A Twittering War of All Against All!
Filed Under Big Ideas, Politics | Leave a Comment
OK, I know the last post was long and not political which means I eschewed my standard bloggy, politically-minded audience in order to get some things off my chest. So here’s something much shorter:
I just recently finished reading a piece delivered as a lecture by Mark Pesce the man behind VRML and thusly Second Life, which FoPD the Bass Geek has an all-too-intimate familiarity. At any rate his lecture, delivered at the Personal Democracy Forum is one of those high-level Big Idea doodads that frequently show up on TED. The thesis of the talk is this:
The future looks nothing like democracy, because democracy, which sought to empower the individual, is being obsolesced by a social order which hyperempowers him.
Before (or immediatley after) rolling your eyes at the very fancy “hyperempowers” know that this is not a term he takes for granted and it doesn’t overpower his message. However, it does share shelf space with “hypermimesis” and “hyperconnectivity,” so be forewarned.
The end result of all this hypering is a Hobbesian Bellum omnia contra omnes, which is fancy dead-people speak for “war of all against all,” but it sounds nicer so I’m going to start using it too. At any rate, I think we should always use a healthy dose of skepticism to keep the Big Idea-ers at bay, but there’s someting compelling about this piece.
Basically Pesce is arguing that the thing that humans excel at more than any other species, and at the very heart of our success as a species–is mimesis, imitation. We out-ape the apes. Mimesis is, at its crudest, a simple trial-and-error process. One person trialing-and-erroring advances slowly. Two people aping each other can actualize success faster than twice as fast because in addition to doubling their trials (and halving their errors) they can also directly teach each other more productive paths.
Mobile phones, SMS, Flickr, Twitter–according Pesce, these serve not mere communications functions; they are opportunities for nonstop mimesis–hypermemisis. No matter what is tried, those trials that are successful can immediately be shared and tried again in a constant state of refinement.
Part of the argument’s attraction is that it fits into the singularlity talk that is all the rage right now. The repetitiveness of the messaging can generate only one of two general reactions: you eventually reject it out of hand, or you blindingly accept it. I’m still reasonably wary of the singularity argument but the more I read, the more I’m convinced.
Another part is the the claim he makes about 75% of the way through: sharing “is not just a threat. It’s the whole of the thing.” The rapid response, all-out sharefest of which we are now capable (and getting more capable every second) wrests control completely away from governments and moves into mob rule–rule by large groups of people highly capable of gaming the system by which the sharing is done.
At about this part I start to lose faith that Pesce has a lot to offer political theoreticians, but his argument certainly poses something that I would like to see a political scientist respond to. The argument sits in the class of literature that Kal Holsti’s Taming the Sovereigns is a part: if globalization and/or changes to the international system (however you define it) really does challenge state’s sovereignty or, perhaps separatley, its ability to lead.
He says of Obama’s internet organization, that whether Obama attempts to maintain that mob after his election makes no difference. He is totally incapable of leading because the mob does the leading. But, in an earlier bit on Wikipedia and the elite entry editors known as “The Wikipedians” he says that skillful gaming of the system is key to controlling the mob. I see no reason to doubt that key power brokers like business owners, party leaders, and politicians won’t find a way to mobilize people behind the scenes to maintain their power. And, failing that, resort to murder.
This entry has it all folks: politics, web-stuff, the guy who made Second Life possible, murder, Latin. Despite my busy schedule I do try not to let my readers down.
I Do Not Have a Catchy Headline to Make This Post Attractive to You
Filed Under Entertainment, Philosophy, The Arts | Leave a Comment
OK ya’ll–another light day here at Porch Dog because I’ve spent the entire week jacking around in the Ivory Tower and now I have to produce something to show for it which means I don’t have a lot of time to read Teh Netz, let alone digest what I’m reading in order to comment on it.
As I’ve already noted I spent most of the week fishing around for ideas on whether or not the humanities is something that should be reduced to a simple set of use values and measurables. I have my opinions, sure, but I’m only partially paid to express those. I had to see what the experts had to say on the subject. Turns out, they have a lot to say.
