Re: <nettime> Can the Left Meme?

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>]

I'm curious: what is the fundamental difference between conditioning
a person's behavior through feeding information ("speech"), and
conditioning a person's behavior with a baseball bat?

The traditional view is that a person can rationally process the
information and make choices, as opposed to being subjected to bodily
harm. This is completely false, as the money spent in advertizing,
propaganda and info giants proves. With the modern technology, speech
is a cheaper and more reliable way to unconditionally condition
people. However, this does require technology, usually outside
individual's reach. For most people, violence is more effective way
for their influence on the world than speech. People are generally
rational creatures.

The 'left' was first to understand this, so it is only natural that it
will internally sanction speech as violence, as it already has control
over info pipes and doesn't need competition. Externally, the left
will promote the individual speech, as it is perfectly aware that such
speech is irrelevant against mechanized info pipes. The situation is
perfectly symmetric on the right - the right will promote individual
violence potential, as it is perfectly aware that it stands no chance
against the organized enforcement.

For the traditional right, the government is the force monopoly, for
the left the government is the speech monopoly.


On 6/15/17, 14:16, t byfield wrote:
> different view of the relationship between speech and violence. The
> mainstream



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