| Morlock Elloi on Tue, 26 Dec 2017 22:22:54 +0100 (CET) |
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| <nettime> The California Ideology has a fascist character |
Interview with the computer critic Werner Seppmann - Part 3For Werner Seppmann not only class relations are reflected in the use of the digital, but there are also irrational and fascist tendencies in the "California Ideology". Part 3 of the conversation about his book Critique of the Computer . display
Mr Seppmann, to what extent do you think class relations are reflected in internet usage?
Werner Seppmann: This is very clear in the Internet as an information medium. Social differences are not leveled, but reinforced. Education barriers are not diminished: The son of good home knows because he was instructed to use the possibilities of the network in knowledge research and as a learning tool in learning. The daughter of a saleswoman, however, primarily informs about the relationship of a hit singer and the terms of a casting show: It duplicates in such a layer-specific computer use, which is already known from television consumption: That a deficient education level solidified by the usual selective media use.
The fact that the Internet could have compensatory effects on class- and class-specific disadvantages is illusory, especially as the self-imposed user is in constant danger of losing himself in the vastness of the Internet, because he lacks the necessary orientation and research instructions. Without an intellectual compass, the road to reliable information that promotes one's own judgment is extremely thorny, and usually in vain.
"It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish the essential from the nonessential"
Can you specify this development?Werner Seppmann: First of all, the peculiarity of this kind of "knowledge work" lies in the fact that rich information and deception, rational explanation and obscurantism are closely related and often differ little in their forms of presentation. In order not to sink into the flood of information, developed competencies must be present, because prevailing is a blurring that simulates the equality of banal and content.
Not only because the data volumes continue to grow, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish the essential from the non-essential. And, in principle, ordinary network practice stands in the way of the chance to even develop such capacity for qualitative selection. The never-ending "flood of information" does not promote intensive thinking alone. On the contrary, because the spaces of attention are largely filled with messages and signals without direct reference to life and inner context, it becomes more difficult to think and develop alternative orientations. No one is so clearly aware of this as are the conceptual minds of the Internet industry, which use these mechanisms in their influencing strategies.
"Unreflective Web Enthusiasm Means Abandoning Critical Reflection"Are not you in line with the critics of modern information technologies on a line with machinists and cultural pessimists? display
Werner Seppmann: Without elaborating on the implications of these two terms, I would like to pose a counter question: what would the appropriate responses to the progressive digitization of the social, to the fact that computers and the Internet increasingly are devices of control and manipulation, be negative? which affect social relations and cultural standards, which in turn consolidate work and negatively affect behavior, feeling and thinking, as well as social identities?
The term "culture pessimism" in our context usually implies that we do not care about how to deal productively with the mounting problems associated with digitization and what real alternatives exist. The accusation of hostility to technology is also used as an appeal to take note of these problematic things (of which I have only mentioned a small section so far), to continue as before. What is required is an attitude of faithful agreement with the current business. This is the expression of a new conformism, as the sociologist Cornelia Koppetsch impressively described in her book The Return of Conformity and analyzed its causes.
A "consensus," that is, unreflective net enthusiasm, usually means renouncing critical reflection and demonstrating a false consciousness, as described by Adorno as a consequence of the ideological impact of the cultural-industrial complex: "Thou shalt without specifying what they are, adding to what is already there, and into what, as a reflex to its power and omnipresence, all think anyway. " It is one of my most shattering experiences that, at computer literacy lectures, young people with IT professions regularly speak out and complain that my critical analysis would mean questioning their job prospects. They no longer have the idea to fight for their interests. Instead, they express with their intervention that it would be easier for them to remain silent about the problems. It manifests a desire for repression of real problems. This need for repression is today a widespread psycho-social survival principle, which, however, has only a short half-life, because the problems do not disappear because of the ignorance.
"Implementation of authoritarian concepts"They make a coherence between the intellectual world of the Internet elite and the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. What is this?
Werner Seppmann: Just as with Nietzsche his philosophy is associated with an absolute claim to validity ("The real philosophers, however, are commanders and legislators, they say, 'that's the way it should be!'", He writes), the computer's belief in progress is also presented -Elite. The IT billionaires derive from their economic and technological special and increasing monopoly position an exclusive as well as elite claim to the future. If they were to know this ideological context, it would not be unlikely that the leading IT players would invoke the superhuman concept of Nietzsche.
But even without such a concrete knowledge of Nietzsche, all essential elements of the philosopher's covert cynicism and his contempt for the "masses" are omnipresent in the fundamental orientations of the Californian ideology . The conceptions of IT capitalists are a radical variant of neo-liberal ideology: any regulation of economic and technological processes is not only highly questionable to them, but downright obscene. Legal restrictions (of any kind) and any rulings are discriminated against. Regulatory thoughts are a taboo topic for many computer ideologues.
