166 lines
7.2 KiB
Plaintext
166 lines
7.2 KiB
Plaintext
"the sky too is folding under you..."
|
|
The Anarchives Volume 2 Issue 14
|
|
The Anarchives Published By
|
|
The Anarchives The Anarchy Organization
|
|
The Anarchives tao@lglobal.com
|
|
|
|
Send your e-mail address to get on the list
|
|
Spread The Word Pass This On...
|
|
|
|
--/\-- language
|
|
/ / \ \ governance
|
|
---|--/----\--|--- and the information highway
|
|
\/ \/
|
|
/\______/\ by Jesse Hirsh
|
|
|
|
|
|
-~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~
|
|
|
|
our language struggles to keep abreast of the change we are undergoing.
|
|
confronted on all sides we see a social re-engineering, a distinct change
|
|
in societal processes.
|
|
|
|
the electronic media accelerate the devleopment of language to a hybrid
|
|
energy of unified consciousness.
|
|
|
|
as the fabric of modern governance, language traditionaly plays a rudimentary
|
|
role in the structure of a society.
|
|
|
|
with the advent of electronic media and the development of the
|
|
worldwide information organism, traditional institutions, based on
|
|
the control of language scurry to catch the wave of progress.
|
|
|
|
the information highway has become the metaphor for public debate.
|
|
it has become the symbol for the public's perception of an information
|
|
environment, and subsequently a reaction in governance.
|
|
|
|
as a 'public' metaphor, the information highway is a debateable concept.
|
|
often the issues presented are indicative of the interest presenting.
|
|
|
|
the 'popular' conceptions of the information highway are dangerously
|
|
misled. the changes that accompany such an implementation of social
|
|
organization will have a dramatic and permanent effect on the society.
|
|
|
|
dipping your head into a global synapse, submerging yourself into the
|
|
global consciousness is a transformative experience. your mind gets
|
|
that kick of electricity, generating more neurons and connections.
|
|
|
|
what is the 'order' on the net?
|
|
|
|
imagination as commodity.
|
|
|
|
with the liberation of information we approach 'total visibility'.
|
|
we all reach the metaphor of electron, zipping across the globe
|
|
winding the trail of our language into the linked minds of humanity.
|
|
we become aware of levels of access. access castes.
|
|
|
|
with television 'it doesn't matter what you think it's what you feel.'
|
|
the globs of the television decades, consolidated the homogeniety of the
|
|
mass market.
|
|
|
|
the liberation of information that accompanies a higher level of access,
|
|
the false sense of expressive freedom that is internaly projected,
|
|
we feel the change and express it through mutual experience.
|
|
|
|
an inherent dependence begins to accelerate with time as space is
|
|
rendered obsolete by increasing telepresence.
|
|
|
|
convergence and synthesis depict an implosion, the revolution is
|
|
televised and we watch with seduced apathy.
|
|
|
|
but the 'people want to be information',
|
|
they scream 'Access', we want 'Access'
|
|
|
|
and the private sector says,
|
|
"it's an Internet christmas"
|
|
|
|
the public unites into a coalition.
|
|
|
|
and the private sector co-opts all as consumers.
|
|
|
|
the matrix and brain of information,
|
|
becomes a stream of information,
|
|
enacting a change that may otherwise
|
|
go midunderstood, if not undetected.
|
|
|
|
the pay-per-bit system may change the image of the multicast center
|
|
in everyhome, to a super-duper remote control for everyone in tvland.
|
|
|
|
while other levels of access are used to conduct 'network analysis',
|
|
maintain 'usefull databases', and perform operations such as
|
|
'opticall character recognition' in maintaining a state of 'total
|
|
visibility'.
|
|
|
|
the total media environment we live in is defined differently depending
|
|
upon what information we access.
|
|
|
|
the present state of relatively loose access restrictions, coupled with
|
|
the jevunile level of maturity, presents an opportunistic emerging
|
|
electronic environment.
|
|
|
|
the language of the new mind still does not represent the emerging
|
|
realities. information overload has saturated the language, creating
|
|
a hazed vision of the present in relation to the near future.
|
|
|
|
an active approach to the reclaiming of the language, to the creation
|
|
of a new dialect of media comprehension.
|
|
|
|
the public interest hinges on the words of the governance, the language
|
|
given by the interests of public control, ready to influence the definition
|
|
of the public application of the "information highway"
|
|
|
|
the IHAC (Information Highway Advisory Council) report's language was all
|
|
encompassing, entirely inclusive, playing all bases defensively and
|
|
comprehensively.
|
|
|
|
similarly the private sector is all inclusive, and considers all to be
|
|
a part of their growing information networks. co-optation becomes the
|
|
agent of consolidation as the flagship sector of the economy will continue
|
|
to steer as it sees fit, by the guidance of the market, and the fuel
|
|
of profit.
|
|
|
|
no-one even suspects corporate governance as the white men at the
|
|
board table dictate, delegate, and organize self-regulation.
|
|
|
|
do we know the future we are impulsively sliding towards?
|
|
or has it been chosen for us, our consent manufactured,
|
|
and our tastes met with the emotional appeasement of a seductive
|
|
consumer product...
|
|
|
|
we require an active approach towards the language, engaging it and
|
|
discovering the root message of the medium itself.
|
|
|
|
"The professed concern for freedom of the press in the West is not very
|
|
persuasive in the light of the easy dismissal of even extreme violations
|
|
of the right of free expression in U.S. client states, and the actual
|
|
performance of the media in serving the powerful and privileged as an
|
|
agency of manipulation, indoctrination, and control. A 'democratic
|
|
communications policy,' in contrast, would seek to develop means of
|
|
expression and interaction that reflect the intersts and concerns of the
|
|
general population, and to encourage their self-education and their
|
|
individual and collective action. A policy conceived in tehse terms would
|
|
be a desideratum, though there are pitfalls and dangers that should not
|
|
be overlookded. But the issue is largely academic, when viewed in
|
|
isolation from the genral social scene. The prospects for a democratic
|
|
communications policy are invevitably constrained by the distribution of
|
|
effective power to determine the course and functioning of major social
|
|
instititutions. Hence the goal can be approached only as an integral part
|
|
of the further democratization of the social order. This central
|
|
component, with an indespensable contribution to make. Serious steps
|
|
towards more meaningful democracy would aim to dissolve the concentration
|
|
of decision-making power, which in our socieities resides primarily in a
|
|
state-corporate nexus. Such a conception of democracy, though so familiar
|
|
from early years that it might even merit the much-abused term
|
|
'conservative,' is remote from those that dominate public
|
|
discourse hardly a surprise, given its threat to estalished privilege.
|
|
Human beings are the only species with a history. Whether they
|
|
also have a future is not sobovious. The answer will lie in the prospects
|
|
for popular movements, with firm roots among all sectors to the margins
|
|
withing the existing social and political order: community, solidarity,
|
|
concern for a fragile environment that will have to sustain future
|
|
generations, creative work under voluntary control, independent thought,
|
|
and true democratic participation in varied aspects of life." (Noam
|
|
Chomsky, Necessary Illusions, pp. 135-6)
|
|
|
|
|