Maybe I'm more tolerant
of Chomsky bashing because I find Chomsky's
hair-splitting on
issues like Cambodia irritating; justifications in various
places aside, his
original statements on the issue conveyed a certain
blaseness and agnosticism
towards what happened in the country. To argue
about the "details"
of what he said is, especially in the case of a
professor of linguistics
who understands that meaning is in what is
conveyed, a bit
besides the point.
And I just don't
buy that Alterman spends much time bashing other lefties.
Cockburn spends
a far larger portion of his column space bashing other
progressives, admittedly
because they are to his "right", but also because
they are not as
car-loving, militia-consorting or otherwise as authentic as
he is. Hitchens
of course loves nothing better than to bash other folks. I
can go down the
list of columnists with their pet peeves with other
progressives.
Why is Chomsky so
sacrosanct that bashing him gets Alterman kicked off the
progressive island?
Yes, Alterman is not a hard leftie, which is why he
gets mainstream
columns, but he is still more progressive than anyone else
out there.
The fact that so
much debate is expended on him, rather than on
conservatives who
oppose the issues we care about is one of the problems of
left discourse.
Nathan Newman
nathan@newman.org
http://www.nathannewman.org
http://www.nathannewman.org/log/
(News & Views WebLog)
-
nettime.org
posts from here on down
Dear Florian,
Thank you for your
useful essay, 'Concepts, Notations, Software, Art'
recently posted
to nettime. In the spirit of it being a new version of
an old text, I'd
like to suggest a plug-in.
At the very least,
a brief patch may be required if we are not to have
a repetition of
the usual scission, in the last few paragraphs, between
the simply 'formal'
and simply, and woollily, 'social'. (The twentieth
century is dotted
with too many of such debates.) I'd like to make two
short suggestions:
1 'Formal'
operations do not occur alone. There is clearly a current
of art using computer
networks or instructions which believes itself to
be primarily formalist.
However, this belief is the result of a
particular perspectivalism
that cleaves the work from it's more messy
or productive implications
and connections. In order to clarify this,
two examples drawn
from the text:
1.1 Hugo Ball's poem
Carawan. Do we misunderstand the work if it is
read in relation
to certain of the Dada Zurich artists' ostensive
reference to 'African'
speech and symbolism, to further read this in
relation to the
predatory colonialism of Europe, or in relation to
Ball's own yearning
for a mystical language of immediacy (along the
lines of that which
you usefully describe in 'Language as Virus') which
could be accessed
via such poetry?
1.2 Sol LeWitt.
LeWitt's work exists both as a series of instructions,
and their execution.
There are two ways in which we can understand
this simple formalist
limit to the work as requiring an expansion.
1.2.1 Organisation:
the work is addressed to a possible executor - a
socius of two or
more is thus composed. This at the very least allows
the work to be carried
out and shown without any trouble to the artist,
one can also note
that it is one of the mechanisms which allowed
conceptual exhibitions
to be mounted by post and by phone in across the
world in several
locations at low cost. (See Katherine Moseley's
excellent catalogue,
'Conceptions, the conceptual art document'.)
Further, if you wish
to include an authorised LeWitt in an exhibition
it is necessary
to contact his representative in order to receive
permission to carry
out the particular set of instructions you wish to
have realised.
As is common in much of the conceptual work begun in
the sixties there
is a deployment of a particular set of apparatuses
which define roles,
often by contract: representative,
artist/instructor,
executor, and so on. It is clear that such
arrangements are
immediately 'social' in a variety of ways. Making the
notary an explicit
rather than implicit transactor of some art systems
is one of the minor
ways which certain conceptual works addressed
themselves to the
political and economic dimensions of such systems.
1.2.2 Material 'substrate':
one of the problems of an approach which
allows for a simple
formalism is that it reduces the components of its
realisation to a
simple 'substrate' through which the work is realised.
A kind of
matter is captured and given form by an idea. What might
usefully be proposed
instead is that particular works, including those
you discuss, operate
by arranging combinations of material,
organisation, perception
etc. LeWitt's work here for instance might
be seen to operate
as a particular realisation of a certain combination
of the propensities
of: postal and fax networks; orthography, geometry,
and the materials
wall/paper and pen/pencil for their actuation;
alphabetised language,
linguistic technologies of description; art
economies of desire,
command, and authorship, art economies of objects
and spaces, of publications,
or theorisations and naming; the pleasure
of repetitive exercise
and expectation in the person/s of those
actuating the work,
the conditions of employment of gallery assistants
who carry out such
work; etc.
The particular compositional
terms by which such an arrangement is
made, correspond
in some way with what is reductively described as the
'formal'.
However, such a way of engaging with a work immediately
connects art to
the question of what to do with life, with the world,
without loosing
any of the power assigned to it under the schismatic
and reductive term,
'formal'.
2 Such compositional
terms are dynamics are generated in order to be
launched into an
outside. To name or describe such a system, the modes
of a dynamic, the
terms of an arrangement, calls it into being - with
one or another degree
of virtuality. Each such act depends on the
arrangements that
it is part of in order to become actuated and
mobilised.
For purposes of presentation,
Forkbomb.pl, for instance, uses both the
actual script and
the operation of the program within a computer where
a sound / graphics
generation program is also running. Forkbomb
'competes' with
this program for resources as it gradually uses them
up. As the
number of fork commands increases it gradually makes the
operation of this
other program impossible, producing variation in
sound and image.
This variation allows
the perception of the two programs' interactions
to become perceptible
in a different way - to different senses and
aesthetic codes,
and in terms of duration. The production of sound and
image is also notably
varied by the configuration of the particular
machine that the
work is being run on.
Part of the work
in deciding how to best mobilise Forkbomb is
therefore to bring
it into some kind of arrangement with the contexts
it operates in,
as well as cpan and the normal routes for code
distribution, these
include exhibitions and conference presentations.
Part of a work is
also its means of promotion, its mobilisation in
'secondary' contexts,
the way it appeals to certain kinds of
interpretation,
or of remobilization by or participation in certain
kinds of discourse
- such as this. Utilising various ways of making it
'sensible' are a
way of generating its operation in an 'outside', the
contexts in which
it appears and to which it is addressed. (This does
not of course preclude
things occurring or being repurposed in other
contexts).
To remove the possibility
of such a work being understood as 'social'
would therefore
seem to deny part of what is important in what is
brought together
in its different actuations.
