Den i övrigt ganska sympatiske sjuttonhundratalsfilosofen, utilitaristen, och upplysningstänkaren Jeremy Benthams fängelsemodell panoptikonen används ofta inom samhälls-, beteende- och humanvetenskaper (läs: löjligt ofta, på gränsen till tjatigt) som en dystopisk metafor för en tilltagande tendens i det moderna, på optimistiska upplysningsideal, grundade samhället.

Panoptikonen, som i korta drag är en fängelsemodell där fångarna hålls ordningssamma med minsta möjliga maktmedel, genom att de hela tiden är medvetna om att de kan vara sedda (samtidigt som de aldrig kan förutspå ifall de verkligen är det), användes först som en sociologisk metafor av fransmannen Foucault, filosof, historiker och sociolog. Här kan vi se ett uppenbart exempel på principen för panoptikonen i praktiskt arbete. Den helt uppenbara parallellen till panoptikon-problematiken nämns inte i ens några förenklade ordalag.

Att skolelever blir övervakade när de går på toaletten kanske i sig inte kan tyckas som något stort eller alarmerande problem, beroende på vad man har för utgångspunkter, men jag tycker det verkar vara ett i raden av många exempel på en samhällsutveckling som innehåller alltmer av denna typ av ordning genom övervakning. Samhällsmedborgarna ska sköta sig genom att dåligt uppförande omöjliggörs. Exemplen är många från gated communities, till upplysta öppna miljöer i stadsplaneringen, till stämpling av vissa grupper, men inte andra, vid passkontroller, och när blir när man pratar om IT-frågor så.. ska man helt enkelt inte tala om det (FRA kan ju lyssna, dessutom blir ämnet så omfattande). Nyckelfrågan i sammanhanget är om ett samhälle där folk faktiskt beter sig gott, men för att de är tvugna verkligen i sig är ett gott samhälle?

Pessimisten Foucault mot, den mycket försiktige, optimisten Habermas: 1-0.

(Och för er som inte hann se Rapportinslaget (för jag antar att det tas bort efter en tid) handlade det om en malmöitisk skola som infört elektroniska id-brickor som fungerar som nycklar (“nodis”, eller vad säger de i inslaget.. eh, va?) för att besöka toaletten. Vem som besöker toaletten registreras; vandaliseringen av toaletterna som tidigare förekom har upphört (och givetvis har nya möjligheter att trakassera och sätta dit obekväma personer uppkommit), men till vilket pris?)

El presente texto, está basado en las ideas fundamentales de “La globalización en clave cultural”1 de Jesús Martín Barbero, donde se muestra, a mi parecer, el verdadero panorama en el que Latino América se desenvuelve actualmente, haciendo especial énfasis en la influencia de la globalización en la cultura y la comunicación, específicamente en los medios de comunicación latinoamericanos. Aunque el texto es del 2002, las ideas centrales no se han visto modificadas, por el movimiento constante que ha tenido la globalización.

La globalización es vista en el texto como una multiplicidad de procesos articulados en diferentes direcciones, que no se limita a la circulación de productos sino que permite las relaciones entre culturas y entre países. Hay que tener en cuenta que este proceso tiene una doble dirección, por un lado lleva a la pérdida de identidad y sentido de pertenecía nacional -la cual no debe responder a una cultura determinada, pues en la sociedad existe una pluralidad de culturas- quitando el peso de los territorios, y por el otro, al ser posible de transformaciones por parte de la cultura permite la conexión e integración. Actualmente estas conexiones funcionan según la idea de inclusión/exclusión bajo la marca del neoliberalismo donde solo se incluyen las instituciones, empresas e individuos que marchan, por así decirlo, bajo la lógica del mercado.

Es importante resaltar, que aunque la globalización afecta a la cultura, esta no cambia totalmente su esencia sino que modifica y amplia algunos elementos importantes de su constitución, así llegamos a la identidad, la cual ya no es solo sinónimo de raíces, territorio y memoria sino de redes, migración y flujos. Desde la cultura se desarrolla una demanda de recocimiento y sentido, en búsqueda de una identidad, donde se genera una “una nueva forma de estar en el mundo”, que teniendo en cuenta el planteamiento de Habermas afectaría el mundo de la vida: el trabajos (por ejemplo: las jornadas continuas que no permiten almorzar en la casa, el aumento de las mujeres trabajando), la familia (ej. lo hijos se independizan más rápido, la figura patriarcal tiende a devaluarse) y hasta lo que comemos (ej. el cambio de la comida tradicional por la fast-food). Estos cambios, son absorbidos y rentabilizados por el mercado, empujando a las culturas a hibridarse.

La ciudad es el nicho de todos estos cambios, allí podemos observar la hibridación de las culturas (donde se produce una mundialización 2 de imaginarios relacionados a la música, las imágenes y los personajes) y el cambio de la comunicación instrumental a la estructural además de la creación y/o formación de nuevas identidades que fusionan imaginarios nacionales, tradiciones locales e información transnacional. Un ejemplo de estas “nuevas formas de estar juntos”, dirigidas por la generaciones más joven, las encontramos en: las tribus de la noche de Buenos Aires, los chavos banda de Guadalajara y los pandilleros juveniles de Medellín donde vemos una manera determinada de hablar, vestir, representarse y participar.

El texto deja en claro, que es complicado narrar las identidades, pues estas entrelazan: diversidad, lengua, códigos y medios, que por un lado han sido rentabilizados por el mercado y por el otro se generan usos a través de dinámicas sociales creando nuevos tejidos de la sociabilidad.

El texto de Barbero, sufrió unas modificaciones tras el 11 de septiembre y la participación del autor en el II foro Social de Porto Alegre, que le cambiaron de alguna manera su forma ver el mundo. En primer lugar, el 11 septiembre se transforma en una excusa para la “seguridad” y el miedo. Miedo a las fronteras y las vías de comunicación (aéreas, terrestres marítimas…), ya que se empieza a ver en el extranjero al enemigo. Y digo una excusa para la seguridad, ya que aunque el objetivo parece claro, “seguridad social”, el poder concentrado en órganos como el Banco Mundial (BM), el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) y la Organización Del Comercio (OMG) que tienen la facultad de hacer sugerencias y recomendaciones a los países, en pro de la globalización que tanto defienden, han iniciado un proceso de control de libertades (de información y expresión) y la manipulación y desviación de la información llegando a vulnerar derechos civiles.

Este último proceso responde a una de las perversiones de la comunicación, citadas en Porto Alegre. La segunda perversión de la que se habla hace referencia a las mega-corporaciones globales, Barbero nombra a siete: AOL-Time Warner, Disney, Sony, News Corporation, Viacom y Bertelsmann, en donde observamos la concentración del poder. Estas transformaciones claramente aumentan el poder monopólico tras actores transnacionales, que convierten al estado en un gerente de los intereses privados (ya que las nuevas tecnologías de comunicación refuerzan sus modos de control y lo alejan de su función pública). Aquí los medios de comunicación pierde su capacidad mediadora y se transforman en empresas industriales, ya que son elementos estratégicos en las políticas de modernización y aperturas económicas.

Estas empresas industriales se hacen más grandes y poderosas gracias a las fusiones entre los diferentes medios, un ejemplo de la construcción de oligopolios lo encontramos en las manos de Ardilla Lulla y Julio Mario Santodomigo, el primero tiene bajo su poder a: “RCN Televisión, RCN Radio, RCN Entretenimiento, Antena 2 Televisión, TV Colombia, Nuestra Tele Noticias 24 Horas”3 y el segundo a: “Caracol Televisión, GenTV Canal8, Caracol TV Internacional, Novelas Caracol, El Espectador, Cine Colombia e Inversiones Cromos S. A.”4 , dándole la posibilidad de unificar contenidos y hacer un filtro de la información para su beneficio.

La influencia de la globalización sobre la comunicación no solo se hace ver con la concentración del poder y el control sobre la información de los oligopolios, sino en la posibilidad de un nuevo espacio público desde las redes de movimientos sociales y los medios de comunicación, donde pueden participar variedad de actores y generarse pluralidad de lecturas produciendo resistencias y alternativas. La internet entra en este punto no solo como el mercado la ve (un espacio para monopolizar), sino como una forma de denunciar la desigualdad y la pobreza, como por ejemplo lo que sucede con los Blogs. Un espacio que les permite a las personas (con acceso a internet) expresar su pensamiento sobre la sociedad y darlo a conocer a nivel mundial.

La comunicación al igual que la globalización tiene dos direcciones, la primera relacionada al desenganche de las culturas y la segunda a la inserción de las mismas en el mercado y la tecnología. La tecnología es una variable muy importante a la hora de identificar el impacto de la globalización en la comunicación. Así percibimos las conformaciones de nuevos medios, lenguajes y saberes que inciden en las formas de pensar y actuar del individuo.

Al acercarse a Latinoamérica, Barbero se cuestiona sobre las políticas de comunicación, a las que caracteriza para plantear un posible camino en el que tengan un sentido: 1) como un espacio de diversidad y construcción de las culturas latinoamericanas; 2)que se relacionen con las políticas culturales, ya que los medios influyen en la cultura; 3) sean tanto para el ámbito privado (pluralismo de la información y reglas establecidas) como el público (en pro de la democracias y la participación ciudadana; 4) y que los procesos que construyen sociedad estén incluidos en el mundo de la educación.

