THE BIOMEDICAL SECURITY STATE, Part One
In the 1960s TV show, The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan’s character is an unnamed British intelligence agent who resigns from his job for reasons never explained, is gassed, and wakes up imprisoned in a deceptively lovely place called The Village.
He is assigned the number Six to identify him. In the first episode, he meets with number Two, who tells him, “The information in your head is priceless. I don’t know if you realize how valuable a property you are.”
In that first meeting, number Six finds out that “they” have been monitoring him his whole life. Number Two tells him, ‘There’s not much we don’t know about you, but one likes to know everything.”
This obsession with “knowing” has been going on for thousands of years. To be reduced to a number so that we can be more easily studied and categorized. To lose our individuality, while at the same time being told we are important because of the information we carry inside of us. What does that do to a person’s sense of self?
To continue reading, please go to Digital ID and Our Obsession with "Identity" (substack.com)
