Newmedia on Thu, 24 Jul 2014 14:43:55 +0200 (CEST)


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Re: <nettime> More Crisis in the Information Society


Eric:
 
But society *cannot* be "designed" -- not by you or anyone else.
 
Indeed, this is why so many people are "naive" to imagine that  there is a 
"Deep-State" (which doesn't exist and about which the Snowden  disclosures 
tell us nothing) or that there is anyone to whom you could give a  "Big 
Brother Award."  All this is amusing fantasy which is now confronted  with harsh 
reality . . . !! <g>
 
> The conclusion to draw from all of this is that the political 
>  system as it is composed and functions right now is defunct 
 
Correct, but not for the reasons you imagine . . . 
 
>  not the internet is broken, but democratic politics is broken. 
 
Correct, and (perhaps without knowing it) you have put your finger on  the 
*cause* of the current "broken" situation -- the "Internet" is incompatible  
with "democracy" (and "globalism" and "consumerism" and a whole lot more.)
 
> The response should not be to give up on all our democratic 
> values and aspirations, but instead to re-emphasise them, 
> more forcefully than ever. 
 
Wrong.  Those "values" are not the ones we are going to move forward  with. 
 They were given to you by an environment that no longer has any  power 
over you.  So, along with that environment (i.e. television), those  values are 
now also *obsolete* -- KAPUT . . . !!
 
Those values are the product of the "psychological war" that you (and the  
rest of us) have been bombarded with all of our lives.  They are the  
"Democratic Surround" that Fred Turner writes about and they were born in WW II,  
hatched by "psy-warriors" Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, as he amply  
documents.
 
http://www.amazon.com/The-Democratic-Surround-Multimedia-Psychedelic/dp/0226
817466/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406130582&sr=8-1&keywords=democratic+surround
&dpPl=1
 
They are the product of "social engineering" and the *response* to the  
FAILURE of their efforts (i.e.which was the "defunct" system you mention)  is 
NOT to double-down on trying to engineer its replacement.
 
> And beyond analysis and critique, indeed how ever important, 
> I believe we need to engage in the design and re-design of 
>  democratic politics - at the micro and the macro level.

That won't work (which, given all the failures you list in your email,
should be pretty obvious) . . . !!
 
Instead of trying to "do something to society," we all need to try to  
UNDERSTAND what our technological environment is *doing* to us -- just as  it 
gave us our "democratic values and aspirations," it is now giving us  their 
replacements.
 
LISTEN to the technology and hear what it is telling you (and think about  
what it means to be living in NETTIME) . . . 
 
Mark Stahlman
Jersey City Heights
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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