Como dije al principio del texto las conexiones que se han generado giran en torno al mercado, América latina no es la excepción. Ella está regida por lógicas mercantiles (donde prevalece la competitividad sobre la cooperación). Barbero lo ejemplifica con dos movimientos de integración económica: “inserción excluyente” como con el caso del TLC y Mercosur que buscan: concentración de ingresos y reducción de gastos y la “revolución tecnológica” donde se hace notoria la desigualdad en el intercambio. Esta integración también incluye la de los mass media y las tecnologías de información, en la a que las producciones audiovisuales pertenecen a un interés del sector privado, produciéndose una “neutralización y borramiento de las señas de identidad regionales y locales” 5.

El cine tras la pérdida del apoyo estatal y una clara baja en su producción, en países como México, Brasil, Argentina se ve en la necesidad de entrar en negociaciones con la industria televisiva. Las salas de cine empezaron a cerrarse y luego vuelven a abrirse pero como multi-sales, donde lo que prima es la oferta. Barbero plantea que los jóvenes están reconociéndose en el cine y propone la posibilidad de que este medio audiovisual permita “poner a comunicar a las culturas y sus pueblos”6 .

Por su parte, la televisión que según Barbero es la mejor testigo de los procesos de globalización que vive latino América y además posee un gran poder de convocatoria, incluso sobre otros medios, es manipulada para cumplir con interese económicos y políticos, de esta manera el rostro de los países es deformado para esos fines. Barbero explica que la telenovela es el género que mejor combina matrices culturales populares y formatos industriales, ya que la televisión responde a demandas sociales y culturales de la gente permitiéndoles un reconocimiento socio-cultural en lo que proyectan.

Las telenovelas empiezan a competir con las series norteamericanas (que se habían adueñado de los mejores horarios desde los 60’s) en los 80’s cuando la producción nacional de países como México, Venezuela y Brasil aumenta. En los 90’s las telenovelas empiezan a ser apropiadas por cada país, donde se trasladan dimensiones de la vida y las culturas nacionales y locales, dando una gran variedad de narraciones que dejan ver una gran diversidad cultural.

Como se puede notar la globalización, la comunicación y la cultura son eslabones de una misma cadena, todos se afectan de alguna manera. Por ejemplo la cultura es un lugar de resistencia, donde se negocia con y hasta se puede transformar la globalización. En el caso de Latinoamérica, la relación entre medios de comunicación y cultura es muy compleja, debido a los procesos de privatización y el desconocimiento del papel de los medios audiovisuales en la cultura.

1.MARTÍN-BARBERO, Jesús. “La globalización en clave cultural”. En: Coloquio Globalismo y Pluralismo. Montreal: abril, 2002.
2.Entendido como: “un proceso que se hace y deshace incesantemente”. IBID Pág. 7
3.http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Ardila_L%C3%BClle
4.http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Mario_Santo_Domingo
MARTÍN-BARBERO, Jesús. “La globalización en clave cultural”. En: Coloquio Globalismo y Pluralismo. Montreal: abril, 2002. Pág. 18
5.IBID. Pág. 19

Ethik handelt von dem, was Menschen tun, wie sie es tun, warum sie es tun und warum sie nicht etwas anderes tun.  Insofern befasst sich Ethik mit menschlichen Entscheidungen und deren Grundlagen, wobei die Fragen höher geschätzt werden als die Hoffnung auf die eine richtige Antwort. Anhand dieses nur anscheinend abstrakten Wissensgebietes möchte ich eine dritte Ebene des Lernens ansprechen.

Im ersten Abschnitt lasen Sie über Begegnung im “dritten Körper” als archetypischer Grundlage des Lernens zwischen Menschen. Im zweiten Abschnitt wandten wir uns zwei unterschiedlichen Formen dieser Begegnung zu, die im Bild des Falken und der Eiche dargestellt wurden. Bei diesen beiden Abschnitten stand ein “Wissensgefälle” unsichtbar hinter den Darstellungen, eine Lehrer-Schüler-Beziehung, in der einer der Beteiligten – wie auch ich in diesen kurzen Überlegungen hier – die Kulissen aufstellt und die Lernszenerie strukturiert. Jetzt, im dritten Abschnitt, sehen wir offen auf das “Gegebene” als “Gemachtes”, auf die “Szenerie” als “Inszenierung” und tauschen uns darüber auf gleicher Augenhöhe aus. Wir reflektieren und disputieren unter dem Sigel der Aufklärung.

Unter diesem Sigel kam und kommt Ethik als Unterrichtsfach an die Schulen. Nicht selten geschieht dies unter heftigen Geburtswehen, wie erst kürzlich in Berlin zu beobachten war.  Ein jüngst erschienenes Buch*, das die beiden Väter des Ethikunterichts in Südwestdeutschland als Abitursrepetitorium entworfen haben, zeigt, wie weit sich dieses Fach in den letzten Jahren entwickelt hat. Dabei tritt die Ethik eben nicht an um Religionsunterricht abzuwerten oder gar zu verdrängen, sondern um ein gemeinsames Alphabet zur Verfügung zu stellen, in dem ALLE Angehörigen unserer vielfältigen Gesellschaft ihre Nöte und Freuden buchstabieren können – in der Hoffnung, verstanden zu werden. Und das Erlernen dieses Alphabets verlangt es, einen Schritt aus dem Alltag zurückzutreten, sich aus der vertrauten Unmittelbarkeit der Urszene zu entfernen, die Natur als Natur und das Gemachte als Gemachtes wahrzunehmen und einen abendländisch-modernen, aufgeklärten, im besten Sinne kritischen  Blick auf das, was geschieht, zu werfen.

Lernen als Begegnung unter Gleichen kommt ohne Kulissenschieberei, Allüren und Voodoo aus, nicht aber ohne die drei Bereitschaften, die Carl Rogers zunächst nur für den therapeutischen Kontext formulierte: Authentizität, Empathie und Akzeptanz.  Das In-Frage-Stellen eigener Positionen gehört ebenso dazu, wie die Kunst des Zuhörens und das Einlernen einer bewussten Steuerung der Aufmerksamkeit auf unterschiedliche Ebenen der Reflektion. Diese Art zu Lernen vor allem für Menschen geeignet, die, um mit Piaget zu sprechen,  sich im formalen Denken üben.  Keine Angst vor dem Berühren von Metaebenen – also darüber zu sprechen, wie und warum man über etwas spricht – ist die unmittelbare Voraussetzung und Folge dieser Art zu lernen.

Auch im strukturellen Kontext der abendländischen Schule kann Ethik ein mündiges In-der-Welt-Sein befördern. Es ist ein Fach, das noch mit Kinderfüßen in erstaunlich großen Schuhen steckt und daher manchmal stolpert und watschelt. Nicht jeder, der etwas tut, begreift, was er gerade tut – aber die Laufrichtung stimmt. Und diejenigen, die an den Schulen versuchen die Bauklötzchen der großen Weltbilder aufeinander zu stapeln, sprechen eben manchmal auch über das Stapeln von Bauklötzchen an sich – und nicht nur darüber, ob das rote jetzt auf das grüne passt oder nicht …..

_________________

* Görgen, Klaus und Frericks, Hanns: Mein Ziel: Abitur Ethik. Manz-Verlag, 2009 ISBN 978-3-7863-4301-1 Meine Bewertung: Inhaltlich das Beste, was auf dem Markt ist. Leider ist das Seitenlayout leseunfreundlich.

Ich habe ja bereits in meiner Radiosendung am Wochenende vermehrt darauf hingewiesen, dass die Existenz von radio blau – dem einzigen nichtkommerziellen Medienanbieter im Bereich Hörfunk in Leipzig – derzeit nicht gesichert ist. Zu den Hintergründen kann man in einem offenen Brief mehr erfahren. Die Unterstützerliste ist bereits sehr lang – kann aber selbstredend nicht lang genug sein. Es ist wichtig im öffentlichen Raum mit alternativen und nichtkommerziellen Medien eine Art Bürgerjournalismus als Teil der zivilen Öffentlichkeit zu stärken. Auch darüber habe ich in einem Höressay berichtet.

Bevor es nun zu dem wichtigen Termin zwischen dem Mantelprogrammanbieter Apollo-Radio und den rechtlichen Vertretern der sächsischen freien Radios am 24.11. kommt, möchten wir möglichst viel Resonanzraum in der Öffentlichkeit schaffen. Dafür sind verschiedene Veranstaltungen geplant.

Besonders hervorheben möchte ich ein Radioballett am kommenden Samstag, den 21.11.2009 um 13.00 bis 14.00 Uhr auf dem Leipziger Augustusplatz vor der Oper. Radioballettveranstaltungen dienen der Irritation im öffentlichen Raum und funktionieren so: Jeder Teilnehmer und jede Teilnehmerin bringt einen Rundfunkempfänger mit (Kofferradio, Kassettenrekorder, Ghettoblaster, Handy mit Radioempfang, MP3-Player mit Radioempfang usw.). Über die akustischen Aufforderungen entsteht ein Ballett – beispielsweise also alle machen jetzt mal das Flugzeug, alle springen in die Luft etc. Die Irritation für den „Ottonormalverbraucher“, der unmittelbar in die Rolle des Zuschauers gedrängt wird, macht aus „unserem“ kreativen Ballett eine Protestaktion, in dem Flyer und Infoblättchen zur Problematik des drohenden Abschaltens von radio blau verteilt werden.

