MEMESIS CRITIQUE

[Pit Schultz <pit@contrib.de>]

[
Here you can peek into the start of a new thread...
if you find somewhere (free) textes containing a critique on the 'life 
metaphor', 'info-darwinism', 'techno-vitalism', 'information biopolitics' 
and other aspects which are describing a critical view to the rethorics of
'naturalizing the net', then please distribute them.
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---

>To: geert@aec.at
>From: richard@hrc.westminster.ac.uk (Richard Barbrook)
>Subject: Memesis Critique
>Cc: nettime-talk@mail.thing.at, people@hrc.westminster.ac.uk

ARS ELECTRONICA '96: MEMESIS CRITIQUE

Richard Barbrook - Hypermedia Research Centre,
University of Westminster
<http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/>

ASSERTION 1

>The human being, characterized by a
>remarkable ability to process information... 

In the first subclause of the opening
sentence, the human ability to communicate
complex thoughts to each other is elevated
above all other aspects of our existence.
Although expressed in computer jargon, this
separation of thinking from doing is the
one of the oldest inversions found in
philosophy, as in Plato's parable of the cave.
For centuries, it was used the conjuring trick
of the priestly caste - elevating the speaking
of sacred words above physical toil on the
earth of the peasants. After over two
centuries of modernity, it is surprising to
find this ancient idea at the beginning of a
declaration supposedly describing the future.
But, as we will see, the process of seeing the
world upside down is one of the most important
failings of the whole Memesis statement. 

ASSERTION 2

Let's start again:

>The human being, characterized by a
>remarkable ability to process information,
>has extended his phenotype further than any
>other species. Complex tools and
>technologies are an integral part of our
>evolutionary "fitness". Human evolution is
>fundamentally intertwined with technological
>development; the two can not be considered
>apart from one another. Humanity has
>co-evolved with its artifacts; genes that
>are not able to cope with this reality will
>not survive the next millennium. 

The other major error in the Memesis statement
is its use of dodgy biological analogies. The
discovery of evolution was one of the key
intellectual moments in the development of
modern society. By offering a rational
understanding of the origins of humanity in
nature, it destroyed the intellectual basis of
revealed religion. Crucially, evolutionary
theory was conceived in the first truly modern
society: Great Britain. The rapid economic and
social changes taking place in this first
industrial society enabled Darwin to
understand that nature itself was also in
flux. 

However, problems arise when the relationship
is drawn in the other direction: when natural
evolution is used to explain social
development. In this century, millions of
people were shoved into gas chambers because
it was believed that they possessed 'genes
that are not able to cope' as the Memesis
statement puts it. Following the defeat of
fascism, the biological metaphor is now more
often used to revive an earlier illegitimate
use of Darwinian theory for political
purposes: Social Darwinism. As championed by
Herbert Spencer, this theory claimed that
unregulated market competition between private
property owners was a natural phenonenon
rather than a social one. The moral claims of
liberalism were restated in positivist
language. For instance, Spencer even opposed
the installation of municipal sewerage systems
to prevent cholera and other diseases as an
obstruction of the natural laws of the market! 

Although discredited in the early part of this
century, the globalisation of capitalism over
the past few decades has been accompanied by a
renewed faith in the simplicities of liberal
economics. In turn, the idiocies of Spencer
have been revived in an updated form - as can
be seen in Kevin Kelly's book 'Out of
Control'. By adopting the rhetoric of biology,
the Memesis statement is not simply trying to
reduce the complexities of millenia of social 
development to the self-replication of DNA
proteins. It is also implicitly supporting the
failed social and economic policies of the
1980s. 

ASSERTION 3

>As an analogy to the building blocks of
>biology, the genes, memes describe cultural
>units of information, cognitive behavioral
>patterns that propagate and replicate
>themselves through communication. From the
>"bio-adapter" of language as a proto-meme to
>the "infosphere" of global networks as the
>ultimate habitat for the human mind.

