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Organized immaturity in a Post-Kantian perspective: Toward a critical theory of surveillance capitalism

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Cristina NeeshamORCiD

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Abstract

Organized immaturity has been defined as the erosion of the individual’s capacity for the public use of reason, pressured by control patterns of socio-technological systems built on obscure operating principles, ideologies, or regimes. Recent studies of surveillance capitalism explore the technological advancements of digitalization and analyze their negative im-pacts on information integrity and user autonomy. We identify organized immaturity as a deeper cause of these impacts and develop elements of a critical theory to explain the maturity-eroding effects of surveillance capitalism and to theorize an agenda for countermeasures. We first identify, describe and analyze infantilization, reductionism and totalization as emerging patterns of surveillance capitalism, which organize immaturity in human individuals and collectives. We then define the individual abilities and public deliberation principles needed to exercise maturity in private and public life, using Habermas’s theory of communicative action, as applied to human moral development, and Kant’s mentalist approach to individual maturity. Finally, we use these principles as a critical foundation and guide for citizens to nurture and protect individual maturity and democratic society from the infantilization, reductionism and totalization induced by surveillance capitalism.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Scherer AG, Neesham C

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Organization Theory

Year: 2023

Volume: 4

Issue: 3

Pages: 1-25

Online publication date: 18/10/2023

Acceptance date: 04/09/2023

Date deposited: 02/11/2023

ISSN (electronic): 2631-7877

Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd.

URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/26317877231204083

DOI: 10.1177/26317877231204083

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