gdp's Comments

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : Humanities - The Digital Dialogue

Thu, 9 Dec 2010 03:54:45 +0000

Frank, I suspect you may enjoy Tristan Tzara's input: "If I shout: Ideal, Ideal, Ideal Knowledge, Knowledge, Knowledge, Boomboom, Boomboom, Boomboom I have recorded fairly accurately Progress, Law, Morals, and all the other magnificent qualities that various very intelligent people have discussed in so many books."

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : Marcuse, the Highway, and Autonomy - The Digital Dialogue

Thu, 9 Dec 2010 03:51:57 +0000

“I propose that English poetry students should find dogfishes on their desks and biology students should find Shakespeare sonnets on their dissection boards.” --Percy I'm reminded of a Percy text that recounts two contigencies: the first, that of a vacationer who succumbs to the preformulation complex and is inhibited from truly experiencing the Grand Canyon; the second, that of a wanderer who intentionally evades demarcated pathways to reveal a truly novel experience which may be accessed only aside from the boundaries of societal structure. Today, it seems we have internalized these regulatory effects of standardized modernity to the extent that an externally validated experience (consider, if you will, photographs taken on vacation and subsequentially posted to Facebook in service of accruing "likes" and "comments") is considered to be somehow more tangible or imbued with more actuality than one not subject to technological/social media scrutiny. I would like to believe that Percy’s sense of “really living” may still be attainable, but I am convinced that it is far from commonplace. [youtube MB6krqnA1vQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB6krqnA1vQ youtube]

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : Final Thoughts - The Digital Dialogue

Thu, 9 Dec 2010 03:41:03 +0000

For Heidegger, the ambivalence which pervades and characterizes man's relation to technology is illustrated in this work of revealing concealed truths that might grant greater ontological awareness. This revelatory process does not occur in or through man, which is unfortunate, as Heidegger illustrates the "intimate kinship" of truth and freedom. Yet, our access to freedom is not entirely impeded, for enframing does not transpire beyond all human doing. Admittedly, my Heideggarian chops may be a tad rusty, but I recall that the text parturitated a similar tone as the Marcuse's in that it flitted between cautionary augury and hopeful insistence that humanity might acknowledge, at last, the tenuous thread that connects the manifold danger of technological advances with their abeyant saving power.

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : Final Thoughts - The Digital Dialogue

Thu, 9 Dec 2010 03:40:59 +0000

Tragically, my computer is not permitting me to add a new blog post. It seems that the liberating potentialities of technology are wholly mislaid in my hands. Alex, do forgive me of my minor malfeasance in usurping your post's comment section to contribute a few insights. I'll attempt to enrich your inquiries with some supplemental sidenotes of my own. I suspect that Marcuse's conception of the human-technology relationship would be much less polarized; that is, while we are controlled by the very devices we have generated, it is so that there is a reciprocity factor at play. Just as we summon forth the capacities of a computer by turning it on, the computer rouses particular capabilities that may have otherwise remained dormant in the user. Granted, this account is my hackneyed rendering of Heidegger's enframing 'a la "The Question Concerning Technology," which was adroitly referenced by Joe in today's class.

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : What To Read? - The Digital Dialogue

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 03:00:40 +0000

A few proposals: -Baudrillard's “Simulacra and Simulations”: Disneyland, prisons, and reality are all evoked (and often equated) within the confines of a single sentence. -Excerpts from Michel de Certeau's The Practice of Everyday Life: The text is rife with societal critque, rendering de Certeau pertinent to our course. Also, I find accord with Dan: My Freud tolerance for this semester is reaching capacity.

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : Technique and the Possibility of Freedom - The Digital Dialogue

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 02:49:28 +0000

Regarding the terse interdependency between man and technology, I must nod to Heidegger: "The essential unfolding of technology threatens revealing, threatens it with the possibility that all revealing will be consumed in ordering and that everything will present itself only in the unconcealment of standing-reserve. Human activity can never directly counter this danger. Human achievement alone can never banish it. But human reflection can ponder the fact that all saving power must be of a higher essence than what is endangered, though at the same time kindred to it" (339, Basic Writings, from "The Question Concerning Technology"). The greatest hazard of contempory usages of technology may be this: that the enframing of beings (and Beings) renders us reduce-able, that organic life falls into servitude of its mechanical creations and is ensnared by the ignorance begat of reliance, and that the liberating remainder component of the whole:part division is abandoned to the ordered systemeticity of Enlightenment rationality.

