Re: <nettime> Can the Left Meme?

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@neoscenes.net>]

Of course, individual and mass conditioning occurs on a pinishment
*and* reward basis -- you get access to more 'optimal' partners for
reproduction ... when you buy this automobile...

Optimized pairing (for the good of the species) is at least as
powerful a motivator as the baseball bat. Because it is directly
impelled by the 'need' for Life to continue itself into the future.

> The traditional view is that a person can rationally process
> the information and make choices, as opposed to being subjected
> to bodily harm. This is completely false, as the money spent
> in advertizing, propaganda and info giants proves. With the
> modern technology, speech is a cheaper and more reliable way to
> unconditionally condition people. However, this does require
> technology, usually outside individual's reach. For most people,
> violence is more effective way for their influence on the world than
> speech. People are generally rational creatures.

The word/action question is complex, and each w/o the other is only a
theoretical condition as Vygotsky suggested: "Speech and action are
part of one and the same complex psychological function, directed
toward the solution of the problem at hand."

Rationality somehow has to fit into the sleeve (shall we say) of
evolutionary necessity. It cannot exist outside of that unless it is a
temporary evolutionary perturbation that will dead-end when the human
species destroys itself through its far-from-equilibrium dominance of
the physical environment. I'm pretty certain that rationality can't
supersede evolutionary 'needs' in the long run.

It could be that in this time of energy glut and technological
development, individual speech exacts a minimal overall 'cost' on the
(collective, species-wide) evolutionary process. But in the end, word
(rationality) and action (violence, reward), as a social/evolutionary
process cannot be separated or maintain a separation as you suggest
with the left/right dialectic...

jh


--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
hanging on to the Laramide Orogeny
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
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