal" life. More quite so "normal", since a life now under increased control. Invoking the protection of populations, the tool turns around as a means of observation. Even indirectly, it will make it possible to follow his opposition, to reduce or neutralize his contestation. There was already talk of "sanctions" in this speech with an abnormally martial tone.

Surveillance liberalism

Emmanuel Macron has done more than perform an act of authority to propose a life "under Covid", he has brought France into the era of a new and paradoxical liberalism: surveillance liberalism. It thus frees the Member States from a crucial prohibition, that of mass surveillance of populations. Massive meaning individual. If the President decides what will be legal, it is up to the citizens to think about what is legitimate. The next elections will benefit from investing these subjects.

Between the benefit of short-term vaccination and its legal obligation on pain of social exclusion, the already weak voice of conscience has definitely died down.

Like a coming-out, the President reveals the hidden side of all power. He brought us into the era of governance through control. The requirement of biological vaccination is the pretext for digital control. The individuals are now traced and coded in a “QR code”. This recourse to authority to obtain vaccination and subjugate the population will soon show that the benefit of individual biological protection will not carry a real benefit of social ethics for a common world. On the contrary. There will soon be a fundamental antinomy between digital and freedom, just as there is already an antinomy between digital and equality. This is how the antinomy between digital and fraternity appears. Political recourse to digital tools may have the best intentions in the world, but the fact remains that the technological tool is by nature a tool for measurement and control. The economic sphere seizes the measurements (data) and transforms them into money, this is the "data economy", while the political sphere increases its power through the capacities of surveillance and control.

The Elimination of individual conscience?

It is always very difficult for the powers that be and their leaders to resist the trumps of control, even if they are not in any way, subjectively, dictators. Digital combines the major strengths of the appearance of invisible surveillance and infallible tracking. See everything without being seen. Thus, the use of force of authority contains in itself evidence of weakness of authority. The freedom, the responsibility of each and the effort of conviction are considered too uncertain or negligible in the face of the authority of power, which now intends to control and govern through technical regulation using digital tools.

The last word goes to fatum ("destiny"), by which everyone clears customs at low prices.

"There's no other choice..., that's it or...” Fate then assumes the ultimate responsibility for the corruption of social life. Between the benefit of short-term vaccination and its legal obligation on pain of social exclusion, the already tenuous voice of conscience has finally fallen silent. It is indeed the conscience that seems to be the enemy to be controlled, since it is from it alone that the best comes and that the worst is avoided. It is therefore necessary to restore to the French the freedom of conscience, and mobilize it more than ever so that France remains the nation whose heart beats the pulsations of freedom, equality and fraternity.

• Laurent Stalla-Bourdillon - Published on 17/07/21 on Aleteia