Better Late than Never -- Paranoia as Postmodern Condition

I want to focus on Chun's use of "paranoia" in reference to our conversation in SL on Monday night. I am beginning to think that Chun -- indirectly and ambiguously -- discusses paranoia (and with it, control) as a condition of postmodernity. Here's why:

On the one hand, we are being monitored (thanks, Lessig) constantly, whether we know/like it or not. When we sign up for an ATM card, the machine tracks our every transaction, for bookkeeping purposes, and most likely for other more sinister ones as well. We could argue that we willingly sign up to be monitored when we agree to have an ATM card. Chun and Lessig make us aware of the many ways surveillance/monitoring is a necessary part of the digital age.

On the other hand, once we're aware of this surveillance, we become paranoid. Who's watching us? Why? Where? For what ends? Chun seems to characterize this as extreme; if we become too paranoid, we'll refrain from being free, of course, but of even acting or leaving our homes.

It seems that Chun (and, to an extent, Lessig) is arguing that with the internet, necessarily comes paranoia; if we want to exist in a digital age, we must confront the paranoia or learn to live with it. Lessig raises important questions about what to do once we have realized how much we are monitored. Where are there spaces, as Anne reminds us, for deliberation, especially if in doing so we must confront paranoia?

Paranoia is of the irrational; it results in addiction (in many cases). This is an idea I am borrowing from Avital Ronnell, who wrote Crack Wars: Literature, Addiction, Society. In it, she argues that whether we're snorting crack or reading books, our society is an addictive one. Certain addictions become "normalized" -- going to school, reading, writing, driving, Internet surfing. These addictions are acceptable, whereas drugs are not, obviously. Nonetheless, our society is one in which addictions prevail, because of Dasein and the irrational fear of being discovered (A rough paraphrase -- forgive me). Paranoia, then, becomes evident only in the manifestation of our addiction.

How does this relate to Chun/Lessig, who only indirectly speak of addiction? I don't have any definitive answers, but I would venture that if the postmodern condition is necessarily a paranoid one, then it is also an addicted existence. We "solve" our paranoia through our addictions, and become paranoid about them, too. A vicious cycle that makes my head spin and brain hurt.
The conditions in which we live, where the internet reigns supreme, creates the context(s) for paranoia as postmodern condition, and, consequently, false consciousness about freedom, control, paranoia, and liberty. In some sense, we could blame the internet for these things, but, just as addictions index our paranoia, the internet can index something else altogether or vice versa.

What am I addicted to? What am I paranoid about? More importantly, what do we do about it?

Before my brain explodes, I'll leave now.