Many people claim that there are clear elements of genuine use value. Brian Boyd, in a recent essay in American Scholar, (The Art of Literature and the Science of Literature) for example, suggests that increases in literacy alone has contributed to the Flynn Effect–the general increasing of IQ over generations. He’s of a cadre of literary scholars with shifting names all alluding to a fundamental belief that humans are not just social creatures, but literary ones (Boyd actually wrote a book called The Literary Animal) and our ability to recognize and use the patterns in stories is one of our adaptive principles. Bill Benzon, an author at The Valve is another proponent of this general approach to literature.
Certain schools of thought see a lost common ground starting in the early part of the 20th century. C.P. Snow and later E. O. Wilson have commented on the “two cultures” of the sciences and humanitites. I don’t know Wilson’s particular take on the issue other than he’s written a book, Consilience, about how the two paths need to converge for the good of The People. C.P. Snow pretty much wagged his fingers in the direction of the literary scholars who, according to him, stole the mantle of “intellectual” in the thirties and refused to give it back. He later predicted the rise of a “third culture” where humanists and scienists would share a common language.
Over at the Reality Club/Edge they have taken a new path toward the creation of a Third Culture. According to to them in the age of Cultures One and Two, the scientists spoke to no one and the literarist spoke to reporters who spoke to the people. The Third Culture, made up of people like (the late) Stephen Jay Gould, Jared Diamond, Mark Pesce and a shipfull of others talk directly to the people, bypassing frustrating middlemen. These practitioners are largely hard scientists but also anthropologists, software engineers and occassionally actors (like Ellen Barkin) and artists.
These people think that there is a new humanities developing without the aid of technophobic literarists.
Meanwhile, the literary theorist, art historians, and philosophers have their own worthwhile arguments about why what their doing is something more than professional self-interest and not driven by technophobia. To them identifying and focusing on use-value is reductionist. It “gives away the game” according to a commenter on The Valve (in one of three discussions in response to Stanley Fish’s columns”Bound for Academic Glory,“ “Will the Humanities Save Us?” and “The Uses of the Humanities, Part Two.”
At first I agreed with a commenter that questioned what “giving away the game” might mean. But as I thought about it last night I think I figured it out, which leads me to this: your very tiny political takeway. I think “giving away the game” is the wrong phrase, but all those who fear reducing literature, art history, et. al. to a series of economic stimuli, tourist attractions, or gains in IQ points etc. are essentially struggling to keep those things as “things larger than themselves.” A book is not a book. A book is not even just an imaginary world. A book is not just an analogy that teaches us to recognize the patterns in life around us. It is all those things and more. It is also an engagement with history. It alternately makes us gods–as we learn to look at lives that past long before we were born–and enslaves us to the masterful voice of an artist always at work. It divides and multiplies us at the same time. Despite HTML and the internet having introduced us to a new concept of “non-linear” the relationship we enter with each written piece of literature, history, philosophy, etc is a recreation of the primary and fundamental non-linear relationship. A book must (or must not) be read from beginning to end to make sense of it, sure. But a book can be stopped and started at will. Resources can be sought in midstream. The very act of critically reading–responding emotionally and intellectually to a story as its being told–is a break away from the imposed linearity.
But the emotional response itself is important too, in making our engagement with art something “bigger than itself.” Meanwhile to shrink literature down to a mere set of bio-chemical reactions and genetic adaptation is really just that, shrinking it, reducing it. Emotions, for now, are not as well understood as other aspects of the human condition. Advances in behavioral economics and the “new psychologies” are breaking new ground here…and a lot of that is borne of exactly the kind of consilience of disparate sciences that E.O. Wilson called for. But for the moment this fear of reduction is as important and real as mere “technophobia” is. It isn’t just professional protectionism, it’s a fundamental, perhaps even fundamentalist protectionism around the “mysteries” of literature, not just from the monkish class of Ivory Tower elites, but from all those that enjoy reading.
