[Air-L] With Friends Like Facebook ....

[Charles Ess]

My, we're having fun now ... (at least more fun than I would have doing what
I should be doing, i.e., writing syllabi for classes starting on Wednesday
...)

(Just for the sake of context: Terri and I are sister/brother 3rd Critiquers
- we've both spent quite some time on Kant's Critique of Judgment (any
others out there?) and very much enjoy these and other discussions. As I've
written to her, I think her response to the Hodgkinson article is just
brilliant. So my disagreements are intended as friendly ones.)

Had we but world enough and time, I'd list all the places where I agree and
why.  But being short on both just now ...

<snipped out here much Terrific and Wonderful insight, wit, etc.>

> Moving from the personal to the political, Hodgkinson follows the
> money behind Facebook, demonstrating how this purportedly democratic
> medium is actually dominated by libertarian wack jobs. Here, he is
> late to the show. As the military was to Arpanet, so have
> conservatives been to the Web, almost from its inception. Am I the
> only one old enough to remember how early issues of Wired featured
> economic advisors to Ronald Reagan in their pages?
Um, no - but for me, that's another reason to be less than sanguine about
Wired ...

> 
<more Good Stuff...>

> 
> "Clearly," writes Hodgkinson, "Facebook is another uber-capitalist
> experiment: can you make money out of friendship? Can you create
> communities free of national boundaries - and then sell Coca-Cola to
> them?"
> 
> Here I am baffled. I thought Hodgkinson's point all along was that
> Facebook users weren't friends (like those down at the pub friends
> whom you drink with and remember so well the next day) but rather
> consumers. If this is the case, why should Facebook's uber-capitalism
> operate differently than that of any other commercial entity?
> 
> In the same vein, I don't understand the upset over globalized
> communications. After all, the same nation-free Web that runs Facebook
> is the one that allows me to see Hodgkinson's article in rural
> Florida. Isn't that okay? When he warns that Facebook presents an
> "ideologically motivated virtual totalitarian regime with a population
> that will very soon exceed the UK's," I begin worrying over this
> reporter's mental state.

I worry that this last is ad hominem (-ish).
>From my perspective, one of the interesting aspects of Hodgkinson's article
is that it helps highlight one of the central philosophical / ideological
issues at work here: how far do we engage and define our lives along the
lines defined by (free?) markets and economic models -
and how far do we engage and define our lives along other lines, including
(democratic?) uses of national states, e.g., to protect basic rights, such
as privacy, even if at some economic cost (Paul Riedenberg put it
succinctly: "In a democracy, privacy is a basic political right that cannot
be sold out in the marketplace." (2000)), developing human/e capacities and
relationships that should not / cannot be sold (out) in the marketplace,
etc.?

You're absolutely right, of course, to say (in a part I've deleted) that
people have been worrying about these issues for a great long time, and that
Hodgkinson seems unaware of these debates.
Be that as it may, what I appreciate here is his raising the questions of
privacy and the commodification of human relationships - along with what in
my mind are clearly different sensibilities (i.e., between, crudely, U.S.
utilitarianism + libertarianism, and more U.K./European sensibilities
regarding the state as a positive agent in protecting basic rights + what in
my experience is a more robust awareness and debate regarding the qualities
of life beyond market models and the risks to such qualities that
commodification creates) about how we approach, think/feel, and debate such
issues.
So I worry that by dismissing this as mental illness we'll miss some
important - perhaps even essential - argument and insight.

<more good - and funny stuff...>

> I suppose my point in all this is that the invasion of global capital
> into formerly private domains is hardly specific to virtual systems
> like Facebook. Like Hodgkinson, I worry about Facebook's data mining
> and its proprietary structure, but to be honest, I worry more about
> Google's helpful offer to control all the digital copies of books in
> the world. The main difference between Hodgkinson's position and mine
> is that I don't think a trip off the grid is the way out.
I'm not sure, though, that this was his point - getting off FB, yes: off the
grid?  
You're surely right that the invasion of global capital - lo, even unto the
toilets, as you humorously point out (toilet humor? - sorry, couldn't
resist) - is not specific to virtual systems.  But if such an invasion _is_
a problem, as you seem to acknowledge here, then it seems to me fair enough
to raise concerns about that problem (however we finally resolve those
concerns) in relation to virtual networking systems as well.
> 
> Near the end of his article, Hodgkinson mentions philosopher René
> Girard. One of Girard's specialties is mimesis: the theory of
> imitation. Hodgkinson chooses to understand mimesis as 'herd
> mentality.' I prefer to remember Aristotle's treatment of mimesis. In
> the Poetics, Aristotle takes on Plato's desire to toss all performers
> out of the Republic for being dangerous dissemblers. Too virtual, we'd
> say today. To temper Plato, Aristotle distinguishes between two forms
> of imitation. The first--mimicry--constitutes a poor form of
> imitation; the kind Plato felt harmed the Republic, and the kind
> Hodgkinson links to locales like Facebook. The other form of
> imitation--mimesis--Aristotle saw as an often unexpected act in which
> the imitator stumbles on something larger than him or herself, and
> notices "art, beauty, love, pleasure and truth," as Hodgkinson would
> put it.
(Brilliant!  I'm not sure I agree with Aristotle's analysis of the Republic,
FWIW, but happily for this list, that's another discussion ...)
> 
> As someone who studies social networks, I can attest that one needn't
> run to Keats's Endymion to find the mimetic impulse. Like a flower
> growing from a dung heap, it flourishes in the strangest locales. The
> trick Internet ethnographers have learned (and I wish a few reporters
> could pick up) is to remember that one wants to find a rose in shit,
> it's best to stop focusing on smell and start looking for color,
> wherever one is.
Point well taken.

But this last comment parallels, in my mind at least, what I think is a
similar apology (in the Greek sense - defense) to the effect that we have to
participate in the beast if we are to understand it (paraphrasing Jacob
Kramer-Duffield, I believe - but I don't seem to be finding that email just
now - apologies!). 
To use your metaphor: I think the question I'm struggling with (not simply
with regard to FB, but with regard to a wide range of elements in life) is,
how much shit do you have to put up with before you decide it's no longer
worth the beauty of whatever wonderful and glorious roses it may foster?
Or: as our understanding of the beast (again, not simply FB) improves - at
what point (if any) does enough of this understanding unveil elements that
inspire or compel some sort of withdrawal from further participation
therein, and/or positive opposition thereto?

Let me emphasize: I don't have clear and straightforward answers to these
sorts of questions.  But I think/feel that they are essential ones for us to
confront, both individually and collectively, however it is we end up
resolving them.

Thanks for pushing my poor brain!

bestest,
- c.