The Transparent Society

The Transparent Society PDF Author: David Brin
Publisher: Perseus (for Hbg)
ISBN: 0738201448
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

Book Description
Argues that the privacy of individuals actually hampers accountability, which is the foundation of any civilized society and that openness is far more liberating than secrecy

The Transparency Society

The Transparency Society PDF Author: Byung-Chul Han
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 080479751X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 72

Book Description
Transparency is the order of the day. It is a term, a slogan, that dominates public discourse about corruption and freedom of information. Considered crucial to democracy, it touches our political and economic lives as well as our private lives. Anyone can obtain information about anything. Everything—and everyone—has become transparent: unveiled or exposed by the apparatuses that exert a kind of collective control over the post-capitalist world. Yet, transparency has a dark side that, ironically, has everything to do with a lack of mystery, shadow, and nuance. Behind the apparent accessibility of knowledge lies the disappearance of privacy, homogenization, and the collapse of trust. The anxiety to accumulate ever more information does not necessarily produce more knowledge or faith. Technology creates the illusion of total containment and the constant monitoring of information, but what we lack is adequate interpretation of the information. In this manifesto, Byung-Chul Han denounces transparency as a false ideal, the strongest and most pernicious of our contemporary mythologies.

Transparency in Global Change

Transparency in Global Change PDF Author: Burkart Holzner
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 9780822972877
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 412

Book Description
An examination of the quest for information exchange in an increasingly international, open society, Transparency in Global Change discusses the reasons for the recent increase in public desire for transparency and the byproducts this transparency can produce.

Transparency, Society and Subjectivity

Transparency, Society and Subjectivity PDF Author: Emmanuel Alloa
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319771612
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 408

Book Description
This book critically engages with the idea of transparency whose ubiquitous demand stands in stark contrast to its lack of conceptual clarity. The book carefully examines this notion in its own right, traces its emergence in Early Modernity and analyzes its omnipresence in contemporary rhetoric. Today, transparency has become a catchword outplaying other Enlightenment values like empowerment, sincerity and the notion of a public sphere. In a suspicious manner, transparency is entangled in the discourses on power, surveillance, and self-exposure. Bringing together prominent scholars from the emerging field of Critical Transparency Studies, the book offers a map of the various sites at which transparency has become virulent and connects the dots between past and present. By studying its appearances in today’s hyper-mediated economies of information and by linking it back to its historical roots, the book analyzes transparency and its discontents, and scrutinizes the reasons why it has become the imperative of a supposedly post-ideological age.

Transparency and the Open Society

Transparency and the Open Society PDF Author: Taylor, Roger
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1447325362
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 380

Book Description
Using case studies from around the world, Transparency and the open society surveys the adoption of transparency globally, providing an essential framework for assessing its likely performance as a policy and the steps that can be taken to make it more effective.

The Burnout Society

The Burnout Society PDF Author: Byung-Chul Han
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804797501
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 72

Book Description
Our competitive, service-oriented societies are taking a toll on the late-modern individual. Rather than improving life, multitasking, "user-friendly" technology, and the culture of convenience are producing disorders that range from depression to attention deficit disorder to borderline personality disorder. Byung-Chul Han interprets the spreading malaise as an inability to manage negative experiences in an age characterized by excessive positivity and the universal availability of people and goods. Stress and exhaustion are not just personal experiences, but social and historical phenomena as well. Denouncing a world in which every against-the-grain response can lead to further disempowerment, he draws on literature, philosophy, and the social and natural sciences to explore the stakes of sacrificing intermittent intellectual reflection for constant neural connection.

