Re: <nettime> The California Ideology is back, in the 2009 edition

[Newmedia@aol.com]

Felix:

Thanks -- this is very insightful.

What you are describing is a result of what might be called the
"re-emergence" of humans.

The "disappearance" of humans was, I would argue, the topic of much of
modernism and post-modernism.  No rounded human representation.  No  effective
human agency.

It is the topic at the root of much of McLuhan's early work (i.e.
"Mechanical Bride") as it was for Norbert Wiener (i.e. "The Human Use of Human
Beings").  Both of them shifted to a more someday-we'll-come-back strategy
after becoming convinced that humans were no longer "in charge" (circa  1952).

This was also the topic of my presentation "Who Are We: What Are We
Becoming?" at Metaforum III in Budapest.

The various socialisms can be viewed in relationship to this human
disappearance -- whether utopian efforts to fight it off or centralized efforts  to
take advantage of it.

Mass media "eliminated" individual humans.  The Internet has begun to
reverse this process.

So, of course, from the standpoint of the individual they can celebrate 
"collectivism" (i.e. what Kelly is calling "socialism") and from the
standpoint  of the state there is no alternative other than surveillance.

Mark Stahlman
New York City
**************We found the real ???Hotel California??? and the ???Seinfeld???
diner. What will you find? Explore WhereItsAt.com.
(http://www.whereitsat.com/?ncid=emlwenew00000004)


#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org