I have not touched
up the presence of what you describe as simply
'formal' in the
those works you describe as simply 'social' because for
the purposes of
this text that would be unnecessary. The work
mentioned, other
related work, as well as the texts around them give no
grounds for the
repetition of this doubly useless scission.
The above couple
of proposals of course make only a slight amendment to
the tail-end of
what is otherwise a valuable argument - I look forward
to seeing more!
nettime's_timekeeper
on Wed, 19 Jun 2002 14:34:06 +0200 (CEST)
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]
<nettime>
the download times they are a changin' digest [plasmastudii, Geer, Beaubien]
To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
Subject: <nettime> the download times they are a changin' digest [plasmastudii,
Geer, Beaubien]
From: "nettime's_timekeeper" <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 08:55:23 -0400
Reply-to: "nettime's_timekeeper" <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>
Re:
<nettime> where has all the bandwith gone?
uospnJ <office@plasmastudii.org>
Re:
<nettime> the download times they are a changin'
Benjamin Geer <benjamin.geer@attac.org.uk>
Bandwidth
redux, was EboneKPNQwest going down
Beatrice Beaubien <i2eye@mac.com>
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 19 Jun
2002 00:11:44 -0400
From: uospnJ <office@plasmastudii.org>
Subject: Re: <nettime>
where has all the bandwith gone?
David,
What you describe
is a really cool use for the web. But on a day to
day basis, the average
user just is not as resourceful. We look up
the medical sites
and long-winded (basically ads for the medical
world). We
aren't always culling useful information from the sea of
garbage.
In your case, you
found some helpful stuff. I have never found
useful health-medical
type info. But I have no idea where to look
and very little
interest in giving it much of my time (as the great
majority of surfers
who aren't particularly enthralled by the net).
Not that someone
hasn't posted it, but that after wading through few
hundred MBs worth
of junk, I have to get up
The net COULD be
a beautiful garden of uses but first we have to clip
off the 3000 layers
of weeds. Bandwidth is only going to make it
worse for now.
If it helps for one movie, it'll facilitate 20
innocuous ones.
What's the hurry? The web will eventually grow into
some purpose, whereupon
we can decide then if it's worth more
band-width.
Not give more bw and hope a use fills it.
judson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PLASMA STUDII
http://plasmastudii.org
223 E 10th Street
PMB 130
New York, NY
10003
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Jun
2002 17:56:41 +0100
From: Benjamin Geer
<benjamin.geer@attac.org.uk>
Subject: Re: <nettime>
the download times they are a changin'
Florian Cramer wrote:
> - - Free Software
(and software downloads in general). Much of the
> server/downlaod
bandwidth for Free Software is provided by company
> servers
like www.sourceforge.net; many of them originate in the dotcom
> area
and, producing no revenue for their operators, have a doubtful
> future.
There is a similar
problem with the hosting of web sites for activist groups.
Some Indymedia sites,
for example, are hosted on PCs with DSL connections in
people's homes.
Commercial web hosting is cheap if you're happy with static
web pages or a limited
variety of basic, pre-configured software, but if you
want to run an application
server or a custom content management system, or
if you need to do
any system administration yourself, you need a dedicated
server, which is
very expensive, considering the budgets of most volunteer
groups. A
lot of the best Free Software for running dynamic web sites is
currently supported
by only a few, very expensive commercial hosting
packages.
Therefore, many activist groups run their own servers on home DSL
connections.
Naturally, this is completely inadequate if your site gets a
lot of visitors.
Also, DSL in Britain is extremely unreliable; it's quite
common for a connection
to go down for several days.
If bandwidth were
a lot cheaper, it would dramatically increase the ability
of small volunteer
groups to run dynamic web sites built on the best
available technology.
There would be a lot more things like Indymedia, and
they'd be a lot
more reliable.
Benjamin
________________
This email has been
scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs SkyScan
service. For more
information on a proactive anti-virus service working
around the clock,
around the globe, visit http://www.messagelabs.com
_________________
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Jun
2002 13:56:13 -0400
From: Beatrice Beaubien
<i2eye@mac.com>
Subject: Bandwidth
redux, was EboneKPNQwest going down
Dear Nettimers,
The beat goes on.
Thanks to Pit Schultz,
enbyoire e, and Morlock Elloi for their further
comments.
Firstly, I solicited
the insight of someone in operations at a major
European ISP. Here
are his comments, lightly edited:
___________________
>
> The majority of
the KQ Network is maintained and built by EBONE which
> was aquired last
year..... The EBONE people got in a very weird
> situation
> because EBONE
BV isnt bankrupt all, but KQ is.
> Thus they didnt
get a cent of this weird construction, but they kept on
> maintaining the
network for a few weeks.
> They were fed
up and said if they didn't get payed they would shutdown
> (sounds normal
doesn't it? They are proud of the things they have built
> over the past
few years).
> The people who
look after the bankruptcy agreed with payment, no
> problem there.
> No shutdown, no
inet falling apart, nothing.
>
> And believe me....
if KQ should go down it will matter and you will
> feel it, even
> if europe is a
long way from your home.
> There IS a shortage
of bandwidth, we have got to the level that if we
> miss one carrier
> we experience
slow and unreachable sites (route is a world of its own),
> and btw next
> up is Qwest holding.
> (ever did a traceroute
that didnt say qwest in eg canada?) so bummer...
> we will
> all loose like
55% (yes 55%) of our so-valued but empty virtual world :)
>
> About sitting
on an empty network, are you nuts? Ebone/KQ did 25% of
> european
> network..... thats
not empty.
> Seems it isnt
as easy as you thought to pinpoint european internet isnt
> it? Or heck seems
> you dont understand
internet at all :) <-- WATCH THAT SMILEY
_____________________________
Pit,
Although I find your
language a bit hard to follow, I agree with some of
your points.
> the broadband issue
is of great interest for nettimers
> for different
reasons. the materiality
> of the internet
besides the invested labour of users,
> is represented
by its lowest layers, the physical one
> and the the one
of switched packets. controling those
> layers means controling
the 'means of production'.
And any constraints
on it, like service interruptions due to providers'
financial problems,
impacts us all.
>
> non-mainstream
content shouldn't be hirarchized by
> data-types. a
usual text needs 40 kb, a usual audio track 4 MB,
> and a usual movie
takes 800 MB (divx) and in DVD quality 4,5 GB.
> it would be a
bit absurd, to claim that trough 'bandwidth
> scarcity' textual
production would play a higher role in
> cultural production
than other formats.
