Re: <nettime> Evgeny Morozov and the Perils of "Highbrow Journalism".

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@neoscenes.net>]

>>It takes time and energy to impose order on a system. Clearly
>>many many segments of the 'developed world' are manifesting the
>>inevitable decrease in the energy available to maintain their own
>>order.

>Or, the perceived decline in fact-checking could rather be
>the result of a continued ascendance of the formal rituals of
>accountancy which t bytfield mentioned, combined with a networked
>innundation of "facts."

Yes, definitely -- fact-checking / accountancy are both forms of
feedback for the various expressions and projections of power that
are made within a techno-social system -- for the subjective purposes
of 'optimization'. And when the level of feedback rises to a certain
level, the system moves into dysfunction and ultimate collapse --
unless it is able to find and tap into additional energy resources
(hire more fact-checkers, obviously, is a solution at one level,
but this requires a bigger cash flow, etc, etc). And, as Tim and
others pointed out, in early 20th century academic writing references,
footnotes, and other direct, detailed linkages to other knowledge-work
was generally sparse compared to the situation now. Attention was
paid to original thinking, and perhaps the 'pressure to succeed' was
less onerous (fewer people on the planet, and the wider social system
had ascendant and seemingly unlimited energy resources). In a highly
competitive system (now), where there is a surplus of some resources
(bodies w/ PhDs), the system can project ever finer feedback controls
over participants making them jump through ever-smaller hoops; while
at the same time, resource competition in the global sense has gotten
ever more cutthroat. There are barbarians, terrorists, drug users,
Ebola, and general chaos 'out there' -- I'll do anything to be a
functionary in the system

"Here's my article, Sir." "What about the title, is *that* a fact?,
you'd better f*&kin' be sure!" (do-loop repeat at each word in
5000-character article).

When the shit hits the fan, no one will care how long your
bibliography is, but rather, *can you think creatively enough
to survive?* Until the flying excrement reaches a threshold
value, folks' life-energies will be ever more enthralled by the
presently-operational system.

Perhaps in the end, it is the poetess/poet that is the most optimal
digester-of-language, the rest are constipated on the bland gruel of
the academy *and* socially-mediated life...


jh

-- 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++





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