'finger lickin' good yall' The Anarchives Volume 2 Issue 24 The Anarchives Published By The Anarchives The Anarchy Organization The Anarchives tao@lglobal.com Send your e-mail address to get on the list Spread The Word Pass This On... --/\-- WIRED / / \ \ Propaganda ---|--/----\--|--- \/ \/ mind-fodder /\______/\ for the digital age -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ -~ In the previous industrial age, the New York Times represented the voice of history, and the keeper of the record. In many ways however, the New York Times was also an agent of change, an active participant in the proccess of 'engineering consent' and promoting progress. With the advent of the 'digital' era, WIRED magazine jockeyes on the leading edge of the electronic frontier, eager to become the 'official record' of tomorrow, sponsored by the conglomerates of today. >From WIRED Magazine, JAN 96, Channeling McLuhan "For it has always been the role of intelligentsia to act as liaison and as mediators between old and new power groups." Mcluhan, Understanding Media pp. 37 WIRED magazine evokes the ghost of McLuhan to prophesize on our times. Explaining their legitimacy as corporate crusaders for McLuhan, WIRED magazine positions itself as the leading propagandists of the technological revolution. Their Jan 1996 issue features the eyes of McLuhan, and even, the words of the so-called 'saint'. Their flare of layout and design juxtaposes a biography that leaves the dead to lie, and an interview that resurrects their holy authority. The McLuhan of the book is bumped into the flaming waste bin of history, and the virtual McLuhan who can give us fresh insight to this day is alive and well in Silicon Valley. First let's look at the biography: (which has 2 pages around 131 then jumps to three pages after 182) "The current idea of a global village as a place of universal harmony and industrious basket-weaving is a tourist's fantasy." (pp. 182) the biography is the most puzzling as it lays the ground work for the 'WIRED' interview. as per any trash/ad magazine the articles are short and full of loaded sound bites. "We are the content of our media. Each medium delivers a new form of human being, whose qualitites are suited to it." (pp. 182) witness the justification of exploitation by defining it as a function. the prose begins to smell, but this is only the beginning. a twisted interplay of words is occurring here. "Print is hot. Television is cool. Mechanical tools are hot. Hand-wrought tools and software are cool. Hot media encourage passive consumption. Cool media encourage active participation. Sometimes." (pp. 182) they're trying to tell you that tv is participatory and active, software too, when you get drawn into virtual worlds of make believe, this is active participation. you can make your destiny when you immerse yourself more. "strange new voices of power will appear unexpectedly." (pp. 184) the landscape becomes fertile for the introduction of the thesis. virtual McLuhan is going to lay down the facts... "'I've never read McLuhan but...' Why don't we read Marshal Mcluhan today? Although trained as a highly specialized bookman and supported by an academic sineure, McLuhan did little to guarantee his influence as a writer and scholar. From his earliest career, he ignored his peeers. He wrote few books, and the ones he did write grew progressively more difficult. He did not train many graduate students who might have sustained his legacy. McLuhan treated his teaching responsibilities casualy, his publishing commitments with utter disregard." (pp. 186) before bringing on the virtual mcluhan, WIRED must discredit the literary one, as well as any other literary thinkers who come after him, WIRED must declare the literary tradition/culture of McLuhan dead. "In a fashionably self-destructive manner, McLuhan signed his name to material he never wrote. Even after death, this practice continues. The Global Village: Transformations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century, co-written with Bruce Powers, was published in 1989 by the Oxford University Press, nine years after McLuhan's death." (pp. 186) They even have to denounce one of the more radical McLuhan books as heresy, and not on the level with their virtual McLuhan. As WIRED magazine becomes the New York Times for the techno-corporate class, history must be constructed to allow the future unfold as desired. "To some who venture from the slogans to the books, McLuhan will seem outdated, especially in his hope for a human engagement with media that goes byond technological idiocy and numb submission." And this becomes the summation of the biography piece. Immerse yourself into your television, into your virtual world, and you will be active and participating, you will be a brave frontiersperson. What McLuhan really said is just not important. So now listen to what virtual mcluhan has to say: mcluhan speaks: "The real message today is ubiquity. It is no longer something we do, but something we are part of. It confronts us as if from the outside with all the sensory experience of the history of humanity. It is as if we have amputated not our ears or our eyes, but ourselves, and then established a total prosthesis - an automation - in our place." (pp. 129) let's do a case study in the meaning of these words: ubiquity - the state, fact, or capacity of being everywhere at the same time; omnipresence. furthermore, automated