This is interesting this topic - how much activism is allowed? It's kind of an oxymoron - being allowed to express dissent only about certain things in a certain way and to a certain extent. It seems like dissent by 'design', a token gesture without any substance or ability to affect any real change, 'change that is bound' or 'conditional dissent' - like 'I will be your friend only if you agree with everything I say'. Pushing the boundaries of the law seems to be the 'turning point' in enacting successful change. Cultural boundaries are one thing because people can 'come around' so to speak, but the law seems so concrete, acts are either within or beyond the law. How then are we supposed to have a public of diverse voices? Both the ideal and the collapse of diversity though would be in its perception as infinite, and at what point would you agree that some actions require people to be behind bars and other actions aren't criminal but rather 'expressing diversity' (The New Yorker 2010)? We discussed this in tut where Ted asked 'Who is to decide the boundaries?' For the moment the State and probably some powerful corporates decide. Some of us vote, but do our votes really contribute to the decision making process in any valid way?
The openDemocracy reading by James Crabtree proposed a society of collective intelligence, collective knowledge and collective action where citizens get together and fulfill many collective needs circumventing government direction (openDemocracy 2003). I'd assumed that the information age was about dispensing largely with the State (Klein 2007, pp49-71), but Crabtree is suggesting a coexistence of the State with public collectivity. There is nothing illegal or unethical about people organising a Sunday morning group dog walk or dog training session at the local park independent of local council run programs. The public doesn't have to allow the State to intervene and mediate our lives and relations with our neighbours, we can organise things between ourselves directly (openDemocracy 2003). I guess over time, with the mechanisms of supply and demand, the role of the government may reduce as required, but State and an active and independent public can coexist. The State would gradually assume a role of serving the public I would assume, rather than directing and mediating the public. This would be a gradual and cultural process over time, and essentially, it would be 'public directed/decided' and not the 'shock application' of instant removal of the entire State apparatus and public imposition as Naomi Klein suggests in 'The Shock Doctrine' (Klein 2007, pp49-71). Is this time 'expanding'? Projecting cultural change into the future over time and historical consideration has vastly different consequences and outcomes to the instant 'shock' where time is locked into the moment. 'Moment' is so expansively different to 'over time' (Snapper 1999, pp129 & 131). These two conceptions of time framed around one example can give two completely different outcomes.
I was thinking about this in tut when Ted was talking about Julian Assange and the Wikileaks reading (The New Yorker 2010). If our governments had been transparent with the public as they should have been then there would not have been these vast amounts of documents to leak. In the same token, if the government knew that they had to be transparent with the public would they have acted differently/more ethically? If this process had been a gradual negotiation and a more even power balance between State and public over time, then this sudden release of information wouldn't have even occurred. The issue really is, that this situation should never have arisen, it shouldn't have been possible. But the reality is that once it was released by Assange in that sudden moment, it was a shock, it was the public catching up on their lost awareness and autonomy all in one 'moment' (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008). 'Hierarchy' wants time to be 'present', network time considers all time; history, present, future. When the picture is wide, it looks so different to the narrow pin hole. Modernism is such a small frame within the big picture, and Modernism wants us only to look at it and not to span other paradigms. This is a trait of all paradigms I would imagine, not just specifically the Modern paradigm, but Modernism seems to act as a means also of naturalising the system of hierarchy. Network culture seems like a platform that provides us the means to access all paradigms and question the existence even of the paradigm itself (Knowledge Solutions 2009).
Within the hierarchy model then, there are two groups of people, those who look through the pin hole and see time and space as separated, compressed and tightly framed and those who see a wider picture where time and space are both expanded and converged (Deuze 2007, p246-250). The question is, why is it even assumed that we need the 'two cultures' (Allan 2002, pp1-11)? We only need that separation in a hierarchical system because the system dictates hierarchy. In a system which is posited on equality it is only logical that equality will be what drives that system. The lecture talked about how 'network architecture formats the behaviour of the agents...', the arrangement of the system in effect is what directs culture and if the system is designed to be driven by culture itself then culture will drive it (Mitew 2011). In effect, a system designed to give power to the public will enact power to the public. The hierarchy system has been in effect I would imagine for 5000 years at least. It seems that now the public has moved to 'centre' and the 'elite' have assumed subcultural traits or status, or at the very least need to enact alternative means to protect their knowledge, power and status as the public, it would appear, move en masse into their 'space' (Bruns 2009).
References:
Allan, S 2002, Media, Risk and Science, Open University Press, Buckingham
Axel Bruns, 2009, News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism, accessed 5/9/2011, http://snurb.info/files/News%20Blogs%20and%20Citizen%20Journalism.pdf
Deuze, M 2007, 'Convergence culture in the creative industries', International Journal of Cultural Studies,Vol. 10, Iss> 2, pp243-263
Klein, N 2007, The Shock Doctrine, Penguin Books Ltd, London
Knowledge Solutions, 2009, Understanding Complexity, accessed 26/9/2011, http://www.adb.org/Documents/Information/Knowledge-Solutions/understanding-complexity.pdf
Mitew, T 2011, Counter-networks, online activism, whistelblowers and the dark side of the net, lecture, digc202, Global Networks, University of Wollongong, delivered 19 September
The New Yorker, 2010, No Secrets, accessed 12/9/2011, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian
openDemocracy, 2003, Civic hacking: a new agenda for e-democracy, accessed 12/9/2011, http://www.mafhoum.com/press4/136C35.htm
Snapper, J W 1999, 'On the Web, plagiarism matters more than copyright piracy', Ethics and Information Technology, Vol. 1, pp127-136
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008, Personal Autonomy, accessed 14/9/2011, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/personal-autonomy/
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