Bereits am 26.10.2009, als wir als Ausdruck des ersten Protestes ein Radioballett vor der Niederlassung der Sächsischen Landesmedienanstalt (SLM) in Leipzig veranstalteten, konnte ein hohes Maß an Aufmerksamkeit erzielt werden. Weiterhin erreichten wir, dass die Vorsitzenden der Vereine der freien Radios in Sachsen Zugang zur Sitzung des Medienrates erhielten, um dort ihr Anliegen vorzutragen.

Wenn ihr also am Samstag nach dem Mittagessen ein wenig „Flashmobatmosphäre“ schnuppern wollt, Spaßhaben wollt, euch für eine alternative Medienvielfalt einsetzen möchtet oder einfach Lust habt Euch zum Kasper zu machen – dann schaut 13.00 auf dem Augustusplatz vorbei – samt empfangsbereitem Radiogerät.

Hier noch einige Eindrücke vom Radioballett am 26.10.2009 vor der SLM-Niederlassung in Leipzig. (Alle Fotos von Michael Wallies)

*Maschieren für Weltfrieden und Medienvielfalt*

*Kollektives In-die-Hocke-Gehen*

*Sogar an Ärsche wird gepackt* (aber nur an den jeweils Eigenen!)

Introduction

In 1974 Raymond Williams wrote an essay about the impact of television on society, “Television: Technology and Cultural Form.” In it, he expressed concern that while television had the ability to offer “extreme social choices” and could potentially lead to a “more educated and participatory democracy,” it also has the ability to further limit and regionalize the way we think and interact with one another to the few choices offered to us by large corporations and institutions.

In today’s reading, “The Lo(n)g Revolution: the Blogosphere as an alternative Public Sphere?”, Anna Notaro begins with this excerpt from Williams’ article in order to put her own into context. While Williams’ assertions are seemingly out-of-date, they can be reapplied to the technology of today, which is the Internet. Her goal for this essay is to explore the political implications of the Internet and she wonders whether the Internet will remain a delimited public arena in which intellectual exchange freely flows between ordinary people, or become highly monitored and limited by potentially anti-democratic values. She concentrates on the “blogosphere” in particular (a term coined by William Quick in 2001 to refer to the “intellectual cyperspace” that bloggers inhabit), and its role in relation to “the intersection between technological change and a reformulation of the public sphere.”

Notaro goes on to explain Williams’ idea from his 1961 article “The Long Revolution,” that there are three long, simultaneous revolutions occurring—the democratic revolution, the industrial (technological) revolution, and the cultural revolution. Williams had an optimistic view of these revolutions, arguing that the public’s desire to govern themselves was directly related to the development of industrial organization (or in more modern terms, the development of new technologies), and that the cultural revolution then, reflected the public’s desire to allow everyone to actively learn and participate in culture as opposed to a small group of people. The link between these three revolutions is less obvious today, and Notaro wonders whether it is possible to continue to be optimistic about this relationship. Is this democratic desire still relevant in a time when large companies are all fighting to be the ultimate controllers of our consumption?

Habermas’s Public Sphere

Notaro next explores Jurgen Habermas’s idea of the public sphere, and how much of it has changed or remained the same in today’s technological world. Habermas’s idea, in “The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere written in 1962,” was that in 18th century Europe, the public sphere emerged as a forum for critical discussion amongst the public, which would allow for the free sharing of ideas, ultimately serving as a check to state power. In the more modern times of the Internet, the public sphere has evolved. Notaro is skeptical about applying a concept that was formulated in a different media world to the current media environment, especially due to one aspect of Habermas’s idea of the public sphere—discussion strictly as a form of rational debate, ignoring any sort of emotive language that could be used in a free flow of ideas. He believed that everyone should have “a common interest in truth, no matter their status.”

This idea has been critiqued due to its narrow-minded nature. Modern theorists argue that this idea implies a “public” only open to the elite and educated, while more realistically in today’s technological world, there are many publics that include anyone and everyone, in the form of list-servs, chat rooms, blogs, and gaming communities. Many media scholars seek to discard Habermas’s view of the public sphere completely. Others believe that there are still modern implications of his theory. Notaro is hesitant to discard Harbermas’s idea of the public sphere as being completely irrelevant to the modern media world, however she argues that even if it can be applied, Habermas’s public is only a small component of the numerous publics that exist on the Internet today.

Internet and Electronic Democracy

Many scholars believe that computer-mediated communication opens the doors for democratic progress by enabling widespread discussion and the ability to make each and every voice heard. Rheingold, one scholar, among many others, who believes in this newfound democracy, strongly believes that technology, “if properly understood and defended by enough citizens, does have democratizing potential in the way that alphabets and printing presses had democratizing potential.” These scholars see the Internet as a utopian, electronic agora (public forum of ancient Greece). In line, to some extent, with Habermas’s public sphere, blogs and news groups engage people in discussions of public and political relevance, promoting a more widespread democracy.

However, there are also many media scholars who lack this optimistic view of an electronic democracy. Benjamin Barber conjured three different scenarios of what could happen with the relationship between technology and democracy: the Pangloss scenario, the Pandora scenario, and the Jeffersonian scenario. The Pangloss scenario refers to the ability of technology to serve corporate agendas. The Pandora scenario refers to the idea of the government utilizing technologies in order to control the public and create an “invisible tyranny” which takes away freedoms and limits privacy. The Jeffersonian scenario is refreshingly optimistic compared to the first two, and refers to a society in which the government and its citizens use technology in order to promote active participation in democracy online and elsewhere.

Backtracking for a moment, Barber’s Pandora scenario directly ties in to the second reading of the day, “Scroogled” by Cory Doctorow. In this highly imagined story, a Google employee comes back from a long vacation in Mexico to find that the Department of Homeland Security, along with the entire American government, has partnered with Google to gain access to the search histories of citizens in order to monitor their actions online as a way to eliminate any sort of threats to the security of the nation. I won’t get into too many details of the story, but the main character, Greg, is interrogated by the DHS on his way home for some completely innocent, yet seemingly threatening searches he made while he was away. His friend and fellow Google employee, Maya, explains to him exactly what happened while he was gone and informs him that once the government gain access to a person’s Google identity, it monitors it forever. There is no more privacy whatsoever. Maya tells Greg she has created a software capable of completely wiping out and masking online identities so that the government can no longer track them. Chaos ensues, and by the end of the story, the software is used by Google as a form of political corruption, in order to erase the questionable histories of certain political candidates.

This whole scenario seems completely fantastical, but at the same time it is unsettling to realize that this sort of government control is completely possible with today’s technology. This story, combined with many of the ideas I will discuss shortly, brings up my own questions about the democratic value of the Internet as well as ties back to questions of freedom in the use of the computer due to interfaces. But I will come back to that at the end.

Now, back to Barber’s last scenario (Jeffersonian), which envisions a more democratic society. This scenario again reflects people’s tendency to think that new technology allows for some democratic utopia to form. Rheingold, while he advocates this utopia, still realizes that the Internet can be easily commodified and while it seems like the Internet allows the public to break free from traditional media’s monopoly over their attention, in reality it is just another means for companies and the government influence public discourse. Carl Boggs is one scholar who seriously doubts the Internet’s democratic capabilities, saying that it does not in fact “empower ordinary people,” but rather “the global village…operates at the expense of real communities.”

At the end of this section Notaro leaves us with a paradox: the online public sphere will always lack a certain democratic value due to the inequality and irrationality of certain online discourse, but at the same time, the Internet draws in many different people, enables many new connections and allows for democratic discussion. She concludes that our understanding of democracy and the Internet need to be reworked and continuously developed on a “glocal” scale, and that this democracy is worth fighting for in order to protect ourselves from media conglomerates.

The Blogosphere

Notaro briefly outlines the development of weblogs by referring to Rebecca Blood’s Weblogs: a history and perspective (2000). Blogs began as a way to discuss specific scholarly topics to a more personal diary, that transformed consumers into creators of information.

Blood stresses the importance of blogs today in a world where we are exposed to so much information so frequently that it is difficult to stop and reflect on any given piece of information anymore. She claims that modern blogs are one remedy. Notaro notes that since Blood’s article in 2000, blogs—both directly political in nature and simply reflective—have contributed to national and international political dialogue, especially after September 11th. One example she gives is that of Salam Pax from Baghdad. He wrote a blog about the mood of the city as it awaited the U.S. bombing, which created a buzz around the world. These random, unprofessional blogs have begun to have a real impact on the journalistic world. Notaro argues that bloggers and journalists are all part of the same family of writers, and that all blogs have some journalistic aspect, whether or not they live up to professional standards.

Notaro then defines the blogosphere. She explains how blogs are collective in nature and foster ongoing active participation—through comments—by tons of people anywhere in the world. The computer language is a common one that eliminates certain political and cultural divisions between different regions of the world. She says that this transcendence of physical and cultural borders “presents a case of interactivity in a local/global public sphere that may re-energize democratic values.” Despite this, Notaro questions the novelty of such a public sphere. She thinks that perhaps the idea of ordinary people discussing in the public sphere is old news, and connects it back to Habermas’s idea of the public sphere emerging way back in the 18th century.

