Abstract

The pretext for our double concord isa reading of the book: Zygmunt Bauman, DavidLyon, Płynna inwigilacja. Rozmowy (Continuous
surveillance. Little talks) of 2013. Both eminent sociologists, see a great threat to human freedom (mainly political and economic) in general surveillance. The authors of the article are trying to alleviate this catastrophic visions by pointing to the biological, psychological
and cultural features of the phenomenon of “spying”. They defend the thesis that social existence actually consists in the aspect “to see
and to be seen”.
The first statement (S. Symotiuk) focuses on the phenomenon of “voyeurism”, occurring in nature itself and serving mainly for the reproduction of species. In addition, against the prevalent opinion, not only a person perceives their environment, but also it “looks” at him. It is thanks to this mutual visibility, that human survival, as well as human efforts to transform the environment, are possible.\
The second statement (Jadwiga Mizińska) concerns the mutual perceptions of people. Looking at each other takes many different forms: of watching, tending, looking out, peek, etc. All of them are evaluated positively as necessary for cognition. On this background, snooping (surveillance) is the only reprehensible form, for this reason, that it is made of hostile intent - distrust, suspicion, assumption that the object threatens us. At the same time the current mass culture willingly uses this measure, often for the silent acquiescence of its objects (idols and celebrities). To sum up, the authors seek to demonstrate the ambiguity of the phenomenon of surveillance.