Even against totalitarian positioning of the IT establishment, as postulated, for example, the network multimillionaire Peter Thiel (co-founder of the PayPal payment system), most IT ideologists are speechless - even if Thiel in the face of a supposed "struggle between politics and technology on life and Death "(as he calls it), for the purpose of stabilizing the ruling social order, speaks of the need to implement authoritarian concepts:" The fate of our world may be in the hands of a single human being who creates or spreads the mechanism of freedom that we need to make the world a safe place for capitalism. " (Thiel) - To understand correctly: "Freedom" means the unrestricted power of attorney of the IT billionaires.
That democratic participation has become obsolete, even lost its model function, is increasingly being emphasized more and more unequivocally not only by the top management of the IT industry, but increasingly heard from the think tanks of Silicon Valley: Democracy is "an obsolete technology ... - it has wealth, Health and happiness for billions of people around the world, but now we want to try something new. " (Randolph Hencken) The California ideology thus has a tendency of a fascist character.
"Economization of increasing areas of society"In your book, you argue that capitalism, through computer technology, creates exactly the subjects that it currently needs. Is not that thought a little economistically?
Werner Seppmann: The reality is sometimes more economical than it can be right for the critical social theorist. In many fields we can observe the economization of increasing areas of society, combined with the compulsion of individuals to form a market-conforming identity. Computer and Internet accelerate this development: Last but not least, alienated and capitalist-compliant social norms are practiced automatically, especially in the manic use of the "new media", because the net-cosmos is a world of signs and brands, whose imprinting force you have to submit to, if you social To avoid marginality and to remain "communicative". The safest way is the self-styling according to consumption lifestyle-templates in the context of electronic "communication" rituals.
It does not do anything on these, as in all other everyday cultural fields, which would not happen without the computer, but through the universalization of its use, this is done in a particular intensity and with greater effectiveness.
"Increasing centralization of the education system Can you make that concrete?Werner Seppmann: We find very meaningful examples in the area of the "digitization of learning". The children should be made "sustainable", it is said. But what are the actual consequences of such a mechanization of pedogogic processes? It is promised by the software vendors that the electronic learning machine would benefit the children: their educational achievements would be improved and their intellectual development promoted. In fact, however, the opposite is true of the prevalent variants of computer "pedagogy": cognitive developments are hindered just as much as emotional processes are disturbed. Least of all social competence is developed, but economically desirable functionalities are promoted.
It is not about abandoning the computer at school, but about a pedagogically reflected approach to it. However, this is not provided for in the leading concepts defined by the IT industry and not by pedagogical expertise. For the protagonists of "Digital Education" is a Trojan horse to finally enforce neo-liberal principles in the education sector. For a long time now people have been trying to get their commercial character - and yet they have not made much progress. The "digitization offensive" offers a new chance of influencing privatization and centralization of education. There are no pedagogical concepts in the foreground, but the marketing strategies of the software vendors. It is about increasing centralization of the education system through the learning programs they have developed. The software is slowly being replaced by the teacher: it is about the systematic conversion to digital educational content - and that right from the start: Ms. Merkel has literally blabbed at her partisanship for this neoliberal offensive when she said in the election campaign: "The learning content should provided in a digital cloud ", ie provided centrally. This is in line with the wishes and ideas of the IT complex, which they usually keep quiet about and only talk about in their internal position papers.
"Computer learning only stimulates a narrow range of mental abilities"What do you find particularly problematic in this trend towards digital education?
Werner Seppmann: The facts speak a clear language here: Compared with children who selectively and sparingly use computers as a learning medium, students with intensive computer use cut off in all relevant fields (with exceptions of some mathematical appropriation processes) negatively. For example, in children being treated with computer software, there is less depth of study of the material: because specific brain links do not take place in computer learning, the knowledge remains superficial, to name only one aspect.
In general, computer-aided acquisition of knowledge is hardly suitable for promoting intensive inquiry, because the learners of an abstract factuality remain detached from communicative contexts (which can only be guaranteed by real teaching staff and a class group interacting with each other): therefore, learning in front of the screen is essential This is a contradictory principle for understanding and penetrating facts as well as community-based learning and coordination processes, which are indispensable, above all, for the development of social competence.
One of the most problematic aspects is that computer learning stimulates only a narrow range of mental and emotional abilities. In an OECD study from 2015, the problem of digitized knowledge transfer is pointedly summed up: even the strongest technology can not replace even weak lessons, it says there, because computer learning regularly behind the intensity of conventional forms, man-mediated processes of knowledge work, remains behind.
The background of the shortcomings of computer learning is the fact that learning outcomes, especially at a young age, depend on the understanding and trust of living people. Technical arrangements are not likely to boost self-confidence and self-awareness in young people. One of the reasons for this is that the digital learning programs are developed according to technological and non-psychological learning criteria. They are only suitable for dispensing with processes in which, above all, regularly the socially weak children fail. The software vendors speak of an individualization of learning, but internally of the profit opportunities that result from the de facto centralization. In view you also have the prospering after-market, where the easiest way to get rid of worried parents. According to the words of the interest worker for the IT industry Professor Mayer-Schönberger, the schools should become "germ cells a big data ecosystem". These are unmistakable words from the lion's den.
