morgan.garwood@thing.nyc.ny.us (by way of Pit Schultz ) on Fri, 15 Mar 96 13:25 MET |
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nettime: ON MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY |
although there a many good claims made for the "democratic" idea, in practice there isn't strong participation from the public at the level of *ideas*. The public now serves to ratify agendas which are proposed as part of a package-deal... you get the Republican box, or the Social Democrat box, depending on where you are, and you have to make do with what has been packed in it for you. In practice, this is *consumerism* as government... just as television culture has made mental action resemble information consumerism. One goes shopping for ideas, or entertainment, which one has no expectation of shaping, beyond turning the program off or on. Changing the situation then requires a *social space* where one experience more creative input into the *idea shapes* that are released into the public domain. Mafias and bad governments are like opportunistic infections, the appear in areas where there is little concept of public *idea shaping*, and do best when the population resemble sheep. In my experience , the forms of discussion that we have here, no matter how imperfect they are, are very rare in the public sphere. In a fluid environment that may resemble Clauswitz' "fog of war" more than a stable "game scenario", we need a new form of navigation tool... perhaps we are like sailors before the time of the compass, and once the compass appears, the confusions and misdirections become less. Since the Dutch government has led the way partly with their Central Planning Bureau, and the Global Business Network has shown some good ideas in scenario planning (but maintains a very exclusive club attitude of being ten times smarter than anyone else); is the next step then to create an interactive site which concerns itself with *potential futures* ? Doing this project will be expensive, and with sponsorship comes politicization. Maybe the Soros Foundation would help create such a zone. I'd have one level of discussion to examine what the *issues* really are, but not to discuss them in detail. Then there should be *rooms* where solid information about those issues is presented... what are the realities of Overpopulation... what are rational drug policies...how does immigration affect host cultures.... how does the arms industry affect neighbor-state relations... what is the extent and impact of global counterfeiting.... etc... and then encourage international discussion of those issues, what sorts of scenarios do they suggest, and how do we respond to those scenarios? If the Global Business Network is so fucking smart, let them take part in designing "scenario rooms" where we can explore the alternative futures they contemplate... and if the Dutch CPB is worth its keep, let them participate as well... we have to move beyond the "azza" phase, "azza" Mongolian Orphan, I..., or "azza" Boy Raised By Wolves, I.... There may be much better solutions to our difficulties right under our noses, but he conversations are too confused, too filled with noise and garbage, to really get anywhere... -- * distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission * <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, * collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets * more info: majordomo@is.in-berlin.de and "info nettime" in the msg body * URL: http://www.desk.nl/nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@is.in-berlin.de