ubiquity. we are a machine that is everywhere... "The medium is the message because it creates the audience most suited to it. Electronic media create an audience whose shifting moods are as impersonal as the weather." (pp. 129) electronic media create a machine that is everywhere, impersonal and unpredictable. yet created by technology owned and controled by a small few. "This emphasis on misfortune would have been appreciated by advertisers, since they need a big dose of 'bad news' in all programs in order to balance the 'good news' in the ads. If TV actually were to broadcast more good news, as some cultural reactionaries want, the advertising market would collapse, and the ensuing economic crisis would probably lead to some sort of popular dictatorship, which they do not want." (pp. 130) when tv broadcasts good news it will be advertising. what tv should broadcast is the real news. if broadcast at all. "TV should be watched, not made." (pp. 131) at a time of technology enabling wide-spread production, virtual McLuhan says don't do, consume... "'What would yo do about the inequality of the technological haves and have-nots?'" uh oh, here we go... "Equality is an industrial ideal, along with voting, time clocks, and the minimum wage. Machines promote equality; that is their downfall. The organic unity of pastoral times was replaced in the machine age with fragmented individuials, who could compete with each other. This unequal competition gave a foundation to the idea of equality. The industrial age transformed millions of rural farmers into a mass of workers and mass consumers. Only by transforming millions of rural farmers into a mass workers and street riffraff could machines succeed in smearing the doctrine of equality around the world." great jefferson, can you believe this guy? virtual McLuhan is denouncing equality, proclaiming that equality is a systematic dysfunction, a by-product of old technology. by doing so he can justify the techno-corporate elite's selfish ambitions to make to to the top, be the vanguard of the revolutoin. "The hubbub now about equality is actually a nostalgia for machines. Our environment has been transformed into a single omnipresent network that embraces and encompasses individuals of unequal status. Machines - extend to their limit and transformed into a single omnipresent network environment - will flip into sacred and ritual environments. Recognized as an extension of ourselves and properly managed by a priestly class, technology inspires rituals, performed out of something like love. This development restores machines to their original totemic purpose. Whereas Marx recognized machines as 'the dead hand' of the past, the electronic network could flip this totem (an amputated body part, you'll notice) into a shrine for ancestors." (pp. 131) but don't worry says vMcLuhan, new machines will revolutionize old machines. the new machines are one, ubiquitous, sacred and loving. only a priestly class can act as intermediaries between the machine and what remains of humanity. "In the emerging global village, isn't it imperialistic to expect everyone to have the same values (ours), obey the same laws (ours), and communicate in American English? America is no longer a global power - it's a global brand. America as a brand stands for liberty, money, and sex. That three-way combo is hard to beat. Certain countries have successfully transformed themselves into brands already." (pp. 187) consumerism will save us all......sell...sell...sell... "America should take a lesson in global branding. To succeed as a brand, America should shrink its army, reduce its diplomatic corps, cut back its public particption in political meetings and summits. This will allow American products, from movies to soft drinks to computers, to become far, far more valuable and powerful." (pp. 187) The key word of course being powerful. Only when the corporate state can rise to its full power and glory will we all enjoy the great taste of coke. WIRED and its 'high-colour gloss' primarily filled with ads is eagerly and opportunisticly jockeying to become the official propagandist for the techno-corporate elite. If successful the writer of the vMcLuhan articles, WIRED Executive Editor Kevin Kelly, hopes to himself rise in the ranks of the Wired Elite. "McLuhan was such an "historical energizer." His utopian vision of technological society provided the corporate leadership of the American empire with a sense of historical destiny; and, at least, with the passing illusion that their narrow-minded concentration on the 'business of technology might make of them the "atlas" of the new world of cosmic man." Kroker pp. 83-4 our words will wage our battles for liberation, our hearts will ring the truth out of our words. semiological guerrila warfare from the tao properganja center http://www.lglobal.com/TAO/ ___ ___ ___ / /\ / /\ / /\ / /:/ / /::\ / /::\ / /:/ / /:/\:\ / /:/\:\ / /::\ / /:/ /::\ / /:/ \:\ /__/:/\:\ /__/:/ /:/\:\ /__/:/ \__\:\ \__\/ \:\ \ \:\/:/__\/ \ \:\ / /:/ \ \:\ \ \::/ \ \:\ /:/ \ \:\ \ \:\ \ \:\/:/ \ \:\ \ \:\ \ \::/ \__\/ \__\/ \__\/ -------------------------------------------------------------- To receive the Anarchives via email send a note to Majordomo@lglobal.com with the message in the body: subscribe anarchives To get off the list, send to the same address but write: unsubscribe anarchives Also check out: http://www.lglobal.com/TAO/