The converse is also
true. Bandwidth is sucked up by divx files clogging
the ether every
time a blockbuster film is released, and this does
effect the average
80 kb/day user.
>
> the cultural politics
of the net are very much co-determined
> by it's economical
basic conditions. the implications might
> be different for
producers, distributors, consumers and their
> various mixes,
but it certainly matters if i have to pay
> 6 euros per gigabyte
or just 10 cents. the latter would be
> possible if kpnquest,
firstmark, globallcrossing and however
> the fibreoptics
backbones are called, would have made their
> full capacity
available to resellers.
>
I can't comment on
this. The suggestion seems to be that it is in the
best interests of
providers to hold back bandwidth and I haven't heard
of this practice.
Also, in the current climate it doesn't seem fiscally
viable, i.e. their
shareholders might not approve.
> interestingly there
is not much investigative online journalism
> concerning the
developments of the bandwidth market.
There has been a
river of ink spilled on this, but it is in the
financial press
which apparently some nettimers don't read.
> a long time ago,
i tried to remember nettimers to george gilder's
> dream of the bandwidth
glut. like other messianic out-of-control
> consultants he
influenced the dot-com mania a lot, in its
> underlaying ideology
of hypergrowth. the negativity of this
> absolute optimism
turns out today as a phase of restauration,
> a rethorics of
dull praxis, a culture of looking backwards and
> historify the
last glorious years. that not all nice ideas
> about the future
(like free bandwidth) get real as fast as promised
> by the cyber-prophets
mean that they are completly wrong.
Yeah, and glorifying
the past results in a present day nihilism; trading
one extreme position
for another.
>
> first it seems
that the users themselves stand in the way of
> an unlimited bandwidth
future. enjoying the new
> possiblities of
digital fluidity (p2p etc.) they activily
> supported the
crash of almost every 'soft' content driven
> audio, video,
streaming or otherwise broadband driven
> dot-com project,
which started with 'free services' in
> expectation to
"buy out" the "free floating" productivity
> of its users.
this 'fall of the profit rate' resembles the story of
> immaterial labour,
the promises of communism... the question
> is what went wrong
in building up a consciousness of the users?
Lesson learned: whether
or not you embrace the realities of global
marketplace you
will be subjected to its fluxes and (mis)fortunes.
>
> clear is, that
there are no larger numbers of customers which
> pay for the infrastructure
layed out arround these glorious
> info-autobahn-plans,
might they be called broadband, next generation
> mobile
> phones, video-telephony
or flying cars. it is the tragedy
> of the wired economy,
that the leading american technological dreams,
> were inspired
by a immature or at least incomplete intellectual culture
> and not by social
needs. the broadband future was mostly described
> in scenarios resembling
the techno-futurism beginning in the
> 50ies, with fully
automatic homes, and a user experience directly
> inspired by the
narratives arround extraterrestial space
> colonialisation.
and the banks got
sucked into this futurism to the tune of 4 trillion
dollars in a span
of months. Hence the situation we find ourselves in
now.
>
> let's take another
look at the laws of internet traffic.
> today just the
costs of streaming down a 90 minute divx
> video with 1000kbps
at the side of the host (website)
> is at least as
high than what one has to pay to rent out
> two VHS tapes
at the local video shop. (6 euro) any royality
> payments have
to be added to it. if the video content industry
> would be willing
to compete with p2p services they would have
> to first find
a way to pay prices for bandwidth which are
> not 'free market
prices', it possibly means they would simply
> own those backbone
infrastructure, which is available for
> a low price at
the moment. once described heroically by
> neil stevenson,
the big fibreoptic grid is "for sale" like
> a ghost town after
the gold rush.
Hmmm, that is chillingly
accurate.
>
> another technology,
called multicasting which would make internet
> broadcast economical,
is not happening yet, because some smart
> companies are
customizing old switching protocols to the max,
> developing 'smart
routers' and therefore adding complexity on
> the backbone level,
instead of upgrading to the next stage.
> legislation of
standards is not taking place, because the
> 'out of control'
ideology still supports in the market forces.
> (see above)
One consequence of
the meltdown in the past year is that ISP's (and most
other tech businesses)
are oriented to make do with less. There is a
global gun-shyness
of investment in radically new technology, and this
is going to delay
implementation of broadband, wireless and other
innovations.
>
> it is obvious
that the future of broadband is delayed
> as long digital
rights management, supported by copyright
> laws which are
written for and by the industry, plus all
> kinds of dirty
tweaking of routing protocols, and caching
> traffic is basically
*closing* the internet modeled after what
> is known from
private sattelite tv. in the moment payment
> schemes will be
in place and alternatives can be shut down
> technically and
legaly, very likely broadband will be
> there immediatly.
>
> strange is that
in germany, the royality collectors are
> claiming to get
payed back for every piece of hardware,
> cd-burners, harddrives.
the other option, that internet
> traffic itself,
through some kind of copy-tax, a per
> gigabyte fee for
using the internet like radio stations
> or public tv is
not considered yet. it would possibly
> enable the smaller
content holders and providers to run
> viable business
models. it is again a mix of cultural
> backwardness and
"mafia lobbyism" which supports models
> which are not
innovative and do not support small business.
> the time in which
filesharing is sponsored through
> DSL flatrates
can be also over soon.
Bell Canada is trying
exactly such a byte-levy in Canada for their DSL
service. We will
see how far they get.
>
> there are plenty
of projects which really need "public
> bandwidth" to
contine to provide their cultural content
> for free, and
i speak about many terabytes a month.
> there is plenty
of interest on the side of the users.
> i'd be interested
if nettimers are interested to discuss
> these practical
issues on this list.
Hear Hear. But come
to think of it, what cultural content would suck up
terabytes/month?
>
> it is one thing
to make a "we want bandwidth" campaign
> sucessful, it
is another to find 'open' ways to
> distribute and
allocate available public bandwidth
> usefully once
you got a lot of it from your local
> cultural authority...
so far institutions of
> media culture
do not see their role in the tradition
> of a project like
www.archive.org maybe that can
> be changed?
I see the lack of
familiarity with issues facing the
telecom/cable/backbone
providers as one of the major impediments in
getting people to
realise bandwidth is a resource to be appreciated.
After that would
come the challenge of how to distribute "free" access.
___________________
Morlock Elloi responded:
> Aside, there is
no such thing as "social needs" - that is the phrase
> used
> to justify whatever
needs to be justified at the moment (to paraphrase
> famous propagandist,
"when I hear 'social needs' I go for my gun").
