nettime's_antithesis on Wed, 23 May 2012 02:18:48 +0200 (CEST)


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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)!

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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."
 <...>

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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?
 <...>

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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

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