acm acm on Sat, 28 Apr 2001 18:07:33 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> camouflaging desire |
Camouflaging Desire Ecological catastrophes are only terrifying for civilians. Paul Virilio, Popular Defense & Ecological Struggles, 1978 (1990 trans. Semiotext(e)) You’re going to feel the impact no matter what, you’re going to have to adapt. Michael MacCracken, ex Director of the US Committee on Climate Change, quote in the Oregonian 2/19/01. The second statement above, made by a US official recently, is in reference to the inevitability, in the minds of most accredited scientists, of global warming and the far-reaching implications it will have on human life. Reading Mr. MacCracken’s warning together with the statement by Paul Virilio, regarding the difference in perception of environmental danger between the military and the civilian public, brings up some interesting, indeed important, questions regarding the current ecological crisis and the manner in which it has been addressed by different groups within the US. Anyone who is the least bit aware of the environmental movement, as it has existed in this country since the late 1960s, must be aware of the heated controversy surrounding just what the crisis is and how to address it. One way of interpreting the cautionary assertion by Mr. MacCracken is to read it as speaking to not just the subjective individual that will undoubtedly have to endure massive environmental changes, but also to the current political economy within the US, one quickly moving towards the dissolution of state/nationalist government in favor of economic imperative. A situation that is becoming increasingly intolerant of civic discourse about the ecological, political, and economic control of natural resources. The words can be taken as a warning to all of humanity from prophetic scientists, but they can also be read as a threat from oppressed peoples to the dominant power system – a structural system that is no less fragile under the weight of the disorder environmental catastrophe can bring. It can also be said that such a demand sounds like the dominating authority of management issuing orders of compliance to the slow, fleshy bodies of labor – a demand made necessary by the need for increased human productivity in the face of hyper-speed information technologies. This reading is indeed possible and relevant, and the ideology behind such demands needs to be visualized and spoken, as do their consequences. The power to communicate is all too often not empowering to “the worker.” The e-conomy, the so called information age, is not completely virtual, nor can it ever be. Human destruction is inextricably linked to environmental destruction, as Marx and Engels asserted over a century ago. Crises always drive adaptation and innovation, the alternative is usually annihilation. Capitalism has proven extremely resilient, surviving democratic ideals, isolationism, economic depression, and the most blatant contradictions. The old adage about what doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger, could have been written in specific reference to capitalism. With the rise of technology, especially in the realm of information communications and management, many have made utopic claims of inevitably growing freedom due to the ease of access to information. So far, this democratization of information has fallen far short of such claims, rather living up to its moniker as the “information superhighway,” complete with broken down vehicles, hitchhikers, roadside debris, and the overbearing presence of massive commercial vehicles transporting market commodities. And much like its analog counterpart, little real development of mass transit. Brutality is still tolerated in the extreme, even though we have “real-time” digital images and reports. There is something resistant to resistance in our mundane, seemingly inconsequential, daily lives. We resist the uncertainty of democracy for the safety of a militarized domestic sphere, despite (or because of) the brutality inflicted upon those who oppose the repressive order, or are simply “other” to that order. We resist the change required to end the degradation of the ecological sphere, a sphere that includes ourselves, for the (perceived) ease and comfort of conspicuous consumption, despite our knowledge of the probable dire consequences. What is it that all these battles are about; what will determine society’s strategy of adaptation ? The answer is as complex as it is inescapable. Somewhere, barely perceptible upon that facade of order and comfort is a small, but unavoidable blemish, a hole really, that is covered by a shiny, translucent patch. Living just underneath the thick, yet unraveling, patch of rationality is a microscopic, virus-like organism that lives off of the undone threads – Desire. ===== artofficial construction media A collaborative effort to screw in a lightbulb. visit us on-line at http://www.artofficial-online.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net