>
:)
> The issue with
bandwidth is really simple. There is no content (outside
> movie industry)
to justify it. Average user has nothing to offer to
> average user.
Zilch. Zero. Average user is a dumb empty nitwit that may
> be
> able to create
0.5-1 kilobytes of original material per day. And outside
> his own house
he can't really force his family videos onto anyone. The
> only other possible
use would be videoconferencing, and guess what -
> people don't really
like to videoconference.
>
> So almost all
P2P bandwidth today is used for re-distribution of
> commercial stuff
or material made high-value by government intervention
> ("illegal"). Assuming
that someone will find interest in making this
> cheaper in today's
global juristiction is plain silly.
>
Interesting...
(I'm reminded of
people that have downloaded recent blockbuster films to
discover they were
shite when they viewed them.)
>> in scenarios resembling
the techno-futurism beginning in the
>> 50ies, with fully
automatic homes, and a user experience directly
>> inspired by the
narratives arround extraterrestial space
>> colonialisation.
>
> As opposed to
some "natural" societal evolution ? Bullshit. Masses were
> always and always
will be buying dreams.
>
What I find particularly
fascinating is that the people who were sucked
into this la la
land were the banks (Canadian banks were remarkably
vulnerable to this
hype). Call it greed. The average consumer was and is
pretty sanguine
about utopian dreams, but will respond to marketing
efforts eventually.
__________________
Enb's comments were well-spotted:
> Well- it does matter!
Even if there have been overcapacities, there was
> "some!" routing
trough the cables of KPNQWest/Ebone. I've heard of a
> capacity of 80+
Terabits of possible transfers trough their net- if
> only 5
> Terabits were
used(for example), it is sure an overcapacity- but to stop
> that net now,
it would mean that 5 Terabits must get routed trough the
> nets
> of other companies.
The question for reprogramming all those routers is:
> Where does KPNQWests/Ebones
"net" begin, where does it end?
Yup
>
> And a second thought:
> They've served
not only thousands of B2B-customers like small/medium
> ISP's
> and Webhosting/Housing-Providers,
but also ten-thousands of
> B2Endcustomer
> like companies
and SOHO. Those big enough to have lines from 2 different
> ISP's are the
lucky ones now(if at least one of them doesn't rely on
> KPNQWests backbone),
the others rush to find an alternative from
> KPNQWest/Ebone
(or hope that a solution will be found).
Exactly
> Somewhere I've
read
> the following
from an ISP "usually, we've had 5-10 requests for a big
> new
> line per month-
now this number increased to 100+". Sure these dealings,
> coordination with
local telco and installations all will take their
> time,
> 2-3 weeks for
a complete migration in normal times are ok, at the
> moment,
> 4-6 weeks are
fast...
>
Not sure where you
dig up your sources, but they are spot-on. And if
this happens again
in, say 6 months time with another backbone provider
(a situation which
is developing) the fall-out will be even more severe.
> But also: All these
assumptions of "what will happen" are useless as
> long as
> they find new
investors every other week ;-)
Which they can't, hence the seriousness of the situation.
___________________________
Thanks for your
indulgence.
Be well,
Biti
------------------------------
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nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
Subject: <nettime> Arundhra Roy: The holy name of liberty
From: "roya.jakoby" <roya@girlfish.net>
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 12:03:27 -0400
Reply-to: "roya.jakoby" <roya@girlfish.net>
(The
following article appeared in London's New Statesman on June 10 issue
of
the weekly magazine.)
The
holy name of liberty
Arundhati
Roy
New
Statesman
Monday
10th June 2002
With
each battle cry against Pakistan, India inflicts a wound on herself.
As
nationalism becomes synonymous with anti-Muslim prejudice, the
subcontinent
risks repeating the horrors of the Nazi regime. By Arundhati
Roy
A friend
from Baroda called. Weeping. It took her 15 minutes to tell me
what
the matter was. It wasn't very complicated. Only that a friend of
hers
had been caught by a mob. Only that her stomach had been ripped open
and
stuffed with burning rags. Only that, after she died, someone carved
'om'
on her forehead.
Precisely which Hindu scripture preaches this?
Our
prime minister justified such violence as part of the retaliation by
outraged
Hindus against Muslim 'terrorists' who burned alive 58 Hindu
passengers
on the Sabarmati Express in Godhra, Gujarat, last February.
Each
of those who died that hideous death was someone's brother, someone's
mother,
someone's child.
Which particular verse in the Koran required that they be roasted alive?
What shall we do? What can we do?
In
the Bharatiya Janata Party, we have a ruling party that is
haemorrhaging.
Its rhetoric against terrorism, the sabre-rattling against
Pakistan
(with the underlying nuclear threat), the massing of almost a
million
soldiers on the border on hair-trigger alert, the attempts to
communalise
and falsify the school history textbooks - none of this has
prevented
it from being humiliated in election after election. Desperate,
it
has turned for succour to the state of Gujarat.
Gujarat,
the only major state in India to have a BJP government, has, for
some
years, been the Petri dish in which Hindu fascism has been fomenting
an
elaborate political experiment. In March, the initial results were put
on
public display.
Within
hours of the Godhra outrage, the militant, nationalist Vishwa Hindu
Parishad
(World Hindu Council) and Bajrang Dal put into motion a
meticulously
planned pogrom against the Muslim community. Officially, the
number
of dead is 800. Independent reports put the figure at well over
2,000.
More than 150,000 people, driven from their homes, now live in
refugee
camps.
Women
were stripped, gang-raped, parents were bludgeoned to death in front
of
their children; 240 dargahs and 180 masjids were destroyed. In
Ahmedabad,
the tomb of Wali Gujarati, the founder of the modern Urdu poem,
was
demolished and paved over in the course of a night. In Baroda, the
tomb
of the musician Ustad Faiyaz Ali Khan was desecrated and wreathed in
burning
tyres. Arsonists looted and burned shops, homes, hotels, textile
mills,
buses and cars. Hundreds of thousands have lost their jobs.
The
killers still stalk Gujarat's streets. The lynch mob continues to be
the
arbiter of the routine affairs of daily life: who can live where, who
can
say what, who can meet whom, and where and when. Its mandate is
expanding
quickly. From religious affairs, it now extends to property
disputes,
family altercations, the planning and allocation of water
resources
. . .
Muslim
businesses have been shut down. Muslim people are not served in
restaurants.
Muslim children are not welcome in schools. Muslim students
are
too terrified to sit their exams. Muslim parents live in dread that
their
infants might forget what they have been told and give themselves
away
by saying 'Ammi!' or 'Abba!' in public, and invite sudden and violent
death.
