Re: <nettime> RE: What is this thing that I call Doug?

[Brian Brotarlo <brofont@iloilo.net>]

Simon Bayly wrote:


> re: the Doug Rushkoff interview posted to nettime. I don't know this
> man's work at all, but found his comments about the self, intentionality
> and identity most bizarre - kind of like someone approaching this area
> of philosophy with an almost wilful ignorance of...hmmm... pretty much
> all philosophy on the subject since Kant!
>
> > what is the thing that I call Doug?
> <snip>
>
> This is a person, a self,  conceived entirely as thing, as machine, a
> data-processing device. Do you know any actual humans who fit this
> description? See Alphonso Lingis' "The Community of Those Who Have
> Nothing in Common" or "The Imperative" for a more up-to-date and
> informed take on subjectivity and communication.  See Kant, see
> Heidegger, see Spinoza, see most artists, see anyone really......

Later:

>
>
> > Do I want to use a
> > coercive sales technique that I learned watching the Gap's instructional
> > videos? I'll win a bonus or a T-shirt if I can make this person buy a belt
> > along with his jeans, and I'll get in trouble if I don't make enough 3-item
> > sales... but I can tell he doesn't have that much money. We all experience
> > these moments of doubt, these moments of hesitation when our true
> > sensibility emerges.
> >
>
> OK, now something important seeps in by accident. Rushkoff's notional
> Gap worker faces  Kant's categorical imperative! S/he finds that "What I
> have to do" (acknowledge the other in his/her "otherness" outside of any
> economy) is imposed independently of my wants and desires (in this case,
> to make the sale, be a good employee, make enough money for myself,
> cater to my self-interest and survival).

I would think if faced with Kant's categorical imperative, the Gap worker
would think something like: "Okay, if I sold him the belt, it would only
mean that I'm doing my job requirement, which is either bad or good,
depending from where you're looking. If free market is a true universal
law, it would mean that I'm only doing the guy a favor, since he did not
have any business going in this Gap store anyway. Now if it wasn't and I
had to make up a maxim of my own that might lead closer to a universal
law, then I would have to be more hands on with this guy, give him some
old fashion attention, see what Gap can do for him, might it be only one
t-shirt to go out the door with. It might not mean my job at all since
there would be more Gap buyers and surely, I can discriminate a potential
multiple buyer later. But what if I can't and it would cause me my job? 
Certainly that could not be a Universal law, since I would lose money
myself. I would only be exchanging one poor bloke for another. Which is
the thing that I'm supposed to do? Is free market and consumerism
applicable to everybody? Can I impose this notion to any X person coming
in the door. Or, do I begin to think for myself, assuming that I know more
of what's universally good? My desires doesn't matter at all, if I only
know what's good for me and everybody else.

>
>
> This is the basis of ethics, no? Kant (and pretty much all major
> philosophy Western or Eastern) indicates that the categorical imperative
> (or something like it) is the ground for any notion of selfhood (or in
> his hardcore version, any idea of anything at all). The mind
> primordially "knows" or rather,  feels the force of, the imperative and
> THEN sets out to formulate data into representations of a law-regulated
> nature, etc. In this light, something like "pure intention", with which
> Rushkoff seems to mean also the realm of pure reflection and cogitation
> as opposed to "instinct" or "spontenaity", is a philosphical abstraction
> that has no meaningful relation to the phenomena (human behaviour and
> thinking).
>

Who will enforce that ethics? Rushkoff I think merely means a modified
system theory. Individual reflection is basically coercive. He did mention
the superego, didn't he? Also, I think he meant, despite all the
meaningful attempts to escape coercive factors in human actions, we find
ourselves looking for the same things we meant to leave behind. As in,
Nike becoming a version of father, and CNN, Amazon, etc. 


>
> What's my real point here? Essentially, that the "cutting edge" of
> techno-discourse about redefined notions of subjectivity, identity, the
> body, community, etc. is blunted by its often naive and uninformed
> misappropriation of ideas that have actually been worked out/on to some
> degree of sophistication in good 'ole traditional academic discourses
> (that are de facto suspect from point-of-view of "the counterculture",
> because they existed before the Internet or computers and therefore are
> not worth wasting time getting familiar with). Rushkoff evidences this
> with his tales of how wierded out he was when he found his righteous
> techno-radicalism got chewed up and digested good and proper by
> corporate USA. His subsequent realignment appears almost banal in its "
> pure intention", let alone its intelllectual rigour.

Give a guy a chance to change his mind. With our life expectancies
matching up with very abrupt epochs of very rapid changes, there's no
chance of being perfect, in the good 'ole traditional academic discourses. 

>
> My, perhaps optimistic belief, is that we should demand more, much more
> from our Professors of Media Culture in Interactive Telecommunications
> Programs, wherever they may be.
>
> Simon Bayly
> London, UK.
>

I've done it for you now, above.

Brian Brotarlo


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