by Ben Atlas on 02.15.2010.8:29am
Chris Hedges wrote a definitively best review of Jaron Lanier’s book. Truthdig – The Information Super-Sewer:
“The Internet has become one more tool hijacked by corporate interests to accelerate our cultural, political and economic decline. The great promise of the Internet, to open up dialogue, break down cultural barriers, promote democracy and unleash innovation and creativity, has been exposed as a scam. The Internet is dividing us into antagonistic clans, in which we chant the same slogans and hate the same enemies, while our creative work is handed for free to Web providers who use it as bait for advertising.
Ask journalists, photographers, musicians, cartoonists or artists what they think of the Web. Ask movie and film producers. Ask architects or engineers. The Web efficiently disseminates content, but it does not protect intellectual property rights. Writers and artists are increasingly unable to make a living. And technical professions are under heavy assault. Anything that can be digitized can and is being outsourced to countries such as India and China where wages are miserable and benefits nonexistent. Welcome to the new global serfdom where the only professions that pay a living wage are propaganda and corporate management.”
Jaron Lanier’s emphasis on a hive behavior is the theme expanded after he wrote the book. Here is the classic description of the Individual/Mob switch:
“Humans, like many other species, Lanier says, have a cognitive switch that permits us to be individuals or members of a mob. Once we enter the confines of what Lanier calls a clan, even a virtual clan, it possesses dynamics that appeal to the basest instincts within us. Technology evolves but human nature remains constant. The 20th century was the bloodiest in human history because human beings married the newly minted tools of efficient state bureaucracies and industrial slaughter with the dark impulses that have existed since the dawn of the human species
“You become hypersensitive to the pecking order and to your sense of social status,” Lanier said of these virtual clans. “There is almost always the designated loser in your own group and the designated external enemy. There is the enemy below and the enemy afar. There become two classes of disenfranchised people. You enter into a constant obligation to defend your status which is always being contested. It is time-consuming to become a member of one of these things. I see a lot of designs on line that bring this out. There is a recognizable sequence, whether it is pianos, poodles or jihad; you see people forming into these clans. It is playing with fire. There are plenty of examples of evil in human history that did not involve this effect, such as Jack the Ripper, who worked alone. But most of the really bad examples of human behavior in history involve invoking this clan dynamic. No particular sort of person is immune to it. Geeks are no more immune to it than Germans or Russians or Japanese or Mongolians. It is part of our nature. It can be woken up without any leadership structure or politics. It happens. It is part of us. There is a switch inside of us waiting to be turned. And people can learn to manipulate the switch in others.”
There is an interesting critique of of James Surowiecki’ crowd adulation. I noticed that Web 2.0 hacks like to talk about tribes in a positive way but they ignore the dark side of a hive at their own peril. Or perhaps more cynically they promote the tribes and hives because they want to own and manage it.
by Ben Atlas on 02.7.2010.10:46am
There is this peculiar impression that till the enraged voters in Massachusetts sent a Republican to the Senate, no one, except the unemployed, remembered about the devastating structural changes in the economy. I am not talking about the Jews here specifically; perhaps this is a metaphor for any group. But I always wondered how the Holocaust or the Gulag happened in plain view of humanity but more importantly in plain view of the indifferent world Jewry.
First the layoffs, the crushing cleansing, when many firms cut people they would never dare to, if not for the fact that “everyone was doing it”. This is the middle class depression, more than a half of all jobs lost disappeared permanently. Jews are predominantly middles class and it’s natural that the community is hit particularly hard. Add to this the reality that many of the “working orthodox” feed off the economic margins that are now cut to the bone. For many families this is an unimaginable disaster and speaking of Holocaust, virtually no one is talking about this with the required urgency.
My friend tells me that perhaps the economic realm is not longer within the expertise of the communal organizations. But if this true than what is the rationale for a community that doesn’t have a charter for the mutual support? The communal institutions in service of the oligarchy unelected and permanently detached from the rank and file, accountable only to super rich. Occasionally easing their conscience by fundraising drives for the faraway lands from Haiti to Haifa, the further from home, the better.
Anecdotally many of my friends, who find themselves in the financial distress, tell me that if they try to share their misfortune with others there is a quick comeback and cutoff: “everyone is unemployed, everyone is losing a home, etc.” To be sure, not “everyone”, but there is callousness to this response as if no compassion, never mind a real help, is required, as if you are supposed to die in a plague.
