[lbo-talk] How Americans would respond

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Mon May 2 08:00:04 PDT 2005


Michael:
> On Sat, 30 Apr 2005, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> > I gotta confess, I just don't get the video game thing. It seems weird
and
> > alien to me. Not because of the technology, but because of the
> > solitariness and alternative universe aspects of it.
>
> I thought the whole thrill was that it wasn't solitary -- that people
> usually played against others, sometimes with and against vast numbers of
> others.
>
> And it certainly seems like yakky culture. It sure isn't solitary that
way.
> These people can go one talking longer than sports or soaps fans.
>

The problem with technology is that it is not socially neutral, but it promotes certain types of social relations over others.

Cars or video games are not solitary - as Doug described them. They are social. However, the social relations they promote are egocentric monocultures - enabling people to tailor their social groups by choosing and picking "suitable" individuals. This choosing and picking is made easy by certain types of technology that are designed to privatize the benefits, socialize the cost, or both.

Of course other technologies are possible. Take, for example, the Amish who are commonly misperceived as being anti-technology. In reality, they are not. They see themselves as being very selective about technologies - they adopt those technologies that thee see as promoting their social cohesion and reject those perceived as those destroying it. This they see individual autos as community destroying technology, while buses are trains are seen as community building technologies.

The Amish are a a good example of decisions about technology being made to promote the well being of the entire community rather than an individual ego. Of course, it is an extreme example, but the egoistic technology promoted by US consumerism is an extreme in the other direction. The Amish are backward to the point of self-destruction, the consumers of US egoistic technologies fall into cultism to the point of self-destruction.

Let's face it - the ability to tailor your community leads to monumental anomalies - gated communities, corporations, cults, sects, and gangs that bring back the pre-modern tribalism based on unquestioned loyalty to one's own clan and hostility to other clans. This is the death knell of universalism and the enlightenment ideals.

Wojtek



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