240 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
240 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
"The Ontario Hydro Harvest"
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The Anarchives Volume 2 Issue 7
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The Anarchives Published By
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The Anarchives The Anarchy Organization
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The Anarchives tao@lglobal.com
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Send your e-mail address to get on the list
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Spread The Word Pass This On...
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--/\--
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/ / \ \
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---|--/----\--|---
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\/ \/
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/\______/\ by Jesse Hirsh
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__-___---___---___---___---___-----_____-------_______-------_____----_____
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b33n busy lately. web site is almost up. ftp site is in experimental
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phase. mass mailer is starting to work right. shit's coming together...
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__-___---___---___---___---___-----_____-------_______-------_____----_____
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this piece examines an article from THIS magazine
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<this_magazine@intacc.web.net>, a pseudo-radical mag
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out of toronto, that tries to put the 'net into political context. it was
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written by a guy <cthomp@interlog.com> who's on the anarchives list. so
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clive feel free to respond to this piece to tao@lglobal.com and it will
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go back out to the list.
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the transcript from the mCluHan talk last wednesday will shortly follow
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this one.
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sorry for the confusion of last with the list. ;)
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__-___---___---___---___---___-----_____-------_______-------_____----_____
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>From THIS Magazine August 1995 "Cyber Screamers" by Clive Thompson
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<this_magazine@intacc.web.net> <cthomp@interlog.com>
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Flying through words and ideas,
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playing with the language of the collective conscious and unconscious.
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Putting together a picture of the world that is consistent with both the
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shared realities of collective media and the material reality within
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continual technological change.
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Issues of mind and media; the dominating role of the corporate mind
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within the collective unconscious; the manufacturing of consent and
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synthetic conscious.
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All in the aim to be:
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"way more wired"
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as stated in the subhead of Clive Thompson's article "In Cyberspace
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Everyone Can Hear You Scream".
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I'm still not sure what to make of this article. It is supposed to be a
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compartive analysis of the left and right presence on the Internet. But
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it consistently fails to dig into substance and rather like most
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mainstream media skates on shallow cliches.
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Clive's analysis of left and right is limited to cliches such as:
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"Republicans vs. Democrats"
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And comparisons of:
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"But the political skew struck me most clearly when I noticed that all
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the conservative e-mail newsletters I'd subscribed to were flourishing,
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while the liberal ones were in advanced stages of dry rot."
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And this from a guy from Toronto, the 'market' no less! What's this about
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Republicans vs. Democrats, like there's a difference. Or even worse
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liberals and conservatives, where does THIS see themselves in this
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comparative context. Clive then proposes:
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"Cyberspace, it seems, has tilted quite heavily to the right."
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By using the "has tilted" Clive is insinuating that it was once tilted to
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the left, which considering how right the military is i don't see that as
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possible. This begins the first of many instances within the article that
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the language is loose, almost striving to be among the double-speak of
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mainstream media outlets. Watch as the language of the article reveals a
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duplicity weaving among the subject matter.
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"In a McLuhanesque way, it makes perfect sense. The net is a classic case
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of the medium being loaded with a message - it's custom-built for a
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fiercely free-market outlook. Multinational, anarchically free, and
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laughably beyond the grasp of any government, cyberspace is an elegant
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metaphor for the new right's way of doing business."
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It's tragic to read a piece and immediately see that the author's sources
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are so clearly out of whack. Firstly the message of the medium inherently
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goes beyond political structures, it's primary effect is psychological,
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any political arangement stems from the psychological transformations.
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Drop the net=anarchy dance, it gets tiring. There are authorities in
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cyberspace, and these authorities are only getting stronger. By
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definition this eliminates the possibility of anarchy which refers to a
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system with no authorities.
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Finally it is not beyond the reach of any government, partly because the
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Internet itself is part of the emerging governance. The term
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government is not limited to the aging institutions we call Parliament
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and Congress. Corporate governance has been rising for decades (if not
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centuries), and yet few acknowledge the dominant role corporate
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governance actually plays. Who am i kidding, corporations own Parliament
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and Congress. They're dismantling the older institutions as a means of
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shedding the "dead wood" better know as the welfare class, while
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jockeying for spots among the emerging global hegemony.
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The information hegemony.
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"I think these weird cyberspatial emotions spring from our subconscious
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grasp of the Net's politcs, which are rooted in its global nature. With
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the Net, we have access to the first piece of technology that is beyond
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the power of any state. It is fundamentally anti-government."
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The net is beyond the power of the nation-state, not the corporate-state.
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It is fundamentally pro-corporate-government. It's the Amerikkkan dream
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run rampant; remembering of course that the dream includes an immense
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cast of extras who are killed, raped, whipped, dominated, and exploited
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just to make the dream that much more possible.
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"The Net smells like conservative spirit: it's pure free-market, making
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everyone seem equal, as if there were no black or white, no rich or poor."
