Returning from Sofia I textified the graph I was showing on the first day. Here it goes:
1. of tools
A tool (e.g. a club) is an extension of the hand. Generally, tools are the extensions of men. Tools open new dimensions for individual acts, and extended, open new dimensions for social acts. Internet is such a tool. Tools have limitations – some obvious, some hidden, and suspicion starts creeping in our social network hype that internet as a social tool may just not live up to our initial enthusiasm. There is still an oldschool charm in face to face meetings that virtuality cannot produce. The european knowledge society is not happening in the pace trumpeted by the Lisbon Strategy. E-democracies seem yet to be unimaginable. But there is hope. E-economies start to emerge in Warcraft. The social experience called Wikipedia is producing real-time negotiated knowledge. A feeble intuition of optimism seems to be justified.. after all life expectancy on Earth is rising.
2. of work
The tool called electronic communication lies at the very heart of our work processes. Work is becoming more and more immaterial and so does its result, the product. What used to be measurable in kilos and cubic metres is turning to intellectual services – and these are turning slowly to social services – more and more the articulation of the social instinct than of the intellect. So is now work social services based on electronic communication, producing the texture of society itself? Yes, but not yet. Russians don’t grow corn on motherboards and argentinian beef don’t feed on microchips. Chinese don’t produce everything else on flat screens. Social etopia is closer to Europe than to Africa. Still.. even their (work-centered or not) social organization is more and more optimized by electronic communication.
3. of tribes
Community is a word that got filled with egalitarianism -if not political correctness. Denying inequalities, hierarchical relationships, social ranks or power structures inside an electronic community is worse than lying: it is counter-productive. Tools like the stone hammer and the wheel made a difference – and helped producing tribes – at our beginnings. So can we claim we evolved so much that using our new fancy tool capable of producing the texture of society itself we will produce by default no less than civilizations? No. Chatrooms have a powerful vertical hierarchy. Collectible websites have their roles, functions and meanings are permanently negotiated. So what social complexity can a cluster of humans reach communicating in electronic space? Democracy? Feudal state? Tribe? Seem as it may like avatars playing society – in fact, it is people producing society. The word tribe shows the social turmoil beneath the screens.
4. of regimes
Communities rely on a common understading of what value and ultimately good is. Ways to attain maximum good are called right. Ways that attain maximum good over the sum of society define justice. But some members have a bigger capacity than others to construct and negotiate the meaning of good. These members are asserting power. Political functions emerge. Relying on the meaning of good negotiated in a hierarchical tree of human nodes, regimes are born. Regimes are hierarchical too and often exploit each other. The regime called fashion is leeched by the regime called market which in turn is feeding fashion. But truth negotiated in one regime is not necessarily deductible in another. So in the case of a clash there is little hope of reconciliation as no translation of truth is available. When there is none, we have the ultimate war: the holy one.
5. of interventions
Interventions (disruptions or exploits) in technology can produce significant societal changes. So does the redefining or hijacking of truth, good, right or of meaning itself. So does the use or misuse of power. All this was no less true when our top technology was the club. It’s just that this technology is the one through which the social instinct itself manifests. In a material production setup the output object (like a book) generated social debate, then attitude, then action, then change. Control over the output meant control over the tool, over the production input, over the process, over production time. Concerning internet, none of these are de facto controlled by anyone. And the chain to inducing social change is at least one seam shorter with the object output by communication technology is debate itsellf. Thus intervening becomes a unique privilege: never before has technology been so close to producing the texture of society itself.