Troubling Transparency

Troubling Transparency PDF Author: David E. Pozen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231545800
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 329

Book Description
Today, transparency is a widely heralded value, and the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is often held up as one of the transparency movement’s canonical achievements. Yet while many view the law as a powerful tool for journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens to pursue the public good, FOIA is beset by massive backlogs, and corporations and the powerful have become adept at using it for their own interests. Close observers of laws like FOIA have begun to question whether these laws interfere with good governance, display a deleterious anti-public-sector bias, or are otherwise inadequate for the twenty-first century’s challenges. Troubling Transparency brings together leading scholars from different disciplines to analyze freedom of information policies in the United States and abroad—how they are working, how they are failing, and how they might be improved. Contributors investigate the creation of FOIA; its day-to-day uses and limitations for the news media and for corporate and citizen requesters; its impact on government agencies; its global influence; recent alternatives to the FOIA model raised by the emergence of “open data” and other approaches to transparency; and the theoretical underpinnings of FOIA and the right to know. In addition to examining the mixed legacy and effectiveness of FOIA, contributors debate how best to move forward to improve access to information and government functioning. Neither romanticizing FOIA nor downplaying its real and symbolic achievements, Troubling Transparency is a timely and comprehensive consideration of laws such as FOIA and the larger project of open government, with wide-ranging lessons for journalism, law, government, and civil society.

The Expulsion of the Other

The Expulsion of the Other PDF Author: Byung-Chul Han
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 150952309X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 100

Book Description
The days of the Other are over in this age of excessive communication, information and consumption. What used to be the Other, be it as friend, as Eros or as hell, is now indistinguishable from the self in our narcissistic desire to assimilate everything and everyone until there are no boundaries left. The result is a 'terror of the Same', lives in which we no longer pursue knowledge, insight and experience but are instead reduced to the echo chambers and illusory encounters offered by social media. In extreme cases, this feeling of disorientation and senselessness is compensated through self-harm, or even harming others through acts of terrorism. Byung-Chul Han argues that our times are characterized not by external repression but by an internal depression, whereby the destructive pressure comes not from the Other but from the self. It is only by returning to a society of listeners and lovers, by acknowledging and desiring the Other, that we can seek to overcome the isolation and suffering caused by this crushing process of total assimilation.

The Liberal War on Transparency

The Liberal War on Transparency PDF Author: Christopher C. Horner
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451694903
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
Hailed by Glenn Beck as a “Watchdog,” bestselling author and legal expert Christopher Horner explains how every citizen can use the Freedom of Information Act to find out what our government is up to. LIBERALS ARE HIDING THE TRUTH FROM YOU. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT, AMERICA? Hailed by Glenn Beck as a “watchdog” and by Rush Limbaugh as a “go-to guy,” bestselling author and attorney Christopher C. Horner is a leader in the fight against liberal tyranny in America—with his requests for information even declared “criminal” by the Obama administration. Revealing explosive new information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and well-placed sources, Horner exposes the tightly kept secret of liberals running our government and schools: a carefully managed war to undermine the taxpayers’ right to see what their government is up to. During his campaign, Barack Obama promised “the most transparent administration in history.” Not only has this proven to be an empty promise, but he and his liberal allies systematically hide their activities from the public. They use private email accounts and computers, avoid creating records, stonewall information requests, and otherwise delay or deny access to information every taxpayer has a right to know. This eye-opening book exposes the White House tricks, tactics, and “tradecraft” now regularly used to keep Americans in the dark. You’ll learn: * Scandalous examples of activist government employee tricks to hide their activities. * How the Obama administration, which leaks sensitive information for political gain (while aggressively prosecuting whistleblowers), deliberately politicized the FOIA process to stonewall legitimate requests for public information. * What the Democrats tried to hide about their crony deals with big business, Solyndra, various liberal initiatives, and UN schemes. * How American colleges and universities bow to radical liberal faculties to hide public records. * How to fight these tactics and make your own FOIA requests to get the information you need—even when the government tries to stop you. This is more than an exposé on the latest Washington cover-up. It is a wake-up call and how-to manual for all Americans to demand transparency from our leaders and defeat the liberal attack on open and honest debate. If you believe in America, you need to fight for your freedoms. You need to take a stand against the Liberal War on Transparency.

The Black Box Society

The Black Box Society PDF Author: Frank Pasquale
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674967100
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 237

Book Description
Every day, corporations are connecting the dots about our personal behavior—silently scrutinizing clues left behind by our work habits and Internet use. But who connects the dots about what firms are doing with all this information? Frank Pasquale exposes how powerful interests abuse secrecy for profit and explains ways to rein them in.