Most people I know are traumatized more by the apathy than by the actual economic downfall. We expect and accept the financial risks and stumbles but the complete indifference by the people who claim a kinship is a life long trauma. And just like with the Great Depression there will be a new generation that doesn’t care and doesn’t remember. The life goes on but our connections to the fellow human beings will never be the same.
by Ben Atlas on 01.20.2010.1:16pm
Scott Brown said yesterday in his acceptance speech:
“When I first started running, I asked for a lot of help, because I knew it was going to be me against the machine. I was wrong, it was all of us against the machine. And after tonight we have shown everyone that – now – you are the machine.”
What people are not talking about is that before the special election in Massachusetts there was a highly contested democratic primary and without exaggeration almost each of the 5-4 democrats who run against Martha Coakley could have beaten Scott Brown. So if you want to define a machine it’s not how it acts against the enemies, but how it functions internally. And one of the characteristics of a machine is the intricate mechanism that routinely promotes less deserving and less qualified leaders, whose qualification is their relationship to the other parts of the same machine, not to the world outside of the machine and not even to the stated function of the said mechanism. Over time this becomes the biggest threat to any machine, like all machines it breaks internally. You don’t have to search far for the examples, it’s Nancy Pelosi and even, gasp, George Bush. A religious clan is the most toxic illustration of this phenomenon.
by Ben Atlas on 01.20.2010.1:21am
Some of the photos I took at the post-election party in and around Park Plaza Hotel today. ►►►read more
by Ben Atlas on 01.18.2010.5:53pm
So I am trying to enjoy the playoff football here in Boston and every timeout there is a carpet bombing of the senatorial commercials from Martha Coakley and Scott Brown. The sequence of the ads is rather amusing, first there would be a Coakley ad saying that Brown is George Bush’s prodigal son, he lives on Walls Street where he shares his bed with the bankers. Then there would be a Brown ad where he is shown in his kitchen or riding his truck, saying I am just a regular shmo, a National Guard officer, I don’t work on Wall St. Pretty funny actually.
In the old country there was a steady political scapegoat, the Jews. In the post crash America there is a new euphemism for that called “the bankers”. It has somewhat similar undertones, scheming, got all the money (especially our money). And because it hits people in their empty pockets, the response is visceral (so they hope). Too bad that both Coakley and Brown are lawyers, so the lawyer bashing is not available for this campaign. For all we know Bernie Frank might be as culpable in the housing crash as Fannie and Freddie combined. Alas just like with the lawyers, you can’t blame politicians in this campaign either. So for sure, must be the bankers.
by Ben Atlas on 01.14.2010.10:05am
Letters of Note blog is dedicated to the lost art of handwritten correspondence. This one is from Monica Lewinsky to William Jefferson Clinton written on June 29, 1997 (anyone knows why the LA girl Monica writes a European 7 with the line and dates the letter in the European fashion with month after the date?), transcript follows. ►►►read more
by Ben Atlas on 01.10.2010.8:52am
I have written on Google as a psychological indicator in Learning the Truths of Life from Google. And this cold morning, Dan Ariely reminded me about it in What boyfriends and girlfriends search for on Google (although I am unable to replicate his results completely). Anyway, I though I might give the”Google suggest machine” some obvious tests.
This should finally put to rest the myth about the so called “wisdom of the crowds”. The vast majority of people, the millions that trigger the “suggested” lists are morons, plus some of the descriptions found in the searches in no participial order. The only question about the differences between Bush and Obama – are they an “antichrist” first and an “idiot” second or visa-versa? And there is a total agreement about both American presidents being “hitlers”.
I am starting to think that people don’t actually search on Google, but they go to Google to vent, treat it is as confessional, a private psychiatrist. So what about Comrade Putin? ►►►read more
by Ben Atlas on 01.6.2010.9:49am
South Korean Children participate in a winter military camp run by retired marines
Telegraph – South Korean students participate in a winter military camp in Ansan, 25 miles southwest of Seoul. Whom would you rather carry the log with, the geeks with the foggy glasses or the girls in the middle? Judging by how many people it takes to carry one log, this camp must be all about the Japaneses style screaming. Sorry to offend my millions of Korean readers with the Japanese reference.