If you combine two errors, you go further into
confusion. Having separated thinking from
doing and reduced society to biology, the
Memesis statement now goes on to assert that
human consciousness is an autonomous gene!
Dressed up in newly fashionable biospeak, what
we have here is a garbled fusion of:
* the old Stalinist lie that history is a
process without a subject; 
* the old post-structuralist lie that language
speaks us; 
* and the old McLuhanite lie that technology
shapes our minds. 

For if memes 'replicate themselves', what are
humans doing in the meantime? We're not the
blind objects of genes or memes. Rather,
whether using language or global networks,
humans transform themselves and nature through
our own activity. We are the subject of
history - even if it is not always in
circumstances of our own choosing.

ASSERTION 4

>The discussion is intended to probe specific
>segments of the techno-cultural revolution
>against the background of the idea of a
>"culturally based history of creation".  

So now we get to the core of the Memesis
statement. The current process of the
convergence of telecommunciations, the media
and computing is to be explained through the
dubious biological metaphor. The prosaic task
of developing the hardware and software for an
integrated communications and information
network is to be transformed into a postivist
mysticism: the fulfillment of our pre-
programmed genetic destiny. Henri Lefebvre
remarked that structuralism, semiotics and
psychoanalysis were usually used by
intellectuals as ways of avoiding examining
the social relations of capitalism. Now we can
add biology to the list.

ASSERTION 5

...and also science fiction!

>This is not to develop new utopias, but
>rather to critically assess the current
>scenario, which promises the fulfillment of
>long prophesied visions of the future. The
>possibility of the emergence of a post-
>biological, cyberorganic line of evolution
>out of universal binary code systems, of
>which the first protozoans have names like
>Internet, Cyberspace and I-way.

The Memesis statement is certainly not
advocating a 'new utopia'. It is instead
repeating one of the oldest plots in science
fiction: the Frankenstein monster, Hal in
2001, the Terminator and so on. But, whereas
in the past we were supposed to fear the
destructive powers of technology, we're now
invited to celebrate 'the emergence of a post-
biological, cyberorganic line of evolution'.
The ending might be more optimistic, but we've
read the book and seen the film before.

And where is this new life form supposed to
come from? Allegedly it emerges from the
'Internet, Cyberspace and I-way'. Yet the Net
is a creation of human labour. Someone has to
dig a hole in the road to lay the fibre-optic
wires. Someone has to work on the production
line building the PCs. Someone has to design
the hardware which will control the flow of
data across the networks. Someone has write
the software to enable people to use the Net.
And all of us participate in communicating
across cyberspace with one other. Without
human activity, the Net is nothing but an
inert mass of metal, plastic and sand. We are
the only living beings in cyberspace.

ASSERTION 6

>As the biological body coincides with its
>mechanical and now informational clone as
>well, neurobionic, robotic prosthetics
>question our relationship to the body and to
>gender; cyborg theory and cyberbody fetish
>as response.

If the Net can be explained by Social
Darwinism, why not recent advances in medical
science also? In an orgy of hyperbole, people
with pacemakers - or even glasses - can become
characters from science fiction tales: the
cyborgs. Deprived of the consolation of
religion, we can now rediscover the promise of
eternal life in a new hi-tech form.

But by embracing this positivist mysticism, we
ignore the creative powers of our own species
to transform its own conditions of existence.
Above all, it is not technology by itself
which has changed our perception of gender
relations. Rather the possibilities of
modernity have been grasped by women - and
some men - to transform the limitations on
human existence imposed by patriarchal
societies and biological necessity. It might
seem deliciously wicked to indulge in 'cyborg
fetish', but worshiping the machine and the
gene obscures past and present struggles of
flesh 'n' blood humans to civilise social
relationships between the genders.

ASSERTION 7

>Media memory - the collective memory and
>experience of humanity externalized in
>world-wide networks. Memes, as a "mass
>crystal", the identification and integration
>of virtual communities that gather only in
>network interfaces. 

