[Nettime-bold] Re: totalitarianism in cyberspace?

[Nmherman@aol.com]

In a message dated 5/19/2001 3:07:46 PM Central Daylight Time, 
PGalaxy@compuserve.com writes:

> Dont get me going Max, don't get me going.
>  I am desperate to stay constructive, while my blood is boiling over
>  Need to chill. 

I hear you loud and clear.  I sometimes get so upset about the Supreme Court 
I can hear the oil wells chewing up Alaska and every decent human in history 
screaming at me to do something.  It's hard to chill sometimes, I struggle 
with that too.  I think the system of control and degradation of genius uses 
frustration as its primary weapon, like in Orwell where the prisoner has to 
say "2+2=5."  

Genius 2000 helps me to chill but I don't always use it.  Genius 2000 has 
already accomplished a lot, so that calms me.  I know we're going to be 
effective, and I really respect the people who have contributed to it so far. 
 It's hard not to feel like cult followers at first.  Most people are 
skeptical of me and my ideas and that's healthy, but I certainly take comfort 
from the people who say "I see what you're saying, you're not fascist, you 
have a quick and humane intellect."

I also need very much to write a book.  For example, most people don't know 
the grounding that Genius 2000 has in ancient literature for example.  I'm 
also considered sort of unfriendly so people don't discuss my work very much 
and this makes it taboo and hence unnecessarily mysterious.  I am going to 
work on the book this summer.  I don't have any funding however so I have to 
work a regular job, but that feels good too.  

Genius 2000 is also relevant to a book called "Zen and the Brain" by James 
Austin.  I would recommend it if you want to know some of the neuroscience 
behind Genius 2000.  It's not blind faith and fervor by any stretch; frankly 
Genius 2000 is common sense but it looks outrageous because our society has 
gotten so fucked up.

>  
>  >Here in Minneapolis I am starting a whole new network of democratic 
genius. 
>  
>  >It's a joke mostly, just something to do, but it's very good and makes a 
> lot 
>  >of wonderful sense.  The scene here is thirsting for something original 
> since 
>  >we lost Husker Du.  All the presses are gearing up to protest George 
Bush.  
> 
>  
>  yes I agree, must be devoted to the self and cultivate what is sane and
>  likely to grow, thanks for reminding me that perhaps the fastest way to 
> change
>  the systems - the institutions - is by working on individuals.
>  
>  That said, we still need to do something about the media.
>  I think to establish a committee for the supervision of bulsshit in the 
> media
>  is the minimum global society could do. I think also if we make a good
>  job about internet information (producing it and spreading it)
>  we are likely to change the media too.

I work with Indymedia here in Minnesota and they are good, especially at 
exposing the corporate/governmental elites.  I support them but I also have 
my own, separate work that deals with the question of artistic or 
intellectual genius and the hierarchical systems we still have left with from 
the earliest civilizations.  Hierarchy, control, and production for sale are 
still the main concepts we use to organize genius (which I use to describe 
cognitive, expressive, and perceptual faculties ALL humans possess--not just 
the Einsteins and Picassos or Newtons.)  

The hierarchical system still controls the world of art and literature, as 
well as entertainment, education, academics, and politics.  Its control 
however gets weaker and more desperate all the time--think how desperate Bush 
is right now, probably more than you or me--and it won't take much to inform 
the general populace.  This will make voting, among other things, effectual 
and beneficial again.  The downside is that those of us who want to be 
artists, writers, and leaders must accept a diminished and more distributed 
authority.  The old guard says this is mere laziness and lack of talent but I 
disagree.  In the future, people will just be great and historic in different 
ways, according to different standards than in the past.  Lots of established 
people today don't want to give up that authority--their role as selected, 
paid, admired geniuses--and so they fight me.

One risk of the internet is that it will only be used as it is now used by 
the large media corporations.  It's important to be independent as well as to 
work with others.  That's why I have my own Network, so I don't get absorbed 
by say NBC, as I surely would if I chose to work with them.

>  
>  I am learning to discover and trust  my own genius, its brilliant, its 
> powerful its all over
>  and it leads my life which is great fun. Perhaps you'd like to write 
> something for us
>  to post about it...just checked out your website the link to the god 
project 
> is broken but
>  it makes me most curious, what is it - found the link to Noam though, that 
> will do for now <g>

I could definitely write something but I would need to know what style etc., 
so please send me your site address.  "The God Project" was by Eryk 
Salvaggio--similar in some ways to Genius 2000 and thankfully proving I am 
not some kind of supergenius who gets ideas no one else can--and consisted of 
the results he found searching for "God" on major search engines.  His 
current site is www.one38.org but I think he may have lost the God Project 
when his computer got a virus.

It's funny how I end up getting into aesthetic or expressive ideas when I 
think about Chomsky and his ideas about propaganda and corporate media 
control.  I think this is because experiencing one's own genius is very rare 
and unique and often frowned upon--we are expected to let the professional 
artists and thinkers fulfill genius for us and then buy their works.  But I 
agree, using your own genius is the best thing in the world; the second best 
thing is being able to do it within a community of people who are also doing 
it.  Or maybe vice versa, who knows.  

Optimism is very good to have, but so is fierceness.  Genius will change the 
world once we start letting it happen, so as one of the speakers in my video 
says, "--and imperfections.  Don't expect everything to be in its place.  And 
then take that little extra step."  That's a reassuring and emboldening kind 
of thinking, for me.

Max Herman
The Genius 2000 Network
http://www.geocities.com/kempfhut.JPG

>  
>  
>  pdm 


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