A Silent Defeat

I have talked about Korzybski's Manhood of Humanity in great detail in a post here, contemplating if we have indeed entered such a phase. I refuted such an idea, instead postulating we are stuck in the adolescence - an unstable transition that sees us valuing erroneously, remaining fearful of the future and striving toward ideals that are equally transitory. Reading Life, Inc. by media theorist, documentarian and writer (in addition to practising general semantics) Douglas Rushkoff a rousing and chilling condemnation of the corporatism that pervades our entire waking life, I wondered if it would be more appropriately titled the Adolescence of Humanity instead. If we worshiped gods and insanity as children, we now supplicate to corporations, brands and unsanity as adolescents.

Corporate culture does not merely exploit that we as humans routinely mistake the map for the territory, it insists that the map is identical to the territory and manipulates us into believing no other possibility exists. Corporations and brands exist merely as higher-level abstractions and as such requires our blind faith, not reason, to validate their outlandish claims. The intentional confusion of logical levels (PC vs. Mac instead of classifying both as "computers") separates us into categories and demographics that equally require our belief and complete and total submission to that belief to keep us spending our money on their brand - the goods and services they produce are largely irrelevant. Only a cult-like devotion to a product would elicit emotionally charged responses towards any claims of inferiority - "Flash isn't necessary for the web experience" is like saying an index finger isn't necessary to make a hand functional, but iPhone and iPad zealots parrot the line nonetheless.

Corporations and special interests wish us to be blissfully aware of the dual-function of language as behavior and language forming behavior. Buying a coffee from an abstracted "coffee house" stand in a local shopping mall, there was an item that could be purchased called a "babycino" - a thimbleful of frothed milk given to children. It pacified the children into thinking they were adult and sophisticated using the sound "cino" in the name as well as giving the illusion of care and provision for the children as parents (it's for baby - why would one deny a baby the pleasure of a beverage?) making both parent and child feeling content and even attached to the product. The drink becomes irrelevant but the kinesthetic experience remains. I asked the barista why it had such a name. He said, quizzically, "because it's for babies." He missed the point. It's for the corporation that owns the coffee house and no-one else.

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Doomsday Simulated

It seems that films depicting material threats to our continued existence - tsunami, large meteor, nuclear explosion - are much more horrifying than those about terror caused by technology. The T-800 is a protector in Terminator 2, the Matrix can be subverted to serve human ends and the detrimental effects of the programs on Videodrome seem so outlandish they could never be believed as real by any rational person.

Reading Neil Postman's Technopoly: The Surrender of our Culture to Technology, he offers a bold critique of "progress" as contextualized by the advance of technology and our uncritical use of it. By abandoning the deification of omnipotent creators, we instead worship at the altar of Intel, Apple and Microsoft instead. It is almost we as humans require these machines to make sense of the world when in most cases, it obfuscates and confuses many people.

Most people cannot see the "point" of Facebook. If you ask a random sample of people as to the purpose and function of Facebook, I do not believe anyone could point to an extensional or definitive answer. So many of us subscribe to Facebook uncritically much like the masses of the Middle Ages that had an unwavering and unquestioning devotion to Christ and God. Those Facebook "heretics" that refuse to open an account or deactivate it are looked at with suspicion, much like Atheists and agnostics are by Christians and other religious believers. Though it is arguable that this new digital culture has supplanted an "analog" conception of culture, its worth noting how one interprets the information given over such a medium.

For example, Facebook relishes in two-valued thinking - like and dislike - for the images, video and text that can be posted on the site. A "like" encourages others to share and provide an opinion on what is being presented. If our content cannot be "liked", we modify it to such an extent where it will fit the constraints of the medium. Likewise, we refer to Facebook as a complete abstract entity and not as a process that has no real solid form. When Facebook goes "down" we yell at Facebook itself, not the servers, nor the connection leading from it to our computers or the human staff that are responsible for them. "Facebook" in and of itself is not hilarious, malevolent or inane yet we think it to be without any further investigation.

Technology, as Postman explained, "giveth and taketh away." What exactly social media has given us is difficult to discern. But I can guarantee is that almost no one has asked as they blindly entered their name and email address as they signed up what it has subtracted from our culture as a whole and whether it's a thing to be "liked" or "disliked" in and of itself.

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http://twitter.com/crushtor

Like Silent Birds of Prey

Selected Observations from Adelaide - 18-22 June, 2010.

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Letting the right one in is like a process of lying to the brain so one can salve a bleeding heart. More mechanically, its like abstraction from the point of entry and acting blissfully unaware of its process. Lips taste sweet without any flavor. The sun pierces through the blades of my eyelids without mercy. The cold rattles the bones within my fingers as smoke billows to the top of the room, hazing the glow of yet more horrible television.

At the end of the longest night comes day. With the rising of the sun, laments for miseries past and cheers for enjoyment yet to come can be heard. If we cannot compromise with time, we remain its enemy. We put up arms but we are always overcome.

If there's one thing I've learned during my travels here and elsewhere, its that people are as unknowable to me as they are to themselves. Probing, demolishing and intimating - all general theories; conjectures just itching to be refuted at some later point. Maps are never territories and are in constant need of rewriting. I cannot watch and report for you - the feelings I encounter flow deep within are everpresent like the lightness of our being. A process of my own assisted design from Mother Nature. Nevertheless, I do care in my own way. All ways and none; unique in their expression. For what it's worth, at the end of the world, it's a small step in the right direction.

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http://twitter.com/crushtor