After repeatedly claiming that memes are self-
replicating, the Memesis statement suddenly
announces that 'media memory [is] the
collective memory and experience of humanity
externalised in world-wide networks'. So the
memes are actually our own creation. But, if
there is active human involvement in the
construction of cyberspace, how can technology
and genes be autonomous forces outside our
control? The fetishistic conception of
technology and information within the Memesis
statement is now openly revealed for the first
time. What we're dealing with here is a moment
of Feurbachian revelation: the Memesis
statement now admits that it wants us to
worship the magical power of graven images
built with our own labour. 

The central error of the Memesis statement has
become obvious. It regards machines and
information as autonomous things outside our
control. Yet, in reality, both technology and
culture are expressions of the social
relationships between individual humans. It is
human activity which is crystallised into
machines and information, not memes which
create 'mass crystal'. Crucially, by denying
the Promethean power of collective creativity,
the Memesis statement ignores one of the
central questions of modernity: how are the
rewards of labour to be divided among the
different groups involved in the social
production of machines and information? Ah,
but the social question is so unfashionable
now...

ASSERTION 8

>Memes, the cognitive pixels as a blueprint
>for the cultural practice of sampling, of
>the universal "copy and paste", which has
>emerged from the new conditions of media.

Having briefly admitted that humans are the
subject and culture is the object of their
labour, the Memesis statement quickly reverts
to its favourite philosophical inversion
dressed up in computer jargon. Once again, it
is not clever artists, musicians or designers
who use digital technologies to create
innovative new forms of cultural expression.
On the contrary, the software mystically
writes itself! 

Moreover, the practice of sampling the work of
others is hardly new. For centuries, artists
have plagarised their predecessors and
contemporaries. All collective endeavours
involves a constant process of sampling and
'copy and paste'. What the new information
technologies have done is make the process
much easier and more aesthetically pleasing.
Above all, they have enhanced and deepened the
possibilities of strange combinations and
hallucinatory combinations. The Futurists
could only dream of machine music. Jungle
musicians can now actually create the digital
rhythms of drum 'n' bass. 

ASSERTION 9

>Memesis: a synonym for the current process
>of compression, for the convergence of
>various developmental vectors, which achieve
>a breakthrough as a whole.

Exhausted, we at last reach the end of this
journey through intellectual confusion.
Assuring that this was all just a 'synonym'
for the process of convergence, the statement
concludes with the promise of imminent
rapture: 'a breakthrough as a whole'. But, at
best, the Memesis statement is a piece of bad
poetry. At worst, it is an apology for the
defunct neo-liberalism and tired post-
modernism of the last decade. The Memesis
statement presents a 'Californian Ideology'
for Europeans: radical rhetoric hiding
conservative ideas. 

The real crime of the Memesis statement is the
way that it willfully obscures the process of
human innovation and creativity under a mass
of dodgy biological metaphors. In contrast, we
must celebrate the Promethean power of humans
to create - and recreate - themselves. It is
precisely our refusal to accept our biological
destiny which makes us more than insects.
Unlike our fellow species, we can transform
ourselves through thought and action. 

The advent of modernity has radically
accelerated this process of human self-
transformation. The 'convergence of various
developmental vectors' - as the Memesis
statement so inelegantly puts it - is only the
latest stage in this process of modernisation.
What is interesting about our present
situation is how imaginative people are using
new technologies to push forward the limits of
social and cultural creativity. Instead of
being mesmerised by memes, what we should be
doing instead is celebrating the achievement
of these digital artisans - the artist-
engineers who're pioneering the ways in which
everyone will be able to participate within
cyberspace in the future. 

'Every creative force...leading to new
knowledge and to a new interpretation of the
universe has its source in people's essential
and irrevocable discontent with the realm of
necessity.'  -  Karel Tiege