Re: <nettime> tensions within the bay area elites

[Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>]

On 05/11/2014 01:38 PM, Michael Weisman wrote:

> I don't think this is a Bay Area thing.  Google, Schmidt, and even
> Cory, operate at a supranational level, traveling from place to place
> and speaking and working all over the globe, without any regard to
> national borders or local cultures.

Yet there is a local effect. As Google and other major Silicon Valley 
companies have grown to become a global economic force, supplying 
information-processing capacities and managerial tools to the entire 
world, their local footprint has grown disproportionately. Their 
presence, buying power and influence in the Bay Area is palpable and 
increasing. A social class cannot simply remain invisible. And the sight 
of a superior class - arguably, a dominant class, a ruling class - is 
generally painful to the eyes of others. Thus the recent (and in my 
view, quite justified) attacks against Google techies/execs by Bay Area 
political countercultures.

Doctorow is a somewhat different story, no? He may get himself flown 
around the world to give talks, but he is not a full-fledged member of 
this newly dominant class - all the more so since he seems to identify 
himself at least partially with those on the outside of it. Both his 
politics and his own quest for attention-market share lead him to see, 
or at keast try to see, the new mangerialists as so many of his readers 
do, with ambivalent admixtures of envy, fear and class hatred.

These kinds of tensions within elites have often emerged in the 
capitalist democracies. They are a good sign. We need more of them, and 
not just within the elites themselves. It is healthy to lash out against 
those who rule you. Otherwise they do what they are doing right now. 
They just walk all over us. With pleasure and impunity.

best, Brian


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