Notice has been given: this is just the beginning.
Under
this relentless pressure, what will most likely happen is that the
majority
of the Muslim community will resign itself to living in ghettos
as
second-class citizens, in constant fear, with no civil rights and no
recourse
to justice. What will daily life be like for them? Any little
thing,
an altercation in a cinema queue or a fracas at a traffic light,
could
turn lethal. So they will learn to keep very quiet, to accept their
lot,
to creep around the edges of the society in which they live. Their
fear
will transmit itself to other minorities. Many, particularly the
young,
will probably turn to militancy. They will do terrible things.
Civil
society will be called upon to condemn them. Then President Bush's
canon
will come back to us: 'You are with us, or you're with the
terrorists.'
Those
words hang frozen in time, like icicles. For years to come, the
butchers
and genocidists will fit their grisly mouths around them
('lip-synching',
as the film-makers call it) in order to justify their
butchery.
One
party leader, Bal Thackeray of the Shiv Sena, has the lasting
solution.
He has called for civil war. Isn't that just perfect? Then
Pakistan
won't need to bomb us: we can bomb ourselves. Let's turn all of
India
into Kashmir. Or Bosnia. Or Palestine. Or Rwanda. Let's all suffer
for
ever. Let's buy expensive guns and explosives to kill each other with.
Let
the British arms dealers and the American weapons manufacturers grow
fat
on our spilled blood. We could ask the Carlyle Group - of which the
Bush
and Bin Laden families are both shareholders - for a bulk discount.
Maybe
if things go really well, we'll become like Afghanistan. When all
our
farmlands are mined, our buildings destroyed, our infrastructure
reduced
to rubble, our children physically maimed and mentally wrecked,
when
we have nearly wiped ourselves out with self-manufactured hatred,
maybe
we can appeal to the Americans to help us out. Airdropped airline
meals,
anyone?
How
close we have come to self-destruction. Another step and we'll be in
free-fall.
And yet the government presses on. At the April meeting of the
BJP's
national executive in Goa, the prime minister of secular, democratic
India,
Atal Behari Vajpayee, made history. He became the first Indian
prime
minister to cross the threshold and publicly unveil an
unconscionable
bigotry against Muslims, which even George Bush and Donald
Rumsfeld
would be embarrassed to own up to. 'Wherever Muslims are,' he
said,
'they do not want to stay peacefully.'
Fascism's
firm footprint has appeared in India. Let's mark the date:
spring
2002. Although we can thank the American president and the
Coalition
Against Terror for creating a congenial international atmosphere
for
its ghastly debut, we cannot credit them for the years it has been
brewing
in our public and private lives.
It
breezed in in the wake of the Pokhran nuclear tests in 1998. From then
onwards,
the massed energy of bloodthirsty patriotism became openly
acceptable
political currency. The 'weapons of peace' trapped India and
Pakistan
in a spiral of brinkmanship - threat and counter-threat, taunt
and
counter-taunt. And now, one war and hundreds of dead later, more than
a
million soldiers from both armies are massed at the border, eyeball to
eyeball,
locked in a pointless nuclear stand-off.
The
escalating belligerence against Pakistan has ricocheted off the border
and
entered our own body politic, like a sharp blade slicing through the
vestiges
of communal harmony and tolerance between the Hindu and Muslim
communities.
In
no time at all, the godsquadders from hell have colonised the public
imagination.
And we allowed them in.
Each
time the hostility between India and Pakistan is cranked up, within
India,
there is a corresponding increase in hostility towards Muslims.
With
each battle cry against Pakistan, we inflict a wound on ourselves, on
our
way of life, on our spectacularly diverse and ancient civilisation, on
everything
that makes India different from Pakistan. Increasingly, Indian
nationalism
has come to mean Hindu nationalism, which defines itself not
through
a respect or regard for itself, but through a hatred of the Other.
And
the Other, for the moment, is not just Pakistani, it is Muslim.
It
is disturbing to see how neatly nationalism dovetails into fascism.
While
we must not allow the fascists to define what the nation is, or to
whom
it belongs, it is worth keeping in mind that nationalism, in all its
many
avatars - socialist, capitalist and fascist - was at the root of
almost
all the genocides of the 20th century.
The
incipient, creeping fascism of the past few years has been groomed by
many
of our 'democratic' institutions. Everyone has flirted with it -
parliament,
the press, the police, the administration, the public. Even
'secularists'
have been guilty of helping to create the right climate.
Each
time you defend the right of an institution, any institution
(including
the supreme court), to exercise unfettered, unaccountable
powers
that must never be challenged, you move towards fascism. To be
fair,
perhaps not everyone recognised the early signs for what they were.
Fascism
is also about the slow, steady infiltration of all the instruments
of
state power. It is about the slow erosion of civil liberties, about
unspectacular
day-to-day injustices. Fighting it means fighting to win
back
the minds and hearts of people. Fighting it does not mean asking for
the
religious schools to be banned, it means working towards the day when
they
are voluntarily abandoned as bad ideas. It means keeping an eagle eye
on
public institutions and demanding accountability. It means putting your
ear
to the ground and listening to the whispering of the truly powerless.
It
means giving a forum to the myriad voices from the hundreds of
resistance
movements across the country which are speaking about real
things
- about bonded labour, marital rape, sexual preferences, women's
wages,
uranium dumping, unsustainable mining, weavers' woes, farmers'
worries.
It means fighting displacement and dispossession and the
relentless,
everyday violence of abject poverty.
In
little parks, in big maidans, on empty lots, on village commons, the
Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (the cultural wing of the BJP) is marching,
hoisting
its saffron flag. Suddenly they are everywhere, grown men in
khaki
shorts, marching, marching, marching. Where to? What for? Their
disregard
for history shields them from the knowledge that fascism will
thrive
for a short while and then self-annihilate because of its inherent
stupidity.
But, unfortunately, like the radioactive fallout of a nuclear
strike,
it has a half-life that will cripple generations to come.
These
levels of rage and hatred cannot be contained, cannot be expected to
subside
with public censure and denunciation. Hymns of brotherhood and
love
are great, but not enough.
Fascism
has come to India after the dreams that fuelled the freedom
struggle
have been frittered away like so much loose change. Independence
itself
came to us as what Mahatma Gandhi famously called a 'wooden loaf' -
a
notional freedom tainted by the blood of the thousands who died during
partition.
