Mark Stahlman (via RadioMail) on Sun, 5 Jan 97 23:57 MET |
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Re: nettime: Hari Kunzru/Rewiring Technoculture |
Hari (and all the Nettimers): Thanks for your thoughtful (and lengthy) contribution to this ongoing discussion. It obviously required much care and went into much more useful detail than Louis Rossetto's "those post-Marxtists are just jealous of our success" reply. Hopefully, other editorial folks within the WIRED sphere will also pick up their keyboards and join the fray. However, I'm not sure that, when boiled down, you have really said anything all that different than Louis (or, Louis quoting Kevin or whatever). You have said that there is a new way of viewing such phenomena as states and markets (or what used to be called politcal-economy). You have repeatedly referred to such phenomena as "complex" and "emergent" and even "organisms." You are clearly a disciple of complexity (aka chaos) theory. This framework (along with it's 1950's General Systems Theory predecessor) is certainly the hot post-industrial buzz. It is distinctly different than the preceding modernist approaches to the topics (and the many before that) and, therefore, it (and you) can justifiably call itself more hip and cool. The problem is whether it is right, however. Louis also begged this question. He, like you, bemoaned the use of older frameworks to critique the newer approach while never bothering to lay any basis for the validity of the newer post-industrial analysis. It's just newer, that's all. He, like you, lumped everything before the post-modern era into a giant heap and set fire to it -- ignoring enormous and crucial distinctions within previous approachs. He, like you, pushed on with the "optimism meme" by claiming, without any basis in reality, that a better (or the best of all possible) world would result from using the post-civilization framework in setting policy. But, I suspect that he, like you, know that just won't be good enough. Prove it. Most importantly, no one from any precinct remotely close to WIRED has grappled with the obvious current effects of post-industrial globalism. Decades of predictably declining post-industrial economies are already taking their toll. Stagnant wages and lack of aspiration are already turned into crime and who-gives-a-flying-fuckism that presumably are the justification for police television cameras in so many public places in Britain and that amazing bill that effectively ends all pretense of privacy in your country. Parents no longer care about grades or even education so kids are getting dumber and dumber every term. Antibiotic defeating microbes are rampant and viral plagues worst than the Black Death have already consumed parts of Africa -- a continent slated for vast de-population. The only part of the economy which is arguably truly "global" is the financial market which is dominated by speculative gamesmanship which threatens to collapse the world's banking system -- ushering in a truly chaotic endgame. Post-industrialism is nothing less than the end of civilization -- just as Boulding said it was in "The Meaning of the 20th Century." It's happening. RIght now. As they say, don't get me started. It is absolutely disingenous to claim that complexity theory derived policy will do "better" without being specific about the likely outcomes would be of all the alternative approaches. Have you read Michael Vlahos' "ByteCity"? Did you see that amazing LIbertarian broadside posted on this list? Did you see my "English Ideology" piece? What will a truly post-industrial world actually look like? Are you familiar with the phrase, "New Dark Age"? But, it is because outcomes cannot be planned in the post-modernist framework that they are left out of the discussion. Following the disasterous failures of the modernist attempts to plan social progress in the first half of this century, the post-modernist has embraced the you-can't-plan-anything and who-believes-in-progress-anymore attitude. These attitudes are then combine with post-modernism's utter disregard for humanity's unique capabilities and the result is a recipe for mass death and devistation. Why won't post-modernism only lead to even greater wanton destruction than what came before? As you might have noticed, I'm quite convinced that it will. I agree that modernist "solutions" are unlikely to work, however. Perhaps you have seen my essay "What Do We Think?" posted on this list which chides us all on a tendency to fall back on handy institutional frameworks and already failed approaches. I came down strongly in agreement with Rossetto's challenge to us all to come up with something better. But, that challenge is to go far beyond post-modernism and far beyond WIRED's uncritical embracing of post-civilization themes filtered through their interpretation of the "optimism meme." Complexity theory is the problem now, not the answer. It, like the entire post-industrial ediface, must be scrapped. It has already visibly failed. BTW, I'm working on an essay called "Beyond Fundamentalism" which may be helpful in stimulating discussion about that post-WIRED framework. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, Hari, could you please send me a back issue (or two) of the British WIRED and I'll subscribe. I just can't seem to find it a my local cybercafe. <g> Thanks. Mark Stahlman New Media Associates New York City newmedia@mcimail.com -- * 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