Monica Esparza
Staff Writer
Gary T. Marx, emeritus professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Hixon-Riggs professor of science, technology and society at Harvey Mudd College, came to the University of La Verne to speak about issues involving technological control of America in his lecture “Being Watched and Watching In the New Surveillance Society.”
On May 2 faculty, staff and students filed into La Fetra Lecture Hall to hear one of the world’s leading analyst on the topic of surveillance and its influence of control on American society.
The lecture was sponsored by the ULV department of sociology and anthropology.
“Surveillance on TV is very influential in today’s society,” Jose Becerra, freshman public administration major, said.
“With the way reality shows such as ‘Big Brother’ being produced, we as a society need to think about how much further we want our personal lives being taped,” Becerra added.
Marx began his lecture by asking a very simple question that today’s society never gives a second thought.
“Who owns your way of walking? Everyone’s walk is distinctive?” Marx said.
Marx described that everything done, every picture taken, every scent of the air is a part of someone’s identity.
These things are just as important as where one keeps their social security card.
He went on to explain that anyone’s identity is in jeopardy by simply being videotaped by someone on the street.
A slide in Marx’s presentation went on to explain that “the new surveillance may be done anonymously, the context makes it good or bad and the more extensive it is, broader areas are covered.”
“I never thought about things like having being taped or being spied on.
The fact that technology these days makes it so easy for someone to pretty much steal your identity can make someone either more vigilant or more paranoid,” said Michael Young, junior business major at Cal Poly Pomona.
On a less somber note, Marx also spoke about how technology can be used in business as a source of motivation for employees to meet a quota or implement a new rule added by management.
He ended by asking the worldwide question of “Is seeing really believing?”
“When you think about it, you can never know that what you’re seeing is accurate because of such inventions as Photoshop or people editing films to make them seem like something else really happened,” said Rachel deBos, freshman liberal studies major.
Marx received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
He has had several books published including, “Protest and Prejudice.”
Marx was named the American Sociological Association's Jensen Lecturer for 1989-1990.
He also received the Distinguished Scholar Award from its section on Crime, Law and Deviance, the Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association and the Bruce C. Smith Award for research achievement.
Marx was the inaugural Stice Memorial Lecturer in residence at the University of Washington in 1992 and has been a University of California, Irvine Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellow and the A.D. Carlson Visiting Distinguished Professor in the Social Sciences at West Virginia University.
Monica Esparza can be reached at mesparza2@ulv.edu.
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