For more than half a century now, the hatred and mutual
distrust
have been exacerbated, toyed with and never allowed to heal by
politicians,
led from the front by Indira Gandhi.
Every
political party has tilled the marrow of our secular parliamentary
democracy,
mining it for electoral advantage. Like termites excavating a
colony,
they have made tunnels and underground passages, undermining the
meaning
of 'secular' until it has become merely an empty shell, about to
implode.
Their tilling has weakened the foundations of the structure that
connects
the constitution, parliament and the courts of law - the
configuration
of checks and balances that forms the backbone of a
parliamentary
democracy.
Under
the circumstances, it is futile to go on blaming politicians and
demanding
of them a morality of which they are incapable. If they have let
us
down, it is only because we have allowed them to.
Over
the past 50 years, ordinary citizens' modest hopes for lives of
dignity,
security and relief from abject poverty have been systematically
snuffed
out. Every 'democratic' institution in India has shown itself to
be
unaccountable, inaccessible to the ordinary citizen, and either
unwilling,
or unable, to act in the interests of genuine social justice.
And
now, corporate globalisation is being relentlessly and arbitrarily
imposed
on an essentially feudal society, tearing through its complex,
tiered
social fabric, ripping it apart culturally and economically.
There
is very real grievance here. And the fascists did not create it. But
they
have seized upon it, upturned it and forged from it a hideous, bogus
sense
of pride. They have mobilised human beings using the lowest common
denominator
- religion. People who have lost control over their lives,
people
who have been uprooted from their homes and communities, who have
lost
their culture and their language, are being made to feel proud of
something.
Not something they have striven for and achieved, not something
they
can count as a personal accomplishment, but something they just
happen
to be. Or, more accurately, something they happen not to be. And
the
falseness, the emptiness of that pride, is fuelling a gladiatorial
anger
that is then directed towards a simulated target that has been
wheeled
into the amphitheatre.
How
else can India explain the project of trying to disenfranchise, drive
out
or exterminate the Muslims, the second-poorest community in the
country,
using as its foot soldiers the very poorest (Dalits and
Adivasis)?
How else can India explain why the Dalits in Gujarat, who have
been
despised, oppressed and treated worse than refuse by the upper castes
for
thousands of years, have joined hands with their oppressors to turn on
those
who are only marginally less unfortunate than they themselves?
One
hundred and thirty million Muslims live in India. Hindu fascists
regard
them as legitimate prey. Do our governing politicians think that
the
world will stand by and watch while they are liquidated in a 'civil
war'?
Press
reports say that the members of the European Union and several other
countries
have condemned what happened in Gujarat and likened it to Nazi
rule.
The Indian government's portentous response is that foreigners
should
not use the Indian media to comment on what is an 'internal matter'
(like
the chilling goings-on in Kashmir?). What next? Censorship? Close
down
the internet? Block international calls? Kill the wrong 'terrorists'
and
fudge the DNA samples? There is no terrorism like state terrorism.
But
who will take them on? Fascism itself can be turned away only if all
those
who are outraged by it show a commitment to social justice that
equals
the intensity of their indignation.
Are
we ready to get off our starting blocks? Are we ready, many millions
of
us, to rally not just on the streets, but at work and in schools and in
our
homes, in every decision we take, and every choice we make? Or not
just
yet . . .
If
not, then years from now, when the rest of the world has shunned us (as
it
should), like the ordinary citizens of Hitler's Germany, we too will
learn
to recognise revulsion in the gaze of our fellow human beings. We,
too,
will find ourselves unable to look our own children in the eye, for
the
shame of what we did and did not do. For the shame of what we allowed
to
happen.
This is us. In India. Heaven help us make it through the night.
2002,
Arundhati Roy
This
article first appeared in the New Statesman
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"McKenzie
Wark" <mckenziewark@hotmail.com>
hacker class, further considderations
Doug
Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com>
Re: <nettime> on material and 'immaterial' labour
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From:
"McKenzie Wark" <mckenziewark@hotmail.com>
Subject:
hacker class, further considderations
Date:
Tue, 04 Jun 2002 04:51:00 -0400
Further
Considerations on the Hacker Class
{response
to nettime contributors)
McKenzie Wark <mw35@nyu.edu>
Anyone
proposing a new theory of class is always going to
have
to spend more time resisting misinterpretations than
actually
advancing the theory, so, here goes.
The
hacker class produces what is realized in the form of
intellectual
property, but does not own the means for
realizing
its value. As Diane McCarty says, "maybe we are
all
hackers and we don't know it." Yes indeed. And as Pit
Schulz
points out, the 'immaterial labor' of the user is also a
point
at which value is created. While I find the notion of
'immaterial'
is based on a false distinction, Pit is otherwise
quite
right. The hacker class may indeed include many kinds
of
people who produce many kinds of value, but who don't
know
it.
It
won't, however, include those who turn creativity into
property
and property into commodification. Bill Gates is a
vectoralist.
So too was Ken Lay, interestingly enough, when
you
think about Enron's failed attempt to monopolize the
market
for the simulation of the oil market.
These
two classes confront each other, and have for some
time,
which why it is remarkable that, as Pit points out H+N
have
very little to say about class and property in Empire,
when
class and property is where the action is, and has
been
for years. They clearly see the need to supplement
their
work in this area.
The
hacker class has no given cultural identity. It conforms
to
no representation. It has been the historic failing of class
theories
to try to think of class in terms of an identity and
to
make it conform to a representation. Politics is always just
as
divisive, and culture just as diverse, within a class as
between
classes. Artists, scientists, engineers are all hackers
in
the specific sense in which I use the term -- they create
what
may become a form of property.
The
notion of the 'organic intellectual' is, as Pit points out, a
very
useful precedent for thinking about the hacker class.
But
the hacker class has absolutely nothing to do with
theories
of 'symbolic analysts'. I agree with Kermit Snelson
about
the limits to that concept, but perhaps for different
reasons.
All theories of the 'new middle class', 'symbolic
analysists',
the 'intelligentsia' and so on have to supplement
class
analysis with new terms. My approach to class theory
adds
no new level of analysis at all. It goes back to the heart
of
classical class theory -- property -- and takes the
formation
of intellectual property seriously as *property*.
Far
from being a 'philosophical vulgarity', the philosophical
simplicity,
or rather, the abstraction, of this approach to
class
is precisely what it has to recommend it. It is not based
on
the separation of information from manufacturing, or of
a
service sector from a secondary sector, or material from
immaterial
labor. These are all poorly constructed concepts,
in
my view. They describe appearances but they don't map
abstraction
at work in the world. The class struggle
between
hackers and vectoralists is just as 'material' as any
other
level of the class struggle.
