Re: <nettime> Capitalism is FINISHED -- As a Result of the Internet!

[Newmedia@aol.com]

Marc:
 
> We now, in the West, are a society of individuals 
> in search of society.

Very well said!  And, therein lies  the "problem" *and* the "solution."
 
As in an "every man/woman for themselves" situation, there is no chance for 
 *coherence* and coming up with a common STRATEGY is totally out of the  
question.  
 
I know many of the people you interviewed and watched the  trailer.  Good 
job!  Manuel Delanda summed it up well.  Now  everyone is "hacking" society 
for their own amusement.  Believe me, I know  where *he* is coming from.  But 
this cannot last.  
 
Because, in fact, it means there is *no* society under these  conditions.  
This CHAOS has been long anticipated.  The original title  for Marshall 
McLuhan's first book (circa 1947) was "A Guide to Chaos."
 
 
Indeed, this is why "neo-liberalism" doesn't work (and why the 1% is a  
statistical and not social category.)

 
By taking the "individualism" you ascribe to the Enlightenment to its  
"logical" extreme (an attitude that was born with the printing press), you  
create two situations: Revolution (i.e. the "revolt" against this isolation) and 
 Renaissance (i.e. the search for the basis of earlier "common sense.")  
 
Both of these are now very much underway (i.e. McLuhan's "reversal" and  
"retrieval" quadrants.)
 
Hopefully you will also capture these dynamics in your documentary.
 
 
The key to what you've said is "in the West."  What you are describing  is 
emphatically *not* what is happening elsewhere.  
 
This is why the famous phrase from James Joyce has now been reversed.   NOW 
-- "The East Shall Shake the West Awake"!

 
The parts of the world that have undergone this radical "individualism" are 
 now stagnant.  There will be no economic growth for a decade or more.   
The "indigenous" population is already in decline.  There has already been  a 
widely recognized "failure" in terms of new ideas (i.e. the notion of  
"emergence" is just rehashed Neo-Platonism.)  The party is over.
 
 
GLOBALISM was a lie.  DIGITAL technology has cut it off at the  knees.  The 
EMPIRE has collapsed.
 
And, hopefully you will also capture these dynamics in your  documentary.
 
Good *luck*!
 
Mark Stahlman
Brooklyn NY


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