Andrew Baoill sets out to find this connection between Habermas and the blogosphere. He identified three factors of Habermas’s theories: inclusivity, disregard of external rank, and rational debate. He claims that while the blogosphere is somewhat inclusive in that anyone can start a blog, it cannot help but favor certain blogs over others, failing to disregard rank. Further, the fact that there are so many blogs out there, very few of them will be given a chance for rational discussion. Therefore, the blogosphere does not live up to Habermas’s ideal public sphere. Notaro concludes that the blogosphere is just a “constellation of intellectual space” where people can freely express themselves, as they feel necessary, without much order to it.

One problem is that because there is so much information out there, people begin to filter out only the things they want to hear without listening to what other people have to say. It creates “echo chambers” where the individual becomes important and the public sphere begins to decline. This divide between the individual and the public is becoming more and more apparent.

Notaro then describes a report done by the Hansard Society, which assessed the state of political blogging in the UK. These are some of the findings:

• Blogging has the potential to significantly impact on political engagement and political processes as they provide an opportunity for alternative informal voices to enter into the political debate without a great deal of cost or effort.

• Blogging breaks down the barriers between public and privates spaces and allows elected representatives to put across their individuality and personality.

• The availability of low-cost, low maintenance authoring software means blogs are far easier to construct and update than conventional websites.

• The most appealing blogs are those which provide genuine debate between bloggers and visitors to the blog. Blogs that do not offer this facility give visitors little reason to return.

• At the moment, political blogging is still regarded as the pursuit of internet connoisseurs rather than ordinary members of the public. While our jury found blogs easy to navigate, they found the tone of content unappealing.

• Blogging has the potential to be of enormous benefit to MPs and other elected representatives who use it as a listening post rather than another tool to broadcast their ideas, achievements or party dogma.

Notaro notes a paradox in these findings: while politicians are needed in order to represent the diversity of the public, blogs wind up eliminating the need of individuals to be spoken for by someone else. This feeling of individualism provides a great sense of democracy in that individuals no longer feel the need to have their opinions represented by others, but instead people want to express their own opinions for themselves. Notaro celebrates the death of one ideology and the birth of a “digital nation” full of individuals. She calls them Digital Citizens. 

I would like to connect parts of this reading back to our discussion of the desktop interface. In my last post on the reading by Steven Johnson, I mentioned that the original desktop released by Apple was considered revolutionary in that it enabled the ordinary person to be able to use the computer and “understand” its functions. Apple advertised the interface as providing a sort of freedom, which would allow people to have an equal understanding and ability to use the computer. We discussed, however, that in reality this understanding is false and that while we think we are being given choices and freedom within the interface, we are actually being completely influenced by the designs of the interface designers and only know and understand what they allow us to. This ties back to the skepticism of scholars like Benjamin Barber about the true freedom that the Internet allows us. Perhaps we believe that we have complete freedom on the web, but in reality the Internet is filled with advertisements and agenda of all sorts, so that the content we see is in fact regulated to some extent, whether we realize it or not. Do you think that the Internet is limiting or is it truly free? Further, do you think that something like “Scroogled,” where we literally have no freedom whatsoever, could actually happen? Are we heading in that direction?

This weeks readings were Anna Notaro’s “The Lo(n)g Revolution: the Blogosphere as an alternative Public Sphere?” and Cory Doctorow’s Google fiction “Scroogled.”

In “The Lo(n)g Revolution: the Blogosphere as an alternative Public Sphere?” Anna Notaro suggests during this period of never-ending technological advances and the expansiveness of Internet, that we are entering a time where the blogosphere is not just an alternative but, instead, is the new public sphere. Notaro reminds us, however, that we are often clouded by a naïve excitement in the hope that the internet will be an ideal agent for social change and “true” democracy, but we must wait to see if it will live up to its potential.

So how do blogs play a key role in this idea of public discourse, professionalism, and political communication?

In “The Long Revolution”, Raymond Williams explains that new social cultures exist at the intersection of the democratic revolution, the industrial revolution, and the cultural revolution. For Williams, these obvious examples of change prove the benefit in fighting for a “human order.” In other words, we must not take our current situations for granted but rather, must act on our convictions.

Similarly, Habermas introduces the idea of the “public sphere” and its influence on ideas in  “Structural Transformations of the Public Sphere.” He argues that “the greatest contribution to the development of the public sphere was the emergence of its institutional base, the organizational structures that allowed these ‘webs of social development’ to exist. It links the growth of an urban culture, as the new arena of public life, to a new infrastructure for social communication.”

At the base of the public sphere are the webs of social development where we can exchange information and opinions. With the invention of the Internet, blogs, and chat rooms, the public sphere has become accessible to all people. The difference, according to Notaro, is that the Internet has introduced many publics so people have the ability to choose their communities, their peers, and their public.

However, with this new individual power that the Web provides, we must question to role of traditional democracy in relation to our new media environments. Many scholars claim that the blogosphere and the net promote “democratic progress,” and citizens can interact with each other as equals. Habermas cites this as an ideal society or, agora, where “the discussion among citizens issues were made topical and took shape.”

Benjamin Barber further explores the relationship between mediated communication and the democratic system. He presents three potential scenarios: The Pangloss scenario where technology merely caters to a corporate agenda, the Pandora scenario in which the government uses new technology for power and repression, and the ideal Jeffersonian scenario where governments and citizens adjust technology to promote participation and democracy.

Notaro uses Rebecca Blood’s history of blogs to highlight the core of her discussion. Blood explains that blogs evolved from forums where people commented on particular subjects or scholarly articles into “personal diaries” where anyone can express his or her feelings and opinions to the Internet public. Blogs have created a public sphere that transforms the consumers of information into the creators of information.

One problem with these Web bases public spheres is, rather than exposing ourselves to new ideas, we simply “tailor our electronic environment to hear our own views reinforced over and over again. Blogs could thus become some sort of ‘echo chambers’ where people end up listening only to their own opinions.

Notaro goes on to discuss the political implications of the blogosphere. She introduces the Hansard Society, “an independent non-partisan organization working to promote effective parliamentary democracy” that set out to study  “how democratic institutions can adapt to the information age.” Their report was released in July 2004 and some of the key findings were:

• Blogging has the potential to significantly impact on political engagement and political processes as they provide an opportunity for alternative informal voices to enter into the political debate without a great deal of cost or effort.
• Blogging breaks down the barriers between public and privates spaces and allows elected representatives to put across their individuality and personality.
• The availability of low-cost, low maintenance authoring software means blogs are far easier to construct and update than conventional websites.
• The most appealing blogs are those which provide genuine debate between bloggers and visitors to the blog. Blogs that do not offer this facility give visitors little reason to return.
• At the moment, political blogging is still regarded as the pursuit of internet connoisseurs rather than ordinary members of the public. While our jury found blogs easy to navigate, they found the tone of content unappealing.
• Blogging has the potential to be of enormous benefit to MPs and other elected representatives who use it as a listening post rather than another tool to broadcast their ideas, achievements or party dogma

Looking at these results, Notaro concludes that because the blogosphere removes the barriers between private and public spaces, it acts as a “vehicle for self-presentation. [B]logs diminish people’s need to be spoken for by others.” In theory, this increased accessibility paves the way for a more democratic society in which the citizens take a significant and active role.”

In that same vein, in an essay that appeared in Wired, Jon Katz notes:

• Where freedom is rarely mentioned in mainstream media anymore, it is ferociously defended – and exercised daily – on the Net.
• Where our existing information systems seek to choke the flow of information through taboos, costs, and restrictions, the new digital world celebrates the right of the individual to speak and be heard – one of the cornerstone ideas behind American media and democracy.
• Where our existing political institutions are viewed as remote and unresponsive, this online culture offers the means for individuals to have a genuine say in the decisions that affect their lives.
• Where conventional politics is suffused with ideology, the digital world is obsessed with facts.
• Where our current political system is irrational, awash in hypocritical god-and-values talk, the Digital Nation points the way toward a more rational, less dogmatic approach to politics.
• The world’s information is being liberated, and so, as a consequence, are we.

Ultimately, the Internet allows people to do things they couldn’t do before from allowing them to experiment with their sexual identities without being humiliated, allow researchers the ability to get the newest data in hours, give people the opportunity to express themselves without having their views filtered through journalists, and push agendas they see important. This brings to mind Clay Shirky’s points on collective action. The blogosphere gives collective action a home.

In some of her closing words, Notaro says, these days, we lead two lives: “On one side we exist as individuals, made up of flesh and bones, on the other we are ‘digital persons’, whose lives enfold on the Net.” This idea of ‘digital people’ speaks to Cory Doctorow’s fiction story “Scroogled.”

Doctorow’s story addresses the threat of loss of privacy on the Web–an all too real topic in today’s society.  Doctorow illuminates the severity of this threat by telling the story of a former Google employees US customs experience. In the story, Google plays an instrumental role in Immigration security as, “we are now Googled at the border.” By using Google ads, the government determines whether or not a person going through customs might be a threat to national security.

“Every time you visited a page with Google ads on it, or used Google maps or Google mail–even if you sent mail to a Gmail account–the company diligently collected your info. Recently, the site’s search-optimization software had begun using the data to tailor Web searches to individual users. It proved to be a revolutionary tool for advertisers. An authoritarian government would have other purposes in mind.”