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : Technique and the Possibility of Freedom - The Digital Dialogue

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 02:42:19 +0000

I am reminded of de Certeau's The Practice of Everyday Life and the distinction proffered between strategy and tactic: Dominating institutions are strategic; they operate in adherence with a model of repressive perpetuity. By contrast, individuals attempt to navigate the trajectories of pervasive culture industry and strategic impositions through the use of tactics, which involve manipulating mundane events within the framework of civilization in order to transfigure them into opportunities and outlets. (In fact, I may submit this text for the student-generated portion of the syllabus!)

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : Put a smile on your face, Make the world a better place. - The Digital Dialogue

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 02:26:22 +0000

In consideration of today's discussion of imagination, I find this quotation to be particularly germane. For Marcuse, the role of labor "outside" alienation would "release time and energy for the free play of human faculties"; that is, a society devoid of surplus-repression would accede to the possibility of greater fulfillment through more adequate appropriation of temporal resources to the "sphere outside labor," the dwelling-place of "freedom and fulfillment." Perlman rejects this contingency, advancing his accord with Marcuse's admission that "No matter how justly and rationally the material production may be organized, it can never be a realm of freedom and gratification..." (156).

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : Put a smile on your face, Make the world a better place. - The Digital Dialogue

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 02:16:18 +0000

Dan, your comment reminds me of an excerpt from a Perlman text that equates "unalienated" work with play itself: "A time-and-motion engineer [human] watching a bear near a berry patch would not know when to punch his clock. Does the bear start working when he walks to the berry patch, when he picks the berry, when he opens his jaws? If the engineer has half a brain he might say the bear makes no distinction between work and play. If the engineer has an imagination he might say that the bear experiences joy from the moment the berries turn deep red, and that none of the bear's motions are work" (p.p. 8, Against His-story, Against Leviathan!).

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : Thought itself is already a sign of resistance - The Digital Dialogue

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:03:01 +0000

[youtube pIrvpn3k9A4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIrvpn3k9A4 youtube]

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : Thought itself is already a sign of resistance - The Digital Dialogue

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:02:11 +0000

A hazard of praxis, as we have seen, is that it is often reified into ideological theory. Contrarily, Andrea, you have pinpointed the hazard of theory: it is too seldom manifested in a manner that behooves its content. <<C'est en faisant n'importe quoi qu'on devient n'importe qui>>, the slogan of Rémi Gaillard (a French culture jammer along the lines of the Yes Men or Improv Everywhere), abridges these notions. I'll include a few links for edification/enjoyment: [youtube g1dxNsjYeIs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1dxNsjYeIs youtube]

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : Redemption - The Digital Dialogue

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 17:48:36 +0000

An old CrimethInc. [a decentralized anarchist collective] adage purports the following: "If you're still fighting, you've already won." The quotation intentionally merges irony, inspiration, and insurgency to suggest that perspectival awareness of contemporary existence is the cardinal charge of reform. As in Adorno's text, the aphorism remains nubilous-- perhaps intentionally-- in its prescription for the subsequent "liberating event" (245) toward which we are apt to ascribe the telos of the requisition. As you suggest, Dan, the revelation implicit in Adorno's conclusion can be deduced in that "the question of the reality or unreality of redemption itself hardly matters" (245); we are charged with a task of thought, as blind endeavors toward liberation are liable to meet little other end than a reinforcement of the tyrannical superstructure. I'll be interested to trace how these concepts fuse with Marcuse's discussion of generational rebellion ("Liberty follows domination-- and leads to the reaffirmation of domination" [65]) as we advance in the Eros text.

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : No Safe Haven - The Digital Dialogue

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 10:13:54 +0000

(continued) The second (digital/unedited) image is the least aesthetically appealing. While it boasts no alterations in translation from camera to computer, it fails to properly convey both whatever zeitgeist might be ascribed to my roommate’s cat and the optical conditions (hues, saturations, and contrasts) I can detect in a brief visual survey of my comforter. Is it, then, still more truthful-- does it contain a greater degree of veracity-- than the edited resultant image?

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : No Safe Haven - The Digital Dialogue

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 10:13:46 +0000

(continued) Of the posted images, which should be classified as honest? As accurate? As truthful? Digital cameras are heralded as “more accurate” than film-producing devices, yet I felt obligated to enhance the representation produced by the digital camera to more accurately reflect what I perceived in my visual field at the moment the shutter snapped. The film image is fraught with irregularities (the grain, the light leaks, the dust trapped on the lens sensor, for example), but I cannot help but feel that it gleaned a more honest insight into the sentiment of the kitten’s essential self, despite the fact that, I regret to concede, my window is infrequently shrouded in curtains of red light streaks. It thereby can acknowledge the least quantitative “accuracy” but perhaps possesses an alternate, albeit alluring, mode of honesty.

