{"id":1716,"date":"2020-12-16T21:36:34","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T21:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=1716"},"modified":"2020-12-23T01:38:46","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T01:38:46","slug":"the-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/16\/the-circle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Circle"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Circle<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Social technology says something about society\u2014it might even suggest a radical change in our desires.\u00a0The Circle<\/em> asks what happens when community engagement becomes the political end of society.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Charles Carman<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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It\u2019s hard to categorize Dave Eggers\u2019s The Circle. <\/em>The novel\u2019s title refers to a technology company\u2014the Circle\u2014where a young woman named Mae Holland works. In the course of the story, the company unveils a new device: the SeeChange camera, about the size and shape of a lollipop, with a two-year battery, satellite access, HD lens, and an audio-feed strong enough to catch nearby conversation. At the SeeChange\u2019s release, one of the founders of the Circle asks the audience to \u201cimagine the human rights implications.\u201d Tahrir Square in Egypt shows up on the theater-sized screen behind the stage. If the world could be covered with eyes, he suggests, governments would have to think twice before adopting violence as a means of oppression. The SeeChange cameras will work against violence, persecution, and tyranny.<\/p>

A short while later, a U.S. Representative, Congresswoman Santos, goes to the Circle and talks about how secrecy hampers representational government\u2014claiming the current system is representation without presentation. She promises, \u201cI intend to show how democracy can and should be: entirely open, entirely transparent.\u201d So she becomes \u201ctransparent\u201d\u2014by wearing a SeeChange camera so that people can follow her wherever she goes, see whatever she does, hear whatever she says. Now, she really re-presents. After Santos\u2019s move, \u201cgoing transparent\u201d becomes accepted\u2014and then expected\u2014of government officials. Those who decline are suspect: What are they trying to hide? The use of these cameras expands until certain individuals become the outlets through which society can see. Later, protagonist Mae goes transparent, too, representing the Circle before the world. The world sees through her. She has become a window.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Eggers is not interested in individual varieties of technology. Rather, he wants to explore what truth social technology reveals about man.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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What genre does a story like this fall into? On first glance, it clearly belongs on the sci-fi shelf\u2014but there, it\u2019s a rather boring read. A few people have retinal computer contact lenses or bracelets that can read their heart rate; most everyone has a TruYou account, which puts all the clutter of our desperate online lives into one place. But these things appear briefly and peripherally while the plot turns on a small camera\u2014hardly the most innovative of inventions. Given the technology sci-fi writers have come up with over the years\u2014cyborgs, clones, machines that can read minds, minds that can read each other\u2014the developments in The Circle<\/em> are largely mundane.<\/p>

Another genre option is that The Circle <\/em>portrays a near-future dystopia, and there are some nods at dystopian literature. A scene near the end resembles the final moments of John the savage in Brave New World<\/em>: as cameras and drones fly around him, capturing his panic for the world to watch, a character bleakly realizes that no other option is available to him. But inasmuch as it feels dystopian, this book feels preparatory. Throughout the book there\u2019s chatter about some impending event involving \u201ccompletion,\u201d but this main event, the actual dystopia, comes after the last page; The Circle<\/em> is a prelude. Nor does Eggers ever describe what his world looks like after the main event, even when he alludes to it. There are rumors in the book of what \u201ccompletion\u201d means: \u201cWhat happens when the Circle closes the circle?\u201d But the question is rhetorical. It repeats and lingers, but not even a single scene suggests a form. The focus of the book is not here.<\/p>

And I believe it would be mistaken (though several reviews have tried) to read this book as tech criticism. That reading assumes that a book that involves technology must be read as if the author were focusing on technology. This would turn Hamlet<\/em> into a play about paranormal activity, and make Don Quixote<\/em> focus on wind power. To choose tech criticism as The Circle<\/em>\u2019s genre, it would have to be shown that Eggers \u201chas it in\u201d for particular technologies. If he had a character through which he expresses distaste for technology, it would be Mae\u2019s ex, Mercer. Mercer fits conspicuously into a category that has turned into a cultural type: the Luddite. But the Luddites fought over the economic aspect of new machinery\u2014and actually burned some machines down. Mercer burns nothing down, and he doesn\u2019t care at all about the economics. In fact, he\u2019s really not a Luddite, and he\u2019s not really anti-technology. He\u2019s less concerned about technology than about what becomes of Mae when she uses it. Technology is beside the point\u2014still within view, but not the focus. What Mercer says that turns Mae\u2019s patient forbearing into disgust is not ethical or economic, but socio-political. \u201cDo you realize,\u201d he says to Mae, \u201chow boring you\u2019ve become?\u201d<\/p>

Heidegger wrote, \u201cthe essence of technology is not a <\/em>technology.\u201d Technology per se, he went on, is man revealing a truth about the world. (The battery reveals the world as stored energy, the written word reveals the world as engraved with meaning, and so on.) Eggers is not interested in individual varieties of technology. Rather, he wants to explore what truth social technology reveals about man. During a (fairly recent) time in history, men fought in courts, battlefields, culture, and academies for the privilege of freedom in one\u2019s private life. They stringently defended right to be individual, the chance to be unique. That cry for individualism is still around today, but is it still the highest expression of political freedom? Being individual now feels isolating, lonely, even undesirable. The movement that Eggers seems interested in is from autonomy to assimilation. In the world of The Circle<\/em>, he lets the political desires of mankind turn from individual independence to social cooperation. Perhaps will turn\u2014or have turned\u2014from the desire for individuation to the desire to eliminate difference, to be one of the crowd.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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How do we affirm the individual and the group when our own identity is a limit to political community, and political community wishes to dissolve the discrete individual?<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Eggers doesn\u2019t pretend to answer the question of how to live when the desire for community becomes ultimate. None of his characters know\u2014they seem oblivious to the question. But, truly, (and impossibly!) how can we value at once identity and community when the comfort and security of one is as unfulfilling as the openness and relationship of the other? How do we affirm the individual and the group when our own identity is a limit to political community, and political community wishes to dissolve the discrete individual? How can we be expected to love our neighbor as ourselves when loving our neighbor means giving ourselves to them and loving ourselves means keeping to our self?<\/p>

Those promoting the liberty that comes from independence and those encouraging the satisfaction that comes from society are both equally silent on this tension. The apotheosis of identity leads to suicide; to forever keep one\u2019s self, one must take one\u2019s self. And the apotheosis of community is dissimilation; to live by way of others is to dissolve into the other. In neither state is man at peace. The political theory of the independent individual put into artificial society has turned, at least in the world of The Circle<\/em>, into social relationship among translucent individuals. Yet neither imparts the peace or love enjoyed by the Godhead. The individual and the community are creatures: insufficient, only ever penultimate, grounded on the existence of a hyper-individual, hyper-communal, ultimate being. There has yet to be an introduction facilitated between technology and the Trinity\u2014and it\u2019s time that social technology began to understand its own theology.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Alongside studying politics, philosophy, and economics in New York City,<\/em> Charles Carman<\/strong>\u00a0writes stories and essays. He usually has St. Aquinas’ <\/em>Being and Essence and <\/em>De Regnum with him. Sometimes he ends the day with English tobacco and ale. Aposiopesis is currently his favorite figure of speech.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Social technology says something about society\u2014it might even suggest a radical change in our desires.\u00a0The Circle asks what happens when community engagement becomes the political end of society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[48,3,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","category-book-review","category-issue-7","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farefwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/TheCircle_cover.jpg?fit=1500%2C1383&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1716"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2460,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions\/2460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1923"}],"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