Re: <nettime> Poorly hidden self promotion by Vuk

Vuk:

Sounds fascinating -- hope you have a great time and looking forward to the fruits of your ART!

By "Technology Cycle" do you mean Freeman/Perez's (Schumpeter/Kondratiev) "Techno-economic Paradigms" or McLuhan's book --> radio --> television --> Internet or "something else" or "you don't know" or "it doesn't matter" . . . ??

As you will not be surprised to hear, I have the only two living representatives of these "traditions" on my advisory board, Eric McLuhan and Carlota Perez. <g>

Since you are dealing with "causes," if you don't stumble across FORMAL CAUSE, then you will need to spend more time in the room.

Most of our confusion about the effects of technology is due to our "forgetfulness" about *causality* -- we have crippled ourselves by eliminating all but "efficient cause," so we are always missing the forest while we are busy chopping down the trees.

Recently, I went around asking the MEME people "Daddy, where do memes come from?"

The most interesting answer I got (in the midst of mostly, "Gee I never thought about that") was a reference to Alan Westoby's unpublished 1994 "The Ecology of Intentions: How to make Memes and Influence People: Culturology."

http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/ecointen.htm

That should take you a day or two! It's interesting that he was a frustrated Trotskyist (is there any other kind?) and his published work deals mostly with the "evolution" of communism.

Btw, Chris Freeman is also reported to have been a "Ernest Mandelian" Trot -- which should point you back towards the "Non-Communist Left" and their employers in the Cultural Cold War.

While we're on that topic, do you know Kenneth Boulding? His 1956 "The Image" is very important (i.e. the "first" version of memes, which he called EICONOLY), as is the (originally Dutch) Fred Polak 1953 "The Image of the Future," from which Boulding got many of his ideas -- particularly his emphasis on the need to find a replacement for Christianity.

He was one of the CCW employers (for what he termed "The Invisible College," to which he recruited Alvin Toffler, among others) and you might want to check out the CASBS.

If Zizek enters into this project, then you will surely have noticed that he (and many others) have slid from "post-modern" to "post-secular" over the past few years. His work with Radical Orthodoxy's John Milbank is particularly instructive, as is the whole RO phenomenon.

RADIO (Modern/Hot/Movement) --> TELEVISION (Post-Modern/Cool/Shopping) --> INTERNET (Post-Secular/D.I.Y./Renaissance) is an interesting technology "cycle" to consider.

I'm now working with the Chinese on a "Dialogue on World Civilizations," which, of course, ultimately involves the issues of LONG CYCLES.

It turns out that many in today's Chinese leadership think that they are operating on a 720 year cycle (i.e. 12 x 60) and that they are now "retrieving" the build-up to the Tang Dynasty.

Good luck!

Mark Stahlman

Brooklyn NY