Meanwhile back home, NYT – David Brooks – The Tea Party Teens:
“The tea party movement is a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against. They are against the concentrated power of the educated class. They believe big government, big business, big media and the affluent professionals are merging to form self-serving oligarchy — with bloated government, unsustainable deficits, high taxes and intrusive regulation.”
So it looks like America can learn a lot from the Russian style “democracy” (see above). Comrade Putin is smiling – “I told you so”… (WSJ - New Détente: Putin, Tycoons Rescue Each Other in Crisis). Zizek is right, the Singapore model is gaining ground.
The historic photo of Vladimir Lenin (on the right) with a log. Kremlin grounds. May 1, 1920
That Subbotnik log is about the size of a coffin. Comrade Lenin had enough practice then, with the weight and the funeral formation.
by Ben Atlas on 01.2.2010.5:21pm
Peter the Hermit shows the crusaders the way to Jerusalem. French illumination
So what was happening in the world almost exactly 1,000 years ago? As a rule one will find an intersection of pivotal conflicts at the center of a superpower of the time. In those days it was the Byzantium during the rule of the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1056-1118). Alexios certainly a contender for political genius award. I call it Judo politics because Alexios managed a declining empire and he could only win the chess matches with his enemies or friends by using their own power against them, he was breathtakingly scheming. The half hour podcast by Lars Brownworth is simply superb. He describers Alexios struggles with the Normans, the Turks and the First Crusade (via 12byzantinerulers.com).
by Ben Atlas on 01.1.2010.12:30pm
Pope Paul II by Cristoforo dell'Altissimo
So I am hearing about all the “Tsars” in the Obama administration, what’s with the name and the authoritarian implications?
Let’s start from the pivotal time in history. Thomas Palaiologina (1409-1465) was a brother of the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI (slaughtered by the Turks after the conquest of Constantinople). Thomas Palaiologina technically ruled over the Greek province of Morea and had the tile of “Despot” (not a bad name in those days). Thomas was eventually kicked out of Morea by the Turks and with his family found a refuge in the Papal Rome. He even converted to the Catholicism before his death. Zoe Palaiologina (1455-1503) was the daughter of the Despot Thomas. The Byzantine royal orphans, Zoe and her brothers, were looked after by the Pope Paul II.
Russia, at the time under the rule of Ivan III (Ivan the Great, 1440-1505), was emerging as a superpower. The Pope had a brilliant idea that proved to be the worst political move ever. In hope of bringing about the reunification of the Russian and the Catholic Churches, he sent Zoe Palaiologina to the widower Ivan III as a bride, together with the Cardinal Johannes Bessarion as a persuader. Ivan took Zoe as his wife and promptly discharged the Cardinal back to the Eternal City (Popes should stay the heck away from the matchmaking business).
Marble plaque with double-headed eagle in Mystras (birthplace of Zoe in Morea, Greece), marking the spot where the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI (Zoe's uncle), was crowned.
Zoe, who changed her name to Sophia while in Rome (Софья (Зоя) Палеолог), had an enormous influence on her husband and on the entire Mother Russia. She initiated Ivan III into the ceremonies and traditions of the Byzantine, more importantly she told him to have fewer consultations with his “parliament” of boyars. Zoe planted in Ivan’s head the idea of Russia as the Third Rome. This was the time when the Russian kings re-branded themselves as Tsars (Csar), a corruption of Caesar. Caesar was originally just the last name of Julius Caesar (ironically caesar being the Latin for hairy) but it became a royal title in the late Roman and Byzantine empires. The name Tsar in Kremlin was intended to solidify the symbolism of Russia as the Third Rome (same as the future German imperial Kaisar). The Double Headed Eagle, the ancient Byzantine symbol, was then introduced as the state seal.
Comrade Putin under the Double Headed Eagle
Ivan III groomed his grandson from his first marriage Dmitry to succeed him as the king. Zoe outmaneuvered Dmitry, convinced Ivan III to install their son Vassily as the Tsar (and had Dmitry and his mother imprisoned). Now, Vassily’s future son was the infamous Ivan the Terrible who was, if are you still following, the grandson of the Byzantine princess raised by the Pope.
