Everything as Nothing and Meaningless… I. Do. Not. Exist.

I’d like to introduce to you, Eric McLuhan. You guessed it, he is the son of Marshall McLuhan, and yes…as the saying goes: like father, like son. Needless to say, Eric McLuhan has also done his fair share of work on media and technology.

As I read McLuhan2.0’s Electric Language, the notion of technological determinism really seemed to surface. I’ll admit, I never considered this idea before aside from biological, cultural, and economic determinism. But, after my last post regarding our Wall-E world, my head is swimming around trying to make sense of our pixellated matrix world.

McLuhan2.0 pointed out a lot of things. But I’ll try to narrow down to a few observations and thoughts.

1. We are living in the age of post literacy yet, there is no such thing as an advanced book – you know, high-tech-gadgety ones. This includes anything read off a computer screen or the TV. McLuhan states that although you may read like you would from print medium, the computer medium possesses qualities of TV. Thus, you may think you are reading, but the method is entirely different. I won’t get into it here, but this idea goes back to Marshall McLuhan and the differences between hot and cold mediums and their effects. So, this leaves me wondering…what about Kobo readers? They seem to be picking up. Would you consider them true reading like a book, or is it McLuhan’s idea of the advanced book? Where are books and print headed? But since my work and focus is around identity, I digress. Interesting to ponder anyhow.
2. “The computers and various networks that link us bring about a new condition of massive loss of identity by means of participation in-depth in electronic processes” (p. 4): what?! According to McLuhan, the computer separates us, yet binds us together. By participating socially via the computer, we lose our identity and own being. Our sense of loss thus draw us to groups to belong. This leads to the idea of the disappearance of individualism as McLuhan states that rather instead of an audience watching, we are all participating as actors like a theatre…to no one but our own selves.
3. Open crowd vs. closed crowd. The open crowd needs to be everywhere and grow, and can’t be stagnant. The closed crowd has boundaries and limits. Stable. McLuhan places the electric crowd as open. Which poses the question “are you in or out?” BUT!!…The electric crowd is NOT about growing, but of being. To just be. This made me think of a concert for example. Everyone is separate, as their own selves attending the concert and watching. But at the same time everyone is participating together in a shared moment. Online space works like this. Yet the mass audience works similarly, but differently at the same time. In search of one’s own online identity, everyone seems to want to be identified as unique and different, special. A standout above the rest. However, McLuhan posits that everyone is the same in an electric crowd. In a sense, we are nobody. I disagree, as I notice people going to arms lengths to portray themselves better than their neighbour. Or…is it because we are nobodies that compel us to appear better than the rest?

I return to this question from my past post…Does this mean we are living in an existentialist and/or nihilist absurd world?

Eric McLuhan also draws some connections to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Dismal and disheartening this may sound, but as I reflect on my last post, we are all living in Plato’s Cave. The computer as the cave. The internet, social media, and information communication technology are the puppets; and we are chained by them and the shadows they create…”The electric crowd lives as if already dead” (148).

Ode to Marshall McLuhan

I have been dropping references to McLuhan here and there, so it is probably about time I ramble on my thoughts about him. As such, this post will look at The Playboy Interview and some of my readings from his book Understanding Media. Living in a post colonial, post industrial, globalized (the list can go on) country (and world) , what does that mean for me?

It was Marshall McLuhan who recognized the facets of technology and the nature of living in a “global village”. However, I can probably bet that when he coined the term “global village”, he wasn’t referring to the one that exists today. What McLuhan meant was that the world as we know it is shrinking. Where it may have at one point taken months to travel across “the pond”, our world became more globalized thanks to the advances in technology.

McLuhan also posited that three basic technological advances has forever reshaped the way we physically see things, thus understand, and ultimately interact: the invention of the phonetic alphabet, the movable type, and the telegraph. What he also warns is that although we are making human progress, we are also enslaving ourselves to it. Forever married in sickness and in health – technology becomes an extension of our bodies til death do us part.

Yet, going back to the notion of McLuhan’s “global village”, this certainly more than ever rings true today. Information communication technology and social media has now connected me to my next door neighbour, as well as my online neighbour who lives half way across the world. We literally are living in a GLOBAL VILLAGE as I participate with the online community, coming together, sharing my thoughts-rambles-feelings-emotions-ideas-frustrations and on and on. Just as my best friend can comment and give me suggestions on my choice outfits for a date, a stranger can also pipe in giving me his or her fashion advice. If I’m outraged about a service from a company, I can shout it out on an online discussion board sharing my feelings with others in the same boat in my surrounding city, but also worldwide. So yes, I live participating everyday connected whether I know it or not, with others around the world sharing ourselves to each other in our global village. In my opinion, this is awesomely scary.

