The message is the master

A must-read piece in the last issue of Forbes  by MIT's Sherry Turkle about the alienating consequences of the digital revolution. As she argues in "Can You Hear Me Now?", the consequence of connectivity is alienation:

Thanks to technology, people have never been more connected--or more alienated

It's a deliciously disturbing irony which could have been invented by a Viennese metaphysician. The more connected we become, the more locked in our personal digital universe we end up. Rather than empowering us, technology is enslaving us to the message. Saint McLuhan's message was that the media was message. Instead, the message has become the master.

Once upon a time, free spirits believed that the independent man was the man without qualities. Today, The independent man is the man without a message. Banish your BlackBerry, ruin your Razr, turn-off your Treo. Subvert connectivity. Breath deeply. And smile.

Remixing the message of a deliciously disturbing Viennese metaphysician, Turkle describes our technological dystopia as "virtuality and its discontents". She's right. Now we need our own metaphysicians to loudly message the anti-message.

DeLillo and Zizek -- can you hear me now?

Comments

[Stephen Smoliar]

Interestingly enough, Robert Musil was the man who sat at a cafe table with all of the newspapers of the day seeking out all the grammatical errors, because his firmest belief was in the connection between sloppy writing and sloppy thinking! Bloggers take note! Were Musil alive today, he would not have enough hours to ply his skill in the blogosphere!

By the way, Andrew, I shall have to apologize in advance for not being able to make it to your "cybersalon" in Berkeley. I have been waiting all season for that day's performance by the San Francisco Youth Symphony (not to mention telling everyone I know about it). I really need to spend more time at concerts and renew my chops for writing about music!

[The Dead Artist]

If it makes you feel alittle better - I can hear you. I'm not sure I understand you, but I can hear you.

Regards,
TDA

[The Dead Artist]

If it makes you feel a little better - I can hear you. I'm not sure I understand you, but I can hear you.

Regards,
TDA

[Graham Jones - Internet Psychologist]

Anyone who says that digital technology is alienating has failed to understand what is happening. Digital technology is an extension of our brain. Indeed, within a few short years we will not be able to function as human beings without it. We can't shut away the technology in the hope that things will improve. Human life will only improve if we embrace the technology.

[Paul]

Andrew, - just heard your radio 4 interview on the BBC website. I think you have some interesting things to say but I'm not sure how open minded you are - you seem to be a totem for a countermovement against the democratised internet, taking an entrenched position so people can count on you as a reliable pundit of the anti-internet school, filling a niche in the market. Perhaps your tongue is more firmly in your cheek than you let on?

I believe there are positives and negatives to the internet, and these must be examined rationally and without prejudice so that the internet can evolve in a positive, useful and culturally beneficial way rather than being misshapen by the battles of polemicism. Also, it strikes me as remarkably hypocritical that you are criticising the internet whilst gaining an audience for your book and livelihood through the very medium you seem to so virulently abhor. What's your defence? Do you even read the comments on your blog or do you find it too distasteful?

I would say upon reflection that the disintegration of the cultural institutions you talked about in the interview are actually disintrations of their business models in the digital world, not the spirit of creativity that runs through them. Perhaps a new economic system that uses the digital medium would redeem the situation, one that would also create an emergent hierarchy and reward accordingly?

Finally, I'd love to know what you make of Milton's Areopagitica -

"And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?"

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[Angeloxxx]

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