We spend so much time online that Google probably knows us better than our best friend. The main character, Greg, thought to himself what he put into that search bar “was likely more revealing than what he told his shrink.” Many of us Google things and participate in searches under the assumption that we are doing it in the privacy of our own homes, but each click is tracked and clicks add up and can reveal a lot about you. More and more, we are becoming ‘digital persons’ and each digital person has a file. Greg hadn’t quite realized how much of him had migrated onto the Web and worked its way into Google’s server farms. They had his entire online identity.

This story brings to mind many questions about power, access, and privacy. Is it ethical for Google to be handing over our personal information to benefit advertisers? Is it ethical for Google to give our information to governments in the interest of national security? What kind of access do Google employees have to our information since Maya (Greg’s Google friend) said she would look at users profiles?

There is a quote towards the end of the story that may seem a little exaggeratory to some:

“My parents left east Germany in 65′. The used to tell me about the Stasi. The secret police would put everything about you in your file, if you told an unpatriotc joke, whatever. Whether they meant it or not, what Google has created is no different.”

Does Google know too much? What can we do about it? Do we care enough to do anything about it?

Bila kita bercakap tentang Iran dan Jürgen Habermas, kita harus memanggil beberapa sejarah.Sejarah pertama, tradisi intelektual moden Iran. Dalam sejarahnya, Iran tak seperti nengara muslim yang lain, mereka telah mengalami benturan intelektual yang sekian lama, dan lebih hangat. Ini dapat dilihat dari sosok seperti Jamaluddin al-Afghani, Jalal al-e Ahmad, Sadegh Hedayat, Ahmad Khasravi, Mehdi Bazargan, dll. Dari mereka ini, wacana antara tradisi dan modeniti, antara konservatif dan liberal, telah berantaian demikian lamanya.

Sejarah kedua, tradisi agamawan Iran. Dalam sejarahnya, Iran tak seperti negara sunni yang lain. Negara Persia ini tak pernah putus wacana teologi dan falsafah. Setelah al-Ghazzali, wacana falsafah Islam di Iran berkembang menerusi Suhrawardi, Sadra, Mir Damad, dll. Justeru, mutu intelektual agama mereka lebih ketat dan lebih tajam. Hujungnya, mereka melahirkan ramai agamawan yang terbilang, seperti Taba’taba’ee, Motahhari, Baheshti, Taleqani, Khomeini, dll. Kesemua nama ini bukan saja menunjukkan bakat dalam hal teologi, tapi juga dalam hal politik.

Sejarah ketiga, Iran pernah melalui era komunisme, sekurang-kurangnya era pengaruhnya yang cukup kuat. Ini dapat dilihat menerusi Parti Tudeh, yang cuba menguasai pentas masyarakat Iran, terutamanya sebelum revolusi 1979. Parti Tudeh dan Fedayin, yang juga dimusuhi oleh Shah Iran, berusaha memanjangkan suara Soviet Union di Iran, dan dampaknya dirasakan begitu meluas sekali. Dari pengaruh komunisme ini juga melahirkan MKO, dll. Namun, setelah revolusi, gerakan komunisme di Iran mengalami tekanan, dan tenggelam di bawah bendera revolusi Islam. Lantas, MKO sampai sekarang sekalipun telah mengambil jalan keras, serta melancarkan serangan terhadap agamawan dan politikus Iran. Sementara yang lain, wacana marxisme yang ortodoks pula digugat dengan kehadhiran wacana neo-marxisme yang lebih dinamik.

Dan, sejarah keempat, Iran dewasa ini sedang berhadapan antara idea negara demokrasi dengan status quo velayatul-faqeh. Ketepikan dulu soal benar atau salah. Tapi, pertembungan mereka ini—agamawan dan intelektual—telah menimbulkan debat yang tak pernah surut. Tak pernah kehabisan hujah. Kubu intelektual Iran bertambah, manakala kubu agamawan juga kian menebal. Ini dapat dilihat dari sosok utama mereka, seperti antara Abdol Karim Soroush dan Mohammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi. Juga melalui Ramin Jahanbegloo, dkk.

Nah, dari keempat sejarah ini, di mana Habermas? Di sini Habermas terlibat dalam semua sudut di atas.

Pertama, wacana Habermas menjadi penting untuk membendung kegentingan antara agamawan dan intelektual. Ini dapat dijernihkan menerusi idea rasionalisasi komunikasi-nya. Pada Habermas, rasionalisasi komunikasi ini dapat menghapuskan jurang antara minda atas-bawah, atau dalam bahasa Hegel, minda “tuan-hamba.” Minda subjek-objek ini agak tebal di Iran, terutamanya menerusi pengaruh agamawan terhadap rakyatnya. Ini barangkali sumbangan intelektual paling menarik Habermas di Iran. Mithalnya, Habibullah Peyman pernah memakai rasionalisasi komunikatif Habermas ini untuk memaparkan hubungan manusia dengan tuhan berupa sebuah dialog—tanpa perantara agamawan. Sebab itu, kegiatannya menerusi pergerakan Jonbesh-e Mosalmanan-e Mobarez (Pergerakan Muslim Garis-Keras), menerima cabaran bukan kepalang.

Kedua, wacana Habermas adalah kelanjutan dari tradisi intelektual Iran. Hubungan intelektual Iran yang panjang dengan falsafah barat memang umum sudah maklum. Karya-karya Kant, telah sekian lama diterjemahkan dan tersebar merata di Iran, sampai masuk ke celah-celah Hawzah Ilmiyyah-nya. Pernah pada tahun 2004, Iran mengajurkan peringatan 200 tahun kematian Kant. Begitu juga karya-karya Camus, Fromm, Bergson, Sartre, dll, yang berselerakan diterjemah dalam Farsi. Bahkan, lihat saja kritik Motahhari terhadap etika Kant dan Russell, yang ternyata tidak kurang bobotnya. Ini bukan omongan, kerana Motahhari dibantu paradigma Sadrian dapat menangkis falsafah barat tersebut. Tak lupa kritik Shariati terhadap Sartre, terhadap Fromm, dll. Ini adalah satu kekuatan bitara Iran—ekoran tak lekangnya tradisi mereka dari ranah falsafah. Maka, Habermas mekar di Iran sebagai pembaharu dari wacana falsafah barat, yang dikritik tersebut. Habermas, yang memberi bentuk yang lebih terbuka berbanding filsuf sebelumnya. Selain Habermas, Rotry juga tak kurang terkenalnya di Iran. Pernah kehadhirannya pada 2004, disambut begitu meluas di kalangan masyarakat akademik Iran. Maka, mahu atau tidak, Habermas, juga pemikir-pemikir terkini barat mesti di baca di Iran, kerana itulah kelanjutan wacana intelektual Iran-barat yang sekian lama. Ini ditambah lagi ketika Iran di bawah Hashemi Rafsanjani, mereka mula membuka pintu kapitalisme. Justeru, suasana ini mengetuk kritik-kritik atas-modeniti. Hossein Bashiriyeh contohnya, pernah menyentuh hal ini dalam Maktab-e Frankfort: Negaresh-e Enteqadi, Naghd-e Aiyn-e Esbati va Jam‘e-ye Nou (Sekolah Frankfurt: Teori Kritik, Kritisme pada Positivisme dan Masyarakat Moden).

Ketiga, Habermas datang dari Sekolah Frankfurt. Seperti kita maklum, Sekolah Frankfurt adalah sarang-nya neo-marxisme, yang melihat kapitalisme sebagai alat ekonomi yang mahu menelan intelektual. Selain Sekolah Frankfurt, ada juga kalangan strukturalisme dari Perancis yang tak senang dengan kekuasaan minda kapitalisme penuh ini. Tapi, dua sekolah ini belum cukup kuat. Malah, kapitalisme tetap saja hidup, dan dapat menggunakan bau-bau sosialis untuk kelestariannya. Pada “titik penting” inilah, Habermas muncul dengan kritik-kritik atas marxisme, dan memberi wacana yang lebih semasa. Letaknya Iran di sini adalah latar komunisme yang tebal, dan kegagalan politik komunisme Iran itu sendiri. Maka, idea-idea Habermas—yang menilai ulang idea marxisme—memberi nafas baru pada kelompok intelektual kiri di Iran. Hossein Adibi dan ‘Abdul-M’abood Ansari antara yang mengupas Habermas dan kritik-kritiknya pada marxisme ortodoks dalam buku mereka, Nazariye ha-ye Jam’ee-e Shena-si (Teori-teori Sosiologi).

Dan, keempat, wacana terbaru Habermas adalah mengenai hubungan antara agama dengan negara. Di sini, turut menyebabkan Habermas ditarik—kerana ketegangan di Iran antara konsep negara teologi yang bertarung dengan konsep negara sekular. Habermas, walaupun mendukung sebuah negara sekular, namun pernah menyatakan dalam pertemuannya dengan Pope Benedict bahawa perlunya sebuah negara sekular yang mesra agama. Maka, idea “ruang awam dan ruang peribadi” tajaan Habermas mendapat tempat dalam wacana kenegaraan di Iran. Usaha ini gigih dilakukan Yusuf Abazari yang memandang Habermasian sebagai alternatif dalam kemelut demokrasi di Iran. Abazari, dalam Kherad-e Jam‘e Shenasi (Nalar Sosiologi) menyorot betapa pentingnya Habermasian di Iran dalam debat intelektual terkini—terutamanya persoalan yang berkait dengan wacana ruang awam/peribadi serta projek kerasionalan.