I agree
with Russell Carter that it would be most useful to
"investigate
the ecology of these hacker processes",
although
we may agree on little else. But it is important to
remember
that property turns creativity toward
commodification.
Not only are the fruits of creativity
commodified,
but the commodity becomes the fruit of
creativity.
One has to decolonize the critical mind in order to
imagine
creative production freed from the straightjacket of
value.
Beppe Caravita is right to say that Negri is "in reality,
only
a poet", but we need poets in order to imagine the
world
otherwise.
We
don't need another hero, as Lorenzo Taiuti says. But
the
rhizomic production of theory outside of the
commodified
star system of the academy, in media that
permit
an open distribution and circulation of ideas is exactly
what
I have always thought nettime is. One has to begin to
write
in this space negatively, with a critique of a theory
star,
in order to edge it toward a critique of the
commodification
of theory that produces stars, and
produces
intellectual consumers who need stars -- not least
as
the vehicles for their resentments.
But
-- why not? -- 'open source' theory. John Hopkins
points
us towards the sciences, and indeed the leading pure
scientists
have been practicing a version of such for years.
Science
is also "building language-based blocks" for the
creation
of worlds, and is also in danger of having its
creativity
commodified and turned away from the discovery
of
the virtuality of nature and toward the commodification
of
nature. But if we can forget about the cultural differences
between
the arts, sciences and humanities, we might see a
common
interest in keeping a margin of free creativity, at
the
very least. Or -- why not? -- dream of a world in which
the
creativity of all the producing classes -- farmers,
workers,
hackers -- is free.
Who
really cares what the origins of the word 'hacker' are?
Its
a good old fashioned English word. To hack is to cut,
perhaps
a bit crudely -- and isn't that what every truly
creative
person does? Make a new cut, perhaps not a clean
one
at first, but one on a new vector. Yes, as Diane
suggests,
maybe we are all hackers. Or rather, it is the
unrealized
potential of human social organisation that we
could
all be hackers. I do not entirely agree with R A
Hettinga
that "our network evolution follows our social
complexity."
Not without a struggle, it doesn't. A struggle
to
overthrow the limits imposed upon our evolution by
those
who benefit only from the current stage of it.
One
must focus critique on what limits our collective
becoming.
See
also, A Hacker Manifesto
http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors0/warktext.html
_________________________________________________________________
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Date:
Tue, 4 Jun 2002 11:58:28 -0400
From:
Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com>
Subject:
Re: <nettime> on material and 'immaterial' labour
McKenzie Wark wrote:
>Things
still get made, but they are increasingly made elsewhere.
>I'm
surprised that Doug of all people would appear to deny that
>manufacturing
in the United States is in trouble. Its one of the
>great
achievements of American marxist political economy to show
>1.
that this is the case and 2. the reasons why. Most writing on
>the
topic focusses on the way corporations have used 'globalisation'
>to
drive down the price of labour. I simply add to that something
>that
is turing up in the management literature -- the discovery of
>the
value and power of IP to the contemporary corporation. You
>can
subcontract your component manufacture to the cheapest bidder,
>but
it helps to invest heavily in the value of your brands and the
>strength
of your patent portfolio.
This
is true for sure, but not the whole truth. It's no longer the
case
that U.S. manufacturing is "in trouble." The Rust Belt was a
fair
characterization in the 1970s and early 1980s, but parts of U.S.
manufacturing
are quite strong. The Midwestern industrial states have
some
of the lowest unemployment rates in the U.S., and as a UAW
educator
told me a few years ago, the unions' real threat comes less
from
Mexico than from nonunion parts plants in Ohio.
It
was, of course, not news to me that, as another poster indicated,
most
U.S. workers are employed in services. But that doesn't mean
that
manufacturing has become economically insignificant. Eighteen
million
workers is not a small number. (And quite a few workers for
temp
firms, who are classified as service workers, are actually
working
in factories.) Many service industries - advertising,
couriers,
management consultants, janitorial services - depend on
manufacturers
to hire them.
Much
New Economy discourse serves to disappear the worker, and the
excessive
attention paid to IP obscures the fact that people still
work
on assembly lines, turning screws and stuffing boards. And a lot
of
that happens right here in the U.S. We even have a few garment
workers
in Manhattan, still.
--
Doug
Henwood
Left
Business Observer
Village
Station - PO Box 953
New
York NY 10014-0704 USA
voice
+1-212-741-9852
fax
+1-212-807-9152
cell
+1-917-865-2813
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A Rift
Among Bloggers
By
DAVID F. GALLAGHER
t is
one of the enduring cycles of the Internet: the techies build a
utopia
and then complain when noisy crowds crash their party.
This
time it is happening to Weblogs. Five years ago a few
programmers
pioneered this form of hyperlinked online journal,
posting
their thoughts on technology matters and personal musings.
Later
they built Weblog publishing tools for nontechies, and a vast
spectrum
of Weblogs - blogs for short - quietly bloomed.
Then
came the war bloggers. The war-blogging movement took off after
Sept.
11 as people used blogs to vent their anger about the terrorist
attacks.
Though they are still commonly known as war blogs, these
sites
now address a wide range of news and political topics, usually
from
right of center.
Thanks
in part to the participation of some prominent journalists and
academics,
the pundit-style blogs quickly reached a level of public
and
media recognition that other blogs had never achieved. As a
result,
some latecomers now think Weblogs are inherently political.
That
has perturbed some Weblog veterans, who say the war bloggers are
rewriting
history and presenting a distorted view of blogs. They say
the
diversity of Weblogs is being overshadowed by the
attention-getting
style of war blogs.
"War
blog editors need to make it clear to their audience that they
are
not the only kind of Weblog out there," said Cameron Barrett, a
programmer
and Web designer in New York who has been publishing his
Camworld
blog (camworld.com) since 1997, making him one of the first
bloggers.
In
response, the war bloggers say they represent the evolution of a
medium
that might have languished in obscurity without them.
"The
Weblog world before Sept. 11 was mostly inward-looking - mostly
tech
people talking about tech things," said Glenn Reynolds, a law
professor
at the University of Tennessee who publishes
InstaPundit.com,
a popular site in the war blog camp that attracts
about
19,000 readers on weekdays. "After 9/11 we got a whole
generation
of Weblogs that were outward-looking" and written for a
general
audience, he said.
