[mtp-teoria] žižek on disparities between virtual and real self

[Palo Fabuš]

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 2:36 PM, dusan <db at societyofalgorithm.org> wrote:
> however cliche it sou is that we may not
> be illusory about thinking internet as a medium autonomous
> from the governed reality anymore. so if i go online,
> i am subject to the same laws as if i am anywhere else
> within the country. and it was drm agencies (by
> means of 'protection of copyright') and police
> (by means of going after sexual predators and lovers
> of explosives---which is a reality and it was only the question
> of time when they will extend their operations into the internet)
> who've made sure i am. thus the talks constructing 'virtual ego'
> or anything disconnected from the body are oblivious.
> and among the first ones to realise were the human rights
> bloggers, and the kids sharing some files.
> so i would expect theorists and thinkers not to call the
> internet users to take the responsibility for their online
> activities (since it'd be drma and police that is talking them),
> but either to admit that the dream is over and think
> internet as an already colonised part of our meat world;
> to call for disobedience; to propose alternatives to
> the global internet; to call for resistance against
> governing bodies taking even more control over internet
> (eg. EU's telecom package); and/or to build up
> the independent islands (eg. wikileaks already mentioned
> here)

you keep on pointing at Them (i don't know... bad people greedy for
power?) as a kind of threat, but you are failing to see this model is
just not working anymore, who are They? what do They believe in? what
are they motivated by? where do they fall in the political system?
they are certainly not some politicians pursuing some ideology,
because this just doesn't happen any more, not in Western world... you
are still looking for threats through the optics of centralization not
being aware the centres of power have been radically weakened

I still can't see where in your understading falls general public
in... are they victims? make me laugh... you just heavily
underestimate people, who are now more than ever able and empowered
not take any shit from anybody... and reading newspapers and blogs
however free as they ridiculously label themselves will just
strenghten your beliefs and keeps you from healthy seeing of things
from different angles... staying in one place and rethink the
positions is what I call stinky

I am not surprised you don't see the issue of real/virtual disparity
and lagging of personal responsibility, because it goes beyond the
framework of your claims... to see into one's own contemporaneity
isn't easy, because from all sides (media, other people and their
behaviour) we are bombarded by old frameworks of meaning, old models
of world, which McLuhan called "rear mirror view", so whatever
understanding one has, he always have to count in this epistemic
delay, which is exactly what contemporary activists fail to do, while
promoting the old models such as thinking in oppositions, fights and
collective resistance, taking them for granted and failing to think
even for a moment they might be somehow insufficient by now...


>
>
>
>> here you have people keen to indentify themselves with Brecht's
>> leftist utopia of medium, which would allow people to inform, educate
>> and entertain themselves while bypassing the elite production, and
>> when it is finally in history technologically and sociologically
>> _realised_ they shun it immediately just as Dušan did ONLY on the
>> basis of fact it has commercial background or naive idea of some
>> unknown and mysterious oppresion!! i am not saying facebook is perfect
>> or something, and those who know me personally know I never did, I
>> think the problem is not in facebook, but in Brecht's utopia...
>
> no idea what can this mean... brecht and facebook?!

what is there hard to understand? doesn't facebook perhaps allow
people to "inform, educate and entertain" themselves?


-- 
Palo Fabuš
palofabus.net