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : No Safe Haven - The Digital Dialogue

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 10:10:46 +0000

(continued) Photography offers an opportunity for visual clarification. Consider the following three images, each depicting an identical subject (an adorable kitten[!], which should entice readers to follow the links): 1. http://i52.tinypic.com/f3asxw.jpg 2. http://i55.tinypic.com/54sim0.jpg 3. http://i56.tinypic.com/hra8op.jpg The first image was captured on an analog Minolta Maxxum 3xi with a 70-120mm zoom lens. The subsequent images are products of a digital Olympus E-500 with its kit lens (14-45mm, for concerned parties). The first two images are SOOC (that is, unedited); the tertiary image was adjusted in Photoshop.

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : No Safe Haven - The Digital Dialogue

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 10:00:25 +0000

First, let me advance my appreciation for blog-phobia solidarity—my last encounter with the enterprise occurred amidst the squalor of a New York City Burger King; the conditioned taste aversion (be it for fast food or publicly capitulating to expression that, to me, seems easily ensnared by contrivance) has lingered since. Garrison, your post invites discussion of creative originality and its relation to artistic honesty of expression. I often find the tasks, although not mutually exclusive, to be pitted against each other; I tend to prioritize the latter. I would also argue that honesty, accuracy, and veracity are betrothed in a tension-rife kinship; the terms are often wielded synonymously but should not be taken as equivalent identities.

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : The Scientist - The Digital Dialogue

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:17:01 +0000

(continued) I wouldn’t even tell them grass is green. Colors are only names. I mean if you tell them the grass is green, it makes them start expecting the grass to look a certain way—_your_ way—instead of some other way that may be just as good, and maybe much better.’” Teddy further admonishes the biblical apple of Garden of Eden stock as the germ of logic and thus of the deeply inhibiting philistinism that results from adhering to a circumscribed perspective which grants perception and not apperception. It seems Salinger’s short can be accessed to endorse Drew’s prism example: science may act as an effective conduit of comprehension, but the tool should not purport its totality as the lone agent between empirical data and Truth.

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : The Scientist - The Digital Dialogue

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:16:45 +0000

(continued) “’Well… I’m not too sure what I’d do,’ Teddy said. ‘I know I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t start with the things schools usually start with… I think I’d first just assemble all the children together and show them how to meditate. I’d try to show them how to find out who they _are_, not just what their names are and things like that… I guess, even before that, I’d get them to empty out everything their parents and everybody ever told them. I mean even if their parents just told them an elephant’s big. I’d make them empty _that_ out. An elephant’s only big when it’s next to something else—a dog or a lady, for example… I wouldn’t even tell them an elephant has a trunk. I might _show_ them an elephant, if I had one handy, but I’d let them must walk up to the elephant not knowing anything more about it than the elephant knew about _them_…

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : The Scientist - The Digital Dialogue

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:16:27 +0000

(continued) In “Teddy,” a child genius proffers that contemporary mythology of science, which, as Drew mentions, serves as a pervasive, present worldview, is as apt to breed a generation of ignoramuses as a non-scientific approach, provided that students are not informed that their academic cultivations are solely derived from one cultural perspective and not an axiomatic Truth. The eponymous character encapsulates his ideology in a discussion with an instructor of education practices (deliciously meta-, yes), which I found contextually resonant in consideration that the Enlightenment would posit science in a deceptively non-mythological light. Notably, Teddy seems to propose that apperception is inhibited by scientific endeavors. I’ll provide the passage I found most illuminating to the author’s argument (in which Teddy depicts the teaching methodology he would adopt):

Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue : The Scientist - The Digital Dialogue

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:16:12 +0000

“’What do you call that?’ he asked. ‘What do you mean? It’s my arm. It’s an _arm_.’ ‘How do you know it is?’ Teddy asked. ‘You know it’s called an arm, but how do you know it is one? Do you have any proof that it’s an arm?’” Explication and debate concerning this (and suchlike passages) of Salinger’s Nine Stories punctuated the otherwise bucolic weekend I passed atop my roof ( in attempts, of course, to harness the residual fair weather before State College descends into its irrevocable epoch of inclemency). The conversation in which my associates and I indulged, as stimulated by Salinger’s text, was reminiscent of the discussion the Horkheimer & Adorno submissions regarding science engendered in class.