Re: <nettime> Re: What is this thing that I call Doug?

[Brian Brotarlo <brofont@iloilo.net>]

A little more on that thing called Doug:

Simon Bayly wrote:

> Doug Rushkoff said:
>
> > > Do I want to use a
> > > coercive sales technique that I learned watching the Gap's instructional
> > > videos? I'll win a bonus or a T-shirt if I can make this person buy a
belt
> > > along with his jeans, and I'll get in trouble if I don't make enough
3-item
> > > sales... but I can tell he doesn't have that much money. We all
experience
> > > these moments of doubt, these moments of hesitation when our true
> > > sensibility emerges.
>
> I wrote:
>
> >
> > > OK, now something important seeps in by accident. Rushkoff's notional
> > > Gap worker faces  Kant's categorical imperative! S/he finds that "What I
> > > have to do" (acknowledge the other in his/her "otherness" outside of any
> > > economy) is imposed independently of my wants and desires (in this case,
> > > to make the sale, be a good employee, make enough money for myself,
> > > cater to my self-interest and survival).
> >
>
> Brian Brotarlo wrote:
>
> >
> > I would think if faced with Kant's categorical imperative, the Gap worker
> > would think something like: "Okay, if I sold him the belt, it would only
> > mean that I'm doing my job requirement, which is either bad or good,
> > depending from where you're looking. [plus rest of para pursuing the
ethical
> > logic to its conclusion]
>
> snip>
>
> Fair point -  you are a better, stricter Kantian than me! But a revised kind
of
> Kantian ethics
> might suggest that of course we don't go around reasoning in the world in
this
> elaborate and ultra-relfective mode every time we are faced with a decision
about
> the right thing to do. We basically just do it, or we do something else. The
very
> moment our Gap worker sets eyes on the poor bloke, ("I can tell he doesn't
have
> that much money") s/he feels the force of the Kantian imperative right at
that same
> moment, prior to any logical reasoning process. As Doug R says, we all
experience
> these moments of doubt and hesitation - on a daily basis, rather than as the

> exception to the rule of business-as-usual.

If you read A Preface To the Metaphysics of Morals Again, the Kantian
imperative would appear more like a prescription for Bionic man than a
Force tugging on an individual.  It's logical reasoning that causes
ethics, by the way, and unless we're all born Ancient Greeks and
Rennaissance people, we are what our ethos is. The feeling's of doubt, in
any case, of a a certain Gap worker in say NYC, given that he was born in
NYC, is an alternative feeling at best, sort of like when you watch TV and
you got stuck in Oprah for no reason you can think of. I wouldn't apply
Kant at all. 

>
>
> Brian wrote:
>
> > Who will enforce that ethics? Rushkoff I think merely means a modified
> > system theory. Individual reflection is basically coercive. He did mention

> > the superego, didn't he? Also, I think he meant, despite all the
> > meaningful attempts to escape coercive factors in human actions, we find
> > ourselves looking for the same things we meant to leave behind. As in,
> > Nike becoming a version of father, and CNN, Amazon, etc.
> >
>
> Surely ethics is not enforceable? No-one can enforce it. It has to be
chosen,
> otherwise it would not be ethical.
> Ethics-as-philosophy is addressed to those asking the question "what is the
right
> thing for me to do?" It cannot speak to or even contact those for whom that
> question has no meaning.

Pardon my assumption of your familiarity with Kant. Since you've been
referring to him, I though you knew that an Assumption of a God to apply
justice in the end is essential in any Moral Philosophy. I was being a
little cynical. Who would enforce this Ethics? I asked. I was being
sarcastic, bearing in mind that most people who had the balls to think
about a better order in the human race are hedging their bets on guess
what, existing laws. This sounds ironic, but I think they just care too
much of actually DOing something about the matter. 


>
>
> Not sure what you mean by individual reflection is basically coercive -
maybe that
> all our ideas, behaviours, language, etc are in fact ideological (i.e. that
they
> wield power, coerce, divide and rule, etc). In this notion, the human
subject is
> basically a surface effect produced at the intersection of  these
ideological codes
> - any notion of self-determination or ethical choice is purely illusory?  Or
maybe
> a more psychoanalytic take, where we are primodially divided against
ourselves,
> compelled to repeat against a background  unshakeable psychic structure,
from which
> we can never escape and about which we can never get fully clear? Both seem
> fatalistic.

I'm not sure what Rushkoff Exactly meant in the interview, too. I think
I've read the same thing from him in Harper's, I think, the one about the
Church of Nike.  But it makes some sense the first time. I think he had
the deeper meaning of Superego in mind.  Reflection, I think he was
saying, is a product of the superego. Superego makes us think twice before
we do an act. Animals don't have superegos. It's coercive.  It came from
our parents and the parents of our parents. And the lines of communication
is hopelessly blurry. That is we don't understand why this particular
thing should be as it should, but superego compels us to subscribe to its
brand of truth.  Self-determination, is evidenced, however, by the fact
that somebody can identify what mechanisms are at work in the real world.
When you're commenting about Nike acting like a false prophet, there's
your self-determination right there. 

> >
> > Give a guy a chance to change his mind. With our life expectancies
> > matching up with very abrupt epochs of very rapid changes, there's no
> > chance of being perfect, in the good 'ole traditional academic discourses.

> >
>
> Change of mind - good. Lazy change of mind - less good.
>

I would be exactly the same. Nobody reads books in prearranged chapters
nowadays. 

>
> Thanks for the thread.
>
> Simon Bayly
> London, UK.






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