The fellows name is Paul
Mason, I read his article Who is Eleni Haifa - on information technology and
human character online, a place called “eurozine” and it would seem they
got the work from a print magazine calling themselves New Humanist, they had a banner
beside the title.
Anyway, the subject of the
essay was the fragmentation of self image seen as a result of the information
age, the consequences of the technology that allows one (individual?) to
present themselves to the world wearing multiple faces, multiple personas crafted
to suit the intended audience receiving the presentation. The essay is essentially a compare and
contrast between the consequences of the modern information revolution and the
times of a century ago when the industrial revolution was in full swing. A good read, well worth the time.
The writings of Virginia
Woolf concerning the industrial revolution’s impact on the literary world are
cited as the reference point from a century ago while the work The Pearly
Gates of Cyberspace by a lady named Margaret Wertheim carries that role in
the modern, and it was a quotation from Margaret that invoked my jealousy. It is such a perfectly descriptive analogy to
what I’ve been witnessing that I wish I’d thought of it myself.
She wrote that the online
self "becomes almost like a fluid, leaking out around us all the time and
joining each of us into a vast ocean, or web, of relationships with other leaky
selves." Lives that are fluid,
and leaking. What a truly brilliant
analogy. It so totally explains why you
CAN use the digidork punks for top-off oil in a hydraulic circuit but you CAN’T
use them to replace a broken piece of wood in say the kitchen table. Rigidly contained and under pressure you CAN
expect them to transfer force, but without the external containment you CAN’T
put them in any real load bearing roles, they don’t have any structural
strength of their own to contribute to the system. So many things threatening
the very foundations of civilization fit so easily into that analogy. She nailed it.
I have not found any such loss of self through online interactions, but I suppose my "self" was already well-defined, and thus contained, before my emergence online. Nor am I in the habit of deploying different personas either online or in "real" life. And I have always seen online time as part of my real life and thus subject to the moral imperatives I have already discovered and developed for myself. Perhaps in this I am very blessed.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble with alternate personas, online or otherwise, is that they tend to rob from one's core person.
I'd say you nailed the first key point in your first sentence... a well defined "self" before being exposed to the flood. We protect out children from a great many things until they've had the chance to mature enough to (presumably) deal well with them: alcohol, automobiles, pistols, porn, politics, perhaps it's time to realize we need to protect them from the solvents found in the digital world in a similar manner.
DeleteThat's not a bad idea! I wouldn't want to make laws to enforce it, but if enough parents got on board with it... :)
Deletehmmm... i'll take this under advisement for now, 'nos. maybe to be inserted into 'as-if' status after more info is assimilated. that analogy is am interesting one, and perhaps accurate.
ReplyDeleteanother possibility for the problems with today's youth: the demonization of the other [especially by the right-wingers in every nation], causing extreme polarization. even the children not born into poverty see no viable way to a satisfying future. they're disconnected from the 'exceptionalism' of the American way of life. they see the lie. they see no way around it. - pip
For myself I wish I could keep this one to just an “as-if.” The comparison to a state (of matter) is just to damn close. It fits. Liquid lives. Makes me wonder it do about things like (to stay in analogy) latent heat of vaporization and the enthalpy involved. Your “sea changes” are found in the regions adjacent to where the triple point anchors one end of a line (or curve… or sine wave… or repeating discontinuous function… or… Captain, we’ve lost signal from the probe… helm, get us the hell out of here before that wormhole closes…). When I said full Yoda mode it wasn’t just spending a bit of poetic license before it expired, the analogy really does fit.
DeleteC’mon, “exceptionalism?” You know I hate words that buzz. And anyway, “exceptionalism” to my read is nothing more than just a tag handle for (yet another) guilt bomb launched by those who would love nothing more than to see the only “solid lives” to be found be found imprisoned and enslaved within a colloidal suspension of the political variety. Erosion, like rust, never really sleeps.
Ah, Pip. It’s a very, Very, VERY open question if a “liquid life” has the ability to perceive a lie of reality… a liquid having no shape of its’ own really has no trustworthy perspective from which to judge “that is truth” and “that is falsehood.” The most a liquid life might be capable of is saying “the opinions offered do not agree” and suffering to the helpless confusion generated thereby. The suffering is very real, and after the manner of liquids transmitted hydraulically to every other point in the system.
'exceptionalism' is just another jingoistic lie told by flag-wavers to themselves. dogmatic history told in our schools... faith is alright, i guess, as long as it doesn't become a habit, which it does the further right one leans. they're totally sold on 'The American Way', plus God is on their side, [and nobody else's].
ReplyDeletedon't get me wrong. Americans are some of the luckiest people in the world. but, some of the dumbest too.
BTW, what of evaporation? what remains, powdered people? can they be 'reconstituted'? wait 'til the corporations get ahold of this!
sorry, but... you know...
;) pip
*sad and sarcastic chuckle* Valid analogy Pip... how far down do ya' got to dehydrate them before they start to crystallize? What % dissolved solids to even make it worth the try? And yea... what would be left if you took it to far, and could you reverse the whole affair and get back to what you started from, or would they all have glowing red eyes and march in circles chanting "Palin...Powel...Orwell Now..."
DeletePalin - already dehydrated, powdered, reconstituted - an example of failed experimentation...
ReplyDeletenever mind. : /