McLuhan speaks of a de-tribalized man, and the decentralizing nature of technology making references of our central nervous system. As I make meaning of this, I realize that what he means is this. When the human body is attacked, the body autopilots to safeguard the core: the central nervous system. So, the computer works like a virus. Our body then works to fight off the intruder, not only leaving our outer extremities exposed, but leaves at risk our core an open target. Thus, de-centralizing our whole being and suspending us into a trance-like numbness: narcosis.

As we are closing ourselves off through the use of media and technology, I draw parallels to Karl Marx and his atheist belief and view in religion as he saw religion as “the opium of the people“. Opium as we know is used to relieve pain. But is also addictive. Like opium, religion and technology are like an addictive drug that disillusions its users. Technology is now moving instantaneously. While we were able to slowly adapt, understand, and see the patterns of newly introduced technology, the internet is so fast paced that we are swept up along with it, taking our understandings and the ability to fully grasp and comprehend its true form and nature. We haven’t had the time to settle down with it. While it may seem like our relationship with the internet and social media are very much like an old married couple, we are still in the “getting to know you honeymoon” stages.

“Subliminal and docile acceptance of media impact has made them prisons without walls for their human users” (20). Prisons Mr. McLuhan? So you’re saying media has a totalizing panoptic effect? Foucault and Goffman are rolling in their graves.

So it seems, technology as both blessing and a curse.

Lastly, what struck me from McLuhan was this: “The future of works consists of earning a living in the automation age” (346). Scary thought. That we will soon be seeking jobs that serve technology, rather than thinking technology as serving us. This is starting to sound like a sci-fi movie. While technology seemingly frees us up for more leisure time, we are spending it back into technology which then enslave and bind us to a vicious cycle.

Identity Crisis .:Part 2:.

Part of my difficulty in Part 1 and this post was that I originally loved Foucault and Goffman. At least, at the superficial level as a used-for-past-research acquaintance. I got what they were saying at the introductory level and believed it. In today’s reality-tv obsessed programming, I agreed with those two: in essence, BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING.

I guess I still love those two old pals of mine. But, the game-changer was my reading from Feminism/Postmodernism and the critique on Foucault (which I suppose can be applied to Goffman).

“Big Brother is watching” — this is the idea of power being everywhere and nowhere at the same time. We hold it in the sense of controlling everyone’s actions, yet that omniscience we hold is both almighty, and meaningless at the same time. Quite simply, it means something because we make it mean something. I work part-time in retail where there are cameras. Knowing that corporate has much better things to do than sit and watch me all day makes me think that I don’t have to care as much. However, knowing that my actions are archived changes my mind in doing something out of line. Even the possibility knowing that someone just might decide to do a random check-in via satellite and watch me in real-time. All these possibilities keep me in line. I do get borrowed in another location, where the store is much smaller, and there are no cameras. Knowing this when I go there, I would think I would let loose a little, but I don’t.

Why? It all goes back to performance and the panopticon. The employees at that store all have their own standards, so I have to maintain that. In addition, they know that my standards are always tested being on camera, so I’m under scrutiny to not make mistakes or be useless.

This got me wondering about gender dynamics, relations, and identity: how do these narratives, scripts, schemas, play out as a performance?

Hartsock in the Feminism/Postmodernism reader specifically critiques Foucault that while he has “…obvious sympathy for those who are subjugated in various ways, he writes from the perspective of the dominator, ‘the self-proclaimed majority'” (165). Hartsock also points out the complexities and controversies of the politics of recognition as, “…power relations are less visible to those who are in a position to dominate others” (165). Thus, how valid are some of his theories to apply for someone who is marginalized? Hartsock also points out that Foucault suggests that those in the margins are accountable for their own actions which sounds a lot like blaming the victim.

Going back to Part 1, I mentioned that through the years growing up, I chose to act as one-of-the-boys, as well as dismissed my ethnic culture so as not to appear too “off the boat fobby”. Yet, my WordPress blog Gravatar and my Facebook profile picture is a picture of Sailor Mars…very ironically iconic and symbolic of my Asian identity. I also will point out that being once young, I admittedly have posted suggestive ‘girly’ photos of myself while intoxicated, scantily clad and so forth. In fact, those pictures are still up on my profile. Whether it’s for my ego, or whether I choose to embrace my silly youthful mistakes, or whether I just don’t care to upkeep my profile, that is a whole topic I dare a psychologist to analyze and tell me what they think.

The question I am trying to get at here is this: are we really perpetuating a cycle of our identities based on what others expect of us? I like to think I do things for myself, but the rude awakening of reality has told me that I put way too much effort in thinking if you all will approve of every move I make first. It’s all apparently very silently and internally calculated, then channeled. And somehow, I believe my actions are authentic, but perhaps it’s more contrived than I’d like.

Identity Crisis .:Part 1:.