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Virtual reality can be an effective shield against real reality. Cut a
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large portion of society out of the picture and you may be able to get
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increased efficiency from all the "bleeding-heart" liberals who would have
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cared if they would have known.
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The real issue of the "Information Highway" or the "Politics of
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Cyberspace" is not a petty debate between right and left, but rather a
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saga of power. In cyberspace we are witnessing the rise of a new
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global power, often referred to it as a global entity.
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At times it seems as if Clive touches on this subject, but still retains
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his pattern of skate on the surface journalism.
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"Without power, their tremendous lack of style is vaguely insurgent
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against the social order"
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Clive presents the Internet as geekland; a place where the underdog is at
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welcome and at home. Furthermore Clive draws upon the potential of the
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geek as subversive. Notice however the use of the word power, it begins
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to emerge from the background and in this case becomes the focus.
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"But give a geek any sort of social power, and you've got a
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self-obsessed, screw-you conservative of the first degree."
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The transformative effects of power... perhaps self-explanatory, but
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where does the empowering effects of the Internet come to play in this
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pradigm. The new media bring new power, both are transformative.
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"In cyberspace, we've seen the exact thing happen to hackers... they
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seemed entirely counter-cultural... Then came the sellout. As computer
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culture became big business, the hackers crashed in on their skills and
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went fully maninstream."
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The term would be co-optation, similar to the metaphor of "Amerikkka
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eating its young". Power is the ultimate force of consumption, it either
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consumes and/or destroys. But to condone Hackers as sell-outs is to be
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just as stereotypical as any other mainstream media outlet. As with
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anyone else, hackers are individuals and prone to do what they want.
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As to the role of power, well, it's interests are usually quite obvious.
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"But it still hasn't lost that hip image of being the last bastion of
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freedom, a bold new frontier."
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Of course no mention of the economic origins of this last statement. When
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I first typed this quote in I misspelled freedom as "greedom" which is
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perhaps more apt at describing the present situation. Take for example
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the mast head of information greed and consumption:
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"Wired magazine has built its cultural status by combining the same mix
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of cyberculture chic, free-market worship and contempt for government."
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Succumbing to the new global power, the race to join the new global power
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class, or for "Mosca" the new political class to support the new political
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regime.
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So tell us Clive, what of the supposed left in all this power playing:
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"Part of the reason for progressives' Net-dread is that, unlike
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conservatives, they haven't been aggressively looking for a new medium.
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They've been content with their dominance in city weeklies and small
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magazines like THIS."
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We are offered descriptions of the left's domination of media, almost as
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an imitation of the opposing powers. I'm not going to touch this one, only
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ask:
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Why is the left "dominating" media, why is the left even dominating at all?
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Clive goes on discussing the left:
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"What it tells us is that the left is scared of freedom. It's scared of
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the challenge that the Net poses, where you can't shut somebody up if you
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don't like what they say and where you can't dismiss them by pointing to
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their identity - because you don't even know their identity."
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What are you talking about? Identities can be placed to words on the net.
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That's the whole idea; desensitizing information so as to make it globally
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accessible allows much easier intelligence gathering, and similar
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identification of who's who. The left should be scared to go on-line 'cause
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it's as if they were holding clandestine meetings on the pentagon's own
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irc channel.
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"Particularly, you have to get used to the unrestarained freedom of the
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Net. And that freedom has produced considerable uneasiness, especially
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when it comes to hate and porn."
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Is the "left" scared of dialogue and the real world?
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They're certainly being presented as such, although I would like to hope
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otherwise.
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When I first received a copy of Clive's article I was immediately drawn
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to writing a critique. It seemed as if there was so much that he had left
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out, and so much that seemed to qualify as necessary illusions.
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The images Clive used were drawn directly from what I and I try to describe
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as the corporate consciousness, or the collective consciousness that is
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dominated by corporate imagery and symbolism.
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So from the get-go the article could not have accomplished anything besides
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perpetuation of the corporate joke, the mirage of approaching liberation
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and freedom.
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Clive quotes the founder of the Toronto FreeNet referring to the Internet:
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"It's partially transformative. People will soften on their positions. It
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almost requires you to listen and reflect."
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What is this guy talking about? The net is entirely transformative and
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demands that you listen and reflect. Furthermore it is a process of
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change driven by incredible forces of power.
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This is of course the story we are not seeing in the mainstream press,
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except of course in the Report On Business or other journals of pure
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double-speak where the stories of mergers and markets dictates a
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reality in sharp contrast of the capitalist utopia painted by WIRED.
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It's tough to breathe when you're swamped with a constant flow of
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rubbish and misinformation intended to keep you from seeing the truth
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and seeing the reality of what is actually transpiring.
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Take some time to think about it,
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then take some time to do something about it.
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TAO begins to get that second wind ;)
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