We’ve seen a similar reaction from all the worlds head-in-the-clouds romantics when it turned out that Love was a just a bio-chemical process and the reason that “loves fades” is because we grow desensitized to the stimulus that initially created the “love” hormone. As the sciences were taking away romantic love, it threw into question whether or not arranged marriages might have been more reasonable than we’d previously supposed, sure. But more importantly it took away our free will. Real romantics have never wanted the right to choose whom they loved–not choosing was part of the thrill. But no matter how you look at it, turning us into robots where our instructions are chemicals instead of binary code is reductionism at its most vile…emotionally speaking.
We also see the reverse response. We also don’t like to see disgusting things of human nature aggrandized. Reducing criminal behavior to a complex array of pathologies is fine. Aberration should be reduced and we celebrate the reductive sciences with a dozen CSIs and Dexters and Monks. Villains in movies like Hannibal Lecter and…er…the Emperor…who talk poetically about destroying life sets us free and that wrecking harmony is the only way to reveal our true natures are infinitely more scary than the connect-the-dot villains we have typically gotten. It’s what makes the premise of the The Vanishing–where heroism is reduced to a product of determinism and murder is raised up as an expression of free will–so frightening. Or look at all the talk around Heath Ledger’s Joker character, hardly the most fully explored “murder is a thing bigger than itself” villain we’ve ever had, but certainly the most commercial one.
I’m also reminded of the response of my War and Conflicts class which opened with selective readings from Chris Hedges’ War is a Force that Gives us Meaning. Half my class (yours truly excluded) rejected the premise out of hand. War is disgusting and gross and can be no more than a primitive drive rooted in a reptilian –not fully developed–part of the brain. It need not be a “thing bigger than itself” and should only be understood as a base and undeveloped thing smaller than itself. In this way we can graciously reduce all the horrors of World War II down to Hitler, one crazy man and his scientifically understood dementia. Certain of my friends, literary people the lot of them, people prone to understanding love and reading as things larger than themselves, rejected Hedges’ notion too (which was not new with Hedges, I should add).
So that’s what I’ve been doing. That’s what I’m wrestling with. And that’s why I don’t have to time to tell you that Bayh wasn’t named Obama’s running mate yesterday. Thinking about the arguments around “valuing the humanities” as a war between reductionism and emotional aggrandizement has, I think, helped me do my job. But I’ll have to get to work to know (and to prove it.)
Sleepytime News Recap
Filed Under Barack Obama, Domestic Politics, In the News, John McCain, Politics | 2 Comments
You know what, cats? This must be some sort of midweek slump. The only thing that the chattering class is chattering about are:
- Paris Hilton’s ad, which you’ve seen
- McCain going extremely negative while Obama mentions that you might not want to vote for McCain if you disagree with his policies
- McCain joking about entering his wife in the Miss Buffalo Chip “beauty” contest at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally
So not too damned much really.
I haven’t heard if the Evan Bayh rumor has officially been snuffed or if that’s still up in the air.
Obama called Republicans (at least the Republicans helping out McCain) “proud of being ignorant.” That was pretty awesome..so you should check that out.
And Kathy G. has a great post on some Upton Sinclair shit going down in the prairie, which I encourage you to read.
Meanwhile, I’m still deeply immersed in literary Darwinism and whether “art for arts sake” has any funders. Meanwhile the Indianapolis mayor has decided to annihilate local government funding for the arts…so, if “arts for arts sake” is the wrong sales tactic I better get to work finding the right one because Naptown’s starving artists just got starvinger.
Speaking of starving. I had an apple for lunch because I’m headed to the Indiana State Fair after work. If you want to know what my evening will look like please read this entertaining prophecy by Special Agent Dale Cooper. The only things he seems to have forgotten are:
- Butter-slathered corncob
- Honey flavored ice cream
- Deep fried and chocolate covered Twinkie
Night all.
The Paris Hilton Ad: Good for a Laugh not a Debate
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Yesterday I linked to the Paris Hilton send-up of John McCain’s ad calling Obama “the biggest celebrity in the world.” I linked to it because I thought it was funny. Today I find out that it has inspired both responses from the campaigns and something like debate in political circles.
How can I put this?
That’s stupid. Stephen Taylor explains why.
See You in the White House, Bitches
Filed Under 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Domestic Politics, Environment, In the News, John McCain, Politics | 3 Comments
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