I know that it’s been awhile since I’ve written. Yes, it’s fast approaching midterms and the first round of assignments, and I’m aware those aren’t valid excuses because of time management….so you got me there. But, what I’m about to write did trouble me for a bit. Not in the-world’s-going-to-end kind of way, but my-world-in-my-head shaking—thought-provoking—wait-a-second—huh?!! kind of way.

While Goffman elaborates on how humans have crafted the art of putting on our masks designated for each situation, Foucault assumes that we are watching each other and making sure these acts are up to standards. So, in a sense I act the way I do because I’m expected to.

Or is it that I act according to how the public perceives me?

Or…I act how I want people to see me?

Hmm, all are very good possibilities, and all, or some, or one could be true. Then, who am I?

Growing up, I disliked the possibility of being labelled and stereotyped as a vapid, dippy, girly girl. I also grew up in a predominantly White-Anglo-Saxon town, which did not help my identity as an ethnic minority. I battled my parents strong cultural beliefs, practices and values, and secretly pretended to disregard my cultural identity at school. I decided that I needed to become white-washed. In high school, I made it a point to be friendly to everyone, but keep my distance from the girls, and infiltrate the boys. I decided to be one of the guys. So what does this all mean?

At risk of exposing myself, at some point(s) in my life, I chose these identities of me and actively constructed them for myself. In the Foucauldian sense, I saw that I needed to be white-washed because I was too different that people in my community would not be able to process and understand my culture. The community standard in living in the panopticon of cookie-cutter suburbia was to act like everybody else, which meant to dismiss my culture and be a banana. Goffman would have told me that I am performing my “whiteness” and “guy mentality” as an act based on my surroundings. Since everybody around me was White, I performed being White. Furthermore, though I opted to hang with the boys rather than waddle in the drama of the girl cliques, I ultimately managed my identity to fit in with the guys.

So I became who I am based on my surroundings and company? Does this really account for how my identity was and/or is formed, and does this reflect my authentic true being? I’m not the greatest with philosophy, so maybe this explains my struggle with this post.

While my thoughts are still percolating, tossing in the wrench of the computer, social media, and online identity throws me in for a loop. How is my online identity constructed? Do I build it as I am, or how I want others to see me? Has my Facebook identity evolved and changed like I have, or does it stay stagnant locked in a matrix somewhere?

Computer, I ask you this as a friend…how much of my identity do you control and hold?

to be continued…

Sam 2, Computer 1

N’ah, I’m Just Frontin’

Next in line in laying my foundational theory is Canadian sociologist: Erving Goffman. His basic premise is that we as individuals all put on performances of our selves. He compares our daily face-to-face interactions with the public, and within the private, to a theatrical production: setting, script, props, costumes, cues, audience reaction. The components of our daily lives change much like scenes change; thus, where we are, what we do, say, or meet all change along with it.  We merely adjust accordingly based on our needs and surroundings.

If I may tie this in to Foucault, we all probably feel the need to adjust our “performances” as we know that we are all covertly being watched and moderated. I wouldn’t be going to the grocery store in my underwear. We take social cues that one must put on clothes before leaving the house. That is what is expected of us.

Now if I were to go to a country bar in an evening gown, I may be casted some awkward glances, feel highly overdressed, and more than likely be the ridicule of the night. Though I’m not harming anyone, or participating in anything illegal, I would take the social cue that my performance be deemed a little on the socially inappropriate side and opt not to do it again. Or if I was happily walking down the street and ran into a friend, exchanged hellos, and then learned that they lost their job, I’m more inclined to change my chipper demeanor to one that is a little more solemn.

Interestingly, Goffman links some aspects of our performances to social mobility and status symbols: “…performance is ‘socialized,’ molded, and modified to fit into the understanding and expectations of the society in which it is presented”, and “The notion that a performance presents an idealized view of the situation is, of course, quite common” (35). As it seems, we tend to like to put our best foot forward. Yes, we do this because we don’t want to infringe upon someone else, or upset and disrupt them as the ‘nice’ people that we are. But, we also do this because we want to be seen in the best light possible so that we are thought to be highly esteemed and respected individuals.

Who doesn’t want to be respected? I get it. But Goffman also stated that: “…fronts tend to be selected, not created” (28). What does he mean by that? That we are all practicing self-illusion?! Makes sense…I go to a job interview, I’m professional and competent. I go to a party where my ex might be there, I make damn sure I’m looking knock-you-off-your-socks salacious.

No arguing with Goffman there, he’s called me out. I’ve selected which Sam to be, and how Sam should conduct and look during that time. My question then is while Goffman emphasizes the performance in self-illusion aspect, I turn it back to authenticity and ask which part of these performances are real, and which am I just confusing with status and social mobility?

Is idealized Sam really me?…