Jadi, ringkasnya, di mana letaknya oeuvre Habermas di Iran? Ya, pada pertembungan agamawan-intelektual, pada wacana tradisi-modeniti, pada debat kiri-kanan, pada persaingan Islam-barat tersebut.

Lantas, idea masyarakat sivil yang dimajukan dari kalangan intelektual, yang dipinjam dari Habermas, cuba untuk memecahkan minda “tuan” menjadi minda yang setara rasionalisasinya dengan “hamba,” dan begitulah sebaleknya. Jadi, idea masyarakat sivil, itu dimunculkan menerusi dukungan rasionalisasi komunikatif tawaran Habermas. Begitu pun, bukan kata “masyarakat sivil” yang penting, yang dahulu hadhir. Tapi kata “rasionalisasi komunikasi”-nya, yang mengusung etika wacana, prinsip etika universal, dan pemahaman lebenswelt itu. Iran dewasa ini dalam proses pembentukan negara yang lebih matang. Lebenswelt (dunia-kehidupan) mereka sudah beberapa kali beranjak dan digugat. Maka, pergelutan bangsa-bukan Asia ini—kalau masing-masing siap dengan persetujuan kaedah Habermas tersebut—akan mendorong sebuah kekayaan idea yang sekali lagi memalukan serta meninggalkan jauh negara-negara muslim lain.

Memang, bukan hanya deretan intelektual yang disebut di atas saja yang memantik Habermas di Iran. Bahkan, terdapat beberapa lagi seperti Hadi Khaniki, Saeed Hajjarian, Hossein Ali Nazori, Morad Saqafi, dll yang masing-masing meminjam Habermasian dalam konteks tersendiri, pro-kontra. Lantas tak hairan, Habermas di Iran bukannya diterima bulat-bulat. Pernah Abdol Karim Soroush—yang terlatih dalam Popperian—menerusi bukunya, Danesh va Arzesh (Pengetahuan dan Nilai), mengkritik habis-habisan perpektif Habermasian. Ini kerana, Soroush melihat pendekatan sains Habermas yang terlalu instrumentalistik dan punya kesamaran dalam gagasan hermeneutika-nya.

Demikian Habermas dan Iran, dan pertautannya. Apapun, apa kata kita lupakan Iran sekejap. Mari kita kembali pada Malaysia, yang identik dengan keislaman. Konon juga, sebagai sebuah Negara Islam terbilang. Nah, di mana hubungan Malaysia dengan Habermas? Usah hairan, barangkali paling-paling jauh kita hanya boleh pergi pada hubungan Fathi Aris Omar dengan Habermas saja!

Habermas has argued that “hard naturalism” is a self-instrumentalizing force and ultimately a damning worldview–comparable to religious fundamentalism.  By hard naturalism, he means something like “militant atheism”–a scientism that opens a space for a relativism and prevents the possibility of a rationally oriented moral system.

Unlike agnostics, an atheist moves to confront the moral view of believers. It is an assertive position–one can question the metaphysics (i.e. prove God did not create the world in seven days), but can hold off on a definite conclusion of reality (well, maybe evolution need a watchmaker.) Thus, atheism explicitly usurps the moral views that follow from the metaphysics by putting rationalism on the pedestal.  Since the reason of science cannot adjudicate between rival values, a relativism is left in its place.

Consider the opposite: if there is a God, then the reason to follow moral laws exists.  Of course, there are other reasons to follow moral laws (Kant, Dewey, Taylor, James…), but this is not the topic of this blog post.

The underlying ontology is a metaphysics of absolute laws which the human mind can grasp through rational reasoning–such an  theological disposition thus has two consequences.

1. One must have unbridled faith in the progress of technology. We have lost the practical/critical disposition of reason, what is left is merely technical/instrumental progress. Technology is our only hope.  That at some point, given enough time and resources we will get an answer to the next and the next and next and next question.  However, we lack the resources in ourselves and in our moral systems to be our society.

It thus follows that we lack as a society a type of reason that could evaluate the products of that technology. Is the atom bomb a telos of our society?

More fundamentally, atheism cannot sustain its own grounds. It is, from the onset, a totalizing claim to the knowledge of the whole of reality. Yet, scientific knowledge will always be incomplete, there is always the possibility of a new technology that could demonstrate a smaller less perceivable structuring object (i.e. within the tiny particle there is an even tinier particle, which in fact constructs the rules of reality.) We thus must return to our theological commitment to technology.

Thus, I want to treat atheism not as the lack of religion, but as a religion (in a Durkheimian sense.) The way that Americans are atheist or the way that French or Chinese are atheist each as its own socio-historic context. An explication of this context, as religion as a social binding individuating force that instills a set of moral imperatives, is necessary to understand a particular strand of atheism.

I want to explore American atheism in the next post.

I share with Comte a desire for a comprehensive and empirically informed social science.   The recent work in behavioral economics and social psychology is exciting, to say the least.  However, positivist social science makes the mistake of confusing the architecture of the natural and social world, with disastrous consequences.

For the natural sciences, their object of study is given: hydrogen will have the same atomic weight in Paris and Chicago.   It is beyond our control to alter.  In  addition, these objects are arranged in a single reductive casual chain: the principles of physics explain chemical phenomena which in turn explain biological phenomena.

However, the social world is defined (in modernity) by fundamentally heterogeneous arrangements who are only casually connected.  At times, these relationships are random and fluid, and occasionally shift.  Habermas defines modernity as an a sort of Hegelian process of reason ‘unfolding’: social life is thoroughly rationalized and the diversity of opinions that exist among individuals ‘comes into being.’   We thus see in modernity a transformation from a monolithic epistemology of a singular theological truth to the many truths that are given recognition in liberal democratic structures.

This is why positivist social science should be considered exceptionally dangerous.   That anti-democratic impulse is the worse aspect of Comte’s theory and this feature is thoroughly unacknowledged.  He sets the stage for a type of technocratic single-minded governance: as ’social science’ succeeds or becomes the logical extension of moral philosophy, we thus strip away any need for a democratic ‘general will.’   To define both method and homogeneous body of knowledge is to set the stage for a singular tyrannical ‘truth’ to emerge presented under the guise of a ‘dispassionate objective natural science.’

Diana Crane
(University of Pennsylvania)

To read this article and its associated commentaries for free just click on the PDF links below.

Crane PDF

Commentary 1 PDF - Gabriel Ignatow (University of North Texas)

Commentary 2 PDF - Mark Jacobs (George Mason University)

In order to post your comment and response, please use the comments box at the bottom of this post. All comments are moderated and will appear shortly after they are submitted.

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Abstract

The subject of this paper is the relationship between cultural sociology and approaches to culture in other social science disciplines. What are the characteristics of the theoretical environment in which cultural sociology is operating? The paper begins by reviewing the literature on interdisciplinarity. Many authors argue that interdisciplinarity is increasing or should be increasing, but the general consensus is that disciplinary isolation is the norm. From this perspective, the relationships between disciplines can be understood in terms of trading zones in which fields in different disciplines have little in common, theoretically or empirically.  Interdisciplinary communication in ‘trading zones’ requires that participants laboriously construct a set of terms that permits them to exchange ideas.

Alternatively, I propose that clusters of fields in different disciplines are linked by free-floating paradigms. Participants in disciplines that share ‘free-floating paradigms’ are able to communicate with one another more readily. The paper presents evidence for the second interpretation, drawn from survey articles in disciplinary handbooks.  Disciplines and fields in which the study of culture draws from the same pool of paradigms and models and shares a set of lines of inquiry with cultural sociology include traditional disciplines, such as anthropology, communication, geography, history and psychology and interdisciplinary fields, such as cultural studies, communication, feminist theory, material culture, science studies, and visual culture. Interdisciplinary fields, particularly cultural studies, perform an important role in diffusing paradigms across disciplinary boundaries.  Free-floating paradigms are associated with the work of major theorists, such as Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, Foucault, Bourdieu, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Clifford Geertz, Bruno Latour, Adorno, Gramsci, and Habermas.

Gruppearbejde og diskussion om Habermass

A) Hvad menes der med henholdsvis System og Livsverden ifølge Habermass? Inddrag herinder kommunikativ og instrumentel handlen.
Systemet: Det moderne samfunds formelle og upersonlige handlingsområder. Fx arbejdsmarkede. Her indgår den instrumentelle handling som svarer til webers rationelle handel.
Livsverden: Det er det nære samfund. Fx skole, familie, venner osv. Her indgår den kommunikative handel som svare til indbyrdes forståelse.

System Livsverden
• Formelle
• Det upersonlige
• Økonomi
• Staten » magt » over systemet
• Handler målrationelt » instrumentel handel (for egen skyld)
• Nære sammenhænge (venner, familie)
• ”varmt” og personligt
• Dialog baseret
• Socialt
• Kommunikation handel » interaktion (menneskelig handlen)

B) Diskuter konsekvenserne, positive og negative, af systemets kolonisering af livsverdenen. I skal samtidig give eksempler på, hvor I kan se en kolonisering af livsverdenen i Danmark.

• Når systemet har en ødelæggende indgriben i livsverden.
• Assistere livsverden (velfærdsstaten)
• Forfølger induviduelle mål

In the introduction to his The Function of Criticism (1984), Terry Eagleton writes :

“criticism today lacks all substantive social function.  It is either part of the public relations branch of the literary industry, or a matter wholly internal to the academies.”

