Comments on: social media & its discontents

By: True North Media

True North Media — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:24:26 +0000

Duly noted: social media & its discontents « fugitive philosophy http://ow.ly/18k5L2

By: Jean

Jean — Tue, 11 May 2010 18:43:40 +0000

Funny, the mix of theory and child-rearing. Here I’d completely missed the resonances of Stiegler with my harried grappling with the technical systems that modern toddlers come pre-entangled with (scarce childcare, neoliberal govts, RESPs, future potentialities, etc.). Sadly, I was too busy contemplating Thomas the Tank Engine as a boundary creature. Now, in addition to your book tip, I’ve got way more thinking to do. Thanks, I guess.

I suppose in hindsight it’s farce.

By: Jean Hébert

Jean Hébert — Tue, 11 May 2010 07:05:28 +0000

late to the party (#blamethecomps), but this chat is more intriguing than the Nic kel Bac k/S.Harpe r thing: http://is.gd/c3rKo

By: tV

tV — Tue, 11 May 2010 00:47:37 +0000

Thanks for quoting the Spectator. The telegraph is indeed the basis of the collapse of space/time that engenders the rise of stock markets, transnational capital, the quantification of future temporalities, and ultimately the forms of cognitive capital that now are risking multiple collapses in the 21C. There’s a thesis here on the relation of capital to temporality and collapse that needs to be better extricated (post-Marx bein oui) — just received final copy of -Crisis in the Global Economy- (Semiotexte 2010) and I am looking forward to dissecting that.

Btw, caught up on yr blog, read with some hilarity the mix of toddler & Stiegler. I can’t imagine. Is it tragedy or farce? Just human development, eh?

By: Jean

Jean — Tue, 11 May 2010 00:25:05 +0000

Great and much-needed discussion.

“[With] the recording of every event…everywhere without perceptible interval of time the world is for purposes of intelligence reduced to a village…All men (sic) are compelled to think of all things, at the same time, on imperfect information, and with too little interval for reflection…the constant diffusion of statements in snippets, the constant excitements of feelings unjustified by fact, the constant formation of hasty or erroneous opinions, must, in the end, one would think, deteriorate the intelligence of all to whom the telegraph appeals” (“The Intellectual Effects of Electricity”, Spectator, 1889).

Maybe we’re witnessing the farce now, & not the tragedy?

By: schubox

schubox — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 22:16:15 +0000

Interesting angle on social media from the underground perspective:
http://fugitive.quadrantcrossing.org/?p=340

By: Tuesday’s Loss - Corvus Consulting

Tuesday’s Loss - Corvus Consulting — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:02:26 +0000

[...] and asking the commenter to take his thoughts elsewhere. That’s too bad, because he writes in-depth on the very subject at hand and participates to good ends in comment-based discussion, even with [...]

By: tV

tV — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:01:14 +0000

In one word: precisely.

By: tV

tV — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:00:54 +0000

Thanks for the comments, indeed. At first D&G sound like they are pursuing the line between doxa and sophia (opinion and truth) by way of distinguishing between phanaisthai (what appears /presence ) and simulacrum. But the latter para you quote is a very important qualifier in this respect, because if all is formed from collective doxa, then all is simulacrum. Thus the distinguishing characteristics of the good and the bad (or as Deleuze often writes, of “stupidity”) concerns “the quality to be extracted from perceptions,” which is where D&G insist upon affect to ensure the proper extraction (Simondon) of the particular – Duns Scotus’ concept of haecceity – from the thing. In this compressed reading, there arrives an ethics of perception by way of the training of collective affect. One does not learn to be ethical by thinking it (rationalizing it), but by feeling it in the collective doxa of the group, insofar as that collective doxa generates an appreciation for the particular qualities of the thing. Marketing, in this sense, would be a collective doxa that develops an appreciation not for the haecceity of the thing, but for its generality, its image, and its affect, one would imagine, would be of a thing easily assimilated and consumed (or as Derrida by way of Freud writes: introjected & not incorporated).

Anyway, just a note to see that D&G are still more complex than the average bear, and quite (cough) close to a deconstructive reading of simulacrum, and that I dig yr reading, as I haven’t been pursuing the connections on this level .. thx for gearing up the brain.

By: Mark Coddington

Mark Coddington — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:14:45 +0000

A thoughtful analysis, Tobias. The statements in your last paragraph – that social media has been sold to us by corporate interests to begin with but still has far more democratic potential than traditional media – particularly resonates with me.

We can’t ever expect anything meaningful to be completely free of “selling out” and corporate packaging because that’s just what happens to everything in modern Western culture (see: Commodify your Dissent). But that doesn’t mean some forms of media can’t be more democratic, more egalitarian, more meritocritous than others. And I think social media, if done well (and that’s a big if) has that kind of potential.