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<nettime> C(APITAL|OMMUN)ISM (i|ha)s (ARRIV|FINISH)ED digest [mann, newmedia x2] |
chris mann <chrisman@rcn.com> Re: <nettime> Capitalism is FINISHED -- As a Result of the Internet! Newmedia@aol.com Re: <nettime> Capitalism is FINISHED -- As a Result of the Internet! Newmedia@aol.com COMMUNISM Has Arrived (in fact, a long time ago)! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Date: Mon, 21 May 2012 09:35:45 -0400 Subject: Re: <nettime> Capitalism is FINISHED -- As a Result of the Internet! From: chris mann <chrisman@rcn.com> isnt the point rather that people invest in apple coz its walled garden aesthetic is the most like television? i mean if the digital is the suburban expression of the quantum, an ode to the death of causality (seattle used to be kneedeep in mormans who believed the (ms) pc to be the democratised urim and thummim of a new age), then of course theres going to be a push for things that look like moments that nostalge (what i think the dsm refers to as 'self regard' and economists refer to as 'bubbles'. i mean what did you expect, music? On 20 May 2012 12:26, <Newmedia@aol.com> wrote: > Jon: > > > AS i wrote earlier, i'm doubtful about this - especially > > given the marketing succes of Apple, and the way that > > people seem to throw away old phones and tablets in > > a rush to get the newest Apple thing, which often does > > not seem to be a necessary improvement. > > As the folks at Apple will tell you, their advertising spend to "attract" > customers (who Steve Jobs famously referred to as "bozos") -- such as the > iconic "Think Different" campaign and even the original MAC Superbowl ad > -- have largely occurred in MASS-MEDIA, where Apple can "control the > message." <...> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: Newmedia@aol.com Date: Mon, 21 May 2012 09:49:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: <nettime> Capitalism is FINISHED -- As a Result of the Internet! Chris: Of course! Why did the *only* people who used Macintoshes in business come from the "creative department"? What "creative" means here is *commercial art* which is almost entirely in *service* to mass-media (i.e. "promotion" and "advertising.") Kids waiting in line for a new iPhone -- hoping to become "famous" among their friends or maybe even on the evening news -- are acting out *television* fantasies. The "sensibility" of TELEVISION is 100% closed and "in control." It is, after all, "propaganda" (in Ellul's sense of "totallizing") and that requires a CLOSED environment. Jonathan is correct to associate Apple with "conspicuous consumption" because that is the *behavior* of both those who slavishly buy Apple products *and* what they project onto the rest of the world through their attitudes and, in many cases, their jobs! However, OPEN is the *digital* sensibility and as more-and-more of the world makes that transition, this will be a growing problem for Apple. Mark Stahlman Brooklyn NY In a message dated 5/21/2012 9:35:45 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, chrisman@rcn.com writes: isnt the point rather that people invest in apple coz its walled garden aesthetic is the most like television? i mean if the digital is the suburban expression of the quantum, an ode to the death of causality (seattle used to be kneedeep in mormans who believed the (ms) pc to be the democratised urim and thummim of a new age), then of course theres going to be a push for things that look like moments that nostalge (what i think the dsm refers to as 'self regard' and economists refer to as 'bubbles'. i mean what did you expect, music? <...> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: Newmedia@aol.com Date: Mon, 21 May 2012 14:07:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: COMMUNISM Has Arrived (in fact, a long time ago)! [from Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp.372-3] To Prince Bernard of the Netherlands (May 14, 1969) Your Royal Highness: It was good to be there. [The Bilderberg meeting took place May 9-11, 1969 in Elsinore, Denmark] It is good to be back. As you know, I was a rather bad boy at Bilderberg . . . The great advantage in participating in Bilderberg is that it gives one a means of estimating the level to which the incompetence of the participants has enabled them to attain. Every man has a right to protect his own ignorance. However, these men are responsible for coping with a changing world which has sent them scurrying for cover in the opposite direction of the changes that we have released. I asked them to instance a single example in human history of any community that had been able to foresee the consequences of any innovation. The group was unable to comply. When I explained that in terms of services available to the ordinary person, the services that the greatest private wealth could not possibly provide for itself, that is Communism. It happened long before Karl Marx. Such service environments are invisible to accountants and actuaries and bankers who deal in entries of double entries and arithmetic which conceal technological and environmental realities completely. Today, with the multi-billion dollar service environments available to everybody, almost for free, (these include the massive educational and information world of advertising) it means that we have plunged very deep into the tribal Communism on a scale unknown in human history. I asked the group: "What are we fighting Communism for? We are the most Communist people in world history." There was not a single demur. One fringe benefit of the conference for me was the sudden realization of what is meant by "class war." It means people deprived of an identity. It is only accidentally the result of poverty. Today the entire TV generation has been deprived of its identity by the new image (cf. Hertz's law.) "The consequence of the images will be the image of the consequences." It is the affluent young people today who are the deprived proletariat of our world. It is *they* who are fighting the new class war. Marxism is quite unable to cope with any 20th-century problem. The so-called 'Communist" countries are merely trying to have a 19th century of consumer goods . . . Marshall McLuhan Mark Stahlman Brooklyn NY - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org