The problem, according to Eagleton, is that criticism is only of social use when there is a robust public sphere.  A public sphere, according to Habermas, is an intellectual void in between the sphere of public authority (dominated by the state and the law) and the private sphere (dominated by the exchange of commodities and the market).  In the sphere of public authority, the government and ruling elite speak with authority, determining values and the prominence of some ideas at the expense of others.  By contrast, in the private sphere, this kind of ordering is done according to the demands of commerce.  Criticism, according to Eagleton, currently lacks a social function, as the private sphere has come to dominate those matters that were previously considered to be exempt from the marketplace.  The role of the critic still exists, but he has no constituency and no natural subject matter.  An example of this kind of modern-day criticism can be seen in R. J. Cutler’s documentary about Vogue magazine The September Issue (2009).  Anna Wintour is a private sphere Doctor Johnson : She takes it upon herself to decide what will be ‘fashionable’ in a particular season and the commercial interests that make up the fashion industry abide by her judgement.  The same process exists in the sphere of public authority.  When a problem affects the state, the ruling class make a decision and the apparatus of the state then enacts that judgement.  While the members of the ruling class may be determined by democratic or aristocratic means and members of that elite may be more or less open to public opinion, the process is the same.  The people no more get a say in the day to day realities of how the state is run than they do in determining whether purple or mauve will be the fashionable colour to be seen in this autumn.  The process is just as autocratic as it was during the heyday of the 18th Century critic.  As Eagleton quotes, the criticism of the time was characterised by :

“its partisan bias, the vituperation, the dogmatism, the juridical tone, the air of omniscience and finality”

Of course, the importance of the three spheres varies significantly over time.  As I suggested in my review of Sidney Lumet’s The Offence (1972), the moral corruption of the state, the ruling classes and the church, mean that a form of moral public sphere has opened up.  One in which rabble-rousing journalists compete with traditional intellectuals and people equipped with social networking tools to impart some kind of moral sentiment upon a supposedly individualistic and relativistic general public.  Paul McGuigan’s The Reckoning, a cruelly over-looked adaptation of Barry Unsworth’s 1995 Booker-nominated novel Morality Play portrays a similar shift in spheres of debate : A moment in history in which the church and the state began to surrender their moral authority to a burgeoning public sphere.

Film Poster

The Reckoning opens with Nicholas (Paul Bettany), a young priest, delivering a sermon to his congregation.  It is a sermon that seems designed to quell any feelings of unhappiness or dissent that the people might have over their treatment.  Nicholas reminds the people that their lives are necessarily miserable because otherwise they would not yearn for the happiness they will receive once they reach heaven.  The film is set in the 14th Century and a caption then informs us that since the arrival of the Normans, Church and State had spoken with a single voice.  A voice which , we must assume, is about to break.

Nicholas addressing his flock

Nicholas flees his parish and dons civilian clothes.  The reasons for this are not made immediately clear but the implication is that he has committed adultery by bedding one of his female parishioners.  This places Nicholas outside of the traditional sphere of public authority.  As a fallen priest, he speaks no longer with the authority granted to him by membership of the church, instead he speaks with the authority of an educated man with a keen conscience and a sense of culpability for the crimes that forced him out onto the road.  In a forest, he comes across a group of actors.  These actors bear the coat of arms of a nobleman and claim to be gifts from one noble family to another.  However, their status as gifts clearly does not ensure them a living as they find themselves having to perform in order to keep themselves fed and their equipment maintained.

The Actors on Their Way to The Town

Nicholas and the actors soon come across a town framed by beautifully bleak landscape and dominated by a vast castle.  Initially, the town seems deserted but the actors soon realise that the entire town is attending the trial of a mute woman who is accused of having strangled a young boy in order to steal his money.  Martin (Willem Dafoe making full use of his background in physical theatre), the leader of the troupe, decides that in order to make some extra money, the company should create a play based upon the murder of the boy.  This is presented as something of a radical departure as in the 14th Century, actors lacked the access to classical writings that would bootstrap European theatre into the Elizabethan age.  In fact, the suggestion is that there were quite strong taboos against creating anything new, thereby limiting performances to enacting the biblical mystery and passion plays that would eventually solidify into the canon known as the N-Town plays.

Begging For Help

In order to research the play, Nicholas and Martin set about making inquiries about the victim and the accused. Feeding mostly upon hearsay and rumour they begin to construct an image of a boy lured off the path of righteousness by a sinister woman, but this simplistic morality tale shatters when the two men pay to speak to the accused herself.  While she may well be mute, she is no demonic presence.  Not only does she claim innocence, but she seems to be an almost saintly figure who devotes most of her time to healing the sick and helping the poor.  Nicholas voices his concerns over the woman’s apparent guilt but Martin insists upon pressing on… he knows that his company cannot compete with the elaborate stagings of bigger companies and so he is desperate to try out his idea of creating a play for a particular town.

The Accused V 2.0

The actors begin their performance and, initially all goes well.  But then the audience start disagreeing with the version of the murder presented on stage.  The boy was too strong to be murdered by a woman, there were no traces on the body that suggested he might have been knocked out.  Soon, the audience become so enraged that the sherif clears the stage and tells the actors to be gone by day-break.

Nicholas Interrogates a Monk

Terrified by what they have started, the actors flee the town, leaving Nicholas to learn the truth about the involvement of the local lord (Vincent Cassel) and a Benedictine monk.  As he sleuths his way about the town, Nicholas encounters the King’s Justice (Matthew Macfadyen) but while the Justice knows the truth about the local lord’s proclivities, he is not concerned with issues of morality.  He serves the state.  Realising that neither the state nor the Church will do anything, Nicholas takes it upon himself to tell the truth to the people.  Along with the actors, he whips the crowd into a frenzy of moral outrage as the people move against their lord.

The Brith Pangs...

Of the Public Sphere

The Reckoning shows us the birth pangs of the public sphere, but the film is actually quite ambivalent about this process of creation.

It is possible to read the events of The Reckoning as essentially emancipatory.  The film begins by making clear that the state and the church serve their own interests.  The film presents members of the clergy and the ruling class as morally corrupt and, at best, brazenly self-serving.  For example, the local priest will not bury a friend of the actors as they lack the money.  Similarly, the King’s Justice is only interested in enforcing the laws when it suits the King.  Against this kind of vested and corrupt power structure, the outcast status of Nicholas and the actors seems progressive : These are men with consciences of their own and they are intent upon seeing that justice is done.  Under this reading, the play is simply unlocking a store of resentment and moral outrage that already exists in the town.  By the act of creating a new play and the act of unlocking the store of resentment, the actors are encouraging people to think for themselves and to seek out their own justice.  Under this interpretation, Nicholas’ eventual comeuppance takes on almost messianic qualities as though the creation of a moral public sphere constitutes some kind of new covenant.

Compare and Contrast

However, while this is an interesting reading, I feel that it does reduce a complex film to a rather clicheed fantasy about the transformative power of art as created by a mythical artist/auteur who is a spiritual leader, a rebel, a destroyer of boundaries and a mid-wife to the truth.  If one looks beyond such self-indulgence, one finds a film that is actually far more ambivalent about the role of the artist.

The Reckoning is a film about the fear of responsibility.  From Martin’s first suggestion that the company create a new play, his fellow actors are sceptical.  They do not want to assume the risks that accompany the creation of a new form of art and nor do they want to run the risk of offending either the Church or the nobility by pursuing the matter of the child’s murder.  When they eventually stage the play, they are horrified at the people’s expectation that they should reveal the truth about the murder.  They would rather flee the town than assume that kind of position of authority.  They are not judges, they are actors.  Indeed, while the creation of the new play does incite the villagers to complain, the villagers are not confronting their lord or the Church.  During the trial itself they are silent.  It is the silence of consent.  These kinds of moral judgement are not part of their role.  They are not judges, they are the judged.  They are subjects of the moral law, not its authors.

The People Stand Mute Before Injustice

This refusal by both the actors and the people to take responsibility for telling the truth expresses one of the fundamental paradoxes of being.  It shows that while we crave freedom, we are also terrified of responsibility.  This paradoxical attitude is what makes us consumer slaves,  blue-sky thinking corporate drones and  self-actualising individualists who nonetheless feel obliged to follow any number of fashions, trends, creeds, religions and movements.  Sartre explained this paradox by stating that people are cowards when faced with the realisation that they are free but this is fiercely uncharitable not to mention as finger-waggingly elitist as anything produced by Nietszche.  A better way of thinking about it is that the characters of The Reckoning yearn for structure.  They want to be free but they also want to be judged, to be ordered and to enjoy the structure and stability that comes from living out someone else’s moral and political judgements.  This paradox is beautifully expressed in Sidney Lumet’s The Offence when Connery’s detective slumps to his knees, psychologically demolished by Bannen’s manipulative paedophile.  Biting the man’s hand, the detective begs for help.  He needs someone to tell him who to be and what to do.  His image of himself has been shattered and he cannot face demands of rebuilding it.