"Age limit of 10 years" Are there also counterpositions?Werner Seppmann: Oh yes, they exist. While Mrs. Merkel already wants to push the computer into kindergartens, there are vocal assessments that are taken seriously that make this intention seem reckless and irresponsible: Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were asked when they familiarized their children with computers , Both were of the opinion that computers have no place in the hands of children. They even talked about an age limit of 10 years, which is certainly difficult to enforce today, because children have been intensely influenced by advertising psychological methods since early years and they also crave the computer through their parents' role models.
However, the purpose of Gates 'and Jobs' views is obvious to any educator and developmental psychologist who has not committed himself to IT ideology: Children first need a rootedness in reality, an immediate world experience, and a suitable educational environment. All this can not replace technology. Every minute before the screens is lost time for the sensorimotor development of children. The software vendors, flanked by an assertive propaganda apparatus and a public influencing system (to which the politicians in particular have willingly submitted) successfully tell a different story. But only their balance sheet numbers are successful.
"The children of the IT elite go to Waldorf schools"Are there any other counter-tendencies to this offensive of computerization of learning?
Werner Seppmann: The urge for computer pedagogy exists worldwide. In many countries for many years. But not in a few are increasingly drawn from the negative experiences - sometimes radical - consequences. Thus, the first tablet classes were closed again in the US. In Norway, too, an initiative to fully equip the schools with computers and Internet connections was stopped after only three months of serious negative experiences.
This development has also taken place in Australia. After bad places in the Pisa ranking, in 2012, about 2.4 billion dollars were invested in the laptop equipment of the schools. Since 2016, they were collected again because the students did everything with them, just did not learn. Alone the fact that students are allowed to bring mobile phones in the schools, significant performance drops are noted.
Also revealing is the experience of a German teacher who has tried to work with laptops in her class. The results were frightening. For example, when writing essay: For immediately the students fell into the shrinking style they have internalized in communication in the social networks.
By the way, the children of the IT elite in California usually go to Waldorf schools where computer pedagogy is frowned upon, while the Chancellor demands that "basic" programming be familiarized to elementary school students. It would be interesting to find out, at the expense of which subjects (which the school timeframe is not limitless) should happen.
The negative developments depicted in your book, such as superficial appropriation of content, fragmented thinking, compulsory conformity, loss of reality, and decline in subjectivity, are not so much related to the technique we use as to the economic process-oriented society that relies on technology reacts.
Werner Seppmann: In response to this question, I am able to respond with a clear answer: yes and no. Of course there is a reciprocal relationship: the computer (or its programs) are characterized by the contradictions of this society - but they are also reinforced by it. Unquestionably, the computer does not organize anything that would not be practiced without it. However, this happens now with greater intensity, with broader intentions and increasingly with a more effective (not to say totalitarian) efficiency.
"Formation of marketing characters"But, as an obvious question, it ultimately becomes apparent whether the tendency to disenfranchisement and also to manipulative subject imprinting described by you only results from technology. Is not it also because many do not know how to use them adequately? In other words, is the use of this technology fundamentally ambivalent, and does it only become negative through the massively unenlightened use?
Werner Seppmann: Now we live in this society in which these described processes take place and before we can think about how to neutralize the biggest negative effects or even in what way computer technology could develop emancipatory effects, we have to concerned us with the concrete effects in the here and now. And they are mostly, as I have described, at least very ambivalent, even if they are not clearly negative:
On the one hand, the possibilities of communication have become universal, but in everyday life increasingly represent an additional barrier, for example because the presence in social networks is associated with a constant compulsion to self-portrayal. An essential consequence of the prevailing "communication culture" is the formation of marketing characters; It stimulates the emergence of self-utilization-oriented forms of presentation according to the principle of a happy and carefree world, which are conveyed by the advertising media models. Any indication of problems and self-doubts that play a vital role in direct communication processes is eliminated. Indications of effort and failure are out of place in an atmosphere of self-awareness and the need for perfection. In their quest for positional advantages in the competitive configurations, the media attendees strive to appear flawless and perfect. The propagator of these images and messages knows that life is not what it is portrayed. But nevertheless he is inclined to take the glorified pictures, which he receives from his "friends", at face value, and looks with a certain envy and longing on the "hustle and bustle" and the "experience variety" of the others. A permanent feeling of missing something is kept alive and stimulates the need to engage in this continuous process of "communicative exchange" with the help of smartphone communication. But the feeling of missing something is not minimized, but rather an occasion to pick up the phone again and again to stay on the ball. Yes, that is a "massively unenlightened use," as you call it, but with mere appeals, but being reasonable, it will not be prevented. This requires all-inclusive initiatives, although I do not know what they might look like. At any rate, the problems can not be overcome with any rhetorical antics. We can not take the first step before the second. What is needed is a relentless review of the problematic aspects of digitization.
On the basis of such knowledge, the question of a different use of the computer and of its positive potentials as a developed productive force, which are unquestionably present, can then be asked and discussed. But then it's no longer just about technical issues, but the embedding of technology in human social conditions. It is about participation in the radical sense of a self-shaping of living conditions. The computer system in its current instrumentalistic style is a protective barrier against it. Therefore it corresponds to the interests of the ruling powers.
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