Article: 7719 of fa.future-culture Path: ifi.uio.no!internet-mailinglist From: heath michael rezabek Newsgroups: fa.future-culture Subject: the emperor's new lifeboat Date: 12 Apr 1994 03:16:49 +0200 Organization: Internet mailing list Lines: 96 Message-ID: <2ocsq1$53p@ifi.uio.no> Reply-To: Future Culture NNTP-Posting-Host: ifi.uio.no Return-Path: <<@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU:owner-futurec@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU>> Original-Message-Id: <199404120116.5236.ifi@ifi.uio.no> Original-Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 20:14:30 -0600 Comments: To: FUTUREC@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU To: Multiple recipients of list FUTUREC there is this current of though within The Academy which postulates that if it just retains conservative enough a model of what is and might be, then it as a structure [The Academy] will be able to weather any cultural storm which might come its way. this idea, i feel, has been appropriated from the fields of the hard and applied sciences, based upon some fundamental [mis]assumptions. one is that the soft sciences [the Humanities -- any field dealing with human culture] rests on ground so clearly Proveable or DisProveable as that of pure mathematics. another is the notion that the Humanities are in any OTHER way analogous to the hard sciences. the hard sciences base their efforts on the fundamental principle of the DISproval of older concepts. so long as a model stands, it is science; and it is perpetually [ideally] bombarded with attempts to disprove its validity. this works in the hard sciences thanks to the Complex Number Plane, which is essentially a static pattern in the mind and works of humans. no such plenum exists within the seething memetic flux which comprises and spawns the remainder of human culture. thus, decisions on which ideas to allow into or out of The Academy are based on their resonance or dissonance to ideas ALREADY FIRMLY ESTABLISHED within the academy, not on how fitfully they challenge those prior models. The Humanities will forever languish in denial so long as they allow themselves to adopt this self-limited view of the field of human endeavors. it is not for myself that i attempted work within The Academy. sure, i want to survive. sure, i know how the job market is. but first and foremost, i wanted to infect The Humanities with the task of deconstructing and analyzing the 'net, because i GNEW [and still gnow] that to do so will require the confrontation of such a miasmic body of memetic flux as to render the prior work of the whole of The Humanities in dire need of utter revision, if not dismissal and re-construction from scratch. i will not be doing my work within The Academy. i will be, therefore, turning my full attentions towards the work of the NEXUS community and all it strives for, whatever the fuck that turns out to be, in austin as planned. HOWEVER: i do feel that The Academy must confront these issues [ie, that set of issues perpetually and infuriatingly iterated and re-iterated to anyone within the 'net]. why? because. BECAUSE: science seeks to study. always has, always will. seeks to sit by the side, and simply STUDY The Situation. The Humanities, on the other hand, merely appropriated the objective of objectivity from the hard sciences [based on fundamentally faulty assumptions, to boot..]. this means that The Humanities, if they are forced to WAKE UP, may yet have a chance to do the one and only thing they are perpetually called but ever remiss to do: SOMETHING, ANYTHING, BEFORE IT's TOO LATE culture is fucked. literally, fucked and fucker, over and over and over again, for aeons. it is running itself into the ground and will never touch bottom because there is no bottom to touch. The Humanities attempt to remain aloof from this situation, to study it, to bandy about theories and vague terminologies, as if that were ENOUGH. it is not. culture is a bull in a china shop. we will all DIE, slowly and painfully, unless we LEARN that we DON'T HAVE TO. rigorous subjectivity. rigorous subjectivity. rigorous subjectivity. repeat one godzillion times. to choose not to choose is still a choice. a choice which The Humanities infinitely defer to the next generation. the next generation is you. [yeha rant rant rant make me a goddamn speechwriter!] The Academy runs in 4 to 6 year cycles, short enough in this fastdense[thanksrucker] time that they might just be enough to DO something. unless The Academy truly proves to be a structure too rigid to respond to its own given circumstances. i won't believe it until i see it, and in the meantime i'll be working to change it from the cultural end via the NEXUS community and project. it rests on you, you, you. or, if you can't do it, then on the micro-generation after you, in 4 more years. or 4 after that. it matters how quick, but not enough to stop trying CONSTANTLY. INSIST if you are in the Humanities and/or study of virtual culture that they consider just for a fucking MOMENT the characteristics and tendencies of the single text we call the 'net. given even a MOMENT in that environment as overall signifier, The Humanities [i hypothesize] will have no choice but to face up to their collective responsibility. what that is, i can never say, because i was not allowed in, because it was not time yet for MY particular phrasing of THE ONLY work to be accepted yet. no biggie. the time will come, and i don't give a flying FUCK [please please believe me it hinges on this] if "the words" (Rezabek, 23) were mine or yours or Derrida's or Gibson's or Whoever's. if confronted, the issue will play itself out. a virtual community IS a dissipative memetic structure; an autologue by any other name will STILL force The Academy to face its self-chosen mirror, at long fucking last. more power to you. repost in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, unto etceteracy. -- [then again, it might have just been some secretary following orders, marking an arbitrary cutoff which fucked me via GPA... ;) :) {:I {:( ] free agent .rez