Begging for Guidance in Lumet's The Offence (1972)

Eagleton’s 18th Century critics understood this aspect of human nature.  Having opened up an arena of discussion and opinion-making that was neither dependent upon the state, the church nor the markets, they assumed positions of authority.  They took it upon themselves to sort the wheat from the chaff and tell people what they should be reading.  The assumption of this kind of authority was not repressive or dictatorial, rather it was the necessary filling of a social role.  Just as Anna Wintour currently fills the role of telling people what they ought to be wearing.  The Reckoning accepts that this kind of position is not an easy one.  Not only does it run contrary to human nature to assume responsibility, it is also intensely risky to want to challenge the vested interests of both the state and the Church.

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Solens sidste stråler skaber et farvespil af mosaik i bladenes konjunkturer. Det er efteråret, som åbenbares i naturen og når træerne falmer. Denne morgen mærker jeg for alvor kulden udfolde sig. Ned langs ruderne iagttager jeg en ensom vanddråbe og ser, hvordan de utallige edderkoppespind, gennemvæddet af morgenfugten, aldrig har fremstået tydeligere. Men denne morgen er speciel, for mine øjne beskuer et landskab, der er belagt med et tæppe af tåge.

Som en borger i det enogtyvende århundrede kan jeg konstatere, at mit liv er under stor indflydelse af medier. Morgenavisen ankommer, radioen spiller og fjernsynet, som er fast inventar i samtlige danske hjem, leverer sine daglige nyheder. Det er alle informationskilder, som præger min hverdag og den måde jeg lever på. Mine meninger og valg baseres på baggrund af de oplysninger, som formidles videre til mig. Før i tiden blev man sendt ud i verden for at opleve, blive fascineret af og lære om virkeligheden – i dag tænder man for computeren, og den leverer en virkelighed i high definition. Jeg betragter mig selv som medieforbruger, en medienarkoman – jeg er afhængig af medierne. Med dette in mente udgør medierne en magtfaktor, da de i kraft af deres dagsorden er i stand til at påvirke mig.

I den ideale verden, der ifølge Thomas More forbliver en utopi, er medierne samfundets formidlere. Deres opgave er at tilfredsstille mine nyhedsbehov, herunder det samfundsmæssige, og søge at belyse en sag fra begge sider. De er af samfundet indstillet til at varetage jobbet som den fjerde statsmagt, en autonom institution, og udnytte vor kære presse og ytringsfrihed, som i tidernes morgen blev nedfældet i grundloven af 1849. Af den grund er det med stolthed, at jeg sætter min lid til, at de oplyser mig, sørger for at Brixtofte ikke drikker budgettet op og lærer Fogh, at kreativ bogføring ikke er acceptabelt. Når morgenkaffen drikkes med dagens avis, rejser jeg derfor ikke tvivl ved historiernes udsagn, og forventer at Habermas’ samtalekrav er en selvfølge. Den naturlige fordringssans er lagt på hylden. Det kunne aldrig falde mig ind, at medierne havde andet til hensigt end at kontrollere, formidle og styrke den demokratiske tankegang, som vores samfund er støbt på.

Tågen er tyk, nærmest uigennemtrængelig. End ikke solens stråler kan skinne igennem for at oplyse. Muren af støvede vandpartikler forringer sigtbarheden og forhindrer mig i at se verden i sit fulde perspektiv. Min orientering er mistet og jeg er vildledt, men fortsætter med at vandre fremad.

Vendes fokus til den virkelige verden og slippes drømmebilledet om det ideale medie, så ved socialdemokraten Ole Stadvad, hvor skoen trykker, når han hævder: ’Pressen ønsker at lave drama og skabe sin egen virkelighed’. Modsætningen til det ideale medie er hårdtslående, og jeg spørger mig selv: Er medierne ikke samfundets tro vogtere? Vi glemmer, at medierne, som ethvert andet foretagende, er en forretning der skal drives, og de har et levebrød der skal tjenes; derfor skal historien sælges, dramaet skabes og virkeligheden redigeres selvfølgelig derefter. Virkeligheden sættes til side, ja manipuleres måske endda, for at få opmærksomhed og skabe en forside, der har salgspotentiale.

Guldbrandsens nærbillede af den tidligere socialdemokratiske leder Mogens Lykketofts valgkamp ser den virkelighed i øjnene, hvor medierne misbruger sin magt. Den massive morgentåge er ved at lette samtidig med at Lykketoft ankommer til en børnehave, der figurerer som ét af mange stop i hans valgkamp. Hele besøget spildes på en nyhedsreporter, der på ægte Quisling-maner aldrig får gennemført det lovede interview. Idealet havde for Lykketoft været den direkte reportage, der havde givet ham formidlingsmulighed. I allegorisk forstand er hændelsen et udtryk for resten af valgkampen – en skandale. Mediernes metode er brutal: Den hæderkronede Lykketoft, der er en mand af argumentets kraft, må lide, da han ikke følger spillereglerne. At bryde den af medierne satte dagsorden er uacceptabel og tolereres ikke – for at overleve må man følge deres præmisser. Det slås fast én gang for alle, at medierne er samfundets sande formidlere!

Et element, der er blevet fast bestanddel hos politikerne og i den danske bevidsthed, er brugen af spindoktorer. Igennem dem kan nyheden opspindes til at fylde spalterne eller blot forblive en notits på bagsiden. Når Lykketofts spindoktor hævder, at man ikke kan basere en valgkamp på meningsmålinger, afspejler det hans uvidenhed. Som Knud Romer ville have sagt det: ’Ude af sync med virkeligheden’. Det kan vel ikke komme bag på nogen, at man må forholde sig til mediernes retningslinjer og virkelighed, hvis man vil være statsminister. Den socialdemokratisk leder misforstår kommunikationssituationen og glemmer at opgradere sin platform til den spiludgave, som medierne spiller. Hvor Lykketoft vælger at diskutere væsentlige finansforslag og visioner for nationen, bliver han ustandselig bedt om at forholde sig til nedadgående meningsmålinger.

Som det afsløres, da Svenning Dalgaard vurderer udfaldet af et debatmøde, tilsidesættes Lykketofts solide argumenter til fordel for de letfordøjelige budskaber, Anders Fogh opremser. I mediernes verden er det de hurtige og kortfattede meddelelser, som bliver hængende. Hertil kræver det givetvis også færdigheden til at forstå dagsordenen, så man har kontrol til at styre den. I den moderne valgkamp har sloganet vundet over argumentet, sendetiden over budskabet med substans. Valgkampen er et vidnesbyrd, der beretter om manipulerende og udemokratiske rammer i det danske samfund. Men i lige så høj grad er det et eksempel på den danske jantelov i medie-praksis. Hr. Lykketoft skulle nødig blive for selvhøjtidelig og tro, at han kunne vinde valgkampen ved ikke at indgå i den satte dagsorden.  Lykketoft dømmes til døden, han får ikke lov til at formidle sit budskab: ’Enten kan jeg ikke kommunikere, ellers er der ingen som kommunikerer videre for mig!’. Men hvem kunne finde på at bebrejde mediernes hævntogt? Lykketofts brud med reglerne og ubændige tro på argumentet bliver hans sortie. Tågen omslutter Lykketofts politiske karriere og dræner det for liv.

Mediesamfundets redigerede og overfladiske virkelighed bekræftes fortsat i socialdemokraternes valg af Helle Thorning som ny politisk leder. Hun tilfører medierne, hvad de gerne vil have: Et udseende, evnen til at snakke i overskrifter og måske vigtigst af alt, hun er en medspiller. Med andre ord, en virkelighedens eksempel på en medie-mannequin, der konsekvent vælger rampelyset i stedet for politisk indhold. Medierne er kommet for at blive. Jeg må forholde mig til, at jeg allerede befinder mig i den tåge de, medierne, tilvejebringer – en pseudovirkelighed.

Vejen jeg vandrer ad deler sig, og jeg synes at kunne ane en skikkelse. Det er en mand som rejser sig trodsigt i vrimlen; Manden, der er iklædt jakkesæt, kluntede briller og rødt slips, har lige netop vundet en sejr af etisk karakter. For det er vel hvad Gulbrandsens film virkelig handler om – at skildre manden frem for valgkampen. Pludselig går det op for mig. Jeg gnider mine øjne. Vækkeurets ring er velkendt. Jeg må have drømt.

We’re back with the trees again. Some have never really left them since Berkeley. Trying to turn the tables on his correlationist opponent Harman must cover up the absurdity in his own alternative, the problem of our supposed essential “inability to “know” the tree in the full sense”, this “inability” which is to be turned into a virtue rather than what it actually is, a party invitation to the sceptic. But Harman’s problem will be this, and it is no mere word-play: how does he know that he does not and can never know the tree in the full sense? How can he pre-empt the attempt at knowing, the labour of the concept? Has he looked at this tree from all angles (Husserl)? Has he asked others how they perceive the tree, consulted all possible conversational partners and their claims (Habermas), whether scientific, artistic, etc. etc. (Gadamer)? What exactly is he comparing his supposed structural privation of knowledge to? What standard is it with respect to which, all possible claims having been discussed, evaluated and explored, knowledge must forever fall short? It can be only this – some noumenal side to the tree (or the President) which, so the prejudice runs (for prejudice it is), can never be known, something which (now Kant morphs into Heidegger) ‘withdraws’ by its very nature, a withdrawal the philosopher asserts, posits, “alludes to”. What exactly is he comparing his lack of knowledge to? Frustratingly for the realist, it can be only this: a full match between thought and a reality in the last instance independent of it – correspondence. Oh, ghosts of philosophies past that will not be exorcised!