Re: <nettime> Driverless cars, pilotless planes -- will there be jobs left fo...

[Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com>]

On 05/27/2013 07:19 AM, Newmedia@aol.com wrote:

> Sorry if I missed this in your earlier writing!  What you are promoting
> is *not* the "working class" (production) or the "managerial class"
> (neoliberals) but rather the "intellectual class" -- your CLASS . . . !!

Mark, you got it! That's exactly the point!

> Why do you think that this "class" or, if you will, those who fancy
> themselves to be the "post-modern priests" (as reflected by much of the
> conversation on this list over the past 15+ years) could possibly help
> provide "social order"?
> Aren't they also deeply confused?  Don't they largely find themselves
> absorbed in repetitious discussions where the fundamental issues of
> culture and civilization are deliberately avoided?

Well, the first thing to say is that "they" are "us," Mark. And so 
instead of taking the comfortable, distanced position of the cultural 
critic who objectifies the so-called useless fools of the 
pseudo-intellectual middle classes, I always try to open a discussion 
among "us" - and if possible, beyond "us" - about the problems with 
contemporary society and what we could do about them.

Interestingly, this is an ethos which arose to much greater prominence 
along with the massification of the Internet. It already informed the 
second generation of autonomous Marxism in the 1990s, which addressed 
itself to "knowledge workers," which was a new way of talking about 
organic intellectuals. I was also very intrigued to find out that this 
focus on the so-called "professional-managerial classes" was one (but 
only one, mind you) of the most important results of the 1968 cycle of 
struggles in the United States:

http://messhall.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/4.-1968_Political-Crisis.pdf

While traveling in Spain, I was glad to realize that this attitude has 
been adopted massively by the Indignado (or more precisely, 15-M) 
generation, which is a political generation, ie a consciousness and not 
an age-bracket. Economic conditions have forced a large percentage of 
the Spanish middle and lower-middle (or precarious) classes to realize 
that they are both the agents and the targets of the same kinds of 
violence and abuse that have long been directed at the poor and excluded 
sectors of society. They - but also we, because this was the case for 
much of the Occupy movement in the US - have realized that we have to 
change our own positions and functions within society, because we are 
helping to produce its abusive and deadly outcomes. We do this, for 
example, by believing in the two-party system, by accepting to 
participate in financial credit speculation, by teaching people spurious 
neoliberal ideologies of competition and predation, etc. There is 
finally a broad trend to refuse these things. Just saying that people 
are confused is too easy, or maybe too arrogant. Despite their justified 
fears, many people are thinking right now.

For those interested in Spain, check this out:

http://permanentcrisis.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-weakest-link.html

> Current technology trends are pointing towards 50% unemployment in the
> developed economies.  Meanwhile, you seem to be worried about your own
> "job."  Somehow, while understandable, that doesn't seem like a very
> useful approach to the crisis faced by a *billion* other people -- most
> of whom have no interest in being "educated" by "ideological artists"!

Everyone who doesn't have a job or some kind of income is worried by 
that, Mark. The difference with me - and a few million other peers - is 
that we have been advocating the same things publicly for the past 
fifteen years or more. I am not particularly threatened by unemployment 
right now but I do think it's useful to worry about your own situation 
when you finally realize that you are in the same boat with so many 
others. As for the "ideology" part: the point is that everyone who uses 
a keyboard produces and relays ideology, artists, designers, advertising 
consultants such as yourself, university-educated intellectuals such as 
both of us, computer programmers, engineers, etc. Neoliberalism is an 
operational ideology: it helps us articulate, perform and tolerate what 
we actually do. So when we realize we are actually hurting ourselves by 
saying and doing those things, maybe we begin to change them. Again, 
self-interest is OK, and even better if it helps you understand the 
plight of others.

One more thing. You claim that fundamental issues are avoided, but most 
of the people who have written back in this thread say the current 
unemployment problem is not produced by any technological destiny. It is 
produced by the way technology is developed in an abusive capitalist 
society. That's a fundamental issue, it's called technopolitics. I'd 
like to see larger and larger numbers of people - organic intellectuals 
of all kinds - get on board and say, I am going to start producing 
another kind of society. And then do it with their actions. That's the 
kind of education that interests me, not just by artists, not just by 
literati, by everyone who wants to stop reproducing this form of society.

Anyway, nice conversation as usual, and best to all,

Brian


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