The
war bloggers and veteran bloggers have largely ignored each
other,
rarely reading or linking to one another's sites. What brought
some
factional tensions to the surface was a plan, hatched by several
war
bloggers, to compile the best Web writings about the aftermath of
the
terrorist attacks into a book to benefit charity. In mid-April
two
bloggers, Eric Olsen and Ted Frank, took charge of the project,
setting
up a Weblog (blogbook.blogspot.com) and asking people to
nominate
their "favorite 9/11-related posts from ANY blogger." Mr.
Reynolds
agreed to make the final selections for the book, which is
not
yet titled.
The
project was in part a reaction to the release of "September 11
and
the U.S. War: Beyond the Curtain of Smoke," a book of
left-leaning
essays about the attacks. On the project site, Mr. Olsen
called
on fellow bloggers to crush "Western-civilization-hating,
lefty-fascist
essayists."
The
partisan talk was not out of place in the war blog sphere, but it
brought
a sharp response from Jason Kottke, a blogger from another
sector
of the Weblog universe.
Mr.
Kottke, a Web designer in San Francisco, has been updating
kottke.org
for four years, offering tidbits of personal insight on
Internet
happenings and his favorite movies, among other things. His
site
is popular within a tech- and design-minded Weblog crowd whose
most
influential members have some connection to Pyra Labs, the small
San
Francisco-based company behind the publishing tool Blogger.
On
his site, Mr. Kottke mocked the suggestion that all bloggers were
hawkish
right-wingers and questioned the "us versus them" rhetoric:
"How
about letting everyone play . . . or at least make folks who may
not
be right-wing or pro-West feel welcome to contribute?"
A few
other bloggers in Mr. Kottke's circle also chimed in. Members
of
the book team quickly responded on their own site, saying the call
to
arms had been exaggerated and that all submissions were welcome.
They
also got in a few digs. "It strikes me that a lot of the
backbiting
is really a complaint from longtime bloggers that the
center
of the Weblog universe isn't where it used to be," Mr. Frank
wrote.
In
an interview, Mr. Frank suggested that the veteran bloggers were
also
annoyed at how much media attention the war bloggers were
getting,
and how blog pundits like Andrew Sullivan were being called
Weblog
pioneers.
Mr.
Kottke acknowledged that he felt a little resentment about the
rise
of war blogs, but said that was natural when an underground
phenomenon
goes mainstream. "It's like being the punk-rock fan who
was
into punk rock before everyone else," he said. The criticism of
the
book project was meant to improve the book by providing some
perspective,
Mr. Kottke added.
Three
other old-school bloggers, all former employees of Pyra Labs,
are
also trying to convey a broader view of blogs with a site called
Blogroots
(blogroots.com). The site, introduced on Friday, has
discussions
of Weblog-related news and issues. It will eventually
include
the text of the trio's forthcoming book, "We Blog: Publishing
Online
With Weblogs," which includes a chapter on Weblog history.
Veteran
bloggers say they are happy that blogs are catching on with a
wider
audience, but some challenge the idea that war blogs are
somehow
more relevant than other kinds. "I talk about things Glenn
Reynolds
doesn't understand, but that doesn't mean they're not
important
things to talk about," said Dave Winer, founder and chief
executive
of UserLand Software, whose Scripting News (scripting.com)
is
one of the oldest blogs.
At
the same time, there are war bloggers who feel little need to pay
homage
to the tech crew. Ken Layne, a journalist in Los Angeles who
publishes
a blog at KenLayne .com, argues that he, Matt Drudge and
others
were writing about current events on the Web long before the
term
Weblog had been coined. "There's nothing novel about the tech
bloggers,
beyond the fact that a few of them made simple tools for
updating
Web sites," he wrote on his site last week.
Mr.
Reynolds was more diplomatic, saying he "never would have gotten
started
without Blogger," Pyra's publishing tool. He cautioned
against
making too much of labels like war blog, and said he hoped
that
in the end the Sept. 11 book, which is still accepting
submissions,
"will represent the best work of the blogger community."
Mr.
Reynolds said he was not sure why the old guard should have a
problem
with war blogs. "The essence of the Internet is constant
change,
and to get your nose out of joint about that is just silly,"
he
said.
======================
"None
are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe
they
are free...."
Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe
Port:status>OPEN
wildstyle
access: www.djspooky.com
Paul D. Miller a.k.a. Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid
Subliminal Kid Inc.
Office Mailing Address:
Music
and Art Management
245
w14th st #2RC NY NY
10011
Despite
the momentary hype and all the folklore, trendism and hysteria
that
surrounds them, we must reckon thar blogs are here to stay. In my
mind,
they embody - often in primitive ways, for sure - the concept of
Collective
Intelligence coined by Pierre Levy. The problem with the
debate
about blogs is that normally the discourse is very basic, centered
in
questions like: Are bloggers journalists? Is the information that they
publish
accurate and ethical? Are blogs compared to a news outlet?
These
questions are useless and vain if we don't dare to go beyond the
surface
level and explore new ways of blogging, enlarge the range of
cultural
and political options offered by these new technologies that
help
us create in half an hour our own information channel. Here we have
in
front of us the chance to materialize complete freedom of expression in
a
time were culture and communication are being bought by big multimedia
corporations.
Is there anything more DoItYourself than blogs?
On
the other side, I see blogs as the personal diaries of the 21st
century.
The
big difference is in the openess of the information stored in each
"media",
compared with the closeness of the manuscript diary. Blogs are
something
like a collective construction, albeit personal in its essence.
And
that is profoundly post-modern, sorry for the clich=E9. Its core ideas
are
the same of open-source software and Peer-to-Peer Networks.
In
the end, it doesn't matter if blogs are journalistic publications,
gossip-makers,
joint collections of essays or even confessions of a
teenager.
We do what we want AND what technology enable us to do with
media.
Blogs
should be more examined in their technological, aesthetical and
cultural
terms, taking in account its durable effects and long term
context
in media history. As like other communications technologies, if
they
are considered as a temporary trend, the analysis is going to be
short-sighted
and trivial.
Miguel Caetano
Casa
dos Bits - Edi=E7=F5es, Lda.
Av.
Miguel Bombarda, n=BA 70, 4=BA andar=20
1050-166
Lisboa - Portugal=20
tel.:
+351 1 21 780 31 70
email:
miguelc@casadosbits.pt
website:
http://www.casadosbits.pt
Visite
o canal de Tecnologia: http://tek.sapo.pt