| Brian Holmes on Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:24:05 +0100 (CET) |
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| Re: <nettime> Technological Construction of Society |
On 03/25/2013 08:19 AM, [email protected] wrote:
Based on the categories that have become widespread over the past 40 years, I guess that I am a "technological determinist" -- perhaps the worst sort of "thought criminal" possible in social science.
Mark, the simple answer to your question is that causality is bunk. Every human event is the singular outcome of a confluence of multiple substances, forces and possibilities. No "cause" can be isolated as the "determinant factor" because not only all of the raw materials and forces, but also all the open possibilities at play in a particular situation are required to make *that* singular outcome. Therefore, s/he who isolates a singular "cause" is a determinist. And when the cause is technological... well, you get it. So yes, Mark, it's true, you *are* a thought criminal. You can persist in your ways, it's fine, don't worry, no one will care, there are as yet no "social science police" (that I know of, anyway). But if you want to make amends to all those forty-something social scientists whose disapprobation seems to be troubling you, just try, once or twice, as an exercise, an experiment, a foray outside yourself, just try describing all the aspects that feed into the emergence of a singular social situation. Of course you will never prove anything this way. Of course you will never get it "right." Of course you will always miss one or many substances, forces, possibilities. But maybe your approximative efforts will give people a greater awareness of what *they* can do, within some particular concatenation of substances, forces, possibilities. I guess my point is that a world without determinant causes is a world without masters. in exactly that spirit, Brian PS - For you philosophers out there, is this a more-or-less Spinozian way of thinking? Maybe you can elaborate a little? # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]