At the time in Russia there was the Sect of Skhariya the Jew. Zacharia ben Ahron ha-Cohen from Lithuania was a scholar and translator of scripture who moved to Kiev and then to Novgorod (1470), he was successful in preaching Judaic religious and political concepts to the prominent church authorities and the feudal lords. His sect (Жидовствующие) had powerful patrons including the presumed future king Dmitry and even had the ear of Ivan the Great. (“…this heretical movement spread over Moscow. In 1480, even Ivan III himself invited a few prominent sectarians to visit the city. The Grand Prince’s seemingly strange behavior could be explained by the fact that he had greatly sympathized with heretics’ ideas of secularization and the struggle against feudal division. Thus, the Judaizers enjoyed the support of high-ranking officials, statesmen, merchants”). With the loss of protection from Dmitry, after Vassily’s succession, the Judaic sect was dismantled and some of the heretics burned at the stake (this incidentally might be a factor in the institutionalized monarchical antisemitism in Russia). It’s entirely in the realm of possibility, that if not for the intervention of the Pope’s gift of Zoe, Russia under Dmitry would have become a Judaic state (like the Khazars). Instead, contrary to the Papal political interests, the Great Matriarchy was strengthened as the ideological center of the Greek Orthodoxy and carried on the traditions of the fallen Byzantine Empire.
Zoe's grandson Ivan The Terrible
Back to the New World and the etymological somersault of the term Tsar in America, specifically the executive appointment of a “Drug Tsar” during the Reagan administration (1982). Naturally it made the perfect sense with Russia officially still “the evil empire”. And of course the logical “King” title is historically inappropriate in America. The throwback usage of the intimidating “Tsar” or “Csar” is understandable since the Ceasar(s) brand was relaunched in America as a casino chain, not to mention the crunchy salad that smells of garlic and the Parmesan cheese. The Ceasar(s) American undertone alludes to the hedonistic Rome, inviting the getaway good times and the carnival debauchery, rather than the overtone of the Tsarist, Kremlin-like domination. And the “Tsar” trademark is pretty safe, never to be confused with a salad. It’s like – “Can I have a little “Ivan the Terrible” with extra onions, cucumbers and the Italian dressing on the side?” Don’t think this will catch on.
by Ben Atlas on 12.26.2009.12:02pm
Following “the best documentary ever made” The Century of the Self, in 2007 Adam Curtis produced the three part BBC series The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom. The weakness and the strength of Adam Curtis is that he uses the broadest of the strokes. But he is the master of zeroing in on personalities pivotal for the history of ideas. In the third part of The Trap – We Will Force You To Be Free (Google Video) Adam Curtis describes the central ideological confrontation of the post WWII 20th century. On one side was Sir Isaiah Berlin who believed that the terror and the slaughter inevitable in revolutions should be avoided at all costs. Isaiah Berlin argued that a society without coercion, even if it negates progress and promotes inequality (welcome to America), is better than any progressive violent revolutions. On the other side was the inheritor of the French revolutionary tradition Jean-Paul Sartre who preached terror as just and required for progress. The idea was the underpinning of the African revolutionary Frantz Fanon, Yassir Arafat, Pol Pot in Cambodia, Ali Shariati and Ayatollah Khomeini and many “national liberation movements”. ( BTW, the description of the Lubavitcher Rebbe as existentialist is a severe misreading (The Rebbe and French Existentialism by Ephraim Rosenstein). Just the opposite is true (see my post The Offbeat Biography of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson). This is the classic case of confusion between the rhetoric and reality. The Rebbe for sure sided with his relative Isaiah Berlin, but his revolutionary rhetoric was just that. In fact the Rebbe never failed not take sides in any argument, let alone believed in the active and violent overthrows).
At the end of then film there is Tony Blair and the American neo-cons who imagine a revolution without a revolution, without the terror, etc., the position that proved to be unrealistic, especially in Iraq.
P.S. Today Slavoj Zizek is the most visible proponent of the violent revolutionary ethos (video Žižek on Robespierre and la Terreur).
by Ben Atlas on 12.19.2009.9:22pm
Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971) “was born in the Bronx, New York, to Joseph White (who came from an Orthodox Jewish family) and Minnie Bourke, the daughter of an Irish ship’s carpenter and an English cook; she was a Protestant. She grew up in Bound Brook, New Jersey (in a neighborhood now part of Middlesex), but graduated from Plainfield High School. Her father was a naturalist, engineer and inventor. His work improved the four-color printing process that is used for books and magazines.”
View of the bed where Joseph Stalin was born.
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