Mid-Semester Thoughts

Distopia?

I was struck by the grim view many of our authors had for both the future of democracy in the United States, and the future of the world. Harvey writes of an America where democracy is "chronically unstable, difficult if not impossible to command except through the corruption of financial power" (p. 15). Castells postulates the emergence of a Fourth World of exclusion "predominantly populated by women and children" (p. 139). Appadurai quotes Mbembe's world view of "a terrifying landscape, in which order (regularity, predictability, routine, and everydayness itself) is organized around the fact or prospect of violence" (p. 31). Even Dewey, a firm believer in democracy, described his era as one that promoted "social and intellectual uniformity, a standardization favorable to mediocrity," with "regimented" opinion and behavior. This sense of regimentation was vividly depicted in Metropolis, which premiered at the same time Dewey was writing.

Mills believes that the power elite are out for themselves and their corporate entities, with little regard for the public good. He describes a "co-optation by cliques of insiders," who view the government as "an umbrella under whose authority they do their work" (p. 267). Further, he states that the "very rich have used existing laws, they have circumvented and violated existing laws, and they have had laws created and enforced for their direct benefit" (p. 99).

Dyson et al. believe that each change in technology brings about a new wave, a changed economy. Technological advances bring new, unprecedented moral and ecological consequences. In the Second Wave, industrialization, along with a steady influx of immigrant labor, resulted in exploitive labor practices, as well as pollution problems that needed to addressed with labor laws and environmental regulations (we still are working on that one). In the Third Wave, the Knowledge Age, as we explore the "electronic frontier" (Dyson et al., p. 31), humankind confronts the dilemma of "how to organize itself for the common good"(pp. 31-32). Thus, Dyson et al. believe that there is still some interest in "the common good."

It was also heartening to see some optimism about addressing the problem of poverty in The Bottom Billion (p. 12): "The problem of the bottom billion is serious, but it is fixable. It is much less daunting than the problems that were overcome in the twentieth century: disease, fascism, and communism."

I suggest that we turn to Albert Einstein for inspiration.


Einstein and Imagined Communities

"Communities tend to be guided less than individuals by conscience and a sense of responsibility. How much misery does this fact cause mankind! It is the source of wars and every kind of oppression, which fill the earth with pain, sighs and bitterness." (Albert Einstein, 1934)

In reviewing our readings from the first half of the semester--and my responses to them--I began to think of Einstein. Why Einstein? He was a radical thinker, who reconceptualized our view of the world, questioning long-held dogma with a fresh perspective. Who would have thought that time and space could bend, that mass could be converted into energy? In Howard Gardner's book, "Creating Minds," he describes how Einstein retained the vivid imagination of a child throughout his life. In fact, Einstein used visualization, rather than scientific reasoning, to achieve his breakthrough. Einstein believed that "Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." Further, "Knowledge is limited. Imagination envelops the world."

Last semester, we read about Andersen's "imagined communities." This semester, we heard Calhoun state that globalization exists only because it is imagined. Lanier wrote of the collective consciousness, or hive mind. I posit that we need to make a bold leap of the imagination to stop the "perpetually expansionary" capitalist imperialism Harvey describes, to break out of the "stalemate" Mills describes, to alter the "hive mind." What if we imagined a responsible and humane society where there is no bottom billion, but rather, enough for all, with a redistribution of power and capital? Who will be the next visionary to push the collective consciousness toward imagining this new world view?


Time

A theme reiterated by several authors is our changing notion of time due to changing technology. Benjamin believed that our reactions and perceptions of art are influenced by the medium through which they are received. He noted that, in earlier eras the available technology did not allow for "simultaneous collective experience."

Mills eloquently described the extreme compression of time due to technological advances: "During most of human history, historical change has not been visible to the people who were involved in it.... But now the tempo of change is so rapid, and the means of observation so accessible, that the interplay of event and decision seem often to be quite historically visible" (p. 21).

Castells talked about the transformation of time from sequential to "timeless time." Was Rod Serling (creator of Twilight Zone) right--can we suspend or abolish our sense of sequential time? Can we travel into the past and future through digital technology? Or is it all a matter of perspective? When one is meditating, time stops--there is no past or future, only the present moment, a timeless sense of floating in an altered state of mind. However, outside of the meditative state, we have to acknowledge that we are ruled by our biological clock--we are born, we age, we die. That urgency of limited time informs every decision we humans make--it is quintessentially the human condition. So I'd have to conclude that we humans are driven by our own internal clock, and no digital technology can eliminate that. But the new technology can significantly alter our sense of time, allowing us to communicate globally instantaneously.