technoculture314-09

By my reckoning time is right for a manifesto and this post has that kind of zeal about it. Hypermodernity (full panoply) should by right supplant post modernity. From our hyper real lives, hypermodernity supersedes atomistic methodology so ingrained in the ‘science of simplicity’ proper method evinced by Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton and René Descartes and all their work exemplifying tight knit correlations and axiomatic reductions, is arguably antithetical in the current age. Self actualization for mankind is an ongoing identity project of becoming, never arriving moreover chaos theory can provide a research tool to affect human agency. Fractal nuance from the rhizome metaphor may better unpack complex civilization processes of human beings such as the semantic language we devise and Professor José van Dijck is adamant that a nuanced theoretical lens is superior.
Another way of thinking about positive correlation and transformation (transcendence) type self actualization for collective mankind/intelligence comes from the tradition of operant conditioning within psychology and the inventor of the Skinner box, American psychologist, author, inventor, poet and advocate for social reform Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904 – 1990). Operant conditioning outlines the way that environment controls behaviour (human and animals) specifically the law of effect which says that successful behaviour that is followed by positive outcomes (reward) will get repeated. That is what learning is; we repeat the behaviour that works. Doug Elliffe from UoA Psychology department contends life is one big operant condition and this is a really refreshing way to look at it. He suggests that rather than issue fines for exceeding the speed limit, police officers should randomly stop people that are driving safely and give them some cash. Delightful! Otherwise ‘we are rats in a maze'.
I have chosen to extend the FTVMS 314 course theme – master/slave dynamic onwards to: freedom - social justice - moral philosophy and then global justice to create some structural unity as follows: No longer entirely controlled by state or market forces, web 2.0. (3.0) and citizen media 'meta journalism' in the digital public arena unshackles debate. The internet serves as a space for groups and communities to build alternative visions of society that feed into the broader public sphere and 'global civil society'. Electronic network enabled societies traverse space time dimensions, attenuating the ‘velocity of the subject’ (Allucqère Rosanne Stone, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Paul Virilio). Fragmentation or deterritorialization of the public online is not problematic for democracy and “happiness is a warm gun” (1968).

References:
Beatles: White Album 1968
Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari (1987) Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
Kosslyn, R. S. R. S. M. (2006). Psychology in Context: Third Edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.